With a drought that everybody loves around the bend, P. Sainath of The Hindu tears into the hypocrisy of a national discourse that wails about “fiscal imprudence” when farmers are waived off loans of Rs 70,000 crore but applauds when Rs 130,000 crore of concessions are doled out to the “corporate mob”:
“Let’s take only what the budget tells us (Annexure 12, Table 12, p.58). Income foregone in 2007-08 due to direct tax concessions was Rs. 62,199 crore. That foregone on excise duty was Rs. 87,468 crore. And on customs duty Rs. 1,53,593 crore. That adds up to Rs. 3,03,260 crore.
“Even if we drop export credit from this, it comes to well over Rs. 200,000 crore. For 2008-09, that figure would be over Rs. 300,000 crore. That is a very conservative estimate. It does not include all manner of subsidies and rate cuts and other freebies to the corporate sector. But it’s big enough.
“Simply put, the corporate world has grabbed concessions in just two years that total more than seven times the ‘fiscally imprudent’ farm loan waiver. In fact, it means that on average we have been feeding the corporate world close to Rs. 700 crore every day in those two years.
“Imagine calculating what this figure would be, in total, since 1991. (Er.., what’s the word for the bracket above ‘trillion?’) Ask for an expansion of the NREGS, seek universal access to the PDS, plead for more spending on public health and education — and there’s no money. Yet, there’s enough to give away nearly Rs 30 crore an hour to the corporate world in concessions.”
Read the full article: Drought of justice, flood of funds
Link via Anand V.
Also read: ‘80% of Indian journalism is stenography’
‘Indian media doesn’t cover 70% of population’
churumuri 
Re Swamy,
Baro kasanna beda annodu kottiro kas beda annodu there is loads of difference between them. Industry and corporate are given subsidy but the money is recovered by govt in terms of income tax on employees who work in these corporates.
Farm loan wavier is politically motivated. They are done to win elections. Instead of making Indian farmer competitive by giving mechanizing farms giving him access to modern methods of growing crops govt does reckless lending to farmers who are frozen in time ( govt is to be blamed ) and then give farm loan wavier.
Farmers don’t need loan or your politically motivated loan wavier all they need is good irrigation facilities, access to modern cultivating methods and free market to get not the fair price but the right price for his crops.
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As I understand, the Govt decided not to take more of others’ money and in another case, the Govt decided to give away others’ money to the farmers. How are the two equivalent? Did the Govt write-off loans to the industry?
Writing off loans is not a good way to promote efficiency in any industry. The Govt is just taking the easier route without facing the actual crisis in agriculture.
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An eye opener.
Please publish Sainath’s articles related to agriculture regularly.
Can you please also publish any article on the farm subsidies/corporate concessions in the West as compared to what the figures in India?
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Sainath wants corporates and industry to go back to the government regulated license raj era. He is still dreaming of the socialist utopia which has been a complete disaster. Why a direct comparison with Farmers and Corporates. The corporates are a wing of the indian nation and the government should do everything to create an ecosystem which will maximize profits, FDIs and also benefit the country. Anyway the amount of tax paid by the employees of these firms are enoromous. They are the only people who dutifully pay tax in our country.
The socialists have messed up agriculture and farmers in the country. De-regulation and liberalizations is the key to modernize and maximize agricultural produce and bring prosperity to the farmers. The open market pricing for agricultural produce will automatically even out the price arbitrage of the agricultural products. Commies always love a good drought as it gives them an oppurtunity to play on the victim conciousness of farmers and it gives them an oppurtunity to spread poverty evenly. The key is to not romanticize agriculture and treat it like any other business enterprise.
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oh.. yeah maximise profits!
method : Killing, displacing, threatening, starving and what not?
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How much tax do farmers pay Mr.Sainath, even the rich ones in Punjab, Haryana ?
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Clashu! You mean the Great Helmsman was better?? Nah! Not him! Must have been the Man of Steel! No? What about that Mild and Shy Man down in Kampuchea?
