American Independence and India

It is always lovely to be in USA and work...

But who is celebrating when economy is in downturn?

Pathetic.

Waster of monies.

This is a wasted effort of my 200th post.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to one an all! May 2010 bring the brightest in you!

Indians Where is your Rs. 51259.85 crores gone

What is the Govt. doing with all our money ?

According to the Comptroller & Auditor Generals report on their website http://www.cag.gov.in/, Chapter 2 Comments on Accounts, the following glaring findings are documented

Section 2.2 Unascertainable unspent balances in the accounts of Implementing agencies

For the year 2007-08 , the Union Govt. made a provision for transfer of central plan assistance of Rs. 51259.85 crore directly to state/district level autonomous bodies, authorities societies etc for implementation of centrally sponsored schemes. These have not been spent fully by the implementing agencies and lie unspent in their accounts.

The report clearly say "the aggregate amount of unspent balances in the accounts of the implementing agencies kept outside Govt. accounts is not readily ascertainable. The Govt. expenditure as reflected in the accounts to that extent is therefore overstated"

Where is this Rs. 51259.85 crore gone ????

Section 2.3. Opaqueness in Govt. accounts

Scrutiny of Union Govt. Finance accounts 2007-08 disclosed the Rs. 20273.52 crore under 28 major heads of accounts was classified under minor head '800-other expenditure' in the accounts constituting more than 50 % of the total expenditure under respective major heads.

This indicates a high degree of opaqueness in the accounts, the report says. It also says that the existing structure of the Govt. accounts does not truly reflect the current activities of the Govt. in these Ministries /Depts.

What all is the Govt. hiding from its people ???
What is it really doing with the tax payers money ???

Section 2.4 Understatement of Balances under Universal Service Obligation Fund

The USO fund was set up in April 2002 for achieving universal service objectives of increasing tele density in rural and remote areas. The resources for this are raised through universal access levy which is payable by all telecom operators under various licences

A total Universal service levy of Rs. 20404.44 crore was collected during 2002-03 to 2007-08 by the DoT but a disbursement of only Rs. 6371.44 crore was made from the USO fund. Thus the closing balance of the fund on 31st March 2008 should be Rs. 14099 crore as against the NIL balance shown under that head !!!! The report says that "closing balance of the USO fund as on 31st March 2008 was therefore understated by Rs. 14033 crore "

hmm....

The report also says that this matter was presented to the parliament but no action has been taken

Where has this Rs. 14033 crore gone ???

Section 2.5 Overstatement of capital expenditure

The Govt. transferred Rs. 6500 crore in 2006-07 and Rs. 6000 crore in 2007-08 to the Social and Infrastructure Development fund (SIDF) for initiatives like upgradation of industrial training institutes, training of farmers etc. Thus entire amount was booked as capital expenditure in the accounts of these 2 years

The report says that examination of the expenditure of Rs. 3447.75 crore incurred during 2007-08 disclosed that Rs. 1586.75 crore was of revenue nature. It says that capital expenditure in the Consolidated Fund of India 2006-07 was thus overstated to the extent of at least Rs. 1586.75 crore. For 2007-08 capital expenditure of Rs. 6000 crore is overstated

This means that the Govt. is fooling us by telling us that they are spending our money on development where as they are really spending it on something else. Where has this money gone ?

Elections and India

Now there is a chance for these Politicians to redeem themselves. How will the business react? What would be the stock market reactions? Now with a huge deficit, and no more sops to be announced in Petrol or Excise duties and a falling rupee, a real strong government is needed.

Elections have been announced for the Indian Parliament, from April 16th to May 13th, and results to be declared on May 16th (Saturday, Vaishak month beginning)... Parliament will convene on June 1st and the biz will start on June 2nd. The new full budget would be unveiled within a month, unless the new finance minister is going to Holiday in the USA for the July 4th...

Let us look at the dates of elections.

There are 5 phases (inclusive April 22nd for Manipur).

April 16 (Thursday)
April 23 (Thursday)
April 30 (Thursday)
May 7 (Thursday)
May 13 (Thursday)

Note the very good planning by CEC Mr N Gopalswami. Excellent, way, such that the electiosn are conducted on a working day, such that people are around in their domicile to vote (741 million voters, next to China) if not weekends would draw less crowds.

The voting begins at 7 AM and ends at 5 PM. I hope my employer gives me enough time in the morning or let me go out early to vote.

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Now let us look at UPA, which still runs strong with a new found partner SP. Score 276 / 543. Will they retain it? (now that TMC has come in, add another 15 more in WB)

NDA with RLD (Ajit Singh) might garner 200 based on the linguistic, religion, casteist votebanks.

The third front with CPI, CPM, ADMK, TDP and others (JDS, et al) might garner about 65.

It will be interesting to note, who would win, or if hung parliament, whether Third Front would emerge to run again?