With the way in which Narendra Modi has taken the whole nation by storm in the past few months, it won’t be wrong to call him as the Santa Claus of India. After all, almost the whole nation is behind him, which is quite a rare sight in our utterly diverse country. People just love him for the way he is and whatever he does.
Modi is a good leader, he is emphatic, he is not afraid to take bold decisions, and he looks very promising as well, but does that mean he can do wrong?
Of course he can. Just because we see him doing so much of good doesn’t make it apt to overlook the serious flaws which he has in his policies. Narendra Modi has been on the move ever since he has been elected as the Prime Minister of India, and he is trying to bring about many changes in our country, which is a good thing. The only issue is, some of his policies which are going to be in full swing in the coming year have some major drawbacks, and they are clearly being ignored.
Here are those three policies or I should say gifts from Narendra Modi which must leave you sceptic instead of happy.
1 Make in India – Modi has come up with this ambitious Make in India campaign to make our country a manufacturing hub, but is it actually required? Just because China succeeded by implementing such a policy, doesn’t mean it will be ideal for as well. Experts like Rghuram Rajan have raised concerns saying that, a strategy which subsidises exporters with undervalued exchange rates and cheap inputs is completely unlikely to be effective at this point of time. This is only going to reduce the domestic competition which will make the producers inefficient, eventually leading to the increase in cost for the consumers.
2 Limiting Foreign Direct Investment – The government has increased the limits on FDI in real estate, defence and railways, clearing the way for real estate investment trusts. The major problem with this policy is, if India needs a 2nd round of huge economic growth then these kind of administrative decisions just don’t meet the suitable structural reforms. These decisions are not radical and hence expecting something big to come out of them won’t be a good idea.
3 Jan Dhan Yojana – The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana is a very forward step taken by Narendra Modi, to provide a bank account and an ATM enabled RuPay card to almost 10 crore households which are unbanked. The biggest loophole which I see in this plan is the screening part. Right now there is no screening process to keep a check on people who are trying to benefit from this plan. Moreover, according to my friends father who works is a Bank Manager, single people are opening multiple accounts and the figure which govt is presenting is an exaggeration of the original figure. The very idea of this drive will be defeated if such a thing is allowed to continue. The campaign is most likely to end up as a mere populist measure by our Prime Minister.
If we accept these policies in the way they are, it is more likely that more harm than good will be done to our country. Therefore it is important for us to raise questions instead of accepting with open hearts whatever Narendra Modi has to present to us.
