By Syed Zahid Ahmad,
It is clear that the targets for 11th Five Year Plan have not been achieved so far, nor is it possible to attend in coming days. Do the Planning Commission officials have any moral responsibility in failure of 11th Five Year Plan targets? Is there any accountability for national planners and policy makers who are called as Economists and Financial Experts and expected to put Indian economy on high growth trajectory? Is there any moral responsibility on the members of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council for this increasing inflation and declining growth rate? Where are their efforts meant for inclusive growth when majority of resources are flown towards corporate sector and majority of Indian workers associated with the unorganized sector are facing financial crisis for growth?
The Finance Ministry works under pressure of the corporate sector. There is hardly any chamber or association to advocate for poor and vulnerable section of the society. Who cares about increasing fiscal deficit and imbalanced growth among different industries? Has anyone evaluated pattern of financial allocation to different industries? India’s majority workers and enterprises are deprived of financial resources whereas few large industrialists draw major share of resources to gain more economies of scale. Have we ever budgeted to eradicate poverty among slum dwellers / unorganized sector workers with no fixed dwellings?
The majority of Indian are still out of stock market affairs whereas stock market capitalization exceeds to total bank deposits in India. This is unfortunately called inclusive growth process in India where the poor have to contribute for growth of the rich.
Hope this time considering higher fiscal deficit as well as inflation, the finance minister and his team will work upon finding alternative mode of debt finance. Islamic banking and finance may just help us reduce the fiscal deficit and inflation with stimulating growth process. There are economies in equity / cost plus finance compared to interest based debt finances. This difference needs to be evaluated before framing budgetary proposals.
(The writer is Asst. Secretary General, All India Council of Muslim Economic Upliftment Ltd. Trust: Mobile – (+91) 9869 814 113, Fax:- (+91 22) 2347 8884, E-Mail: [email protected] Website- www.aicmeu.org)