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A couple of days ago, a friend visited Mumbai from out of town.
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I went to pick him up at the airport, and while we were driving off, my friend asked,
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so how's the weather in Mumbai?
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And I said, great, no problem at all.
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And then I realized that my instinctive response came from the fact that I was sitting in an
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AC car, and I work in an AC room all day.
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Of course the weather is good where I am, but what is it like outside?
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Of course, there are simple indicators that can tell us the state of the weather, the
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temperature, humidity level, and so on.
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But if someone asks you, how is the economy doing?
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That's a slightly harder question.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics, and behavioral
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Please welcome your host, Amit Bhatma.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
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Today's episode tries to take a snapshot of what the economy looks like today, four years
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after the Narendra Modi government came to power.
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Now figuring out economic performance is always complicated.
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It's a whole separate discussion on whether GDP has any value as a measure, especially
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in a country with such a large informal economy, but let's leave that for another day.
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Even if you do have what you consider reliable numbers, you don't have counterfactuals.
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The numbers could be X, Y, Z, but what if oil prices hadn't stayed low, or the monsoons
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hadn't been good all this time, or demonetization had not happened, or if Hillary Clinton instead
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of Donald Trump became US President, a million little factors affect the economy and it can
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all get a bit too much.
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Anyway, to try and make sense of where we are today, four years after 2014, one year
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before 2019, I have with me my good friend and a frequent guest on this show, Vivek Kaul.
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Vivek, welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
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Thanks Amit for having me over.
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Vivek, rather than start talking about the economy in very broad sort of macro terms
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and in generalizations and so on, I thought we can start by talking about some specific
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subjects that you've written recent columns on and use those as a lens to then examine
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the broader changes that are sort of going through the country.
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One of your interesting pieces recently was on Air India.
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Now, you know, it's always been an agenda of the reformers that we need to sell Air
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India for obvious reasons, the losses have now become staggering and we the taxpayer
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And last year, the government, in fact, did announce that they are going to privatize
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Air India, though many suspected they didn't mean to, it was a stop for some of the reform
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Where do things stand now?
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So Amit, you know, Air India is up for sale, we know that.
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But the terms of the sale make it very, very difficult for anyone to buy that airline.
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Now, what is on offer currently is essentially 76 percent of Air India and 100 percent of
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Air India Express, which is the low cost arm of Air India.
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Along with that, any airline buying Air India has to take on two thirds of the debt of Air
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Now, these two thirds of the debt is not a small amount.
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It amounts to around 32,300 crores out of a total of 48,000 crores, 48, 49 thousand
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crores, which if you translate into dollars is close to five billion dollars.
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So it is for any Indian airline, it will be like a death knell.
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So obviously they are not interested in buying the airline.
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I mean, Indigo, SpiceJet and Jet Airways have all made that clear.
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The other thing is the airline which buys Air India needs to ensure that they do not
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fire any employees of Air India for one year.
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After that, they can offer, you know, voluntary retirement schemes, which is another huge
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thing because, you know, when a airline starts operating, you know, they may want to do something,
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they may not want to do something.
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So you have to leave them to, you know, let them operate Air India in the best way that
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they think is possible.
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The third interesting thing is that, you know, the trade unions can create a lot of mayhem,
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which they already are.
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So all these factors make it, you know, very, very difficult for anybody to be interested
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The other factor which is also there is that government retains 24 percent ownership along
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with two seats on the board of the future Air India.
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Like how many people on that board?
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Two, two seats, two board.
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But what's the total number of people?
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But that two won't be the majority.
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No, but, you know, 24 percent stake.
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So, you know, again, the nuisance value remains.
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Now the logic for that is very, very straightforward.
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You know, nobody wants to get accused of selling Air India cheap.
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You know, back in 1999, 2000, when the Vajpayee government sold, you know, a few companies
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like Modern Bread and the Sintir Hotel in Juhu, they got accused of selling those companies
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So nobody wants to get accused of doing that.
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So the government wants to retain some stakes so that if and when Air India does revive,
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then they can sell that remaining 24 percent stake and, you know, get some amount of money.
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Now the problem is all that is in the future, you know, before that, somebody should be
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interested in buying the airline and under the current terms and conditions, which include
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debt, the employees of Air India and the government continuing to own, you know, nearly one fourth
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of the airline, it seems very difficult as to anyone would buy Air India.
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The sad part is that, you know, every year that Air India operates leads to a larger
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So, you know, if you look at the numbers, I think between 2010-11, which is April 2010
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and December 2017, the airline has lost close to forty six, forty seven thousand crore rupees.
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Now where is that money coming from?
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So every year the government sort of invests some amount of capital into the airline and
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I think from April 2011 till date, they have invested close to twenty six thousand crores,
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which is obviously not enough to keep the airline going.
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So over and above that, the airline borrows money.
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So their working capital loans right now are close to thirty one thousand crores.
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Now their working capital loan of the airline is more than the revenue that the airline
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makes in a particular year, I mean, which tells you that there is no business model.
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So I mean, if I were to be a little radical and say here that even if someone's willing
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to operate Air India for free, the government should just.
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I was going to say exactly that, you know, as a taxpayer whose money is going into this
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every year, I'd be glad actually if they gave it away for free because somebody's taking
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And, you know, I mean, if they would give it away for free, somebody would take off
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almost forty eight thousand crore of debt away from you, which is not a small amount.
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Which is a huge amount.
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And what's more important is that, you know, people assume that, oh, okay, it's a public
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sector company and it's there and why should we sell it?
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We should turn it around.
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We should do better management and all that.
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But as we've discussed in previous episodes, incentives for public sector companies to
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do well are just very different and it simply doesn't happen.
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They will always be more inefficient than private sector company and that's what you
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If Air India was a private airline, it would have shut down.
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And airlines are a very difficult business to be in.
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It's not like, you know, airlines shut down all over the world, you know, all the time.
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I mean, the last business any government should be is in an airline because it is a hugely
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capital destructive business.
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And the government, any government for that matter, not just the Indian government, does
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not have unlimited amount of money.
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And this money can be well utilized somewhere else.
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No, and we keep committing the sunk cost fallacy and throwing good money after bad governments
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especially tend to do this, saying that we've kept it going for so long, we'll keep it
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going a little bit more.
