Tax payer's money squandered

Governments worldover have displayed a natural inclination to squander the hard earned tax money - hard earned both from the point of view of the tax payer, and from the point of view of the tax collector.

And the Indian government is not far behind. Let us take a look at some of the avenues of expenditure of the GoI. And compare it with the taxes garnered.

Credits and loans are usually not made available to the needy; including the priority lending that banks have to mandatorily comply with. This leaves the farmers and artisans to no alternative but to seek loans from the private money lenders. The lending rate is typically in the range of 3 to 4.5% per month. A good season means the borrowers are able to manage payment of interest and a portion of the principal. A bad season on the other hand means forfeiting the capital asset that have been mortgaged for the loan. Which leaves the borrowers with no alternative but to migrate to the urban cities seeking employemtn as daily wage earners. When this bad time prolongs, many of the unfortunate borrowers resort to taking the extreme step of giving up their lives. The government then steps in magnanimously to announce a one time write off of these loans (Rs 60,000 crores). What for now after so many lives have been lost, and after so many of the poor borrowers have been brought to the streets? And who does it help? Is'nt the government covertly supporting the system of the greedy of private money lenders? And from where does the government get this money? I also wonder how the government is going to manage this operationally. Who is authorized to set it up? How does one identify those who need the help? How is this money to be transferred? Imagine setting up task forces all over the country to run this project!!

The second point I want to make here is on the current expenses of the departments of the Government of India. The netas as well as the babus are known for indiscriminate misuse of public funds that are at their disposal. The fleet of cars, the armies of secretaries, servants, palatial houses, and ofcourse the team of domestic helps at home.
Travel allowances of the elected representatives to attend the Houses when in session, the cost of running & maintaining these Houses etc are a second kind of expenses.
Add to all this the amount of subsidies enjoyed by them in terms of 0% interest loans, all this must sum upto atleast 1% of the GDP. We can try a thumb rule here: there are 540 elected representatives to the Parliament. If each spends 20 lakhs per annum, then it amounts to approximately 100 crore rupees. This isnt a small amount; and the questions ofcourse is where does all this money come from?
Well, I am not adding here the salaries, which is the legitimate pay for work. And neither am I including the money allocated under the MPLADs scheme at their disposal.

The third point is the investment in Education. What has each MLA or MP contributed towards bettering education of masses within each of his/her own constituency? It is more than 60 years since we achieved independence. The population has risen by more than 100% (it has more than doubled), if we take the population of India in 1947 as the basis for this computation. While literacy rates are about 61%, this population growth has ensured India has more illiterate people now, than the population in 1947.
Sarva shiksha abhiyan was introduced by the Government only in 2001 or so. This was to promote education amongst childern in the age group 6-14. Statistics reveal an enrollment of 80% (estimated population is 215 million in this age group), but a dropout of close to 60% in the first year itself. The dropout was further in the second and third years.
Additionally, if one reads the expenditure budget of the Government of India for 2007-08, there is no capital investment for education and literacy, plan or non-plan. Infact nothing for the last three years. And revenue expenses have been to the tune of 12,000 crore rupees. There has been no investment for the long run. Infact the CAG report has pulled up the Ministry of HRD for not acting on investments as per plan.
Every government has paid lipservice in this regard. And Prime Ministers have also indicated pride in their individual growth - moving on villages where they grew up without any basic facility including water or toilets, leave alone electricity and roads, to New Delhi! But nothing has been done. There should be a movement in this regard, and not some shoddy work here and there.

For 2007-08 the GoI collected approximately 3,00,000 crore rupees as taxes - corporate, income, indirect etc.
The one time loan waiver of 60,000 crore rupees is 20% of the tax revenue.
Revenue expenses for education is 4% of the tax revenue.
1% of the GDP of India is approximately 100 crore rupees. This is 0.03% of the tax revenue.

These add upto a quarter of the tax revenues. To this if one adds another scheme that has been a gross failure due to a lack of implementation know-how and a heart - the NREGS, it will be close to 30% of the tax revenue.

WHat is to be done? Can we get tough with our elected representatives? Or should we just take it as it comes!!