Between them they would have killed off enough farmers not have a problem at all…but for the much despised human habit of procreating!
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but will all those match the numbers of starved and killed ones by the so called bulldozer “liberalisation”?????
Wherever it could not be achieved covertly, those places were pillaged, aint it and it is still going on…..
dont try to paint a serene picture here.
Twisted mindsets and philosophies have killed enough people on earth, be it free-market fundamentalism or communism. The question is, who has the highest strike-rate.
and talk about more subsidies and tax evasion for these kinda people – and check out what is happening in your neo-liberal paradise –
[i]During 8 years of the Bush Administration, the 400 richest Americans, who now own more than the bottom 150 million Americans, increased their net worth by $700 billion. In 2005, the top one per cent claimed 22 per cent of the national income, while the top ten per cent took half of the total income, the largest share since 1928.[\i]
The funniest part is that there are always people who will go on and on arguing for this kind of wealth accumulation, while they are happy living with the crap that fall down!
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but will all those match the numbers of starved and killed ones by the so called bulldozer “liberalisation”?????
Wherever it could not be achieved covertly, those places were pillaged, aint it and it is still going on…..
dont try to paint a serene picture here.
Twisted mindsets and philosophies have killed enough people on earth, be it free-market fundamentalism or communism. The question is, who has the highest strike-rate.
and talk about more subsidies and tax evasion for these kinda people – and check out what is happening in your neo-liberal paradise –
[i]During 8 years of the Bush Administration, the 400 richest Americans, who now own more than the bottom 150 million Americans, increased their net worth by $700 billion. In 2005, the top one per cent claimed 22 per cent of the national income, while the top ten per cent took half of the total income, the largest share since 1928.[\i]
The funniest part is that there are always people who will go on and on arguing for this kind of wealth accumulation, while they are happy living with the crap that fall down! and you happily call it trickling down whaaat………, ever thought what is trickling down?
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So Clashu, why don’t you tabulate for the last one hundred years and let us know. 100 years of Communist barbarism vs 100 years of Capitalist barbarism.
The thing Clashu, is that your camp don’t have a leg to stand on. All that killing and starving ones own sorta cost you your credibility, mildly put.
Why don’t you do a poll in your former fatherland, UyesyesR and your so called fatherland, “Commie” China and find out for yourself? You can’t go to Kampuchea and do a poll because they’ll be waitin for you with all the good tools Polu Potu used to increase production!
Then we’ll discuss rants emanating from the likes of Sainath, AG and Clashu.
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With the corporate sector, you are trying to stimulate economic activity. With the farm sector, you are absorbing the losses on the farmer’s behalf.
For instance, if I give a loan to a friend to start a business, I can expect to be repaid in some way if the business is not run terribly. However, if I just repay my brother’s loan because he is my brother, there is no guarantee of any monetary repayment except maybe my brother’s guarantee.
Applying it to the Government, one of these makes fiscal sense and one doesn’t.
Liberalization has enabled increased economic activity and increased taxation income for the government.
Farm subsidies, as they are currently structured, are a pure political sop taking from one to pay the other.
Besides, it is the government’s policies which don’t provide the right incentives to farmer to hedge their bets and trade in futures, removing the need for repeated farm loan waivers and the like.
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100 years of Capitalist barbarism, yes that is what we are speaking about.
if both are barbarism, there is nothing much to choose between.
but i better live against an injustice than toe along with it. Not simply shut yourself from acknowledging a rip off that you cant stop. it doesnt stop there, you tend argue for them too…
mindless bashing of Sainath arises from sheer ignorance, more than that i suppose is a stern refusal to acknowledge the truth around…
when he says people are dying in our country side coz of poverty and the wreckage of agriculture, that facade of a pride (Shining India??) doesnt allow some to admit it and they start blathering on a different tangent!
