Does money grow on trees or does it grow underground? Who has the answer to that question?

Let us congratulate our prime minister for speaking out his mind. It is difficult to counter Dr Manmohan Singh’s observations on the need for harder decisions or for that matter about the urgency in carrying out more reforms. So, I took a diversion and recorded the following comments online on some website:

“This speech could have preceded notifications. Not that it makes a big difference, as after all, trees do not grow on heaps of money either. Skipping legislative sanction in a routine manner gives an impression that the PM is sure of getting post facto approvals for even very important decisions. Eight years have gone after the introduction of New Pension Scheme replacing an existing social security system by an investment instrument and even today the action has not been approved by Parliament as the relative legislation is still before parliament. We are moving towards a ‘Notification Raj’”

When the PM was having a sound sleep on Friday night with the double satisfaction of having said things he always wanted to tell the people, but was prevented from speaking out either by the UPA leadership or the opposition in parliament and having received some assurance of support, albeit from ‘outside’ (which may cost more!), my sleep was disturbed as I kept wondering whether I had made a wrong statement that trees do not grow on heaps of money. A short nap in the early morning on Saturday cleared up my thought process and my thoughts on the trees, money et al, I am sharing with you.

White money really grows on trees. Most of the money underground in the form of oil, minerals and coal now being over-exploited and converted into black money gets depleted, whereas the money that grows on trees is available for ‘plucking’ perennially. To understand this, the PM may have to refresh some of his old school lessons on geography and economics. Trees like apple, palm, coconut, rubber and so on give money. Some roots like potato, tapioca, carrot, onion and so on also can be converted into money. In addition to this, a huge amount of black money also grows underground. But, for ensuring smooth conduct of the next session of parliament and pushing through all the pending bills and reforms, I would suggest a suo moto withdrawal of the controversial statement about growth of money on trees by PM himself, lest the opposition disrupts the parliament on that issue!

(MG Warrier is a freelancer based in Mumbai. He can be contacted at [email protected].)