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Another tendency is to sort of look at all these public sector enterprises as family
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You'll have all these politicians, you know, saying this phrase over and over again.
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Now the point is, you know, family jewels actually help in an emergency.
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So this is the wrong, you know, term to use, you know, not in case of every public sector
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unit, but in case of many public sector.
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Actually, most of them and also jewels are assets.
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Air India is a liability.
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So tell me something, I mean, the sort of people
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who would call it a family jewel or use that kind of language would be, let's say classic
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Because Nehru built this whole public sector and blah, blah, blah.
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But Narendra Modi came in promising different things.
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It was like, okay, I will do all these reforms and I will, you know, government should not
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be in the business of business as a scriptwriter of his, no doubt, not him himself eloquently
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But A, they haven't shown any tendency to do any reforms in all these years.
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I mean, they're perfectly happy being, if there's a big state, as long as they are in
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charge of the big state.
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And you know, just looking at their record, do you think they were really serious about
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I mean, these terms and conditions, do you think they are just made in bad faith?
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They know that no one will agree to them.
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That's a difficult question to answer because, you know, only people who have come up with
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these terms and conditions would know whether they have been made in good faith or bad faith.
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But the point is, you know, in fact, the interesting bit recently was that Mohan Bhagwat, you know,
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the man who is in charge of the boss man of RSS, if I may put it so, recently said that
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Air India should be sold to an Indian airline.
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I mean, I'm paraphrasing here.
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The interesting thing is what that tells us is he's at least fine with the idea of the
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government selling the airline, which wasn't the case in the past, because, you know, anything
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that the BJP does, they need the, you know, clearance from the RSS.
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So he's, you know, he's probably ready to meet the government halfway there.
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But the problem is the terms that have been set, I mean, no Indian airline in their right
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mind would be able to, you know, buy Air India right now, and I mean, they're not big enough.
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So the solution to this is, and if, you know, the government, I mean, I've read some media
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reports which have said that the government is looking into it, and if they are serious
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about it, the only way to sell Air India is to sort of divide it and sell it.
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So what do I mean by that?
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So look at an airline like Indigo.
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Now they are clearly not interested in the domestic business of Air India, because they
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already have 40% of the Indian market, domestic market.
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What would they be interested in?
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They would be interested in the international market.
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What part of the international market would they be interested in?
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Probably the Gulf, the Middle East market, because Air India Express has a reasonably
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good presence in that market.
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And Indigo being a low cost airline, I mean, so, you know, you would have that sort of
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synergy, you know, which the merger experts talk about all the time.
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So that part is very, very clear.
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Even an airline like Jet, which is not doing too well internationally, would be interested
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in the international business of Air India.
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Now Tata's essentially have stakes in two airlines operating domestic market in India.
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There is Air Asia and there is Vistara.
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If you add the amount of the market that they have is around 8%.
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So they would clearly be interested in the domestic business of Air India.
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But would they be interested in the domestic business of Air India along with the employees
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I'm really not so sure.
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I mean, so you have to essentially sell this business piece by piece.
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And the government is the last institution which would have the capability of selling
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anything piece by piece.
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No, the thing with piece by piece, even there is a problem that arises is that, yeah, their
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international landing rights and all that are very valuable, their fleet is valuable
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and so on and so forth.
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Different chunks of the business are valuable.
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But what is a huge burden is that debt is a huge burden.
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Their extremely inefficient employee base is a huge burden, by which I don't mean the
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individuals are inefficient.
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I just mean that the system as a whole is inefficient, even if the individuals are excellent
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professionals at what they do, no one is disputing that.
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So what do you do about these?
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How do you separate these?
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I mean, the government, for example, can't just say that we'll keep the debt and sell
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No, so which is, as far as employees are concerned, I mean, unless the government makes them the
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sacrificial lamb for the lack of a better term, nobody is going to buy the airline.
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I mean, it's very clear.
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You have any airline which buys airline should be allowed to fire people from day one.
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Otherwise, you know, because airlines are a very difficult business to run.
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Because you know, the basic truth of economics is that as a company, you get money if you're
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of service to the consumer and as an employee, you get money if you're of service to the
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So, and that's the company's call to make.
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The debt, you know, so it's the debt part is the most difficult part because that takes
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away, you know, almost all servicing that debt takes away a large chunk of their revenue.
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So unless, you know, the government takes over that debt and then tries to sell the
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airline, only then I think people will get interested because I don't see any airline
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taking on five billion dollars of debt and servicing it in the years to come.
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So are there any sort of previous cases of any government in the world actually selling
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a public sector unit of with this kind of debt?
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And is there any model?
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But what I do know is that, you know, the British government did sell the British Airways
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and the airline did fairly well now, but whether the British Airways had debt at that point
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of time or how much debt did they have, I have no idea.
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So if Mr. Jaitley listens to this podcast and he calls you into his office in New Delhi
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and says Vivek, tu sambhal main hi kar sakta and you handle Air India, what would your
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I mean, see, the only way you can sell the airline is obviously, as I said, you know,
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the government will have to take on the debt in some form and or, you know, if not, you
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know, if see, the thing is this, you know, if you look at two thirds of the debt of the
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airline, they're basically working capital loans.
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Now, if anyone's taking over two thirds of the debt, I mean, they need to get something
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There is nothing against it, right?
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So what do you do in that case?
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So you know, if you do not take on the entire debt, you at least sort of bring it down.
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I mean, you know, let's say, you know, you say, okay, one third of the debt, maybe someone
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So at one third of the debt, you know, the amount comes to around 17,000 crores and the
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aircraft loans of the airline Air India are around 18,000 crores.
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So against, so you at least have an asset against those loans.
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So at some level, that makes sense.
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I mean, you probably bring down, you know, the two third part to one third and the employees,
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I mean, you cannot negotiate on their behalf.
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You have to let the new owner decide, you know, what they want to do because the ultimately
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the Air India has around, I think 18, 19,000 employees.
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And in the context, larger context of the nation, it shouldn't matter.
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And most of them, you know, if they're good enough should be because if they're providing
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value, they'll get a job because see, the point is again, you know, what we don't realize
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is that only 3% of Indians have traveled by air.
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So there is the market is still, it's not even opened up.
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And anyone who's providing value will keep his job or get a new job.
