Open Letter to Media Stalwarts

Respected Media Stalwarts !

A few days ago I was conversing with my Doctor and the pain I found in her reflects the pain of every being – rich and poor, owner or an employee,  all alike. Her agony was that after putting in hard labor, day to night, she gets some meager amount as performance incentive but GST is deducted from that amount too and that is in addition to Income tax she pays and tax on everything that she buys. You and I too are paying all kinds of taxes but being accustomed of it and accepting it as a part of life we do not feel the pain. But believe me as a human being even the richest person feels the pain when he has to part with his hard earned money, and a substantial amount at that, by way of various kinds of taxes that take away virtually HALF of our earning.

Process of taxation was started by Kautilya by imposing tax on land and was continued by successive rulers. British rulers made it more wide spread. The purpose of tax was to generate revenue for meeting expenses of government and spending surplus for welfare of people.  National governments of India have continued the process and have kept on widening its net, now not leaving any conceivable activity tax free. If these taxes are taken out of our lives income of everybody poorest to richest shall go up and cost of living shall be reduced to practically half.

I have worked on the simple theory that in present times value of Natural Resources and Concrete and Financial and intangible Assets like licensing power on various commercial and even social activities, at the disposal of Government are enormous valuing in Trillion of Dollars. Therefore, now the Government should earn revenue from these vast resources and NOT from Taxes.  

I have been working on this concept for last several years (in fact from UPA2 days when huge scams were coming out every other day) and now I am convinced I have a solution to it. My research says that our country owns numerous kinds of Natural Resources and Concrete and Financial Assets built since the start of civilization and being built every day. The cumulative value of these assets and resources is humongous but it remains unknown.  My theory is based on following facts –

1.     The country has a vast stock of Natural Resources and Concrete & Financial assets including many Intangible ones. The government neither knows nor have ever attempted to know the value of these resources due to enormity, variety, volume and geographical spread. In fact no country in world knows value of its huge stock of resources.

2.    My 60 years experience as a Business Executive has enabled me to devise a Methodology that can facilitate valuation of all Natural Resources and Assets spread all over the country. It took me several years to devise this methodology and now I am ready with a Research paper that runs into some 650 pages. I can send this paper to you for your review on your asking. However, a short PPT giving brief idea of the methodology is enclosed herewith. By using this methodology country shall know financial profile of every village, town, city and Metro. Consolidation of data of these Geographical Entities shall give financial profile of every District, State, every Central and State Ministry and of country as a whole.

3.    The country is governed by some 50 Ministries at Center that own, monitor and manage these assets. Therefore, it can be safely assumed that every Ministry is in control of lakhs of crores of National assets. If our Ministries start earning revenue by marketing Goods and Services produced by them prudently as commercial entities do, then country can earn a humongous amount of revenue. Presently what country is earning from its resources is a meager amount of just Rs. 2,72,700 crore as per Budget estimate of 2019-20.  Our Ministers are freely spending money out of taxes recovered from us. Can anybody give a logical answer why our Railway Ministry should draw finances from Budget for meeting shortfall in its revenue expenses and for making huge capital expenditure when it is running one of the biggest commercial ventures in the world charging fare and freight on carriage of passengers and goods? Same is the position of other Ministries. This study has compelled me to call our Ministers as good SPENDERS. In comparison a CEO of a private enterprise is an EARNER who gives commensurate return on the resources provided to him by the Entrepreneur.  The PPT enclosed herewith shall give you an idea of various assets owned by the country, how they can be evaluated, what benefits shall accrue from knowledge of financial profiles of villages, towns, cities, Ministries, States, and the whole country. Your comments on it shall help     my mission of making India a tax free country immensely.

My conviction is that -

The Governments should have been earning revenue by producing Goods and Services from these Resources and Assets for meeting its operational cost and spending the surplus for welfare of poor people. But Governments have taken the easy course of extracting Taxes from its hapless subjects as per the practice from ages.  Government is earning a minuscule, just about 10%, income from the humongous amount of Assets and Resources at its disposal, – Rs. 272647 crores in 2019-20 as per budget estimate, rest comes from various kind of taxes and borrowing.

Once value of resources at the disposal of Ministries is known then the second logical step would be to ask the Ministers and learned bureaucrats of each Ministry and State to Redesign their Work plan in a manner that they start generating commensurate revenue from the resources at their disposal just as in private sector. In case of need of new ideas, CEOs from private sector can be appointed through competition between various aspirants and appointing the ones who give most practical and most paying earning plan. Fundamental difference between a CEO and a Government Minister is that while the former is an EARNER the later is a SPENDER. The CEO is obliged to give commensurate return to his employer from the resources provided to him. The Minister has no obligation to earn; he simply gets money from budget to spend.

When the Ministries shall start earning from resources at their disposal pressure on budget shall start reducing and a day shall come when their earnings shall be optimized and they shall start contributing to the exchequer instead of living on it. I have started writing Open letters to our Ministers and putting them on my blogs for public participation. I am pointing out to the Ministers the huge stock of assets they possess and exhorting them to earn revenue from these assets to meet their revenue expenses in the first instance - A transformation from SPENDERS to EARNERS. 

Result a Tax free society – biggest gift to humanity.

Fortunately we have an exemplary Prime Minister who is running the government without any selfish motive in an efficient manner. Providing basic facilities to poor segment of our society is good but as per me that is not enough. I am urging the Prime Minister to take up the real challenge of evaluating national assets and make our Ministries earn commensurate revenue from the resources at their command. As you can visualize by and by the Ministries shall start augmenting their revenue earning capability. Their dependence on tax money shall start reducing and a lucky day shall come in our lives when there will be no need of tax money.

I have started my efforts for fulfillment of this noble objective. I have started writing to Prime Minister and all Ministers open letters that I am posting on my Blog – httop// mynotestopmofindia.blogspot.com for public viewing and their comments. I now seek your crucial support to this objective. With your wide reach you can make it happen much faster.  

Kindly have a look at my Blog  https://mynotestopmofindia.blogspot.com/ that displays my letters to Prime Minister of India, Finance Minister, Railway Minister, Infra Minister Shri Nitin Gadkari, Chief Economic Advisor and some introductory notes.

With most respectful regards

M.K. Agarwal

Mumbai

Twitter handle: @Ramsewak

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