The development of India

India has made good progress in last 15 years. Our GDP was, as far as I can remeber, $290 billion in 1992. Today, it is at $1.1 trillion ($1100 billion); so, GDP has quadrapuled in 16 years, implying average 8% annual growth rate. Incidence of poverty has declined. My father used to say that in 1950s, 'it was difficult to have square meals every day even in a decent family in our village (in West Bengal).' Today, in our village, 40% household has motorbikes, almost same percentage has TV, almost one third has 'pucca house', everyone with at least 2 bigha land has shallow machine for agriculture (although less than 10% pays for electricity, most do 'hooking' or steal electriciry). Someone will jump saying 'credit goes to land reform by left front government', and he is partially right, but only partially. Please note I am not referring to car ownership statistics in Cities, but taking my village near Basirhat in North 24 Parganas as the benchmark. Things changed for the better.

What I am submitting here is that the pace of this positive change could have been faster. A friend has said he likes Air India, a government owned airlines, because the seats are empty (so you can have 3 seats to yourself). But you see that too many empty seats is not good for an airline. I sell spare parts to Air India of around $ 10 million a year. They buy this at catalogue price, while Kingfisher negotiated a 40% discount on spare parts that we sell them. If Air India could do the same, they would have saved $ 4 million a year or Rs. 20 crore a year. How many employment opportunity it could have created with that Rs. 20 crores ? Assuming they pay Rs. 1 lakh per month salary on average, (in reality it is much lower), it could have generated 167 employment. Now, extrapolate it to its magnitude of total business. I do not think AI is creating more employment compared to what it could have, had it been professionally run. But AI has never asked for discount !!

I have worked in China, which has problems similar to that of India. State Owned Enterprises in China is focussed on increasing efficiency and profit now. Party bosses run these PSUs, and their progress inside party depends on their performance on balance sheet. District committee secreatry of Kunshan district (Jiangsu province) pleaded with us that Ranbaxy investment should go to Kunshan because he had promised party leadership that he would fulfil a certain target for Foreign Investment in his district, and he needed Ranbaxy investment for that. This is entrepreneurship and competition within the franework of communist party rule... oxymoron, but it works.

Rich-poor divide has widened in India and China. But in China, once I asked my maid what did she think of her neighbour who has become rich while she remained poor. She said that it inspires her because her son can also become rich one day. Well, this is called positive attitude to life/ optimism/ the great communist propaganda, whatever. But I realized that this coutry will go far. In my country, where I have come back after 12 years, the typical reaction will be '...the rich has become rich by sucking poor's blood... etc.'

We Indians become satisfied very easily. All foreigners praise that. They say, look, here is country that is dirt poor, but people are happy and smiling. That is great, but not good for progress ( I am speaking of material progress here).

(This is a slightly edited version of a mail I have received as a member of a particular Yahoo group. The writer works in a company that manufactures aerospace products  for civil and military aircraft)