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The only people who would complain are those who know they are not providing value and
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are basically sponging off our money, taxpayers' money.
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So there are no perfect solutions going around here.
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It's not, I mean, economics is not mathematics.
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But moving aside from Air India, which is a slightly almost intractable problem because
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of the size of the debt and so on, in general, just as regards this government's approach
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or ideology towards public sector units and, you know, towards the business of being in
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business, so to say, to paraphrase those famous words.
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Has there been a change or is it more?
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It's almost, in fact, the economics of Narendra Modi is almost similar to the economics of
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Exactly what I keep saying.
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I mean, he has a command and control mindset of Nehru and authoritarianism of Indira and
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her appetite for disastrous experiments.
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Speaking of disastrous experiments, obviously brought demonetization to mind immediately.
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But let's leave that aside for a moment and instead talk about something, a phenomenon
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that came up recently and that happened a lot after demonetization.
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I'm not sure it's natural now, which is cash shortages in the banks.
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Now you've written about this as well in some detail explaining why there were these recent
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cash shortages and people lining up outside ATMs and those signs on ATMs that cash are
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I think this is a situation where you can only have a theory.
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My theory is that as the economy expands, the currency in circulation also goes up.
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Now if you look at the numbers and if you look at numbers between 2012, 2014 and 2014
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and 2016, the economy in both the cases grew by more than 20 percent and here we are not
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adjusting for inflation, so this is what we call nominal GDP growth.
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At the same time, the currency in circulation also grew by more than 20 percent.
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I mean, it's not a one-to-one, but more or less, thereabouts.
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Now come down to the two years between 2016 and 2018.
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The economy again grew by around 21 percent, but the currency in circulation grew by only
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So obviously there was a certain shortage which was already there.
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Now typically if you look at the post-demonetization, pre-demonetization and the post-demonetization
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cash to currency to GDP ratios, there is a substantial difference.
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Now pre-demonetization, the ratio was around 12 percent.
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As of March 31st, 2017, it came down to 8.8 percent.
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And as of March 31st, 2018, it had recovered to around 10.9 percent.
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So we are still that 1, 1.1 percent short.
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Now since around November, December, since October, the economy has started reviving.
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You know, when the economy starts to revive, obviously the cash demand goes up and that
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cash is not available in the market.
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What also happened was that, you know, around three to four months back, all these rumors
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around the FRDI bill and the government seizing money in banks started to go around.
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So people started hoarding cash.
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People started hoarding cash.
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And this is, I mean, again, all this is anecdotal and I mean, there is some data as well.
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In fact, if you look at, so, you know, if you compare the cash withdrawn from ATMs using
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debit cards during the second half of the year, vis-a-vis the first half of the year.
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So the second half of 2017-18, the growth was 12.2 percent.
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And if you look at the data for the last six years, this has been the highest growth.
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Now typically people do withdraw more money during the second half of the year because
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we have festivals and at the same time the agriculture, you know, the procurement season
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is also, you know, runs parallelly.
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But this increase was more than, you know, justifiable.
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So at some level, my theory is that people obviously, you know, got spooked out with
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all these FRDI rumors going around and started to hoard cash.
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You know, what happens is, you know, it is easy to hoard cash using the 2000 rupee note.
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And as the 2000 rupee note disappears from the market, you need four 500 rupee notes
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So the currency has not been expanding at the same speed as the demand is, okay.
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So if you put all these factors together, you know, ultimately the reason there was
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a cash shortage was because of demonetization.
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If demonetization had not happened and the cash or the currency had, you know, continued
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to grow at the same pace as it had in the past, this would have never happened.
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And that took away 86 percent of the money supply, so to say.
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And the thing there is a mistake, I mean, we've discussed this before many times and
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the mistake that the Modi government, one of the many mistakes they made there was they
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assumed that 500 and 1000 rupee notes are used for storing money as opposed to transacting.
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No, I mean, so yes, I mean, which is, which was absolutely not the case.
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Yes, because cash is not, I mean, as I think said earlier as well, and there was enough
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data which told them that people don't hoard black money in the form of cash.
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Exactly, so people hoard, there are ways of doing it.
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And those who are inclined to hoard small amounts of it in cash now find it easier because
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of the 2000 rupee notes, which as you correctly said, take four or 500 rupee notes to, you
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know, get you tougher and therefore.
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Because we don't have a 1000 rupee note and we have a 200 rupee note now also.
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And when elections happen, then obviously parties are hoarding money and they're, you
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know, they're gathering money.
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So all that essentially adds to, so, you know, if you look at, obviously there is election
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only happening in the state of Karnataka and it's not like elections haven't happened
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before, but there was no cash shortage earlier, but this time around there is a cash shortage
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because earlier there was enough money floating around in the system and that money is no
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longer floating around.
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I mean, because, you know, your currency to GDP ratio has gone down.
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So every, you know, sort of this incremental use of cash pulled away money from, you know,
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an already cashed out financial system and that ultimately led to a cash shortage.
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So now, you know, we had an episode discussing your easy money trilogy and the whole concept
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of easy money and so on.
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So like looking back on the last four years and looking back on all the governments before
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that, what do you think is this government's approach to monetary policy and is it different
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from what previous governments used to be?
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Is it more of the same?
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Do they not have a clue?
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I mean, how would you, how would you sum it up?
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I mean, any government which sort of demonetizes currency, wouldn't really, I would say they
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wouldn't have any understanding of any monetary policy and demonetizing 86% is madness.
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I mean, so I don't think there is any understanding of, I mean, forget understanding.
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I don't think they're bothered about it.
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I mean, defenders of the move and this can hardly be defended, but in the sense, you
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know, the new, the main defense is that it has led to, you know, income tax being paid
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But, you know, if you look at the numbers, the difference is not huge in the sense last
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year, I think the direct access to GDP ratio was 5.6%.
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So it's 32 basis points.
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Also you need to take into account the fact that, you know, the refunds this year have
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been much lower than past years.
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So if you don't refund money, obviously your, you know, direct tax to GDP ratio goes up.
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Then there are other things wherein, you know, there were news reports about how banks were
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forced to deposit the TDS that they collected in the month of March, in the month of March
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itself, you know, in earlier years, it used to be in the month of April.
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Also the larger point is that, you know, there has people say that there has been a growth
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in the number of taxpayers, which isn't exactly true.
