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ShareEven politically-appointed committees are missions to nowhere. The Sachar committee, which enquired into Muslim backwardness, was more a show pony than the real thing. I can bet my bottom rupee that if Muslims take their due share of economic prosperity, it will be through by own efforts, not the largesse scattered in the name of Sachar.
The only commissions that have delivered bang for the buck are the statutory ones -- the various finance and central pay commissions. And these work only because their business is to dole out money -- the former to state governments, who then go on to squander most of it, and the latter to government staff, who are largely interested only in their own welfare.
Bottomline: committees and commissions are a waste of taxpayers' money, both literally and metaphorically. On the other hand, look at all the things that get done without committees. The annual Budget, a gargantuan effort, gets done reasonably competently. The monetary policy gets done without fuss. The Reserve Bank does indeed have a panel to advise it, but this panel is kept under wraps -- and that's why it works.
Put another way, committees and commissions deliver only when there is political or executive will behind them. When this is missing, they need not be set up at all.
Even in the economic sphere, where committees have at least been treated seriously, the record is average, if not downright poor. The two Tarapore committees on leading the country towards full external account convertibility never really guided policy beyond a point. Nor did the various expenditure or administrative reforms committees.
Which brings me to this year's Budget. The main reason why the markets have taken it so badly is its indecisiveness. It has put critical decisions off, and decreed death by committee. Just look at the number of decisions that have been deferred through this ruse. Oil price deregulation? An expert group will advise the government "on a viable and sustainable system of pricing petroleum products."
This, when umpteen working groups and high-power panels have already given their reports, including one headed by C Rangarajan, former Reserve Bank governor.
How should one reduce fertiliser subsidies? Another committee will no doubt get into this business. How to give loan waivers to farmers who obtained money from private moneylenders? A task force will be set up. A medium-term fiscal perspective for the government? Mukherjee will wait for the 13th finance commission to pronounce verdict.
It's quite clear that committees are set up because the right decisions are obvious but politically difficult, and not because nobody knows the answers. For example, in the oil sector, the problems and solutions are crystal clear. When global prices can go up and down, prices at home also have to be allowed to go up and down. If you want to hold them steady for whatever reason (subsidise kerosene and cooking gas, and also diesel), you have to compensate the oil companies for the losses. If you don't, they will go under. If you do, you have to provide for the subsidies in the Budget. What is so unclear about what decisions need to be taken? Why does anyone need a committee to decide all this?
The same goes for steps to balance the Budget. You don't need the 13th finance commission to tell you what to do. The answers are right there in the economic survey presented to parliament earlier this month. The boffins who wrote the survey have all the answers. What they cannot do is handle the political fallout of cutting food subsidies or raiding fertiliser prices.
In the socio-economic sphere, you don't need a Sachar to tell you Muslims do not have a good enough share of national wealth and resources. Even without him you could have helped Muslims by focusing developmental efforts on the poorest districts, not anything else. To find a poor Muslim, you need to find where the poor live, not where Muslims live. Does it need Sachar to give us this wisdom? By making ordinary economic development sound like a favour to Muslims, the Sachar committee may have done lasting damage to inter-community relations.
It's high time we put committees out of commission.
