Crony Capitalism
is a system which shows a close nexus between the government and capitalism.
The businessmen and government people are hand in gloves in all their business
dealings. Crony capitalism leads to huge losses to the government exchequer and
a t the same time leads to distrust in the society. Incidences of crime, loot
and unruly behaviour increase in the society. The entire law and order
situation gets disrupted. Capital formation in the economy is at the lowest
point. On the other hand the divide between the rich and poor becomes too big
to cut the divide. Individuals become money minting institutions and there is
parallel administration running in the society.
Madhya Pradesh in
the last eight years have seen the rise in crony capitalism. The government is
being run by businessmen who dictate the terms. Recent income tax raids on the
premises of two established businessmen of the state- Dilip Suryawanshi and
Surendra Sharma has brought this nexus out in the open. The raids have shown
that one of them who is in the construction business got all the contracts to
build roads and other infrastructure of the state. The second is a teacher turned
businessman who has mines in the state where illegal mining is carried out
which results to huge losses to the exchequer. In the past 5-6 years the
personal wealth of these two gentlemen have gone up in multiple of 100 to 110
times whereas the per capita income of the state is still one of the lowest in
the country.
The state of
affairs in Madhya Pradesh is such that in the past couple of years, the Income
Tax department has carried out raids on number of clerical staff of various
government departments where it has been revealed that each of them had assets
worth crores of rupees which was unaccounted for. Two IAS officers who happen
to be a couple were raided upon and it was a revelation for the masses that how
the rot has penetrated in the system when the cash, property and other assets
were taken stock of. Another example that comes to mind is the recent raid on
two officials of medical department where one of them had AC equipped kennel
for his pet dogs. While the raids were being conducted, the wife of one of the
official went on the camera saying that the minister should also be caught who
took one crore from them every month.
All these examples
reveal the type of relationship that our businessmen enjoy with the ministers
and government officials of the state. A very important point here is that does
this nexus only leads to corruption, loss to the government treasury or is
there more to this relationship? Yes this leads to corruption and financial
loss to the state. But the greater loss is to the society at large. When there
are large number of dummy institutions, employment rate goes down. Secondly big
business houses either are not ready to invest in the state or look for
impractical sops from the government. Capital formation does not take place and
therefore the economic growth is stalled.
Agriculture is the
backbone of Madhya Pradesh economy which has been grossly neglected by the
state. The potential areas have been thwarted and the linkages that could
easily been developed between agriculture and industry has not been developed.
Bank credit to this sector is the least. Farmers are not being given the
advantage of the various central government programs. On the other hand the
ministers while declaring their income and wealth show agriculture as the
biggest source as it is non taxable.
There are 15 more
months of the present BJP government till the next elections take place. There
will be many more programs declared by the Chief Minister which will lead to
many more scams and loots. As the next year will be an election year crony
capitalism will be seen at its height.
There is an urgent
need for a serious analysis of the state economy and to thwart crony
capitalism. Our state has the potential to become a leading state of the
country only if reins are in the right hands and the needs of the common man
are not so openly neglected.
Dr.Tanima
Dutta
