RICH PEOPLE OF A POOR COUNTRY. WHO SHALL TAKE CARE OF THE POOR? HE? YOU?? OR I???

RICH PEOPLE OF A POOR COUNTRY. WHO SHALL TAKE CARE OF THE POOR? HE? YOU?? OR I???

Cometh the March-2008, with the increase in wealth by 23.8 billion dollars Anil Ambani becoming the biggest wealth creator in the world, as many as four Indians made it to top 10 positions of the world’s richest as per the latest issue of Forbes magazine. Those four Indians are: steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, his estranged younger brother Anil Ambani and realty baron K.P.Singh. So we have four in the list of top ten, which had just one, Mittal, a year ago. India has retained its position as the top source of billionaires in Asia with total 53 people, who have a cumulative networth of 340.9 billion dollars on Forbes' 2008 World's Billionaires list consisting of 1,125 people with a combined wealth of 4.4 trillion dollars. A year ago, there were just 179 billionaires.

With a networth of 62 billion dollars, Buffett has topped the list, followed by Carlos Slim Helu (60 billion dollars) and Bill Gates (58 billion dollars) on second and third positions. These three are followed by three Indians -- Lakshmi Mittal (45 billion dollars), Mukesh (43 billion dollars) and Anil (42 billion dollars) on fourth, fifth and sixth ranks. Besides, DLF's K P Singh (30 billion dollars) has been ranked, after Sweden's Ingvar Kamprad (31 billion dollars).Among Indians, Mittal, Ambanis and Singh are followed by Essar group's Shashi and Ravi Ruia at 43rd rank globally with a combined networth of 15 billion dollars, Wipro's Azim Premji (60th with 12.7 billion dollars), Sunil Mittal and family (64th with 11.8 billion dollars) and Kumar Birla (76th with 10.2 billion dollars).These are followed by Unitech's Ramesh Chandra (86th with 9.6 billion dollars), Guatam Adani (91st with 9.3 billion dollars), Savitri Jindal (110th with 8.2 billion dollars), Anil Agarwal (164th with 6 billion dollars), Adi Godrej (178th with 5.5 billion dollars) and GMR's G M Rao (198th with 5.2 billion dollars).

The wealth amassed by Indian billionaires – estimated at $340.9 billion – is nearly 31 per cent of the country's total GDP. This gives them nearly three times more weight in the economy than their American counterparts and over ten times of those in China. The net worth of all the Chinese billionaires is just about 3 per cent of the country's GDP, while that for the US billionaires is nearly 11 per cent. In its annual list of world's billionaires, Forbes said there are a total 42 billionaires in China and 469 in the US with a combined net worth of $95 billion and $1.6 trillion, respectively. The magazine put the number of Indian billionaires at 53. According to latest data available with International Monetary Fund (IMF), the GDP size of India, China and the US for 2007 are estimated at $1,089.9 billion, $3,248 billion, and $13,794 billion respectively. The percentage figures for the share of billionaires' wealth in the three countries are based on the analysis of Forbes net worth figures and the GDP size of these economies. The GDP share of Indian billionaires' wealth is more than four times of the global average also. Forbes magazine put the combined wealth of all 1,125 billionaires in the world at $4.4 trillion, which is just about seven per cent of the world's total GDP size. With $340.9 billion, Indians account for nearly eight per cent of the world's total billionaire wealth. This is nearly four times of about two per cent held by Chinese, but less than one-fourth of about 36 per cent owned by the Americans.

All these are certainly impetus enough to feel proud as Indian. But the reality in other side of the coin is not that glittering. The most intriguing fact is that none of those rich Indian appears in the list of top ten tax payers of the country. How they protect their wealth from the tax system of the country? Does it not indicate serious flaw in the tax system of the country? My sympathy to the middle class of the country who are always considered as milking cow as far as tax payment is concerned.

Now for a moment, let us slide down our view from the middle class to the downtrodden of the country. The Planning Commission has estimated that 27.5% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2004–2005. Despite significant economic progress, 1/4 of the nation's population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of $0.40/day. Then who eats the fruit of the economic progress? Does our economic progress aim at benefiting a few in the top?

Research says that economic growth of the country between eighties and nineties seems to be accompanied by an adverse inequality effect. This means growth effect and inequality have operated in opposite direction. However growth effect dominated over the inequality effect and this caused in decline of poverty.

Ok, this gives another food for thought. For a moment let us think that growth is accompanied by effort to reduce the inequality. Certainly, we shall all agree that the poverty level of this country will come down at a much faster rate.

So while the efforts are there for urbanized SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE, certain attention should go for rural SPECIAL AGRICULTURE ZONE. India lives in 6, 38,596 villages. Effort should be made to elevate to economic status of  villages without changing the basic fabric of a village. I am not suggesting all the villages should be industrialized or the industrialization is the only answer. Identify the strength of the village and try to work on that. For example in a village comprising mostly fishermen efforts should be made to improve the productivity of fishermen with latest methodology and develop the business module for profitable sale of their product. Help them to economically improve. Once a person is economically improved, he/she is intelligent enough to take care of the rest like education, health, and shelter etc. What is required is a tailor-made-the- village-specific approach rather than a broad approach.

But who shall take the initiation?

He?

 You??

Or

 I???