BLACK MONEY

There are people in India who work hard everyday. It’s not fame or fortune that they strive. They just feel contented doing their job & making a living out of it. However, their pay is not always worth their efforts. I am not talking about the people who work in air-conditioned rooms or those that boss around doing nothing. I am talking about those that work in the fields, factories & construction sites.
I am talking about the daily-wage workers who try their best to earn a living. I just want to thank each and every one of them for their time. They have done a really good job of steering India to higher levels of development.

What have we done for them? They work their sweat out & we reap the benefits sitting in our air-conditioned rooms & offices. They deposit their small earnings in a co-operative bank and we roam around with credit cards. They try to make ends meet and we politicians deposit all our unearned money in our Swizz account.

Let’s take into consideration the dependants & the handicapped. How are we helping them out? Do we ever donate to charity? Yes, we do it once in a while and that too we need recognition for it. Does the money reach the right people? Oh, we don’t know. The top management of these charitable institutions uses more than half of it for their Petty Cash Expenses that come under the heading “Miscellaneous Expenses”. When shall we learn to give more than what we receive?

“Bring back home the black money”, says Baba Ramdev. Not a bad idea. Savings of the corrupt leaders in crores of rupees just get rotten in Swizz Bank. And there is no requirement for these people to earn interest on the funds of the public without passing on any benefit to them or the country. This issue has to be severally dealt with by the concerned authorities both locally & internationally.

Ramdev goes to the extent of saying that the prices of some essential commodities will drop down to almost half their value e.g.: diesel, petrol & gas cylinders. Dear Baba Ramdev, politics does not determine the prices of goods set as per international standards. The taxes can be exempted but not to such an extent that the prices of goods be made lower than cost.

However, there are 3 really good options for using the black money:

a) Development of Infrastructure – As we already know that India is a country where the funds allocated for a certain project are half eaten by the ministers and the government officials at the higher level, the remainder of these funds is only enough to build a low quality infrastructure be it roads, bridges, dams or railway tracks. If we make use of the black money for improving the infrastructure, it would provide job opportunities to many people and at the same time, we would also have better roads or bridges under strict supervision of the concerned authorities.

b) Repaying our External Dept - If we, as a country, focus on repaying the debt (more than 40 billion US dollars) that we owe to the IMF & World Bank by even a small percentage, we can, very well, help raise the value of our currency in the foreign exchange market. More value for a rupee would mean that a 10 rupee note would fetch much more goods than what we buy in the current situation. And hence, the rise in price of oil (and its relative commodities) or any other product would not matter. I still dream of the day when 1 rupee would be equal to 1 dollar.

c) Charity – There is a great need to do something for that portion of the population which includes the handicapped, disabled & mentally challenged individuals of our country. I tell you, if the top 10 richest people in India donate a part of their yearly income to the needy in kind (scholarships, concessions or rebates), there would be a significant reduction in the number of people who live Below Poverty Line.

Baba Ramdev, I truly support your cause – fight against corruption. And I suggest that you also declare your assets and earnings for the benefit of India and all its people. If we have to go ahead with this fight, we will have to give away what is rightfully not ours so that no one can point a finger back at us.