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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.] |
