DATELINE SRINAGAR (Greater Kashmir, Sunday March 28)
Kashmir’s brain drain
A loss or a blessing? Time will tell
Arjimand Hussain Talib
Kashmir doesn’t really look the same. Does it? There are two perceptible changes: one is the change in the manner we do the daily business here. In that, there is a feeling of a vacuum. A vacuum of energetic, passionate and able people. Second is the disturbing street, which, again, gives a feeling of physical emptiness. A feeling that something is amiss. And then there are some silly-sounding, but really genuine, questions.
Why is vibrancy missing in Srinagar? Why are streets not that busy? Why are village boys disappearing every other day, leaving in search of better education and jobs? Why are workplaces devoid of people who would yesterday adore those spaces? Why a greater number of Kashmiris throng the virtual world of Facebook to connect to each other than meeting in the real world? Where are the people whom we would meet on the Residency Road or at the Regal Chowk every other day?
There could be, of course, many factors why things look this way in Kashmir. But have a look around and you would surely see many people missing. The fact is that today Kashmiri youth are leaving their land as never before. Come backs are rare. Kashmir’s brain drain has reached an unprecedented level. And there are both good and bad sides of this story.
A deeper cost-benefit analysis may, perhaps, help us understand if we collectively would be net losers or gainers in the long run. For now, some people believe, the loss content outweighs the gain content. Some, on the contrary, believe this migration will pay us better in the longer run.
The questions that we need to ask today are: can this situation be reversed? Is reversal really desirable? While the vacuum of the political and the administrative spaces is disturbing, wouldn’t this kind of renaissance be rewarding in the days to come?
The first thing we need to confess is that we are today not in a position to retain educated and talented people. We don’t have enough productive work areas to harness their intellectual or technical talent. Internet has given Kashmiri youth great and easy access to the globe. The globe is there with open arms, calling them for education and jobs. Globalisation and greater global movement is also taking a greater number of our business people away. And gone are the days when the lure of our great weather and homely comforts would bring people back.
The fact is that migration of Kashmiri youth for education and jobs is not a wholly new phenomenon. In the past, places like Lahore, Aligarh and other areas of the erstwhile United Punjab have been popular for education and jobs. Then in the 90s it was mostly South India which was in vogue. That was a time when Kashmiri youth would normally come back home and settle down here for good. Today’s situation is little different. Today, Kashmiri youths’ reach has gone beyond India’s geographical borders, as such coming back home is not that easy option. They are truly international.
While looking at how all this is going to shape our future, we also need to see how people outside the Valley view all this.
I once asked a Jammu University’s senior academic of politics how she saw Jammu city’s economic progress and public administration dominance vis-à-vis Kashmir? Her answer was quite a food for thought. She conceded Jammu was developing better economically and that it was marking a good presence in the state’s civil secretariat. But, she said, her worry laid somewhere else: Jammu’s ‘slow and steady intellectual degeneration.’
To many Kashmir watchers, she said, the Valley, over the years, had grown intellectually significantly. The state’s centre of opinion making through media was now Srinagar. When it came to quality education, Kashmir was doing better. In the private sector’s competitive domains, ‘Kashmiri students were better placed because of their better articulation, presentation and physical appearance.’ Kashmir produces writers, thinkers, poets, and the like at a good scale. It had a rich crop of articulate activists. Internationally, it was taken much more seriously.
This part of the story may be true. But there is another part as well. Kashmir’s work place has degenerated tremendously over the last 20 years or so. There is a dearth of discipline. Work ethics aren’t that impressive as they used to be. Any workplace outside a government office is a place for time pass. Or, at best, a transition site. People rarely put their souls in workplaces which are not that of government.
The last 20 years of conflict and abnormal social conditions have bred aggression among the youths. No doubt people attain greater levels of education but their employability remains low. Then there is the bigger problem – there are very little jobs for the highly educated Kashmiri youths. Favoritism, nepotism and reservations frustrate the talented ones, who eventually migrate.