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There has been a growth in the number of people filing tax returns, which are two different
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So, which basically means that it's chartered accountants who are benefiting at the end of
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No, but when I meant that there are defenses, I meant that the one common defense of Modi
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or not Modi, but his government, so to say, is that, listen, he took this decision unilaterally
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even Jaitley wasn't consulted.
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Those guys didn't have a clue of what was happening.
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But then the larger question is that even if you look at say the finance ministry's management
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over the last four years or so on, what's, what's your take on it?
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What's your assessment of how the finance ministry in the finance ministry is going
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I mean, they are just, you know, they are essentially obsessed with the optics of driving
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up the direct tax numbers, you know, with the optics of, right.
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And I mean, you cannot ultimately...
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Explain what you mean by the optics.
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I mean, basically, you know, at every occasion, you're essentially trying to justify that,
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you know, we are collecting more tax than the past.
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Obviously you will collect more tax than the past because as the economy grows, the tax
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Now how do you, you know, you basically, when you claim that you're collecting more tax
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than the past, the first thing you need to do is give out numbers as a proportion of
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Then you need to sort of give a breakup of the kind of taxes you are collecting because,
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you know, 2017-18 has been a good year for the stock markets as well.
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So, you know, they would have collected a, you know, more securities transaction tax,
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more short-term capital gains tax.
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So which is, if you look at the data for between 2005 and 2008, there was a spike in the direct
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tax to GDP ratio and then it fell again.
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And why was there a spike?
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Because the stock markets were doing well, the real estate market was doing well.
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Now, I mean, this year, obviously the real estate market is not doing well, but a lot
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of people have been booking stock market gains.
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So in my point is that, you know, there are other ways of sort of improving the tax to
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GDP ratio, like simplifying the tax system, which is not happened at all.
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And you know, like somebody once told me that one way of seeing how well the economy is
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doing or how much you're progressing is by seeing how much tax revenues are going up.
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And for me, that's, you know, the more taxes go up, the worse I feel because that's a transfer
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of wealth from the productive part of the economy to the unproductive part of the economy.
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Also, you know, if you look at again, I mean, okay, you know, let's assume, I mean, I mean,
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that's obviously what a government would aim for.
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So, you know, let's keep all these, you know, points of view aside and let's assume that
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the government is collecting more tax in a year when the economic growth has actually
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So, I mean, there is a disconnect somewhere.
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Now you're collecting more direct taxes, but your indirect taxes have fallen.
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I mean, the GST, the amount of money they expected to collect, it's no any of that.
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I mean, they expected to collect some 91,000 crore rupees a month.
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The collections are around 83, 84, 85.
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The central government expects to collect around 50,000 crores of central GST every
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If you look at the assumptions for, you know, the current year's budget in the month of
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March, which was obviously February data, they had collected around 27,000 crores.
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So there is a huge, where is that 23,000 crores going to come from?
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So, as I said, you know, this government is essentially obsessed with the optics of trying
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to portray that, you know, we are collecting more tax.
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Is governance by WhatsApp?
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Yeah, I mean, you could say that.
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So let's, let's, I think we might be getting lost in the weeds here.
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So let's, let's take a sort of a more, a broader look at the economy as such.
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And so the question I'm going to kind of ask is that, look, for you and I, it's very easy
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to say how our lives are as broadly we are living very comfortable lives.
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Yes, we have to file GST a little bit more and blah, blah, blah, but minor inconveniences
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basically, you know, like my earlier analogy of you ask someone who's sitting in an air
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conditioned car the weather and he'll say it's cool.
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That's pretty much how it is with the economy and you and me.
#
But if you are to try and get a sense of what the economy really is like, and for a moment,
#
let's leave politics out of it.
#
We know that in some ways things are decent, we are growing at a decent pace.
#
On the other hand, there are many big things to worry about, none more worrying basically
#
than the jobs crisis that is coming up.
#
So if you were to evaluate our economy and the direction we are moving in, what are the
#
sort of metrics or the factors you'd look at?
#
What are the things you'd look at and what would you conclude?
#
So the first thing is, I mean, I would obviously look at the jobs scenario and the sad part
#
is we really don't have much data coming out on this front.
#
And can you explain why we don't have?
#
So one is we used to have this annual employment and unemployment report, which the Labour
#
Bureau used to bring out.
#
Now the last report came out in 2015-16 and recently the government answered in parliament.
#
They said that they have scrapped the surveys on which those reports were based.
#
In fact, they also said that a sixth survey was carried out, but that report hasn't seen
#
So I don't know, probably the NITI Aayog is developing some sort of a measure.
#
So we'll have to wait for that.
#
But having said that, there is enough anecdotal evidence which tells you that anecdotal data
#
based, it's not like me talking to five guys.
#
So that tells you that there are not enough formal jobs going around.
#
So recently, I mean, if you've been following the newspapers or you would know that the
#
Indian Railways had advertised for 90,000 vacancies, against which it got 2.8 crore
#
So I did some rough calculations and I came to the conclusion that nearly one fourth of
#
India's youth workforce, which is looking for a job, I mean, not everyone is, which
#
is looking for a job, basically applied for these railway jobs.
#
And this is without getting the education factor in as a cut off.
#
If you get in the education factor also, the one fifth portion will go up even more.
#
And this is not really outlier data, we've been hearing these kinds of numbers for years
#
So basically 20% of India's youth workforce looking for a job applies for 90,000 vacancies
#
I mean, if this is not disturbing, I don't know what is.
#
So the explanation people normally offer against this is, you know, everybody wants a government
#
job in India, which is true, but that is not the complete explanation.
#
Now you need to dig a little more to understand as to why everyone wants a government job
#
If you look at, you know, in India, we have this term called underemployment, which basically
#
means that everyone looking for a job for all through the year is not able to find one.
#
So if you look at the underemployment data, 60% of the Indians who are looking for a job
#
all through the year are able to find it, which basically means 40% of the Indians who
#
are looking for a job all through the year are not able to find it.
#
So the informal economy does not give you work all the time.
#
So if you are a part of the informal economy and the government job comes up somewhere,
#
I mean, you are going to apply for it.
