- Sep 13, 2016
- 547
- -10
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Isn’t it time the South received it's due?
After all, 20% of the population contributes a full 30% of India's tax revenues. This is the money that runs the country.
The South also delivers a fourth of India's GDP. It is not only an economic bellwether with low unemployment, a high rate of industrialisation and a per capita GDP that is over double that of the Hindi belt, it is also leaps ahead on human development and social indicators.
Child development indices are double to 7 times higher than the Hindi states, literacy rates tend towards an average of 80% with a 10-point difference against the North, and accessibility to health and hygiene facilities is radically better.
The gulf in human development is so stark that while fertility rates in the South are closer to that of Western Europe, much of the North is still getting their act together on basic issues like birthing babies without losing mothers.
The bottom line is that the development politics of the South has made it economically comparable to Hong Kong, while the atavistic politics of the North has dropped it far down the scales in the last six decades.
Like a Shakespearean drama though, the heroes with higher state GDP per capita, that is, Net State GDP per person, receive a lower devolution from centre to state, of state revenues. The South is effectively slammed for having scaled up its per capita incomes to the top 10 in India and scaled down poverty to half that of the rest of India
A measly fifth of the population sponsors India's tax revenues to the tune of a third of the total, and in return, the five Deccan states get a paltry 18% of funds allocated back from the centre.
Source: Business Standard
The state allocations speak to the quantum of skew. While Tamil Nadu gets about 40 paise for every rupee it generates for the centre, Uttar Pradesh fattens itself on Rs 1.8 per rupee it generates. It should be remembered that Uttar Pradesh had a distinct economic and social advantage over the southern states coming out of British rule, which it has simply squandered away through mis-governance and profligacy. The South, in turn, for prioritising education, health, economy and social reform, as governments should, receives the proverbial slap.
Little wonder then that Chief Ministers across the southern states, regardless of political dispensation have cried foul for years now. The Andhra CM took the most fun route and urged locals to resort to rapid reproduction to compensate. The Telengana CM played victim and pleaded for special allocations while the Tamil Nadu CM has resorted to aggressive posturing on the GST.
Going beyond states and in keeping with the gross disproportion, the Urban Development Ministry allocated Rs 20,000 crores in 2016 for the development of Delhi alone. That, is more than the cumulative allocations for Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kochi. This, when the cities of the South are the top job creators for India with massive immigration for both the formal and informal sectors, levying a heavy strain on infrastructure and urban development.
In putting India ahead of narrow regional interests and generating extraordinary tax revenues to fund Delhi, UP, Bihar, MP and the overpopulated, under-educated, under-delivering, and over-pandered Hindi belt, the south carries a heavy cross year after year. For this achievement, the south gets a fiscal allocation downside, as vote-bank electioneering of the north overrides federalist policies.
Moral? The lower the per capita income and higher the population, the greater the reward. In other words, a Dakshin Bharat Cess.
Below is the Fourteenth Finance Commission's own admission of percent of states' GDP transferred by centre, with a 2-5x tilt towards UP or Bihar or MP.
Adding salt to the economic injury, the South gets a step-motherly treatment culturally as well. Funds for the preservation and nurturing of its unique identity and autonomy are negligible to non-existent. The propagation of Hindi, for example, just one of the official languages of India, gets thirty times the amount allocated for all other languages combined!
What is taken from the South and what is returned for its development reeks of bias. What then is the solution when democratically rendered justifications, pleas, complaints, negotiations and bargains have failed to strike a chord for decades?
@Sinopakfriend @kvpak @SarthakGanguly @Levina @duhastmish @Radio Mirchi
@SrNair We are all Indians right? But the central government loves Northern Bhaiyyas more.
After all, 20% of the population contributes a full 30% of India's tax revenues. This is the money that runs the country.
The South also delivers a fourth of India's GDP. It is not only an economic bellwether with low unemployment, a high rate of industrialisation and a per capita GDP that is over double that of the Hindi belt, it is also leaps ahead on human development and social indicators.
Child development indices are double to 7 times higher than the Hindi states, literacy rates tend towards an average of 80% with a 10-point difference against the North, and accessibility to health and hygiene facilities is radically better.
The gulf in human development is so stark that while fertility rates in the South are closer to that of Western Europe, much of the North is still getting their act together on basic issues like birthing babies without losing mothers.
The bottom line is that the development politics of the South has made it economically comparable to Hong Kong, while the atavistic politics of the North has dropped it far down the scales in the last six decades.
Like a Shakespearean drama though, the heroes with higher state GDP per capita, that is, Net State GDP per person, receive a lower devolution from centre to state, of state revenues. The South is effectively slammed for having scaled up its per capita incomes to the top 10 in India and scaled down poverty to half that of the rest of India
A measly fifth of the population sponsors India's tax revenues to the tune of a third of the total, and in return, the five Deccan states get a paltry 18% of funds allocated back from the centre.
Source: Business Standard
The state allocations speak to the quantum of skew. While Tamil Nadu gets about 40 paise for every rupee it generates for the centre, Uttar Pradesh fattens itself on Rs 1.8 per rupee it generates. It should be remembered that Uttar Pradesh had a distinct economic and social advantage over the southern states coming out of British rule, which it has simply squandered away through mis-governance and profligacy. The South, in turn, for prioritising education, health, economy and social reform, as governments should, receives the proverbial slap.
Little wonder then that Chief Ministers across the southern states, regardless of political dispensation have cried foul for years now. The Andhra CM took the most fun route and urged locals to resort to rapid reproduction to compensate. The Telengana CM played victim and pleaded for special allocations while the Tamil Nadu CM has resorted to aggressive posturing on the GST.
Going beyond states and in keeping with the gross disproportion, the Urban Development Ministry allocated Rs 20,000 crores in 2016 for the development of Delhi alone. That, is more than the cumulative allocations for Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kochi. This, when the cities of the South are the top job creators for India with massive immigration for both the formal and informal sectors, levying a heavy strain on infrastructure and urban development.
In putting India ahead of narrow regional interests and generating extraordinary tax revenues to fund Delhi, UP, Bihar, MP and the overpopulated, under-educated, under-delivering, and over-pandered Hindi belt, the south carries a heavy cross year after year. For this achievement, the south gets a fiscal allocation downside, as vote-bank electioneering of the north overrides federalist policies.
Moral? The lower the per capita income and higher the population, the greater the reward. In other words, a Dakshin Bharat Cess.
Below is the Fourteenth Finance Commission's own admission of percent of states' GDP transferred by centre, with a 2-5x tilt towards UP or Bihar or MP.
Adding salt to the economic injury, the South gets a step-motherly treatment culturally as well. Funds for the preservation and nurturing of its unique identity and autonomy are negligible to non-existent. The propagation of Hindi, for example, just one of the official languages of India, gets thirty times the amount allocated for all other languages combined!
What is taken from the South and what is returned for its development reeks of bias. What then is the solution when democratically rendered justifications, pleas, complaints, negotiations and bargains have failed to strike a chord for decades?
@Sinopakfriend @kvpak @SarthakGanguly @Levina @duhastmish @Radio Mirchi
@SrNair We are all Indians right? But the central government loves Northern Bhaiyyas more.
