Getting It Right In The National Horse Race

It is easy to get carried away with the recent impressive string of its rate. But that is too short a period for assessment, especially for a palfrey that has run for the last 50 years. Its average speed has been 3.5 to 4 per cent over the last five decades. It can be argued that all that is history. It has a new trainer since 1991 and is being powered by recipe of globalisation. Also, with three seven pluses in a row, it is a trifle short of breath. More important, of late the horse has been uncertain about who its jockey is.

 

The stakes in the race are high. Indeed, very high. First, nothing less than the nations prosperity depends on it. At the steed gallops, the per capita income of the masses moves up. Second, the process of liberalisation is at stake. Not just for India but all around the globe, as the new trainer of our old steed, the international mounts foreman (popularly known as the IMF) will find it hard to justify his training methods to all the horse racing nations of the world.

The punter on the GDP are as illustrious a lot as the horse. Among the many pedigreed ones is the RBI, the finance ministry, and the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO). The less pedigreed ones include the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

Even though professional punters, they prefer the totalisor as it offers them more of a choice than a bet with the bookmaker. It presents them with a host of different ways in which they can invest their credibility, with the hope of gaining greater acceptability in the betting circles of policy making.

Traditionally, the CSO is the first off the blocks. It makes an advance estimate. This is not to be confused with a forecast. In a forecast, the horses that you nominate to finish first and second must do so in that order. The CSOs advance estimates are akin to a quinella in the betting rules. A quinella means that you have to nominate the horses that finish first and second, irrespective of the order. Thus, when the CSO provides a band say, 5 to 6 per cent of the rate that GDP will record, it is betting a quinella.

Contrary to the CSO, the RBI, is at its conservative best and asks for a place ticket. When you ask for a place ticket on any designated in a race, then the horse has to finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. Operationally, it gives it the much needed flexibility of changing its mind.

The finance ministry as it is never knows its mind and always insists on a tanala box. This is on the same principles as the quinella, but here one has to nominate the first three horses in a race not necessarily in the correct order as long as all the three horses finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. So anything from 4 to 7 per cent goes.

Here are some tips for the betting on the GDP performance in 1998-99: Bet only if you know well in advance who the jockey is. Increase your stakes in proportion to his proximity and rapport with the trainer, IMF. The odds will be against you if the jockey is new, as he is bound to waste time in familiarising himself with the setup. You can up your stakes if the jockey has watched the recipe of globalisation being formulated. You will hit the jackpot if the man knows our steed well enough to modify the diet according to his tastes and needs. And it will be a treble if he has asked for a place ticket in an earlier round!