Today's DNA reports that the Karnataka State Food & Civil supplies minister has decided to write to the Government of India (GoI) seeking restriction on rice exports from the State. Apparently this move has been contemplated in the wake of rising rice prices in the open market, and that "the State has no role in curbing price rise."
We may recall in this context voluntary steps promised by the GoI towards controlling spiraling onion prices, again in the open market. These and many similar instances of government intrusion into a free and open market to regulate prices through lateral exercise of legislative and executive powers present evidence of loose interpretation of governance boundaries or an oppressive attitude towards an open market.
These episodes provide evidence to the fact that governments are exceeding their appointed charter to remain in popularity. But an even more interesting pattern that emerges from such episodes is that all the powers required to suppress free-market forces and regulate market prices seem to have been appropriated by the GoI - the master. The State governments, the little boys, as always, are reduced to mere observatories - which are expected to observe the price rise in local markets and obediently report them to the Center.
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is yet another instrument that portrays the State government as a mere spectator, what with the fickle Central ministry fiddling with the rationing of cooking gas and State governments mutely watching the show unfold.
Another burning matter that surfaces out of this issue is the matter of border and import-export control. If the State governments cannot exert control over what gets exported out from the State and they have to rely on the executive powers of the Center to exert this control, it exposes the sad state of control an Indian State has over its own physical borders. It exposes the mechanism in which the States have been made to bequeath control over their own borders to the Center, making States dependent on a less capable government (GoI) when it comes to protecting itself either from external attacking factors or from leakage of internal stuff through these borders - both against State interests.
These topics are fine examples that help understand the critical loopholes that can exist in a highly centralized governance mechanism. Such holes can only be plugged by proper decentralization of governance and powers. A comprehensively thought over devolution of governing powers is highly overdue in India.
Also read (in Kannada) about other border control issues: ಯಾರ ಗಡಿ ಮತ್ತು ಯಾರ ಪಲಾಯನ?
We may recall in this context voluntary steps promised by the GoI towards controlling spiraling onion prices, again in the open market. These and many similar instances of government intrusion into a free and open market to regulate prices through lateral exercise of legislative and executive powers present evidence of loose interpretation of governance boundaries or an oppressive attitude towards an open market.
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is yet another instrument that portrays the State government as a mere spectator, what with the fickle Central ministry fiddling with the rationing of cooking gas and State governments mutely watching the show unfold.
Another burning matter that surfaces out of this issue is the matter of border and import-export control. If the State governments cannot exert control over what gets exported out from the State and they have to rely on the executive powers of the Center to exert this control, it exposes the sad state of control an Indian State has over its own physical borders. It exposes the mechanism in which the States have been made to bequeath control over their own borders to the Center, making States dependent on a less capable government (GoI) when it comes to protecting itself either from external attacking factors or from leakage of internal stuff through these borders - both against State interests.
These topics are fine examples that help understand the critical loopholes that can exist in a highly centralized governance mechanism. Such holes can only be plugged by proper decentralization of governance and powers. A comprehensively thought over devolution of governing powers is highly overdue in India.
Also read (in Kannada) about other border control issues: ಯಾರ ಗಡಿ ಮತ್ತು ಯಾರ ಪಲಾಯನ?
0 comments
ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿರಿ: | Pass your comment: