Sunday, February 12, 2012

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other tainted figures

Someone just asked me a few days back what the GDP of The Gambia was? And I wondered while responding that it was in the range of 800-900 Million US $. And the rhetorical question was immediately how that compared to that of India... And my mind wandered further. Do we include the Rs. 25,000 Crore (6.25 Billion USD) 2 G scam, the 20-50,000 Crore (6-12 Billion USD) Reddy brothers mining scam... Or the fodder scams or the land scams.... And suddenly these figures don't make any sense any more. Don't make any sense as to the ignorant rest of the world wondering what Lakhs and Crores are.(to the newly inducted into Indian economic figures, a Lakh is a 100,000 but with the separator positioned like this: 1,00,000. A hundred lakhs makes a Crore with the separator positioned like this: 1,00,00,000!!! That's why we are a special country. You will often hear of figures and aspirations. People aspire to be Lakhpatis or Crorepathis! ( do note that you may hear of Corrode-pathis too , but that has only to do with regional pronounciations... Nothing to indicate the deep rooted corrosiveness of our corrupt society!!

I recently set out to buy a house in India and found that the best bet was to drive 70 KM out of Chennai and look at a property just beyond the famed IT Corridoor. 8 lane highway on the OMR ( Old Mahabalipuram Road - an old highway, leading to the historical town of Mamallapuram ) ... the advertisements of this super highway painted a pictue of a Dubai like modern city. As we reached the TOLL booth to enter this famed highway, I realised that neither was the Toll booth like anything I have seen in lesser developed nations than India. And more horrifying was the drive on this toll highway... Traffic was a mayhem. Potholes everywhere. This could have been Mount road or Rangaswami Street in T Nagar. Cattle, cycles, pedestrians, overloaded autos, three-on-a-bike for two wheelers was the norm and of course honking was the icing on the cake. Worse was the filth on the sides of the roads. Plastic bags, bottles, litter, people defacating anywhere.. And one wondered: is this the India Shining story.

Realisation then gradually strikes you (despite the cacophony of the traffic, my thoughts are enlightened) : Despite our politicians, despite the corruption and they mayhem, despite our overflowing population, despite everything negative, we are able to show a substantial growth in our economy. Imagine our GDP if we were able to get rid of these politicians and the corruption that goes with them.

Indias figures could soar if we put an end to the corruption. But how does one do it. An Anna Hazare started it only to be hogged out of the lime light by a hoard of self-heat-seeking-missiles like politicos, yogis, activists and socialites.

A twitterer responded to one of my twits : suggesting that change had to start within. And arm-chair activists would not be of any use she added. But then if I am willing to change myself and am able to convince another arm chair activist to straighten our own figures, how long would it take for change on a nationwide scale.

May be a few hundred years. Or will we have to refer to years in lakhs and crores too, before we see some sense in our figures - GDP or otherwise.

The Gambia
February 2012
In bed feeling Sick ... Partly due to a little bug and of course Also due to political irritants.
P.S. The world bank suggests that the GDP of India is "environ" 17.3 Trillion US$ ... Or should I say about 7,00,00,00,000 Crore Rupees. ( I may have missed out a few zeroes ..but guess that doesn't matter. As Birbal ( the witty jester and advisor in the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar, once retorted when asked about the number of Crows in the capital. He came back with a figure of 1,34,54,787 crows. When asked to prove it, he smiled and replied, Emperor, please get your Ministers to count them and disprove me. If there are lesser, they may have gone to visit relatives and if it exceeds my figure, they may have relatives visiting them. In our case of the exact GDP a few scams more or less.....