#
The second part is that if you look at the kind of money that gets paid, you know, if
#
you look at self-employed professionals, two thirds of self-employed professionals and
#
contract workers make up to rupees 90,000 a year, which is basically 7,500 rupees a
#
No, even the most basic government job pays around 20,000 rupees a month, okay, at the
#
So it is obvious people, even, you know, people who have jobs, these so-called informal jobs
#
will apply for government jobs.
#
Not just, if I may interject, another factor is and I think this is a difference that Jagdish
#
Bhagwati had once brought up between India and China, for example, and it was possibly
#
based on his reading of Ronald Coase's book on China, where the idea was that India is
#
a rent-seeking economy, while China is a profit-seeking economy, where the sort of the natural instinct
#
in China is if you want to make money, you provide a service to someone, you make their
#
lives better, you get money for it, you're trying to make a profit that way, by hell,
#
you know, it's a positive sum game, while in India, the government is so all-powerful
#
and not just all-powerful, but so pervasive that the easiest way to make money in India
#
is not through the struggles that are involved with starting a private business or working
#
in the private sector, but if you get a government job, then you know that you can basically
#
sponge off the rest of the people for the rest of your life.
#
Yes, but then see, Amit, that has always been the case.
#
But it is slightly different in what I'm basically trying to say is that, you know, just because
#
someone has a job or is doing some work, I mean, you cannot say that he cannot aspire
#
to sort of, you know, be at a better level, which a government job promises him.
#
So even if, you know, let's say, you know, for the sake of argument, an honest man gets
#
into working for the government, I mean, he will make much more money than he is making
#
So that is a fact of life.
#
So you know, the Niti Ayog had done, you know, had given some data and they said, basically
#
said that India's jobs problem is not an informal jobs problem, but it is a formal jobs problem,
#
because you know, the ratio of incomes can even be up, you know, 20 is to 1.
#
So ultimately, you know, people want government jobs, especially at the lower level, because
#
the government jobs pay much better.
#
And I'm not even talking about.
#
And the reason for that is also in a sense, a failure of government, I mean, the reason
#
there isn't a vibrant job sector, there isn't a, you know, is because we haven't allowed,
#
for example, the manufacturing revolution, which China went through because of the cheap
#
labor, which could have, you know, taken us places and it hasn't.
#
And that was never allowed to happen.
#
And private enterprises was never allowed to progress.
#
So which is why, you know, anyone and everyone who sort of is wants to move up in life wants
#
So it's not as simple as, you know, people have, you know, people applying for government
#
jobs because they can make, you know, more money on the side or because the life is comfortable.
#
I mean, yes, all that is there, but there is much more to it than that.
#
So there was this railway thing that happened and then there was something, I think Mumbai
#
Mirror had a front page story recently where they said that two lakh people have applied
#
for 1137 posts for constables in Mumbai police.
#
And very, very interestingly, it had, as usual got, you know, people who were MBAs and engineers
#
and in fact, there were three lawyers also, if I remember correctly, and one PhD.
#
So now why are these people?
#
I'm surprised there was just one PhD, but yeah, I mean, there should have been more.
#
So, so, you know, the question is why are these people applying for these jobs?
#
I mean, the reason is very straightforward because at lower levels, the government pays
#
And obviously, you know, in, in case of, you know, constable, there are other avenues of
#
So there are a lot of these.
#
I mean, what it also points to, and this is an aside not really related to this, but what
#
it also points to when you have so many PhDs and MBAs applying for, you know, clerical
#
level jobs is that our education system is badly broken, that most of these degrees have
#
become completely meaningless.
#
In fact, what has also happened is, I mean, I can, because I remember some numbers for
#
engineering very clearly, India produces more engineers than China and USA put together.
#
So obviously we are over-educating people in some sense.
#
So what has happened is if you look at many engineering colleges across Western and South
#
Southern India, where, you know, you have all many more private engineering colleges
#
than other parts of India, many engineering colleges are shutting down.
#
I mean, they don't get students anymore.
#
In fact, in some states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, as long as you sit
#
for the exam, you're likely to get an engineering seat.
#
And I suppose the demand has gone down because people have figured that it's no longer meaningful
#
unless you're getting it from a good institution.
#
Yes, which is, it took them at least 25 years to figure that out.
#
But I mean, this was something that I used to say, you know, back in 2002 and 2003 that,
#
you know, all these engineering degrees are not worth it.
#
But then, you know, people take some time to figure out the most basic things in life.
#
So see, it was all a function of the fact that, you know, in the nineties, very average
#
engineers suddenly found jobs in, you know, IT companies and the Y2K thing happened.
#
And, you know, suddenly you had all these guys working on site in the US and making
#
dollars and so all that glamour caught on.
#
So everybody wanted to be an engineer and work in an IT company.
#
But then that business model doesn't work anymore.
#
I mean, IT salaries, starting salaries haven't gone up in years.
#
In fact, an Uber driver, if you, you know, if you were to sort of drive an Uber for 12
#
hours a day, you would end up making more money than an entry level IT engineer.
#
And much, much more than a podcaster.
#
So you know, the next time you take a taxi after you're recording, who knows who might
#
It's like, hello, Vivek, good to see you again.
#
So you know, the job struggle is a consequence of a system of governance that is completely
#
broken the whole command and control mindset.
#
Private sector wasn't allowed to come up.
#
Private enterprise was looked down upon.
#
You have your license charge, it still is, it's like that.
#
Now it's worsened by what people call the demographic dividend, but could also equally
#
be called the demographic disaster because you have, you know, a million people coming
#
into the workforce every month and you just don't have those jobs.
#
You don't have those formal jobs.
#
And informally, you know, everyone can open a pakora stall, we know that.
#
Pakora stalls are very important.
#
So yeah, I mean, one thing that I often wonder is why aren't there riots on the street already
#
and how long will it take for them to be there?
#
But you know, just leaving that amusing aside, at a policy level, what could have been done
#
Like let's say in 2014, you are called in by Mr. Modi and he says that I've been listening
#
to your podcast, so you haven't recorded them yet, but I've got them through a time machine
#
and you are very insightful and you know, I will go on to make many mistakes unless
#
I make you finance minister and I'll do something.
#
At a policy level, what could have been done?
#
What can still be done?
#
And what, you know, I mean, I wrote a big book about that, India's big government and
#
how it's hurting us, which I would encourage all the people should read that because it's
#
not such a straightforward question to answer, but at the most basic level, you have to let
#
businesses operate, right?
