The Government Has No Business Being in Business

The People have Spoken.

PM Narendra Modi shall continue to be our Prime Minister for the next 5 years, steering the Nation through the turn of the decade.

In the run up to the Elections, Ravish Kumar of NDTV did a particularly fine job of portraying the ills that trouble our country’s education system, especially focusing on the millions of unemployed youth struggling against all odds to secure a ‘Naukri’. Not just another ‘Naukri’ mind you, it HAS to be a ‘Sarkari’ one.

One could of course argue that this is due to the unavailability of jobs in the organized sector for educated, qualified and skilled graduates. One could however, ALSO argue that this is more representative of the rot that plagues our Nation’s mindset — one that considers a Government job as the only acceptable choice — for it is secured by sovereign guarantee , coupled with the promise of a career’s worth of increments via the largess doled out by periodic Pay Commissions, regardless of performance or output. Jobs with built in Quotas, so that there is fair representation (!). Such jobs exist only on paper today, with advertisements attracting millions of applicants for a dozen positions, and yet, the positions still go unfilled.

As the new Government settles in and draws up an agenda for its first 100 days in power, I sincerely wish that the powers that be have the foresight and courage to think out of the box, and put in steps and measures to deliver our country and its youth from this socialist mindset.

As our PM famously said, the “Government Has No Business Being in Business”.

Now, lets walk the talk. Liberate the Education sector from the shackles it’s been in since Independence and that includes letting schools/colleges and Universities set their own pay scales, the freedom to design and deliver their own courses in collaboration with Industry. Encourage an entrepreneurial mindset, and NO, it shouldn’t take a DIPP Certificate or a Patent to be called an entrepreneur. Anyone who’s taking the initiative of setting up an enterprise of his/her own, IS an entrepreneur. Even a chaiwala! And then, outsource whatever can be outsourced, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Private Sector, increasing efficiency and reducing costs. Disinvest from the PSUs not because the Government needs the money, disinvest so that professionals can do the job that was never yours to do to begin with.

A free market that is unencumbered by regulations drawn up by babus so past their prime that they’re completely out of touch with the today’s reality is ALL that this Nation and its people need to truly prosper.

Hopefully, our Prime Minister is just the man to deliver it.