In our country, our current government does not seem to believe in Ready, Aim, Fire strategy.
It fires before taking aim or getting ready. Its decisions act as sledgehammers.
This has been the case since this present government first came to power in 2014. Take the example of Demonetization. It was a decision taken without any preparation leading to tremendous hardship all across the country and in hindsight it is now clear that it did not fulfill any of the stated objectives of the exercise.
In another sudden decision, the Government imposed an immediate ban on import of laptops, tablets, desktop computers and servers and made it compulsory for importers to get a license to import these items. The reason given for this were two fold, one was to stop the growing trade deficit with China (as most of these items originate in China) which has crossed 100 Billion USD and other was to encourage local production. The fact is that it is impossible to create factories that start producing high tech computers overnight. A return to license regime would mean increase in corruption as importers would be at the mercy of bureaucrats who sanction these licenses.
Similarly, in another knee jerk reaction, Government has imposed a 40% export duty on onions. The reason given for this is that there is not enough production in India and exporting onions would lead to a rise in prices and affect the inflation figure. This too was done without giving any time and on immediate basis. Trucks carrying onions to neighboring countries are stranded at the borders because of this sudden export duty hike with immediate effect. Indian onions have become non competitive in these markets due to this export duty.
The real reason for the export duty is that the government faces crucial elections in four states and there is a general election coming up in 2024 and onions have made many a previous government cry due to electoral losses that took place due to high onion prices. This government does not want to take any chances.
The real reason is thus self-preservation rather than any concern for domestic consumers or producers. India exported 25.25 Million Tonnes of onions last year. The sudden imposition of export duty will lead to dampening of prices in local markets and it will render the export consignments waste as importers may decide not to off take the produce that has come to their borders leading to its rotting.
If only we had a government that was more sensitive to its masses than its own electoral survival….
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