While our government’s tax rates are as per developed country standards, India’s accountability for the way money is spent are as per third world standards

An average Indian travelling home by Indian Railways has to shell out money even for basics like drinking water en route and toilets at stations. In some parts of the country, an assortment of authorities now try to levy tolls and entry taxes, as soon as you disembark and move towards the exits. Searches are carried out en route on person and baggage; in the name of security is another transactional cost.

The highest transactional cost, of course, is safety of life, limb and luggage. You cannot put a cost to this, nor is data on this available. But does anybody believe things have not got worse in the last few years from an already bad reality? This is because the delivery side of the Budget has gone totally unaccountable to the very people that the collections are made from. This is to such an extent that the only way these truths can be notched up now are through the media. There is nobody else even willing to listen.

At every step, visible and often blatantly aggressive symbols of the way the power of the State are being misused. This has changed the equation for the people at the base of the pyramid—from mis-governance to oppression. A budget does not address this, other than providing lip-service, and this therefore represents yet another additional cost. An example would be the way tolls are applied on ordinary buses going into the interior areas, while government vehicles which are exempted from such payments are flagrantly misused in a way that even our colonial rulers did not dare to do.

How much would it cost the Indian Railways or the Indian Government to put up proper automated complaint booths which could record both audio and video, at every railway station and bus terminal? Or for those in governance to ensure that toilets and drinking water were made available at railway stations and bus terminals?

But no, to the vast majority of people in India, the government now increasingly appears to be nothing more than an insatiable machine, collecting taxes wherever possible, dredging the last drop of sweat from people. At the same time, the vast majority of people in India have also learnt that where constituencies get together and simply stop paying, the Indian government tends to back off—Kashmir, the Maoist areas, some parts of the North-East, for example. And most of all, the aspirational ruling classes, who also do not pay while they continue to scam, loot and scoot.

In short, while our government’s tax rates are as per developed country standards, our country’s tax spending accountabilities are as per third world banana republic standards. That is where the complete concept of a budget in India is faced with a rapidly reducing credibility year after year, and that is also why for a larger and larger number of people, the budget as presented will have no effect on the biggest tax on people—inflation. This, in rupee terms, is more than a rapid gallop now, and is likely to ride over us even faster.

It will be interesting to see how the government is going to get over the increasing tendency for commercial and other interactions to be denominated in barter or kind or cash, in many parts of the country where this is seen as a more efficient way of staying alive with dignity. And how, if at all, will they ever be able to factor this into the business of the annual budget?

(Veeresh Malik had a long career in the Merchant Navy, which he left in 1983. He has qualifications in ship-broking and chartering, loves to travel, and has been in print and electronic media for over two decades. After starting and selling a couple of companies, is now back to his first love—writing.)