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..!! )