#
I mean, you have to let them, allow them to expand without having to sort of pay rent,
#
you know, every time they want to sort of, you know, go beyond what they are currently
#
So tell my listeners that, you know, we keep like apologies if you're not, if you're wondering
#
what the phrase rent and rent seeking are, we're not talking about the rent you pay when
#
you say rent some real estate or whatever.
#
But what we mean by rent is a term economists use.
#
So basically when a government servant has a certain amount of power, he uses that power
#
to extract what economists call rent.
#
So for example, if there is a food licensing inspector who has to inspect your restaurant
#
every month, he extracts rent by coming to your restaurant and saying that I will report
#
you unless you give me so much money, that is a rent and all these rents become an additional
#
burden upon the business and make it harder for it to operate and at the margins turn
#
profitable businesses into unprofitable businesses and make it more profitable.
#
In fact, for an enterprising individual to be the government servant who is actually
#
getting rent rather than try to be an entrepreneur fighting against this wave.
#
And we had an episode on the scene unseen many, a few months ago with my very good friend
#
Madhu Menon, which was on restaurant regulations, you know, he used to run a restaurant and
#
he sort of enlightened me on what it used to involve and he no longer runs the restaurant
#
and I'm really happy for him because in India to be a private entrepreneur of any sort is
#
just you know, a path full of thorns.
#
In fact, you know, a bigger example for this would be a bureaucrat sending his son abroad
#
for studies and a businessman paying for it.
#
I mean, this is fairly classic, which happens indirectly anyway, but it can also happen
#
I mean, make it easier for private enterprise to come in and blah, blah, blah.
#
I'll give a very recent example.
#
So yesterday the business standard had a very interesting report on trade unions.
#
Now in India, you can become a member of, you know, let's say there is a company and
#
a trade unions being formed.
#
Now you don't need to be a worker in that company or you don't need an, you know, an
#
ex having spent an X number of years in that sector to become a member of that trade union.
#
We operate along those lines.
#
So what it does is it has led to the creation of, I mean, what is the right phrase for it
#
creation of, I mean, Carter is not the right word, but basically there are many people
#
going around who are professional trade unionists, right?
#
I mean, you know, only if a worker is working in a particular sector or has worked in X
#
number of years in a particular sector or is working in that company where the trade
#
union is being formed, you should be allowed to become a member of the trade union or run
#
Now, so the government had some plans of changing rules around this, but those plans have now
#
been dropped because the trade unions objected to it.
#
So you know, it starts at these, you know, granular level regulations, which sort of
#
need to be simplified and done away with, or something as simple as, you know, if, if
#
let's say an entrepreneur is looking to increase his authorized capital, I mean, the, you know,
#
even in that case, there is a certain amount of money that needs to be paid to the government.
#
I mean, these are things which need to be done away with.
#
I mean, it just doesn't make any sense or for the fact that, you know, how these tax
#
inspectors hound smaller entrepreneurs for bribes and so on.
#
So you know, one of the things the Modi government promised it would do in 2014 and they've been
#
working hard on the optics of this is ease of doing business.
#
Do you think there's been a difference?
#
I mean, this is a question you will have to put to a businessman.
#
I mean, I mean, you can get different answers from different business.
#
I can only talk anecdotally and I mean, I don't think there has really been much of
#
I mean, even though we've gone up the rankings, but the rankings again, as you would know,
#
I mean, they're limited to Mumbai and Delhi.
#
So as far as the jobs, coming jobs crisis, ongoing jobs crisis, there's another point
#
that I wanted to make about the jobs crisis, which I forgot.
#
So the center for monitoring Indian economy recently put out some data, which essentially
#
showed that the total value of projects scrapped by companies in the year 2017-18 was the highest
#
And it went up by almost 60% between 16-17 and 17-18.
#
What it essentially indicates is that if a project is not completed and it is scrapped
#
before being completed, it does not create the jobs that it would have otherwise done.
#
Even if you look at the projects which have been completed during the course of 17-18,
#
the value has dropped by almost a third.
#
So again, so if you take these factors into account, I mean, formal jobs are...
#
But I'm not saying what will it cause.
#
I'm saying what has caused it.
#
That's very, I mean, it could be anything from capacity utilization to whatever.
#
So broadly, if you had to, you know, and you write about the economy every week, it's pretty
#
much what you do and you've been doing it, you know, for a long time, from well before
#
Modi came to power and in the last four years and all that.
#
And if you sort of had to give a report card to this government based not on a utopian
#
vision of, oh, this is what should be done, but based on purely practical terms and give
#
a report card, how much have they tried, what difference have they made?
#
What are the sort of parameters you would mark them on and what kind of marks would
#
You basically want me to do a list like broadly, I mean, we're not going to hold you to it.
#
I'm not going to like, you know, there's, there's no way to screenshot this and put
#
it on Twitter six months later and said, look, he said this.
#
I'm not very good at these, you know, six things you need to do to turn India around.
#
My questions sound like baiting.
#
I mean, this sounds like that, you know, all these listicles that...
#
Forget the parameters, just in general that, you know, both of us understand that the system's
#
been bad for a long time and that it would remain bad is not a surprise, partly because
#
of the inertia of the system and partly because of the demographic disaster as it were of
#
so many young people coming into the workforce.
#
That is not a surprise.
#
But would you say that the Modi government, if you are to just answer the simple question
#
about whether, you know, what kind of a job have they done to fix these problems?
#
Would it be a lot in a, I mean, let's talk in the context of public sector banks, which
#
I think is by far the biggest problem they face in the public eye.
#
It's, it's coming to the public eye now after Nirav Modi sort of defaulted on the loans
#
So let's talk in terms of that.
#
And you know, I mean, it's not like, you know, so the first thing people, when you start
#
talking about bad loans, first thing people sort of jump up and say, but you know, Modi
#
did not cause these bad loans.
#
But then, you know, he did become the prime minister and as the prime minister, it was
#
his responsibility to solve it.
#
I mean, it might have been created or it was created by the previous regime, but that does
#
not mean anything anymore now.
#
Now if you look at the bad loans, they have been rising and as of 31st December, they
#
touched a total of 9 lakh crore, which is a huge number, 9 lakh crore on a whole public
#
The bad loans are around 7,77,000, 78,000 crores.
