Guest chat: census: are we rightly counted and does that really count?

Census has just completed. We’ll soon know how many billion we are. Like in earlier censuses, we’ll also know how many of us are male, educated, with TV sets, etc. Going by the numerous questions we were asked, perhaps we would know many more demographic details this time.
 A school teacher, Sinha ji, came to our house in Delhi to do the final round of data collection last week. His counterpart had already collected data a month before, but Sinha ji too had a similar questionnaire before him. “It takes about 40 minutes to fill the sheet. People do not give details in one go, or they hide facts,” he told. “They don’t even open their doors to us. I must finish four more sheets before calling it a day.” It was already 8 pm. luckily for him, ours was an exceptionally small family – a mother and a kid – and it took him just five minutes.
 “What do you do when they don’t tell you the details?” I asked.
 “We have to make intelligent guess.”
 “But how can you guess, say, their income or their caste?”
 “It is tricky. People do hide their caste. They do not even tell whether they have a bicycle. I know, everybody in this colony would have a bicycle.”
 “But why should I have a cycle when I have a car and my child is yet too small?”
 He didn’t have an answer. He gave an interesting twist to the discussion. “I have to do 20 households in the adjacent jhuggi colony also. I had to make four visits to get all the data on one hut.”
“What would someone do if he had to collect data from a hundred jhuggis?”
“A colleague of mine landed in exactly this situation, but luck favoured him. Someone had tutored the jhuggi-wallahs what replies to give to our queries.”
“But those replies would be fake.”
“We are doing our duty, ma’am.” He left.
In statistics, they say, errors tend to cancel each other when the sample size is big. In the biggest sampling in the world that our census is, let’s hope the macro picture is more or less correct despite people not opening door, not telling truth and giving patently fake answers.
The bigger question is, whether the data will be used for taking correct policy decisions or it will be a mammoth exercise for the sake of statistics.

contributed by Rishita from Delhi

Guest Chat: DDA housing scheme 2010 - a first-hand account

DDA, Delhi Development Authority, has come out with 16000 flats in different parts of the city. What's new there, you might ask. The scheme is there for a month and is closing this Friday.

I have some first-hand information about these flats that I gathered by visiting them before applying to the Scheme and I thought I should share them through India News blog.

First I visited Vasant Kunj where DDA built flats for Commonwealth Games but could not complete them in time for the games. The area is very well located, has all the flats airy, there is a lot of common space and parking space. But you cannot be sure of the quality of furnishings going by the tiles and fixtures that you can see at the location and the workmanship. Labourers are seen hurrying up to finish the job. Moreover, DDA is going to charge you for the costly furnishings it purchased in the name of CWG.


I also visited Mukherjee Nagar and Dwarka Sector 18B. Both these locations are near open drains and the work is not yet over. The work is going on at scorching pace; can you guarantee quality of construction and finishing in rush job?

DDA flat locations, as given in their advertisement

Jasola, Bindapur (Dwarka), Narela and Rohini are bad locations. If you are reading this blog, you must be in middle income or higher bracket and a decent way of living. For you, these locations will be  unlivable. From day one, there will be touts and property agents pitching tents in these places. There will be no good masonry work on the flats. People who are forced to live there will be living because they have no other option due to financial or other factors.

Narela, Vasant Kunj (MIG) and wherever you find very few flats are the flats that have not been sold from previous schemes. These odd flats will have one or the other problem. I saw them in Vasant Kunj.

I also had a chance to see Loknayak Puram and Rohini's earlier flats. Less said the better about their workmanship and upkeep. You will find worn out plaster every few feet, highly rust-eaten railings, broken balconies and stairs, very unkempt exteriors and courtyards, bad approach roads.

So Delhiites and others, if you have applied / plan to apply in the scheme, all risk is yours. The so called 'lottery' may prove to be a nightmare if you get a flat and do not check all details before moving in.

Abhijeet

guest chat: shame on you, Raja... more shame on you, Manmohan

In yesterday's Times of India, there was this item: 'Majority of 2G licences given by Raja illegal: CAG'. Earlier, we had reports that the 2G scam might be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in Indian history. Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy's special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court is also to come up for hearing this week. The petition seeks minister’s prosecution alleging that his actions in awarding second-generation (2G) licences in 2008 had caused an estimated loss of Rs.70,000 crore [Rs. 700 billion] to the government exchequer.

Raja is supposed to have acted against the Department's guidelines, personally cleared awards to companies that did not have any experience or wherewithals to roll out 2G, gone for first come first served basis and not through the fair route of inviting tenders, hurried dates of submission of interest to suit some companies and so on. Each of these acts is liable to action, and collectively they represent a systemic loot.

Now, who else do you want to show that Raja was personally and collectively culpable for the scam? Not CAG - the highest audit body? Tomorrow, you will also protect Raja behind some stonewalling law against a Minister's prosecution. Even if you do not do that, you are already committing sins of the worst type a supposedly honest Prime Minister can ever do: turning a blind eye on it all.

You might say that we should not sit in judgement; agreed, and we are not demanding that he be hanged or stoned to death and that too before a court or enquiry commission proves his guilt. But let the government at least ask Raja to go. Any one day delay in his departure means the government is losing people's faith in it.

