BPL –MSA Rekha
Recently, my, self- assumed prowess in Macro economics was put to severe test by a kid – the daughter of our maid -servant doing a degree course in economics. She was probably doing a project work and was collecting data and views. She wanted to know my views on BPL and the amount fixed by Shri M.S.Ahluwalia to determine the BPL. Being an Engineer by qualification I knew I was in for some trouble expressing my views. The conversation/data collection went on the following lines:
“Uncle, what do you think of BPL?”
The BPL I knew was British Physical Laboratories now rechristened BPL India. Then I realised she was not exposed to BPL. Though BPL deals in many products the present generation knows only about Korean products. Then the men with the ‘Blue turbans’ flashed in my mind. I asked, “Oh, below poverty line, what about that?”
“First they fixed it at Rs32 per day and later revised it to Rs28- for Urban area, do you agree with that?”
“Agree with what the figure or lowering?”
“Both”
The last I had heard of Mr.Keynes was in 1974 when I was browsing through my wife’s text book in 1974 as, I waited for her to reach home from college. She was doing her BA in Economics. As I was musing, the girl’s voice brought me back. She continued, “Uncle, is it practically possible for anyone to live in Rs32 per day even in Rural area leave alone Rs28 in urban area?”
Though my wife was doing the function of purchasing the grocery, I was the one who paid for the milk coupons every month. That knowledge came in handy. Immediately I exclaimed, “Absurd. That is the cost of one litre of milk. What about fuel, the grocery, electricity, medical, and many other expenses?”
When I was in second year Engineering we were doing machine design and one of my batch mates had worked out the design of a gear wheel. Those days we had just graduated from calculation with log tables to Slide Rule. Calculators came into existence in the late ‘70s. We had to be careful while using the Slide rule especially for extraction of cube roots etc. Due to carelessness my batch mate arrived at a design of a gear wheel with 1.2Metre diameter and the number of teeth was TWO! We did not realize the mistake until we sat down to draw a gear wheel of 1.2M having two teeth. This Rs28 is as absurd.
Ashwini continued. “What is the importance of declaring such figures?”
Not being an economist I didn’t have an answer. But I cooked up one. “By showing low figures they want to attract foreign tourists. All hippies can come here in Bermudas and lie all over the place like litter. The real expenses are not accounted for. They are like fine prints in any invoice, contracts, Insurance policies, and stuff like that”. She seemed to believe me. She was noting down vigorously in her pocket book.
I continued like an all knowing expert like Vinod Sharma – you know the guy who features in TimesNow newshour debates.”People will have faith in government that cost of living in Bharat is ridiculously low and that people would not mind accommodating many refugees from across the borders at the expense of the common man. Well for the government it is vote bank”
“Mmmmm I get it”
Aswini: “What are the other merits of low MSA Rekha.” The kid was smart. She was catching up fast.
“You know Ashwini, BPL people are real seculars. They don’t differentiate between various religious places of worship. They go to all of them for begging. You have separate queues for BPL group. Show photographs and enjoy tax waivers, concessions and bring in more money as NGOs and you don’t have to distribute it to only BPL. Other religious houses can identify targets for potential conversions.”
Ash: “What else can be done for BPL?”
“We can have special Sonia Gandhi Tandrusti Yojana for BPL”
“What’s that?”
“Special wards in Five Star hospitals for BPL”
I found I was showing my wisdom at every step. My self-esteem had sky rocketed.
Ash: “How do you identify BPL?”
“Aha I knew you would ask that. There is Diggy Raja side income yojana for legislators. Legislator and only a legislator can certify a BPL eligibility person in his ward/constituency. He can charge 25 days BPL rates as the fee for such certificates. You see this is like Man power consultancy. You can fix one month’s wages. But being a public servant it is limited to 25days aggregate value.”
Ash: “Any other add-ons?”
“We can conduct seminars to improve the lot of BPL. Prof Arindam Choudhary , Swaminathan A Aiyar, etal can help in it. We can have farms growing soya beans to enable BPL to live within the means. Excess production can be exported. We have to set up a committee (read lobbyists) comprising Niira Radia, BDutt, ARaja, PChidambaram to lobby for a Nobel Prize for Sonia Gandhi for assigning this BPL fixation job to MrMSAhluwalia. Simply brilliant. You see Ashwini there will always be some bad side effects to every scheme. There will be some scams to the tune of crore of crore rupees. So media will have debates with Vinod Sharma, Vinod Mehta, Arnab Goswami, Renuka Choudhry,Team Anna members discussing the issue threadbare and taking positions because the nation wants to know and give solutions which will never be implemented.”
I continued,” Last but not the least, our democracy is based on Westminster system where we have two legislative houses –The houses of commons and Lords- Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. With this concept of BPL we will have Bhikhari Sabha with separate members. The representatives will only be from BPL fraternity and they will outnumber the parliamentarians’ strength by five times. There will be new parties contesting with election symbols like begging bowl, mended dhotis, lungis, burqas, coats etc.”
I was proud of myself when Ashwini looked at me with adoring eyes and thanked me profusely for my brilliant discourse on BPL and left. I think I owe it to Montek.
Jai Bharat