#
Now what has been done to sort of solve this problem?
#
I mean, nothing really, I mean, the government continues to pump money into these banks.
#
You have the bankruptcy code, which has been implemented.
#
There are too many teething troubles, you know, that it's going through.
#
But at a more, you know, at broadly at, I mean, very, very practical level, you know,
#
as we've also, we've talked about in the past, you know, should the government be running
#
21 public sector banks?
#
Nowhere in the world does the government run 21.
#
And I should interject here and inform our listeners that we have an episode on public
#
sector banks where we did speak about exactly this.
#
So you know, so you need to start looking into the fact that, okay, this has happened.
#
Now, how do we prevent this from happening again in the future?
#
I mean, nobody's really thinking through that.
#
All that has happened is that the government has continued to throw money at the problem.
#
Now throwing money at the problem, our money at the problem is not going to solve it in
#
Now, one of the things that I've sort of talked about, you know, in the recent past is that
#
most of these smaller public sector banks, I mean, other than let's say the top five
#
or the top six should not be allowed to carry out corporate lending because which is where
#
90% of the bad loans of public sector banks are because of lending to corporates.
#
So they should be, you know, what the jargon for this is narrow banking.
#
I mean, they should be limited to doing retail loans and stuff like that.
#
Now there has been no such thinking, which is, you know, come out from the government.
#
So you know, you, you have a problem and you continue to throw money at it and the money
#
that you can throw at it is not enough to, you know, solve the problem in more money
#
Now, where is that money going to come from?
#
I mean, nobody is talking about these things.
#
I mean, we've just done some basic patchwork and we seem to be happy with it.
#
And you know, there are so many repercussions of this, which people don't understand.
#
I mean, you know, when you pump money into public sector banks, you don't have money
#
for, you know, a lot of other things.
#
So recently the, I think the number two man in the army, the vice chief of army, a gentleman
#
called Lieutenant General Sarath Chand told the parliament panel that 68% of the army's
#
equipment is in the vintage category.
#
And I'll quote him here, funds allocated are insufficient and the army is finding it difficult
#
to even stock arms, ammunition, spares for a 10 day intensive war.
#
All three services are expected to be prepared for at least 10 days of intensive battle.
#
I mean, I mean, this is a major problem.
#
This is not trivial and the money could have been spent here.
#
So you know, there is no reason to continue running, you know, all the, I mean, I can
#
understand the government cannot shut down a state bank of India or a bank of Baroda
#
or a Punjab national bank or a Canada bank.
#
I mean, these are big banks.
#
But some of the smaller banks really do not, you know, form a large part of the Indian
#
You know, banks like Indian overseas bank, Dina bank, I mean, either the lending has
#
to be, you know, I mean, there's no real reason as to why the government continues to.
#
And even the bigger banks really should be privatized because hey, I'm sick of paying
#
So my larger point is, you know, when, when these things happen, the money has to come
#
Look at the fact that petrol prices are at a five year high, diesel is at an all time
#
high, even though oil prices are not nowhere near their all time high level.
#
So why is that happening?
#
Because the taxes that we pay on petrol and diesel have gone up quite a lot in the last
#
Where is that money going?
#
I mean, this is one of the ironies of democracy, right?
#
Every opposition party will claim to speak for the people, but once they are in power,
#
they'll try to enrich the state because that's where they are now.
#
Same things which everyone else is doing.
#
So you know, I mean, there are so many of these larger factors, which cannot be solved
#
through a banded approach.
#
I mean, you need some radical thinking, you need some radical decisions.
#
And these decisions obviously cannot be made now, you know, with elections one year away
#
because they never intended to make them.
#
I mean, honestly, their mindset, as you said, has been exactly the right.
#
So, you know, you basically, you know, if any, the unpopular decisions typically tend
#
to be made or should be made at least in the first couple of years, especially when you
#
have the kind of huge mandate that Mr. Modi had.
#
So I don't think any of the, you know, the so-called second generation of reforms as
#
economists like to call it have been pushed through.
#
I mean, we continue to more or less operate in the same way.
#
Would you agree with this very cynical thought that just arose in my mind that it's often
#
in a sense pointless to talk about the performance of one specific government over another because
#
the point is that every party when they are in power will behave exactly the same way.
#
I agree with that because so which is why, so I mean, so typically, you know, what happens
#
is and I talk from experience here is to when, when you write about, let's say, you know,
#
you write a piece and you're saying that, you know, Modi hasn't done this or whatever
#
and then, you know, people will ask you, but what did the Congress do?
#
I mean, yeah, which is true.
#
The Congress also did not do anything, but that does not justify Modi not doing anything
#
I, in fact, keep saying that all what about there is an admission of guilt.
#
Basically, when you ask what about, you're saying, yeah, okay, I'm guilty as charged,
#
but hey, you know, what about those other guys?
#
So I mean, which is true.
#
I mean, you know, the governments continue to operate in the same way as they had in
#
the past, at least on the economic front and I think a major reason for that is lies in
#
the fact that, you know, I don't think the economic situation of the country matters
#
much when people go out to vote.
#
I mean, unless it's hitting them in the form of, you know, onion prices touching 100 rupees
#
or petrol touching 100 rupees, you know, some of these issues tend to have, you know, a
#
But otherwise, they've chosen the narratives they want to believe, they've chosen the echo
#
chamber they want to be part of and often the thinking therefore is tribal, tribal,
#
not in a sense of actual tribes, but in terms of, okay, this is what I stand for.
#
And, you know, what also happens is at least, I mean, I can only talk about the middle and
#
the upper middle class is that the upper middle class in India has always wanted a strong
#
Now, strong leader essentially is a euphemism they tend to use for a benevolent dictator
#
and in their minds are, you know, countries like South Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan,
#
which have actually done very well under not, you wouldn't call them autocratic regimes,
#
but you know, probably slightly dictatorial.
#
So the problem is, you know, for every, every China and every Singapore, there is a Zimbabwe
#
No, and one thing you want to remember is…
#
There is a Uganda as well, which they do not really…
#
No, India is a one country in the world, I'm sure there are others, but India is one country
#
where from the time I've been a kid, one book that you'll always find prominently displayed
#
in bookshops and as a perennial bestseller in India is my conf.
