Reduce Government Expenditure

One of the main problems of the Indian economy is that over a period Government has acquired non productive liabilities to the extent that it is going bankrupt. (If it has not already). The reason is many of the schemes of UPA which were aimed at vote banks and drained the Government of its resources.

The tough task before Mr Modi is how to reduce such unproductive expenditure without allowing Congress to make a hue and cry that the policies are "Anti People".

The finesse with which this can be done is what will make a difference.

Following steps could be helpful in this regard.

1. Use of E Governance and redeployment of government workers from the non productive "paper pushing" work to citizen support services.

Those who cannot move with the change need to think of taking VRS as it happened in the private sector.

Ofcourse before presenting such options to the employees there has to be an attempt to e-train them in new skills and give them an opportunity to change their skills.

Where possible, parts of department's works should be converted into a profit center model and government employees must be made entrepreneurs managing different service functions. They can be incentivised on the basis of service delivery efficiency. Government should however avoid indirect increase in cost of service to the public.

Towards this the public project tendering system should move from "Lowest Capital Cost" to "Lowest cost of service to the netizen".

2. Private sector funds can be attracted to such projects by appropriate investment incentives including bringing back of black money stashed abroad.

3. All "Rights Based" doles which UPA had introduced in the fag end of their time should be linked to "Indian Citizenship"

4. Unproductive projects such as MNREGA should be reviewed and resources diverted to productive projects.

5. Modi's ideas of PSU empowerment and "Team India" are great ideas that need to be pursued. The "Team India" concept where the State CM takes a more responsible role in project implementation should help in shifting the burden of political subsidies to the States. PSU empowerment and management changes should help in reducing the drain on Government resources and convert PSU sector into a profit making sector.

Naavi more