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Sainath is right in his analysis. We must stop giving any subsidy to corporates. Social responsibility of the corporates is a gimmick.
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Some people’s greatly admired west aslo gives subsidies and protects farmers interests. Farmers in Japan are also protected.
According to some, corporates will feed poverty stricken Indians, if the corporates are given subsidies. All those employed in corporates pay taxes. True. they also know very how to avoid or lesses taxes.
For you kind of information even farmers in India, poor or rich, keep paying taxes on various things at various levels. Go to a nearby village and find out!!!
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Clashu, you conveniently side step the point of credibility. Like your honorable self, Sainath too has never spoken against 100 years of Communist barbarism.
The fellow is The Hindu’s rural affairs editor and still keeps quite when the same paper shamelessly advocates a China’s Tibet policy. No moral fibre. Only convenient sword weilding.
So if the anti-capitalist depradation camp has spokesmen like yourself and ilk, then your “cause” is lost already. You better resign and let better and more credible people manage the show. I don’t trust you.
Add another humbug to your list. Amartya Sen. Given a chance he would like Mao to come alive in Hindusthan!
We don’t need revolutionaries. We need solvers of problems.
Tragically, you guys are neither.
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Dr. Reddy,
The people who dont understand what is feeding them will make any blind short-sighted comment as long as they see themselves safe for the short term. They think that the West does not give any subsidies to their agriculture sector or mollycoddle their farmers will far greater concessions than a country like India can imagine. And they bring up unrelated issues and big names sitting at their cubicles on their fat asses.
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So who side stepped first? who started talking about Kampuchea and Cambodia, while discussing an article written by Sainath?
Sainath doesnt need to talk about Communist barbarsim, i dont think that is his job, neither does he need to loath The Hindu’s stance on China coz that is also not his job. He is the rural editor of Hindu and he does his job quite well, infact very well. Not like you or me, who slumbers in the comfort of air-conditioned rooms and type these words.
I know a few people who have traveled with Sainath and from them i came to know, what he is really up to. If you ever had a misconception that the man has outsourced his work to some villagers and compile it in his office you are terribly wrong.
He takes the pain to visit these places, understand the vagaries of these people about whom he speak about in his articles and if there is a tinge of sarcasm that notes his writings, i would say it arises of the utter contempt towards the people who are coining the policies that is wrecking the lives of people whom he meet.
let me tell you, neither you or me can ever meet the people about whom he speaks about. Now, if at all you happen meet them, you will never be able to sympathize with them because essentially your beliefs tell you that their hardships are just another side of the structural adjustments that we need to carry out to fatten the kittys of these corporates.
yeah, problem solvers! After decades of solving problems for the whole humanity, very few bankers just skimmed some good profits and sent the whole world to a tizzy and that was just a few months back. Oh.. yes, the bigger sharks got some good bonus too.
A terrible collusion of government and these moneymakers are what you are arguing for. Good luck and keep watching! hope it helps you.
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“Liberalization has enabled increased economic activity and increased taxation income for the government….”. It’s amazing, the sheer idiocy/ignorance/callousness of some of the comments here. I suggest people read Sainth’s “Everyone loves a good Drought”, or better still, spend a few months in the India’s heartland…
People are forced to become slaves for generations in order to get drinking/domestic use/irrigation water! Mortgage the freedom and dignity of their family for entire generations to come! Shocking! Sheer bestiality in the name of “Progress”..
To the fat asses sitting in metros in malls blogging rubbish about “efficiency”, they never ever thought all the water they waste (corporate fountains/tea/coffee dispensing machines/washrooms)was anything but their natural birthright(to spill and waste)!
All this when Their place of nirvana – the US of A and WHOLE of WHITE europe doles out billions of dollars of farm subsidy every year! Many of these morons themselves benefited from government backed professional colleges..
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what is amount of loans granted to industries waived by nationalised banks after the Bank Nationalisation . compare this with the amount of loan waived to farmers, and that too once after India attained freedom
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