We the Indians and the Economy

Looking at the news that Government is contemplating of taking the help of gold deposit / treasure in temples across country to overcome current crisis, felt where our economy and financial security is heading. I am not an economist and yes my knowledge about fiscal, macro economy etc is limited. But still thought of sharing few thoughts of mine which might help us to rethink our indulge in spending money and help our country, in whatever little way we could.

We might think, why should we worry about the situation, our government will take care. But at the rate of achieving the number of scams, there can be little hope our rulers will do anything drastic. 

It was shocking to see that, the total amount of scams done by our government runs in to lacs of crores rupees!! It can be in-below earth (coal mines), in air (chopper), waves (2 G Spectrum),wherever possible we have been cheated in name of democracy and development.If we had not faced these scams,we may not have not faced this crisis of taking the help of temple gold to save economy.

With Rupee falling every day, it’s an alarming thing for all of us. One of the major reason why we our rupee is losing value to $ is we are Importing more and our Export has fallen drastically.

Yes, with globalization, it’s not possible to restrict our imports, but we have to find methods where our value of imports will come down and exports / in-house production will go up. This will help us to save billions of dollars in foreign exchange.

In current scenario, most of our import is in Crude Oil / Mineral Fuels (Approx. 35 % of total imports) and other major important category can be classified as Gold/Precious metals etc.

With raising income of Indians, demand for automobiles and thus petroleum products has gone up in past few years. But we have ended up paying more and more towards the oil imports. Same applies for gold with investment buying being done.

In this scenario what we can do, to save our foreign exchange and stop country being harmed with financial difficult times?

1.  Reduce usage of petroleum products:  Every day we use cars / bikes for various purposes, especially commuting to office.  For sake of country, let’s start using public transport more and more. If not public transport, at least we can opt for pool in vehicles and company provided cabs/vehicles.

Imagine, if 5 employees are driving in their respective cars from Basavanagudi surrounding areas to Manyata Tech Park and back, we need approx. 3 liters of petrol per car , 15 liters for 5 cars and financially it costs around 15* 81 = Rs. 1215 per day.

If they had opted for car pool in, we could save the additional 12 liters of oil being imported per day (Multiple these by thousands of cars across India). If not car pool in, let’s go for mass transportation, company cabs, all will equally support in reducing import of oil.

Same way, if we are going nearby place, let’s start going by walk / cycle. Two wheelers might give good mileage, but lacs of two wheelers drinking petrol all over country, this has major impact. By reducing the number of vehicles on road, we have another advantage; it will reduce traffic jams, and thus save our fuel consumption as well.

Certainly, many of us think, using public transportation is against our social prestige. But remember we are supporting our country in our own way, and that prestige should be more than driving a car. 

As famous quote from Mr.Enrique Penalosa,Bogota Mayor (Columbia) says - 

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, it’s where the rich use public transportation”, let’s forget our ego/social prestige for sake of country, remember, it’s not what country gives to us, it’s always, what is our contribution towards country.

2.  Reduce the usage of gold: India was once upon a time, the leader in gold production in the world. But not anymore, we have become leader in gold consumption (864 tonnes in 2012, 25 % of world consumption) and we are importing this gold from abroad (in 2012, it was 400 tonnes), thus losing foreign exchange for this. The speculative buying and perceived as safe investment option for most Indians, the demand for gold is ever increasing.

Let’s stop purchasing gold for investment purpose. For every buy we make, government has to spend in $ for importing gold from abroad.   

3.  Encourage Indigenous Products:  This is little difficult due to globalization, but not impossible to reduce the quantity and source of import. The best example can be importing products from China. We all know how China is intruding in to our territory and exchanging unpleasant feeling with our military. Knowing this also, why  should we encourage consuming Chinese products? Is it because it’s cheaper in price? But cheaper in what cost. They have intruded many times, supporting Pakistan, occupying Aksai Chin area in Kashmir illegally and how can we trust such neighbor and lose our foreign exchange for importing their products?

Let’s start reducing consumption of such country’s products; at least it will help our local production units, give employment to Indians and save our currency from being exchanged in dollars.

All of us talk big while commenting on the situation of nation and very few think what we can do to change it. As the famous quote says – Be the change you want to see in the world, let’s start thinking in what way we can help country, to come over the crisis and march towards prosperity and equality.

( Note: Bibliography to Google and Business Websites for data..!! )