Let them fly

It took the governments own to show up the gaping hypocrisy in its austerity drive. At a meeting of the Union cabinet Thursday,ministers asked questions about their newly-formatted travel and entertainment allowances. Their questions pertained to the governments order that,to show solidarity with the people of India suffering the effects of a drought economy,ministers must here on fly economy domestically and business class overseas. At his height,submitted Farooq Abdullah,folding himself into an economy-class seat would be difficult. Dayanidhi Maran contrasted these austerity measures with the entitlement of a few ministers to the expensive luxury of special aircraft. Sharad Pawar asked if the suggestion was that visiting delegations could not be hosted at five-star hotels. However,as even Congress ministers like Kamal Nath and Anand Sharma objected to the new measures,any rethink was ruled out.

The ministers should perhaps have been more straightforward in stating their objections,explaining that in actual economic terms these measures are meaningless. Nonetheless,their voice from within adds to the perception of the austerity drive as little more than a spectacle,a cloak made up of token measures to hide the inability to reform government to make it less flabby. It need not take a drought and the increasing fiscal deficit to alert the government to the urgency of cutting extraneous expenditure. Since the focus is on ministers and MPs expenditure,closing or scaling down obsolete ministries like,say,Iamp;B,or demanding a focus on the jaunts of parliamentary committees would bring economic benefits that are more significant and long-lasting. And even in boom-time,India cannot afford to postpone reform of its often mis-targeted and leaky subsidy regime.

This is not to say that ministerial solidarity with the aam aadmi should be churlishly rejected. On the contrary. But flying coach will not be a meaningful enough way to do that. The day we see our ministers,and other state beneficiaries,rejecting their privilege of toll-free travel thereby depriving the treasury of some revenue and standing in line with the rest of us for security checks,well be more comforted. As it stands,however,the governments austerity drive is made up of a dangerously self-perpetuating hypocrisy.