Budget 2008

Oh its that yearly tamasha called budget and lemme not be condemned of not participating in that, of all things, I don’t like to be accused of lacking humor..
Hey, firstly this is budget proposal..we donot know how much of it will pass thru..its a >1000 pages doc and within an hour we have so many “experts” opine on it! What more, have we ever compared the proposals of previous year and checked what happened to the various proposals..A few years back, being employed and hence with much time at my disposal, I had the gumption and patience to check a handful of promises/proposal of prev budget in the next budget..it was laughable..this reasoning by someone like me, who donot have the capacity to run even my home budget successfully for 1 week as per plan or need..and to see the multitude of experts voice so much animatedly is definetly a joke for me..accept, do u?
Except the small sops like tax cut etc esp the extension of limit for the salaried class, bcos I was there once, nothing attracts my attention..
That is till last year..Now if I were to think logically, I should say any one who earns anything more than a lakh shud better pay tax in a poor country like ours..but, a big but, if the govt really shows us the tax is being spent well.
Now there is something else I try and check..
Fertiliser Subsidy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh me god..what a farce and waste and to continue it for so long!
Last year it was 59,284 crores! Or to add to our national hobby of counting zeroes, here u go..count it yourself:
592840000000 rupees!
Who gets that? Or shud it be who enjoys that??
Not the farmers, dont kid me..its the fertilizer manufacturers who get that..for what?? For manufacturing and selling fertilizer at a lower price..
No, don’t fall laughing..there’s more..
So for a product that could cost some 10 they spike it to 100 and then ‘subsidise’ to 50 and get the other 50 from the govt! from the govt means who pays that?? You and me, sitting there happily smiling at that 4000 u benefit from that silly extension of the taxable limit..how nice, eh?
Next thing we shud know is how many of them share this?? Lets forget the politicos involved there and the fact that the ferti lobby will cry that they have not received the said amounts in last couple of years..hey that’s a free money, so who cares about the delay? A small check with our dear google will tell us how many are there.
So around 140 of them eating this big cake!
Coming back to the fertiliser subsidy its Rs.600000000000/- this year.. what a jump from a small 70 crores in 1976! A major part of this since last couple of years goes towards imported urea! Where as the best & natural source of urea, from man and other mammals, go waste. Here we have governments coming to the rescue of the fertiliser industrialists and increasing the subsidy year after yaer. The actual governance shud have been to utilize this urea available naturally which could have benefited the society with sensible sewage handling too. That’s a big topic for another day..
What instead if they stop the subsidy?? That’s showering goodness on us citizens..firstly the indirect bleed from our pocket is reduced (I say reduced bcos u will still pay for all those gimmicks like free TV, loan write offs, parliament running costs, Z+++ security, electricity stolen to enlighten all those huge posters & speaker setss all thru the etc) and the ferti industry will price it like other manufacturers.
So now the farmer will sit back and evaluate the price and if he really needs it..and then may be it may dawn on him that this input cost actually is dispensable and so may be we rid the next generations of some residue..as for now, in the immediate future we can prolly get to eat some farm products with less chemicals (ignoring the organic channel that we already have now)

or even better the govt can raise the buying price and keep the farmers happy and also count on the vote bank created thus.