T N Ninan: Why it won't work

There has been no denial from the BJP, so there must be truth to the reports that Rs 2.5 crore have been stolen from the party office. There has been no police complaint either, which suggests that this may have been unaccounted money that the party does not want to talk about (bear in mind the Tehelka tape of Bangaru Laxman accepting money).

In Auriya, an MLA belonging to the BSP has been arrested in connection with the killing of an engineer working in the state public works department, apparently because the engineer had not contributed to the fund-collection drive, ahead of Mayawati’s birthday when her party faithful make large donations to her. For the last tax assessment year, Mayawati paid advance tax of Rs 14 crore. She has also listed ownership of 72 properties and 54 bank accounts. She has sourced her wealth to gifts from the party faithful.

In Delhi, the High Court has pulled up the surface transport minister, T R Baalu, for changing the chairman of the supposedly autonomous National Highway Authority of India five times in two-and-a-half years. The case was filed by two companies that felt unfairly excluded from a highway contract. The government said it had no involvement in the matter, but NHAI pleaded in court that it acted under instructions from the ministry. In carefully couched terms, the High Court said that frequent change of chairman subverted “the concept of an independent authority and makes any chairman vulnerable to pulls and pressures”. You can read between the lines as well as I can. As it happens, the highway programme has made slow progress during Mr Baalu’s four-year tenure as surface transport minister, because for long stretches of time no projects were handed out.

It is not just the roads, but also the railways where senior public servants are chopped and changed. Rail Minister Lalu Prasad, for instance, wanted to acquire the right to transfer general managers of the zonal railways from one zone to another—a flexibility that so far has not existed. Officials in the PM’s office and in the Cabinet office struck it down. Not one to give up, Mr Prasad took it up with the Prime Minister, he got his permission, and now it is even more open season in the railways than was the case till now.

I don’t need to use the ‘C’ word. So what’s new, you might ask. Here’s what: in the extended debate on tackling the economic slowdown, one solution that has repeatedly been mentioned is increased spending on the infrastructure. But look at the institutions that are supposed to build the infrastructure, and it is obvious why this is not a solution. Those in public life have twisted the system into one that suits their purpose, not the public’s. The quality of governance has descended to levels where governments are simply unable to do what is required.

In New Delhi, pronouncements are made about more money being made available for the infrastructure sector. But at a CII meeting on the subject recently, the chairmen of the Punjab National Bank and of the India Infrastructure Finance Company declared that they had money to lend, and asked: Where are the projects? Suresh Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s economic advisory council, said the same thing earlier this week: when it comes to investing in infrastructure, the constraint is not money.

Is there a link between corruption and poor governance, and indeed the slow paralysis of government? You bet. Arun Shourie got it right when he said during his lunch with Business Standard recently that “growth is hiding the problem”. Now that rapid economic growth has gone, we are left staring at the problem.