Restraint, not austerity

Any spending of public money must meet the essentiality test

Pranab Mukherjee should be complimented for emphasising the need for restraint while ministers spend public money, and indeed even their own money. Some of his colleagues have gone overboard and promised to travel in the cargo hold, while others have argued that such “austerity” (as if flying in an aircraft is an austere activity) does not achieve much economy in total government expenditure. Of course, but what about the message that goes out to citizens? Yet others argue that more money will be saved by addressing inefficiency and corruption. Perhaps, but why does that have to be a choice? These reactions quite simply miss the point.

When ordinary members of Parliament have been given the right to travel by executive class on even the shortest of flights, when officials travelling overseas on duty are entitled to travel first class (and to get the government to pay full fare so that they can take a companion free, instead of taking a discounted fare for one person), Mr Mukherjee has done well to cry a halt. But he has to take this to its logical conclusion. For instance, why does a cabinet minister need 13 personal staff? And a minister of state need eight such worthies? Why indeed do ministers (including many who claim to be socialist) and senior officials need to live in government houses built on two- and five-acre lots (when the urban land ceiling law that they passed permitted only 500 sq m)? The time has come to look at the broader set of issues connected with spending public money, and to bring some rationality to the discussion. Bear in mind that the ambassadors of some of the richest countries are obliged to travel economy class on even long-distance flights, and that parliamentarians and even cabinet ministers are expected to find their own lodgings.

This is not to ask that people follow the standards set by Mahatma Gandhi. Nor is it an argument for the bogus simplicity that makes politicians wear expensive khadi, merely because that is “Gandhian”. This is also not to say that public servants, both officials and ministers, be paid a pittance in the name of a false socialism that has merely encouraged hypocrisy and corruption. There is a perfectly good case for paying enough to make people with competence and integrity feel that a career in public service is worthwhile. That does not run counter to the need for restraint in personal spending and living, especially in a poor country where the legitimacy of the elite depends on the signals that go to the rest. Remember that personal wealth accumulation became much more acceptable in the country only when the business world could hold up the examples of Azim Premji and NR Narayana Murthy, neither of whom lives in a 27-storey home that is said to be among the world’s costliest.