Those who come back are rare to find the going easy. People normally suffer a serious problem of maladjustment. I know some friends who after coming back have faced depression. They have found themselves like misfits in Kashmir’s work culture. Some people, who have started their own businesses, find working in the high-corruption ridden environment chocking.
The good part of the migration is that those who come back are normally known to bring back good work practices. Migrants also bring remittances, which, if eventually invested in Kashmir, would help the local economy. They anyway help the overall prosperity. One of the biggest assets of those who go out is their exposure to the world’s multiple realities. Once back, Kashmir is sure to be enriched with the wisdom so acquired.
There are some other interesting aspects of this brain drain. While earlier only children of an elite section of Kashmiris would go out for education and jobs, today it is anybody’s story. In fact, today the youth of the lower social and economic strata forms the bulk of the Kashmiri Diaspora. Times have changed.
But there is another reality whose desirability is debatable. This segment is also today least politically active. It does not take interest in Kashmir’s power politics – which it sees demeaning and unjust. Dejected with the turn of things, and overwhelmed by India’s economic and military might in sustaining the struggle for right to self determination, it is generally indifferent to the azadi movement as well. And that is how, it seems, time plays. That is it.
Feedback at arjimand@greaterkashmir.com
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
J&K’s Budget 2010-11
Populist and smart
(Dateline Srinagar, Sunday, 14 March, 2010)
By: Arjimand Hussain Talib
Contrary to anticipations, the state’s budget for 2010-11 has no surprises. It is a classical South Asian-style budget – which generally aim to consolidate rural vote banks, provide sops to specific constituencies and enhance hidden general taxes. The expected boldness and innovation from this budget are missing. It is a comfort budget in the short term for various interest groups, but it sans a reform and sustainability orientation – something that we need badly in the longer term.
There are surely some good ideas in this year’s budget, but the populist content far outweighs these. To say that this budget will transform the state’s economic landscape is little too exaggerating. There are valid reasons why it can’t do so.
Three administrative issues in the budget look promising: assigning the task of evaluation of 150 projects worth Rs. 744 crore to NABCONS and M/S Mckenzy, initiation of disinvestment of PSUs and Rs. 20 crore for creation of a power transformer bank.
For a larger picture, this budget has to be understood in the backdrop of the state’s Economic Survey for 2009-10. The survey, tabled on Friday at the time of the budget presentation in the Assembly, takes us to some of the state’s fundamentals, which we cannot afford to ignore for too long.
The increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) by 1 per cent, service tax by 2 per cent to 10 per cent, along with the enhancement of the toll tax by Rs 10 per quintal, are likely to get us some more revenues. They are likely shoot up our inflation further too. But there was obviously no other choice. The question now is: is this sort of taxation good enough?
The target of generating additional revenue of Rs 3,858 crore, especially by collecting power tariffs, sounds little unrealistic. The problem is that power tariff campaigns in our state are too urban-centric. While they excessively focus on the pilferage part of it, they close their eyes to the system part of it – that is the obsolete transmission and distribution systems and the non-civilian pilferage. Our plans for power tariff realization must go beyond the cities of Srinagar and Jammu. Or else we will remain where we are now.
Finance Minister’s contention that toll tax and VAT exemption on agriculture-related appliances, fertilizers, and fodder etc. were meant to increase agriculture’s share from 25 percent to 47 percent in the 80s in the Gross State Domestic (GSDP) is absolutely misplaced. That is not going to happen in a foreseeable future. If at all that is going to happen, that will take our state backwards by several decades.
It is a fact that agriculture’s share in our GSDP has dipped to 25% from 47% during the 80s. But that is not a novelty; that is a global trend, even in the countries which have traditionally been agriculture-based economies.
A better way to fix growth targets for agriculture sector in J&K is to enhance targets for yield-per-hectare. In economic terms, in today’s world, it is wrong to set a target for enhanced percentage share of agriculture in GSDP.
Reduction of agriculture’s share in GDP fundamentally happens because greater education and development of knowledge component of economies tends to enhance services’ share. Same is the case with our state. The share of services, and also industry to some extent, is very likely to increase even further in J&K in the days to come. However, this increase in services’ share does not necessarily mean a negative growth in agriculture. This premise is wrong. In small-land economies like ours growth in a sector like agriculture has many constraints because of many reasons.
