Dividing the society is not good

While trying to promote the interests of a particular section of the society, governments, non-governmental organisations and international organisations like UN, are unknowingly creating a divide between
i.men and women
ii.young and old
iii.employers and employees,
iv.farmers and businessmen
v.producers and traders
vi.small land owners and large land owners
vii. rich and the poor
viii.forward communities and backward communities
ix. small industry and large industry
x.consumers and suppliers

The promotions which the governments etc. organisations tried, have mostly robbed the unity and happiness of the society to some extent. The unit of the society is family and not individuals. A family has men, women, old people and young people. So the family should not be divided along the lines of gender or age. A society needs farmers, businessmen, rich people, small industry, large industry, consumers, suppliers etc. and the interests of all the people should be promoted. It may be argued that poor people need protection and support whereas the rich do not need. Hence one has to divide the society into rich and poor people. But the rich people also need to become richer to provide jobs to larger number of people, to provide higher wages and benefits to existing employees etc.Producers need traders to distribute their products. Traders need producers to produce goods for them to distribute. Thus the people are inter dependent. They need each other. It is therefore necessary not to talk in terms of men, women, young, old, rich, poor etc.

Indian Railway Budget 2015-16- net income and expenditure remain same as previous year

Gross receipts of Indian Railways  estimated for 2015-16 at Rs.183578 crores is higher by only 15% than the Revised Estimates 2014-15.of Rs.159248 crores.Dearness Allowance of the employees during 2014-15 has increased about this much percentage. Materials cost has also gone up this percentage. Thus the net budget estimates 2015-16 of receipts is almost same as the Revised Estimates 2014-15. The receipts should have been aimed at least at Rs.200,000 crores. This could have been made possible if passenger fares have been increased by about 10% and the freight rates by higher percentage.The oil prices have come down but considering the large number of projects to be undertaken the receipts should have been aimed more.

Similarly Budget Estimates 2015-16 of expenditure is placed at Rs.174291 crores which is higher by only about 12% than the Revised Estimates 2014-15 at Rs.156172 crores, Discounting the inflation, there is practically no increase in expenditure  which means that from the earnings of the Railways there will be no developmental work.

The estimated increase in income over expenditure is about Rs.10000 crores which is very very low, considering the huge investments made by the government in the last over 150 crores.

Bihar,least developed major state

Among the major states, Bihar is the least developed state. The main problem is the excess population and high population growth rate. While population in the 0-14 years age group, developed states have only about 25% of the total population, in Bihar it is 35%. The active working age people are in the age group 15 to 59. In this age group, developed states have over 65% of the total population, while in Bihar it is only about 55%. Bihar should give high priority to population control. Otherwise it will be impossible for any administration to develop the economy.

If Bihar is to catch up with the rest of the states, it should make people work as much as possible. Since the number of workers is proportionately less in Bihar, as a short term measure, the employees should be asked to put in an extra hour work i.e. 9 hours a day against 8 hours in other states.

Work should be provided to all able bodied persons. Till adequate number of factories are established, the existing factories should be asked to work 3 shifts a day. Government should establish factories and transfer ownership to the industrialists later.

Sale of shares to public- strike by employees of NLC

Government of India, the owners of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC), holding over 90% of the shares of the company have decided to sell 5% of the shares to the public, to comply with the guidelines of Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI). Thereafter at the request of the Tamilnadu Govt. central govt have agreed to sell the shares to an undertaking of Tamilnadu govt. The employees of NLC have gone on an indefinite strike demanding the owners not to sell the shares.

The question now is whether the employees have or can be given the right to force the owners to do what they want when the matter does not relate to their working conditions or salaries etc. It is not for the employees to talk of the pros and cons of the actions of the management. Their only concern should be their working conditions, salaries etc. Of course political parties and the public have right to organize agitations etc. against government move. Employees as part of the public can join these agitations but should not be allowed to continue the strike

Price rise in India

Both the rightist and leftist political parties blame the central government of India for the price rise. Almost all the political parties continuously demand increase in wages of all workers and employees-agricultural workers, textile workers, factory workers, bank employees, government employees, public sector industrial workers etc. and the wages and salaries keep increasing. Not only this, the political parties also demand more regulations on working hours-shorter work time. This means lower production. When production/productivity is low and wages keep increasing, it is natural for prices to keep going up. The prices would have gone up, whichever party had been in power.

 20-30 years ago, one should have been seriously concerned about sufferings of unemployed and under employed people consequent on price rise. But now, the issue before the country is not unemployment or under employment but of shortage or acute shortage of labour on all fronts- agriculture, plantation, industry, construction, service sector, trade, petty business, domestic work etc. The labour shortage is felt both in urban and rural areas. If the employment exchanges show increasing number of registrations, it is only due to unwillingness of people to take up jobs which do not require their educational qualification. If prices increase, people can think of taking up available jobs, working over time, doing two jobs (one full time work for 6 hours and one part time work for 2-3 hours. Agricultural workers and others in rural areas work only for 5-6 hours). This will incidentally minimize the labour shortage.

Longevity has gone up. Pensioners are getting pension for longer period now than before. One way of curtailing price rise will be to increase the age of retirement by about 5 years thereby increasing the availability of workforce.

School education could be curtailed by 1-2 years and university education by six months-one year. This will make available more number of people for work which will increase production.

In this connection, it may be relevant to mention that the government while prescribing minimum wages for workers in particular sectors should fix wages per hour instead of per day.