Tsunami Blog

Official Contacts in India

How One can Help in this Crisis, by Rediff.com

Tsunami Relief, by NASSCOM (India)

If the government of India can really deliver relief and facilitate rehabilitation in a crisis like the present one, would it not have been much more effective in dealing with poverty at normal times? Can we really provide clean drinking water to the victims of the tsunami, when half of our population doesn’t have access to it in normal times? Can the government really deliver medication in a devastated area, when the state of public health care is so pathetic? Can we really distribute food in the crisis areas, when we have the normal spectacle of bulging glut in government depots, and a third of our children are malnourished as a matter of routine?
 
According to estimates, two-thirds of those killed in the few minutes of the killer wave have been women and children. But a million children under the age of five die each year in India due to preventable diseases, poor sanitation and non-potable water.
 
There can be no doubt about it:  relief operations should have been opened up to any one interested, including foreign governments and organisations. Just as all of us use thousands of products in our daily life without knowing who, where and how these are produced, opening up relief operations to the power of the market forces would ensure effective delivery, where it is needed most. Adam Smith’s `invisible hand` would be as effective in bringing relief, as it is in a normal market place.
 
The state generally commands logistical resources such as communication and transportation to launch relief and rehabilitation operations of such magnitude. However, part of the problem, the logistical bottlenecks that is affecting relief operations, is also the result of such government control.
 
It is claimed that profit- seeking operations of the marketplace is unsuitable for the task of disaster relief. Actually, the profit motive is one of the most powerful incentives devised by man to get anything done. Increased prices indicates to traders and investors an opportunity to meet the demand. And in the absence of procedural and logistical bottlenecks, the hallmark of government control, the market discovers the most cost effective way to deliver the necessary goods. And any effort at maximising profits by perpetuating misery is offset by other competitors, as also by private charities and organisations. People do care.
 
On the other hand, virtually every kind of relief operation mounted by government in India has suffered from delays, and often tainted by corruption. It is impossible for the private sector to match that level of perversity.
 
Apart from the chaos, confusion and delays in providing relief, there is a more fundamental problem in government-dominated relief operations. The government operates on the basis of coercive taxation, citizens do not have a choice in the matter. In contrast, private relief operates on the basis of voluntarily donation. The resultant problem of “moral hazard” is not an abstract speculation. It is no uncommon to hear during a natural disaster that if government is going to tax for relief, what is the point in making private donations.
 
Although any immediate taxes to deal with the disaster has been scotched for the moment, it is difficult to believe that the government would let such an opportunity to expand its domain go by. 
 
There is a great deal of irony in all this. The poor has been the biggest victim of this natural calamity. Government economic policies have singularly helped perpetuate this poverty for decades, thus sustaining the people vulnerability of the people. Yet in this moment of crisis, the government is seeking to further expand its domain in the name of helping the people. It is impossible to avoid the feeling that crises like this are used by governments to seek their own legitimacy. Relief operation is only a means to that end.

[Barun Mitra is the director of Liberty Institute, a Delhi-based independent think tank seeking to empower people by harnessing the power of the market.]