Another thing to acknowledge is that subsidies and tax cut on farm-related tools is fundamentally a populist measure in J&K’s context. Those who know the politics of the state’s farming sector know it very well that subsidies or tax cuts in this sector do not necessarily enhance its productivity. They target a segment which is basically a vote bank, and do not necessarily depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The ratio of government jobs to rural households is perhaps the highest in J&K in whole of India.
A tax cut and subsidies regime on farm-related products, like tractors, would not enhance our farm production massively. Those who know the state’s geography well and the nature of the land holdings know it too well that there is a limit to the use of tractors in our state.
Over the last few years, we have increasingly shifted from low-income agriculture, like paddy, to value-added and high-income cash crops. J&K’s case, as such, is different than the rest of India. Generally, barring a handful of rich states, India’s farming sector is about day-to-day survival. And economic and social policies are required to be designed as such. Our farming sector is mostly of an income supplementing nature, even though we have families which wholly depend on agriculture. We need to target the households which do not have government jobs and rely mainly on subsistence farming with softer loans and other incentives.
The budget statement also boasts of the ‘highest-ever’ award to the state by India’s Finance Commission. In actual terms, J&K’s share in the central taxes is only 1.55 per cent. What is, however, interesting is our state’s relative impoverishment in comparison to the rest of India. According to Economic Survey 2009-10 while our contribution to India’s overall wealth was 0.85 percent in 1999-2000, it has declined to 0.7 percent at present.
Likewise, while India’s income has grown at a rate of about 8.2 percent during last five years, our state income has grown at much lower rate of about 6 percent. We must factor in our population growth while understanding our economic growth. According to the Economic Survey 2009-10, our per-capita income (PCI) has grown at a rate of 4.13 percent during 10th Plan period. This slow growth in state income reflects in our per capita income (PCI) – which was Rs. 20604 in 2007-08, far below India’s national average of Rs. 27442.
Another key area which the Economic Survey calls for attention is the state’s fiscal deficit. It has increased from Rs.1665 crore in 2004-05 to Rs. 3386 crore in 2008-09, which is around 9.7 percent of our GSDP.
It is well known that a fiscal deficit of around 10 percent is unsustainable. Containing fiscal deficit, as the survey itself has noted, would require mobilisation of additional resources, by raising direct and indirect taxes, including on public services and compressing expenditure, particularly establishment related. But has this budget really attempted that?
Feedback at arjimand@greaterkashmir.com
(Dateline Srinagar, Sunday, 14 March, 2010)
By: Arjimand Hussain Talib
Contrary to anticipations, the state’s budget for 2010-11 has no surprises. It is a classical South Asian-style budget – which generally aim to consolidate rural vote banks, provide sops to specific constituencies and enhance hidden general taxes. The expected boldness and innovation from this budget are missing. It is a comfort budget in the short term for various interest groups, but it sans a reform and sustainability orientation – something that we need badly in the longer term.
There are surely some good ideas in this year’s budget, but the populist content far outweighs these. To say that this budget will transform the state’s economic landscape is little too exaggerating. There are valid reasons why it can’t do so.
Three administrative issues in the budget look promising: assigning the task of evaluation of 150 projects worth Rs. 744 crore to NABCONS and M/S Mckenzy, initiation of disinvestment of PSUs and Rs. 20 crore for creation of a power transformer bank.
For a larger picture, this budget has to be understood in the backdrop of the state’s Economic Survey for 2009-10. The survey, tabled on Friday at the time of the budget presentation in the Assembly, takes us to some of the state’s fundamentals, which we cannot afford to ignore for too long.
The increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) by 1 per cent, service tax by 2 per cent to 10 per cent, along with the enhancement of the toll tax by Rs 10 per quintal, are likely to get us some more revenues. They are likely shoot up our inflation further too. But there was obviously no other choice. The question now is: is this sort of taxation good enough?
