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Journalism of Courage
October, 4: One sure way of calling a halt to reckless spending in Union government departments is for the Prime Minister to make an example of one of his spendthrift ministerial colleagues by relieving him of his duties. Cold reason and exhortation followed by plaintive cries from the Finance Ministry have not worked. Drastic measures must be considered. The candidate who pretty much selects himself for sacrifice at the altar of fiscal rectitude is Ram Vilas Paswan. The remedies he proposes for the over strained Railway budget become more desperate by the day. Deferred payment of dividends of Rs 1600 crore to the Union exchequer is the latest of them. Before that he tried getting hold of pension and depreciation funds and scrapping plans for track renewal and new wagons and bogeys. As a last resort, he looks for support from the Cabinet for fare and freight hikes. The burden of the enhanced railway employees’ wage bill and his other irresponsible largesse is obviously unbearable. There are no two ways about it: the economy and railway system will eventually have to carry it. It is only a question of how best to distribute the pain.
But should Paswan himself go scot free? Is there no political price to pay for driving the Railways and the government into the red in order to cultivate a personal following? Certainly there are several other culpable departments. It will be said Paswan was only one of a whole group of ministers who caved in to the demands of government employees. It can be argued that the Railways have traditionally been big spenders and there is little any minister can do about it. Finally, following the Howrah Express disaster and transfer of senior officials, it is probable that disgruntled elements are making it their business to put the Minister in a bad light. But after all this is conceded, there are still Paswan’s follies and they are large, consistent and very harmful.
From the word go and long before overspending became the UF hallmark, when Paswan made contract labour permanent and began a zonal office at Hajipur in his home constituency, he showed complete indifference to anything like a common economic programme or collective responsibility. Personal political gain comes before all else. His judgment in departmental matters is, consequently, often peculiar, to say the least. He was praised for using the stick to get accountability from senior officials on safety issues, but the carrots went for relatively trivial things such as personal attention from his staff. His response to a series of rail mishaps has been limited to doling out compensation, not getting to grips with the causes. He has shown a preference for new projects at the expense of unglamorous railway repair work. At the bottom of all this is an attitude of mind which the UF cannot afford to encourage any longer. Politicians like Paswan seem to believe government must work for some of the people all the time, not from any genuine concern for deprived sections of society but because it is the quick way to consolidate themselves, never mind what it costs the country.
