Vulgar Salaries - Corporate India

Mr.Salmaan Khurshid
Union Minister for Corporate Affairs
Government of India
New Delhi

Dear Mr. Khurshid ,

I wish to put my view point on your statement made a few days ago on the Vulgar salaries. Since i was travelling so i could not send this earlier .

Recently there has been a lot of hue and cry created due to a statement made by you. Earlier a similar statement had come from Dr. Manmohan Singh. According to you, corporate honchos are drawing salaries that are 12500 times the per capita income of this nation

I am not at all happy with your statement . I recall my letter to Dr. Manmohan Singh in January 09, wherein i requested that the salaries of the public representatives must be made more lucrative to attract the best brains

Also, that I must walk you through some of the realities in the corporate world and the politician’s working so as to make a correct assessment and a logical conclusion.

Firstly , Mr.Salmaan Khurshid , you must question why the governments in the last 62 years have not been able to increase the per capita income in this nation ? If the per capita income would have grown sufficiently , then you would not have a devastating comparison of 1:12500 ? Prime Facie your governments are at a fault for the backward development of this nation on the basis of caste and regions , and focussing on the real issues

Also , that the corporate world have created wealth for the nation and politicians have taken the nation’s wealth to Swiss Banks ? Did you take this into account before your statement ?

Corporates have created millions of Jobs. Be it TATA’s , Birla’s , RPG or Reliance or any big or even the smallest corporate house . These people have a lot of responsibility to deliver & risks to take at the cost of their family and social life. Still of whatever they earn , you ( i mean the government ) takes 50 % as taxes , both direct and indirect taxes. Needless to mention, about the income that government makes from the corporate taxes that the companies pay due to the hard work and intelligence of these executives !! . If they earn Rs.50 crore a year after delivering billion of dollars for the nation’s economy & creating lacs of jobs, what is wrong in that ? You forget that Ambani’s themselves contribute about 10 % to the total tax kitty of this nation ? What an irony that you would pat your back with his 60 % voluntary salary cut . Anyways, he has his net worth in billions of dollars as stakes in RIL etc........ You must think of nationalising his stake in RIL

Did you also take into account the CSR ( Corporate social responsibility ) that the corporates undertake ?

Mr. Minister , did you ever consider that government run companies are ‘Toxic assets’ till your people run it, and they become ‘Exotic assets ’ once they are privatised !! Because when you pay peanuts , you get monkeys !!

Today , you go all over the world and scream of the India’s IT & Telecom numbers . This is done due to the hard work of Private CEO’s and not political monkeys !! You had the monopoly of BSNL & MTNL . What great job have you done despite the monopoly ? You privatised VSNL to TATA’s and it is doing good. You could not make good business out of it. In the 60’s when the private sector wanted to grow you licensed it and even nationalised it, claiming it was the right thing to do . After messing it for 40 years , now you are privatising and you believe that it is the best thing to do ? Are you not fooling the public ? You all are privatising as you don’t have the money to run the government !! That’s the truth .

Let me show you what you politicians do. Here are some examples

Centaur hotel at Mumbai airport was sold to Batra Hospitality for Rs. 85 crore . Without doing anything , Batra Hospitality sold it to Sahara for Rs. 143 Crore within a few weeks . And its occupancy is 100 % at any given point in time. What was your minister doing when Centaur failed to deliver ? What was the basis of his selling to Batra and not to Sahara directly ? Reason out why the hotel was sold at such a low cost to Batra Hospitality ? Government lost due to a minister that was not at all as competent as Batra Hospitality executives or .......................

Your Current Civil Aviation minister had lost the election in 2004, despite that he was made the minister . Under his leadership, Indian airlines would stand to lose Rs.5000 Crores this year . Is this how a corporate CEO performs when he takes the so called ‘Vulgar’ salaries? Give me one example in India where the CEO gives such a humongous loss and still continues !!

India is facing an unprecedented shortage of agriculture products ( grains etc due to erratic and insufficient rains ). Please check the rule book of the FCI (Food corporation of India ) godowns ( warehouses ). 2.5 % of wastage is permissible ( please correct me , i may be wrong on this info). This means for one lac ton of grains , 2500 tons of wastage is permissible !! How efficient is this ? Please privatise and see the magic !!

Mr. Telecom Minister is delaying the allocation of 3G spectrum. It is estimated that the spectrum allocation would earn the government anywhere between Rs.20000 to 35000 crore . Ministry has already delayed the spectrum allocation by more than a year . If he takes it to two years . Just the interest loss to the government on the spectrum fees would be as high as Rs. 7000 crore ? Wish you had a corporate CEO taking Rs.100 Crore a year salary and saving you Rs.6900 crore ( Assuming a loss of Rs.7000 crore on the interest income ) ? Does it sound ‘Vulgar’ ? And , interestingly, even after giving such a massive loss to the government exchequer . Your minister has the ‘Cheeks’ to make tall statements and he is not accountable . Had it been a corporate CEO issue , he would have been removed ‘unceremoniously’ from the board , and his career would have ended forever !!

Sometime in 2007,i had a chance to meet once of the relatives of your Telecom Minister Mr.A.Raja . His relative asked for 10 lacs to make ten calls on behalf of the Minister to corporates irrespective of the outcome . What a business model ? Dare to act ? Please initiate a CBI inquiry against Mr.Raja’s assets and the truth should be out .

