Myopic Budget

Second innings of UPA is considered to be a victory of aam aadmi. Hence, this year’s budget has been framed keeping them in mind. The budget is majorly stimulus oriented and focuses on consumption to sustain growth. For the first time, in almost a decade the private sector has not been the focus.

The government has made no substantial effort to increase private demand. Instead, the focus has been on public expenditure. The good news is the roll out of goods and services tax. Also the decision to stick with tax breaks, removal of surcharge on personal income tax and abolition of fringe benefit tax, will act as stimulants for the private sector.

The expenditure on infrastructure is in line with the Planning Commissions estimate. To replicate its previous growth, India needs to double its capacity of ports, roads, power, and airports. Budget rightly addresses the needs of all the above sectors.

Budgetary support has been increased for a large number of existing flagship programmes. A major problem is that running multiple programmes is inefficient and increases subsidy. The gray area is that UPA has not addressed the problem of implementation. Instead they have only marked out new areas for public spending.

With fiscal deficit at astronomically high 6.8% of GDP, funding is a major issue. The budget did speak about disinvestment and fuel price decontrol, but the numbers were not very encouraging. The disinvestment target of Rs.1, 120 crore per annum is miniscule when compared to the Economic Surveys annual projection of Rs.25, 000 crore.

If budgets are about vision, then this one is definitely myopic. India’s widening fiscal deficit warranted a more prudent measure from the government. Excessive government borrowing to meet the fiscal deficit might lead to crowding out of credit to private sector. Increase in debt would also reduce India’s sovereign credit rating.

Budget 2009 has definitely been drafted keeping aam aadmi in mind. Whether it would improve his daily life is a big question mark.

Bread Upma

Bread is one of the most widely consumed breakfast item. It is generally used as a fast moving item. Maximum people consume it on weekdays as it doesn’t take time to prepare. It is generally accompanied with milk, butter and jam.

In this post we discuss a recipe which goes against convention, and combines the Western (bread) and Indian cooking. Preparation time is around 15 mins.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

• Wheat bread 8-10 slices
• 1 capsicum
• 2 onions
• 2 medium size potato
• 2 big tomato
• 1 medium bowl safal peas
• 1 lemon
• 3 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp jeera
• 1 tbsp dhania powder
• 1 tbsp chat masala
• 1/4 tbsp turmeric powder
• Some chopped green chilies (1-2) (only if you want to)
• Finely chopped coriander leaves (garnishing)
• Salt to taste

Procedure

Take oil in a pan and heat. Add the finely cut potatoes and stir till they turn pink. Add finely cut onions and stir till they turn red. Then add salt and other masalas specified in the ingredient list. After 2 min, add chopped tomatoes and stir. After 2 min, add peas and sauté the mixture.

Meanwhile remove crust from bread and break it into crumbs. Once the above mixture is prepared add the crumbs and stir. Add chat masala and lemon juice from top. Use coriander leaves for garnishing. Serve hot.

Fine Tune Your Quantitative Skills

A view of the class room (Spot me in the background)

Some of my class room students

After one and half months as a “cost center” for Career Launcher I was promoted to a “revenue generator”. The idea was simple. Get hold of some CAT aspirants, impress them by means of a fancy presentation (this is what students learn in their MBA) and lure them to join Career Launcher.

Guess what, among the entire experienced faculty the center head chose me to conduct workshops (he wanted me to torture other students as wellJ). The title of my first workshop is the title of this post.

I would not discuss the contents of the presentation. I have attached the same for your viewing. Kindly go through it at least once. In case you find it useful, refer it to your friends who are preparing for MBA entrance.

To view presentation in slide form use the following link Fine Tune Your Quantitative Skills

The workshop ran for about 75 minutes. It was a big success. Initially the ambience was grim, but after about 15 min things changed. Most of the students were able to connect with me and each one had a great time (not sure of how many concepts they understood).

Within a week of the event, almost 20% (a good number by the industry standards) of the audience joined Career Launcher (new bakrasJ). The center head was impressed, the students seemed satisfied, and as for me, I still haven’t been able to solve the questions discussed in the presentationJ.

P.S. Reference has been made to an old Career Launcher presentation.

Bandra-Worli Sea Link

June 30 witnessed an unprecedented inauguration of Bandra-Worli Sea link in Mumbai. The event was witnessed by a large number of frustrated and harried commuters. The sea link is India’s longest bridge and the first in the country to be built over open sea. It has been termed as an engineering marvel, as most of the blue prints have been indigenous.

The real reason for the celebration, according to me, is unknown. The most common and obvious reason is that 5.6km sea link, will supposedly reduce the 40 minute car journey from Bandra to Worli to seven minutes. I am not sure on this, given that traffic will accumulate at both ends of the bridge, not saving commuters too much of time. Traffic dispersal at either end of the bridge will have to be considered, it’s surprising to know that it was not anticipated while project planning.

The other reason could be the saving of tax payer’s money. The project which was initially valued at Rs.300 crores was supposed to be completed in 2004. As usual, the project got delayed by 5 years and the cost escalated to a little over Rs.1600 crore. So when the marathon construction finally got over, it came as a big sigh of relief to all tax payers (Another 5 years of delay would have meant an extra 1000 crores).

India’s infrastructure projects are marred by poor planning and execution. The inefficiency becomes more prominent when the numbers are compared with China. A similar project, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, was completed in 4 years. The only difference was that the bridge was a staggering 35.6 km long. India took a decade to build a bridge 1/6 its size. Moreover, China has built seven sea links in the last six years.

A major reason for the above inefficiencies is politics and red tape. No ruling party is ready to take a holistic view of a city’s development. Change in the landscape involves land acquisition and resettlement of thousands of people. Any mistake here would mean loss of thousands of votes for the government. Contracts are frequently renegotiated midway, the government is slow in obtaining clearances and the entire process is penetrated with red tape.

In this political and bureaucratic muddle, one should not forget the efforts of thousands of laborers. Some of them have given almost 10 years of their life to this project. The sea link is an outcome of the dedication and hard work of those thousands of common men and women.