Narendra Modi (NaMo), Rahul Gandhi (RG) and Arvind Kejriwal (AK) represent three main contestants in the coming Loksabha elections. They represent the three parties namely the BJP,Congress and AAP and hold out the hopes for the future.
Amongst the three, the policies of Congress are reasonably well known since they have been in power for the last 10 years. Despite being in power for long, Congress has only come out with some policy initiatives only at the fag end of their tenure as if it is enough in the current time only to make promises as there will be no time to implement and hence they can carry over the promises to the next tenure.
Policies of AAP is largely unknown and the extent to which they are known they are chaotic. At best one can say that AAP will be pursuing the policies similar to what the communist parties used to pursue in the past and have given up in the recent times. These are retrograde policies and could be a serious hindrance to development of the country.
BJP has been articulate about its policies and are partially indicated by Mr Modi’s policies in Gujarat. We can still expect that if NaMo comes to power, there could be some revolutionary changes in economic polcies.
One of the revolutionary ideas is in the domain of personal income tax and whether its complete abolition will help in better tax administration and overall benefit to the economy. Details of how this can be implemented and whether it has to be tempered with counter measures on revenue generation and whether the changes are to be brought in one single move or in a calibrated move over a period are to be discussed. It will bring back the subsidy raj and taxing the taxable population to take the burden. Hopefully the additional burden of politician’s share of bribes which Congress was adding to the cost of burden to be funded by tax payers will reduce dramatically and absorb some of the subsidy costs.
Another recent idea which appears to be very revolutionary is the thought that Mr NaMo has been expressing in the domain of health insurance. Today, health insurance, life insurance and hospitalization are taken by individuals at their own free will at the costs they can afford. Poor are unable to get covered. Recently, USA moved to “Health For All” policy where all citizens are provided with affordable health insurance cover. Now Mr NaMO has raised a valid question that whether health insurance can be covered at hospital level may be like a group insurance of patients so that the poor are also effectively covered at least when they seek hospital care. Again the details may yet have to be worked out but the idea holds promise and looks exciting.
Let’s hope that the visionaries will have a say in the future of Indian economic development and voter’s will not allow disruptionists to muddy the waters.
Naavi
As a Citizen of India