I am not talking about the legality of the case but the level of corruption within the government run by Manmohan Singh and patronised by Sonia, and the level of tolerance for such corruption. If for political reasons, Manmohan does not dare to act against Raja even mildly, he must resign himself. What is there for him to lose except the frills that being a Prime Minister brings? If he were what his image has been so far, ie an honest person, he should have resigned over many such cases. He too has turned into a shameless creature whose appetite for power is only growing by the day.

As a frustrated Indian, I can only say, shame on you Raja and his DMK. But shame and spit on you, Manmohan and Sonia.

guest talk: rise and rise of SENSEX*

Sensex is not giving any signs of correcting. In the last… it has jumped from to over 18000. This has enthused bulls into forecasting that it will soon reach 25000. It will one day, but soon?
Let us just list the main reasons why the sensex must correct sooner than many forecasts to more reasonable levels, in conformity with corporate earning, and domestic and global economic expectations.

Inflation has not come down with all the steps taken so far. So, inflation is a big worry for the government: RBI is likely to take some tough decision in its next policy review.

Growth is OK, but the core growth is not that great. Moreover, growth figures often gets spruced up falsely due to base effect as last year was a depressing year. If tough monetary decisions are taken, growth will be impacted further.

Infrastructure is as poor as ever, and government is showing no great commitment to support it in a big way. There are massive slippages in all major physical and financial plan targets.
Policy scenario is not very enthusiastic. See the way the government treated Reliance over D6 oil and is now handling Cairn-Vedanta deal. There is a threat dished out to captive coal mines. Environmental and local issues and land politics are weighing heavy on natural resource based industries. Outsourcing ban in the US might prompt the stressed European economies also to do the same and it will hurt IT and services sectors badly. For no good reason, the government has cancelled L&T shipping foray. The feelers are that the domestic private sector’s role in nuclear energy will be kept low. Many more such examples show government’s unclear policy stand and confusion, and also unfavourable environment for industries.

Internationally, US and European economies are strutting along with government support and the green shoots are few and far away. Governments and private sector have become very cautious and risk-averse.

A lot of foreign money is flowing into India, and this is not always a good thing. Most of this inflow is hot money on which you cannot depend for economic growth. Highly suspect also for volatility in stock markets.

So, at macro level, we do not see reason to rejoice too much. Investors need to be cautious and reduce their investments whenever their specific stocks seem to be fully priced. The market will sure give an opportunity to invest at lower rates in very near future.

*: by friend K. Kaura, an investor who has made good money on the bourses.

guest chat: food security

This chat item has been contributed by friend Soumitra Bose* I am obliged, more so because this blog is hardly visible right now.

I once asked a journalist friend whether the much touted Food Security Bill would be brought in parliament in the budget session. At that time, budget session was two months away. “In no way,” he replied. “There are much more important things to take care.”

“But it is Sonia’s pet project and the government has been saying…”

The friend laughed. I could not understand how an issue as important as food security, for which the government had shown quite some interest and which was Congress’s poll promise, could be relegated to the backseat. Economic journalists had been writing, some quoting sources, that a bill was imminent.

“They need to settle this foodgrain production thing,” I tried to give a reason to support him. At that time, rotting of foodgrains was not in the news. The only problem was decline in foodgrain production due to last year’s drought.

“Do you think, that is a problem?” He asked.

I squinted my eyes and let lines grow on my forehead, but no other reason came to mind. I am an economist by profession, not a political analyst. Economists seldom read things other than economics.

“I will tell you later. Let the session begin.”

We met only a few days back. In the mean time, many things have happened . Mamta’s rally and talks, Kashmir problem, GST talks, Commonwealth corruption issue, etc. have taken valuable time of the earlier and this parliament session. Rotting of foodgrains was discussed everywhere, but there was hardly any talk of the food security bill. Now the Supreme Court has said that rotting of foodgrains is a crime and instead of letting the grain rot, government should give it free to the poor. Sharad Pawar, the ICC chairman more than agriculture minister, has said that it is not possible to give grain free to the poor. But, for once, he is right. It can be given with some sort of subsidy but not free. The Supreme Court too had not said this thing as a direction but to show their dismay at the food management by the government. We feel that if poor people are given more subsidised food, they get to store more food. This gives them food security and the entire problem of storage vanishes. That will also rein the prices in a much better way than trying open market sale and so many other mechanisms none of which seem to be working.

In fact, what Shard bhai says and what economists are saying is what the food security bill is meant to achieve, but where has the bill and NAC people gone?

I asked that friend now.

“It will come to discussion table now. The food ministry has already prepared its draft. GOM has done its job. NAC will start discussion on it now and things will roll.”

“You proved right. It was delayed, but why?”

“Look at the election calendar, dear,” the friend said.

I know he will prove right this time also. We will soon have our food security bill. The discussions will start just after the parliament session ends in a few days, I bet.

*Freelance contributor to many newspapers

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"... increase the storage facility by constructing godowns in every district. But not a single grain of food should be wasted. If due to lack of storage facility food grains are rotting and getting wasted, then distribute it free to those hungry..." Supreme Court bench in an order on 12th August 2010