Union Budget and the toilet seat

The Delhi economist types rated it 7.9 on 10. Bombay corporatewallas rated it 9 on 10 and immediately set about working new direct and indirect permutations and combinations. Markets reacted positively but the opposition walked out. Makings of a pot boiler. Union Budget of the Republic of India 2010-11.

Its an annual Feb fare. The Brazilians have their Carnival and we Indians have the Union Budget. Every year some chosen few from Polity, Business and the Media lobby, anticipate, participate, watch, analyze, criticize and politicize what is supposed to chart the destiny of a billion people. Or does it really? Does the budget actually matter to these billions. Increasingly the budget has become the playground for this nexus or troika of Politicians, Businessmen and Media. The union budget is of this troika, for this troika and by this troika.

I have been a party to this process. Infact I can honestly claim that my career was built on the platform of the Union Budget. My first honest job was to do an analysis of the Union Budget of 1994 as an equity analyst. The exercise so successful that the next year I did it for what was then the largest business magazine in India. But 16 years later as I watched Mr Mukherjee deliver his budget speech I first felt déjà vu and then I felt dejected. Cheated infact. Because all that has changed between the budget of 1994 and that of 2010 is numbers. Same speech, similar attempts at weak humour and the same opposition reaction, although this time they took it a little too far. So all this noise of the great Indian success story and all we have to show for it is numbers in the budget? And if it is about numbers, then there are some numbers that I want to discuss.

Very recently I was reading the UNDP report on Mumbai (has to be Mumbai as this is not the Bombay we know and dream). Fifty-five percent of the city’s population live in slums and everyone knows it. But there was a statement that shook me. In these slums, one toilet seat is shared between 81 people( I am not making this up. A minister of the Govt. has duly signed this report). I knew toilet seats are a problem, anyone who has travelled in a local train knows they are a problem, but didn’t know the problem is so grave, despite Slumdog Millionaire showing it in graphic detail. But what appalls me is this does not find any mention in the budget speech. Or the fact that India’s per capita water availability is one of the lowest in the world, or the fact that more than half of India’s women and children under 12 are anemic, or there are more homeless in India than Europe’s entire population and the list goes on.

These are not new numbers. These numbers are known to the mandarins of North/South or in whatever block the Finance Ministry sits. But they, or rather all of us have become completely or comfortably numb to these numbers. And it is this numbness that makes us prepare policy documents year on year that have absolutely no relevance to more than half the people they are meant to serve.

Once in my previous avatar as a journalist I had asked the then Finance Minister, the man who currently runs the Home Office, for a solution to this problem. And in his usual cocky way he responded by asking me to give a solution as he had had his share of problem-mongers. I was too naïve to answer then. But today I want to ask these questions and if prompted I even have answers. And very simple answers.

How about a simple budget speech. Leave the 2 rupee excise and the 3 rupee custom duty for those to whom it matters. The only thing the budget should touch on is:


- In 20 years every citizen of the country will get clean water, basic healthcare, basic education, food and shelter
- This will be monitored year on year and the goals for next year are XYZ
- The government will allocate PQZ amount on infrastructure which will be monitored quarterly henceforth
- Any item proposed in the budget and not completed by a committed time will result in the immediate removal of the secretary and the minister in-charge of that department
- By 2020 India will aim for 20 gold medals in the Olympics and progress will be measured quarterly
- The measure of the country’s success will be India’s standing in the UNDP rankings and the Government takes a responsibility to improve this by atleast 10 points by next budget.

The day we bring down the per capita toilet seat availability to a respectable number, we can go back to the Troika budgets. Till then, let’s have some honesty.

Any takers?