#
You know, there are so many people who will say, ha, Hitler might have been whatever,
#
but the trains ran on time.
#
In fact, many publishers still, you know, continue to run their business because they
#
So there you go, which is telling commentary on the times, but let's not end on that
#
Instead, I'll end by asking you a couple of questions.
#
Again, now this time leaving aside politics because we've kind of agreed that every political
#
party is disgraceful and they'll do the same damn things in government, driven as much
#
by inertia as by their self-interest, but broadly looking at the economy, looking at
#
the direction that India is going in, what makes you A, hopeful and B, despair?
#
I mean, what makes me hopeful are essentially the people of this country in the sense that…
#
But we are an apathetic lot.
#
I mean, you know, the fact that, you know, I mean, if you look at the last 25-30 years,
#
I mean, economic growth has happened because of the people, not because of the…
#
I think the economic growth happened because of the IMF.
#
In 1991, they forced us and after that, you know, it's not like the government did anything
#
You know, they did those one set of reforms and then they…
#
So you're saying the natural enterprise of the people will get us through.
#
The natural entrepreneurial…
#
And, you know, the fact that people will do what they want to do and I think that gives
#
And what makes you despair?
#
What makes me despair is the constant apathy of the government when they, you know, refuse
#
to sort of recognize even the most basic problems.
#
I mean, you know, India has a jobs problem and, you know, the way we've sort of handled
#
it is by saying, you know, pakoda wala is making money and…
#
You try to control the optics.
#
You've given more importance to optics and…
#
I mean, so the optics, I mean, I guess the optics do matter.
#
I mean, obviously, every government is allowed to sort of, you know, control the optics.
#
But then, I mean, you cannot just keep controlling the optics and not address the, you know,
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So look at, I mean, something like the right to education and how it has sort of destroyed
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the Indian education system.
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Right, which was already in very bad shape before that.
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We have, dear listeners, we have a couple of episodes on this also in the past.
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You can go to seenunseen.in.
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There are two old episodes on education, one of them on the right to education with Vivek.
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So I, you know, we've been talking about it, but nothing seems to be, you know, done
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And, you know, meanwhile, a whole generation of Indians have passed through the Indian
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So what do you do about that?
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So you know, what happens is whenever I talk about the fact that, you know, there is a
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demographic dividend and there are no jobs going around, people come to me and say, hey,
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but I advertised and I did not get good candidates, which is the irony of the situation that even
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people who sort of, you know, people who are going through the education system are not
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This is, this is again a point I keep making that education should really be a matter of
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And there's a supply demand mismatch here with the education system is churning out
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people who are not suitable for the jobs that are there.
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So what's going wrong is, I mean, so, you know, the, what's going wrong is, is the fact
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that there is no link between our education and what is needed for people to sort of get
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And also the government hasn't allowed private education to, I mean, they've, they've sort
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of in the past few years, they have, I mean, you couldn't say, you can't say they haven't
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allowed, but it's just that, I mean, for all practical purposes, I'd say they won't because
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you still have those regulations that you need a playground this size.
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You need so many, that is more for the schooling thing.
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What I'm trying to say here is that over the last few years, many private universities
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have opened up, but they are not the kind which sort of teach the vocational courses
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I mean, it's like, you need these, what the government calls the ITIs in the private sector.
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You need people who are allowed to launch these ITIs and train people in basic things
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like, you know, plumbing, masonry, becoming an electrician and so on, and so on, and I
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mean, even that, for that matter, how to run a profitable pakora stall.
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And you need to, you know, let them sort of make money out of it.
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I mean, these courses cannot be three year, four year courses.
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They'll at best be 10 to 12 weeks in which they teach you, you know, the basic things
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and probably, you know, have some sort of, you know, an arrangement where these people
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I mean, right now, if you look at, you know, the construction business, all construction
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businesses need, you know, they need masons, they need electricians, they need plumbers.
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I mean, believe me, finding a good plumber is very difficult these days.
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So it sounds like an upper middle class lemon.
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I'm telling you, I mean, I got some plumbing work done recently and I realized, you know,
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how difficult it is to get a good plumber.
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So I mean, that's a different thing, but what I'm trying to say is that, you know, unless
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you let private guys thrive in the education sector and in the low end education sector,
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which has started to happen with, you know, with the entire skilling program that's going
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But again, the supply is much less than the demand.
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I mean, this, I guess, I mean, I looked at some numbers for last year.
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I think that in 2016-17, not 17-18, the ministry of skilling trained some 9 lakh people and
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the target was close to 2 crore.
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So yes, I mean, obviously these things cannot be scaled up, you know, overnight because
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I mean, you need teachers, you need teachers to teach those teachers.
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I don't think this command and control structure of a ministry of skilling or whatever really
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works because it's not going to lead anywhere.
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You have to let private entrepreneurs or you have to let people make money and then they'll
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On that exceptional note of hope, I mean, it's not a note of hope, but I'm just manipulating
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On that bright and cheerful note of hope, Vivek, thanks so much for coming on the scene.
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Thanks for having me, Amit.
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If you enjoyed listening to the show, do go to amazon.ie and right now and do a search
#
He's got the Easy Money Trilogy, which we've discussed on the show, so you can listen to
#
that podcast as well at sceneunseen.in, plus another great book called How Big Government
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If you thought this episode was interesting, you have to read that book.
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You can also follow him on Twitter at kaul underscore Vivek.
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You can follow me on Twitter at Amit Verma, A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A.
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You can browse past episodes of the Scene and the Unseen at sceneunseen.in.
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If you enjoyed listening to the Scene and the Unseen, it makes complete sense for you
#
to check out the Pragati Podcast, a show on public policy.
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Pragati is a magazine I edit and the Pragati Podcast is hosted by two of my colleagues,
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Pawan Srinath and Hamsini Hariharan.
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Every week, Pawan and Hamsini analyze views and news from India and the world and talk
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to experts and practitioners on a wide range of issues.
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Episodes out every Thursday, so there's your midweek fix right there.
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There she stands, a podcast addict, outside the bank, having travelled several miles to
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get in with other poor souls like her.
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The journey, though daunting for this youngling, will have some comfort because she has downloaded
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You can see more of her species on ivmpodcasts.com, your one-stop destination where you can check
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out the coolest Indian podcasts.
