--Girish Ghildiyal
DEAR COUNTRYMEN!
I f you are still struggling to find out how to “feel good” despite bonanzas given in mini budget, you are not alone.
You are unable to feel good because you are not a part of this big illusion. For you are not part of the small base of top urban social classes which comprise under 10% of India or the top rural social class which comprises under 5% of India. You are more likely be one of those under 19 year of age comprising a staggering 45% of our population watching your parents slog it out for a meagre earning for your education. Or you may be the 10% of our population aged between 17 to 25 which is searching for one of those elusive jobs. If you are between 25 to 50 years old you may just have been fired from your job and looking for another casual job or at best may have been in your current job for not more than 3 years.
If you are a lucky survivor you will have taken over work load of your two colleagues who have voluntarily retired. And beware if you are still in a job and without work load of two others it is more likely that you will be out of job on a VRS in next 3 to 5 years time.
If you are a married woman, in rural or urban India, you will lose your job faster than your spouse. If you survive on farm jobs and were getting lesser man-days of work – be prepared for still lesser work.
If you are a teacher you stand to lose gratuity.
Just don’t just look for some relief from rising prices that could make both ends meet. After all onions will always be onions. Your dream home can wait, it may be getting a way too beyond your meagre means with cement and steel rising 50% in 6 months.
Till then feel good and try one of those consumer durables like branded high-end refrigerators and colour televisions (the ones with imported flat screen) whose prices will be dropping due to custom duty reduction; or buy that high-end mobile phone you have been thinking of and to gift a computer all. Better still you can take the earliest flight to that dream vacation in Goa and have a fill white liquor, all are cheaper now.
Don’t make mistake – students are not getting affordable education, books, uniform – it is the loans for these that are getting affordable.
Getting higher education has become quite simple all one has to do is to borrow more – though your parents need a stable job with taxable salary. You are going to be healthier tomorrow, because excise duty on medical, surgical, dental and veterinary furniture has been reduced.
Farmers need no longer commit suicide – they can borrow even more at 2% below PLR.
Dear countrymen!
Someone is telling you that you have laddoos in both hands. There is beauty in their hardsell.
They are telling how you should be happy that the prices of commodities are going up because with that companies are raking in huge profits which is taking their share prices to new heights. You may be losing your jobs more frequently but you have better access to credit now – every banker worth his salt knows that lending to you is better than lending to the crooked businessmen.
You have been told that reduction in duties on luxuries will create more jobs than reduction in ED on essentials. This is because consumption of essential commodities will not increase by decrease in ED as purchasing power is limited. They are telling you that you have now been allowed to invest your saving abroad to the tune of $ 25000.
What they are not telling you is that if after all this you still don’t feel good there must be something wrong with you. You must be fairly poor.