The target of generating additional revenue of Rs 3,858 crore, especially by collecting power tariffs, sounds little unrealistic. The problem is that power tariff campaigns in our state are too urban-centric. While they excessively focus on the pilferage part of it, they close their eyes to the system part of it – that is the obsolete transmission and distribution systems and the non-civilian pilferage. Our plans for power tariff realization must go beyond the cities of Srinagar and Jammu. Or else we will remain where we are now.
Finance Minister’s contention that toll tax and VAT exemption on agriculture-related appliances, fertilizers, and fodder etc. were meant to increase agriculture’s share from 25 percent to 47 percent in the 80s in the Gross State Domestic (GSDP) is absolutely misplaced. That is not going to happen in a foreseeable future. If at all that is going to happen, that will take our state backwards by several decades.
It is a fact that agriculture’s share in our GSDP has dipped to 25% from 47% during the 80s. But that is not a novelty; that is a global trend, even in the countries which have traditionally been agriculture-based economies.
A better way to fix growth targets for agriculture sector in J&K is to enhance targets for yield-per-hectare. In economic terms, in today’s world, it is wrong to set a target for enhanced percentage share of agriculture in GSDP.
Reduction of agriculture’s share in GDP fundamentally happens because greater education and development of knowledge component of economies tends to enhance services’ share. Same is the case with our state. The share of services, and also industry to some extent, is very likely to increase even further in J&K in the days to come. However, this increase in services’ share does not necessarily mean a negative growth in agriculture. This premise is wrong. In small-land economies like ours growth in a sector like agriculture has many constraints because of many reasons.
Another thing to acknowledge is that subsidies and tax cut on farm-related tools is fundamentally a populist measure in J&K’s context. Those who know the politics of the state’s farming sector know it very well that subsidies or tax cuts in this sector do not necessarily enhance its productivity. They target a segment which is basically a vote bank, and do not necessarily depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The ratio of government jobs to rural households is perhaps the highest in J&K in whole of India.
A tax cut and subsidies regime on farm-related products, like tractors, would not enhance our farm production massively. Those who know the state’s geography well and the nature of the land holdings know it too well that there is a limit to the use of tractors in our state.
Over the last few years, we have increasingly shifted from low-income agriculture, like paddy, to value-added and high-income cash crops. J&K’s case, as such, is different than the rest of India. Generally, barring a handful of rich states, India’s farming sector is about day-to-day survival. And economic and social policies are required to be designed as such. Our farming sector is mostly of an income supplementing nature, even though we have families which wholly depend on agriculture. We need to target the households which do not have government jobs and rely mainly on subsistence farming with softer loans and other incentives.
The budget statement also boasts of the ‘highest-ever’ award to the state by India’s Finance Commission. In actual terms, J&K’s share in the central taxes is only 1.55 per cent. What is, however, interesting is our state’s relative impoverishment in comparison to the rest of India. According to Economic Survey 2009-10 while our contribution to India’s overall wealth was 0.85 percent in 1999-2000, it has declined to 0.7 percent at present.
Likewise, while India’s income has grown at a rate of about 8.2 percent during last five years, our state income has grown at much lower rate of about 6 percent. We must factor in our population growth while understanding our economic growth. According to the Economic Survey 2009-10, our per-capita income (PCI) has grown at a rate of 4.13 percent during 10th Plan period. This slow growth in state income reflects in our per capita income (PCI) – which was Rs. 20604 in 2007-08, far below India’s national average of Rs. 27442.
Another key area which the Economic Survey calls for attention is the state’s fiscal deficit. It has increased from Rs.1665 crore in 2004-05 to Rs. 3386 crore in 2008-09, which is around 9.7 percent of our GSDP.
It is well known that a fiscal deficit of around 10 percent is unsustainable. Containing fiscal deficit, as the survey itself has noted, would require mobilisation of additional resources, by raising direct and indirect taxes, including on public services and compressing expenditure, particularly establishment related. But has this budget really attempted that?
Feedback at arjimand@greaterkashmir.com
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