My words are addressed to the ministry of finance.
I am neither an economist like Adam Smith or John Maynard Keynes nor a visionary like Dr Manmohan Singh or Prof. C. Rangarajan with whom you possibly could have had an eloquent conversation about reformist agenda. I don’t understand balance of payment, neither I know the rigidity, shrinking and expansion of economy, statement of loss and profit, liability and assets are all Greek to me. Since I graduated as a student of science, the certificate of the degree which I had to earn after opting for education loan from a bank on the condition that after two years of my completion of degree I have to repay it and they will also charge me with interest after that. Possibly bank thinks two years after the day of graduation is enough time to get a job. Even if I get a job, I may not be able to eke out a living. I can’t address any medical emergency. I have to sell land, where from will I repay the loan. Idea was to start a business after taking loan from the bank so that I could repay educational loan which is breaking my back since five years. I don’t have any property to mortgage for that also I have already spent thirty years in graduating and starting a business is difficult at this age and needs capital, which if I had, I will not have opted to be a government servant. Rather I would have become an employer. Irony is that those feudal lords who had the capital to start industry and firms that could have given employment to thousands, opted for chairmanship and ministries getting salaries from the tax payers money. Jammu Kashmir has 4.8 lakh (83000 in JK police) government employees to serve the population of 1.25 crore ( 2011 Census) which means a government servant to 26.04 souls which is a number higher than many Indian states due to lack of private sector in Jammu and Kashmir but ratio is marginally low compared to Europe and America. But what has state done over decades to improve private sector? Why you want to throw baby with the bathwater?
Your good self suggests educated unemployed youth to venture ways out of state. If they were in a position they won’t ask a minster for advice. You say why people apply for jobs under SRO 202 when they don’t want to serve on peanuts. We saw in past the then CM Omer Abdullah rolling back unwelcome job policy. We saw your goodself restructuring the state GST bill, we saw Amnesty given to stone pelters who were dubbed as over ground workers. We welcome the jobs given to pellet victims. This only happens in a democracy where we agree to disagree on vital sensitive issues. So they applied with the hope that think tanks will again join heads and address the lacunas of the policy and amend it to make it palatable to starving masses who took the rotten food in toxic plates with the hope that antidote will be served to cure indigestion. This cabinet doesn’t seem to be on same page regarding the policy because Honorable Education minster citing cabinet decision announced that lectures of school education will get full salary but four months later GAD fails to issue order in this regard citing objections from finance department. You quote Dr Manmohan singh, “Money doesn’t grow on trees” I second it too. My humble request to your goodself is that please serve a sapling or borrow us a bud of these special trees which grows money on special branches for MLAs and MLCs. We too want it in our orchard. Your Mini Plenty has enough for some and nothing for others. Despite his extraordinary statesmanship you may not agree that our Ex CM died a poor man despite his great service to bridge Delhi with JK. While as Dr. YSR Reddy and Jayaram Jayalalitha died champions being in the office. This is all because of their people friendly policies, they actually meant healing the hurt. “Well done” is always better than “Well said”. Given your super precious time and king size persona I don’t expect you to reply and even if you will I won’t feel hurt or insulted because your answers will be illuminate the doubtful and confused minds. My simple question is. If all are equal, why (in Orwellian expression) some are more equal than others.
(Showket Akhoon is a Ph.D Research Scholar from the Department of Chemistry, University of Kashmir)