Letters: Reducing fiscal burden

With reference to A K Bhattacharya's article, "No escape from policy action" (November 25), I support 100 per cent his five reasons why a financial burden of Rs 1 lakh crore will not create fiscal havoc. I want to add one more reason.

Of the Rs 1 lakh crore, the government would get back Rs 20,000 crore as income tax. The average collection rate for the marginal increase in income would be 20 per cent, with no exemption accruing as it would already have been availed of. We have to consider that this marginal increase would bring a large number of people to the higher scale of 30 per cent. So the average collection rate would be more than the present one, all government officers taken together. The net burden thus would only be Rs 80,000 crore.

Now, regarding the "freeze on fresh recruitment at the lower levels of bureaucracy" that the writer has written about but not elaborated, let me say that there is a lot of scope for saving money from this freeze and also from abolishing superfluous senior posts created in the last 10 years. Several posts of ombudsman have been described as "most well-paid unemployed" by a present incumbent off the record. The lure of post-retirement bonanzas compromises the morale of high-ranking officials before their retirement. Substantial saving can be done with proper rationalisation of resources. This will reduce the fiscal burden.

Sukumar Mukhopadhyay New Delhi

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