Subsidies kill, but are less murderous than political intentions

R BALAKRISHNAN | 02/08/2014 03:43 PM |   

The government's idea to get people to voluntarily forgo their LPG subsidy as an exercise in "nation building" has raised peoples' hackles.  The SMS from oil companies says, "Want to join Nation Building? It's simple - just give up LPG subsidy." Now if only the minister or the prime minister had said, "I am giving up my LPG subsidy. Join me in nation building"

The Union Government wants me to forgo my subsidy of around Rs500 per LPG cylinder. And it thinks that if I ignore the SMS, it will ‘expose’ the ‘rich’ who want to hang on to benefits meant for the poor.  If all of us filthy rich people who save fortunes due to this subsidy on cooking gas decide to give it up, it will add up to a princely sum of Rs3,500 crore. Mr Narendra Modi, thank you. I have no guilt in enjoying this subsidy. In fact, I get a small vicarious pleasure in getting something back from a system that has only taken from me all my life. Why is it that the system favours those who are parasitical to the extreme?

Given the noise about the Gujarat model, I thought that the age of meritocracy had to come. Alas, the Modi government seems to be bent on pushing honest citizens against the wall. Encouraging parasites to thrive through subsidies is surely not the way Gujarat has reached where it has, but the message this time is all wrong. If the Modi government is serious about the “Gujarat model”, we should actually see all subsidies being banished and that there are rewards for honesty and merit.