Earlier , you had the license Raj that killed the corporate world . Now you are trying to license the salaries ? Do you want corporate CEO’s to meet the Minister for taking approval of the salary hikes ? So that you all can start making money on corporate salaries ? Have some shame Mr. Minister !

When parties go to collect donations for the elections , why do you not talk about this ‘Vulgar salaries’. Shamelessly, you collect money from corporates and then have the ‘balls’ to talk nonsense !!

Do you also have a figure of the cost of buying an M.P’s vote in the ‘floor test’ of the house ? For an ordinary MLA it is about 50 core !! That’s what we have always heard or read in the news . Does this not sound ‘Vulgar’

When your allies ask for ‘Plum postings’ in Ministries what does it mean ?

Mr. Khurshid, let us check what the Minister’s take as salaries and perks:

• Average minister get’s an M.P.’s basic salary of Rs.1.92 Lac per annum
• Rs.24000 additional
• A Bungalow in Delhi – Costs upwards of Rs. 200 crore at today’s prices and would mean a rental of Rs.60 lacs a year
• A staff strength of 16 for cabinet ministers and 13 for Deputy ministers
• Plus Security Guards
• A fleet of three cars with Petrol ???
• Unlimited domestic and international calls
• Now ‘Cattle Class’ travel and also private jet’s and government choppers used for luxury travel – cost cannot be calculated off hand .
• A MPLAD fund of Rs. 2 crore for expenditure
• Above all . No accountability !!

Do you think that an M.P. can represent 1.9 million people and win an election at these salaries and perks ? unofficially , the average cost of becoming an M.P. is Rs. 20 crore . That is the reason that most of the current lot of M.P’s are either owners of media houses , educations trusts , shady businessmen or sons and daughters of politicians .Pay decent salaries to your M.P’s, rather than being jealous of the corporate salaries !! Corruption in politics is only, because all of us expect a lot from our politicians and they are grossly underpaid . My view point is , that each M.P. represents an average of 1.9 million citizen, and they must be paid a between Rs.5-10 crore per year as salary to get the best out of them.

With 545 M.P’s in Lok Sabha and 245 in Rajya Sabha working for this nation . We still had a staggering fiscal deficit of Rs. 2,10,000 crore in January 2009 and counting . It works out to a loss of Rs.575 cores a day , 23.95 crore per hour or Approx. Rs.40 Lac a minute. Does it not make sense to pay each M.P. a salary of Rs.5 -10 crore a year and get the best brains ? You all are penny wise and pound foolish policy makers !!

What a colossal opportunity loss for India due to ‘mediocre brains’ and ‘low salaries’. Please re-consider the salaries, and we ( at least i would be for sure ! ) would be glad to join !!

I know that recently , Mukesh Bhai decided to take a 60 % cut in his salary so Salmaan Khurshid can pat his back . Don’t take common man for a ride Salmaan Sahab . Your statements are a proof of your getting distracted by handling the ministry of corporate affairs . You should be made either the rural development minister , NAREGA , JNRHM or the minister of telecom . Your mouth would be shut for the next few years !! After all they are ‘Plum postings’ !!

Don’t forget that until 1980’s India was only known for poverty , population & corruption. It is the private sector that has taken India where it is today. Don’t try and meddle with the sector

Though , i must make a point that a very few corporate CEO’s in India take a salary of about Rs.10 crore or more . They are a handful in a land of 1.2 billion . Pray to God that we have more such CEO’s so that India can grow more . I want a wealthy India . You might say it is ‘Vulgar ‘ to think so !

Regret to write to you this email, but can’t stop expressing the thoughts

With no wishes or regards

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

President
Countryfirst
office@rajendragupta.org
President@countryfirst.org
+91-922 33 44 542


C.C.
Mrs.Sonial Gandhi
Dr.Manmohan Singh
Rahul Gandhi
Sharad Pawar
Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi, Chairman , Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance
Sitaram Yechury
A.P.J.Abdul Kalam
Shiv Khera
Ratan Tata
Mukesh Ambani
Anil Ambani
Media

Where are we headed - Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Where are we heading as a nation – Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Let’s examine the state of the nation after the election. It is good that the public voted out all the nuisance mongers like Lalu, Mulayam, and Mayawati & Jayalalitha. Public is growing aware and taking an active interest in the governance of the nation.
Let’s see where are we now?

Rural India

NAREGA – This is the over hyped scheme of the regime. Recently, a study revealed interesting statistics about NAREGA.
• Only 10.62 % of the total 33.89 million registered rural households in 2007-08 were provided 100 days of employment
• The national average of the number of work days per household in NAREGA was only 48 in the last fiscal year. Less than 50 % of what was targeted
• 80 % of the of the households said that they did not get the work within the stipulated 15 days time of demand for work in writing , nor were they paid any unemployment allowance
• It was found that only in 42 % of households could women share the one-third of the allocated person-days ( wage days )
• It is also doubtful if any permanent assets can be created with unskilled labour

Agriculture:

Rain gods have shattered the claims that rural India was shining that the rural economy was unaffected by the global crisis. With drought rampant in most parts of the country. It is going to spell disaster. It is really painful to see that the image of the farmer has not changed in India despite 62 years of independence. When you think about the farmer. The image that comes to mind is that of a ‘half clad, dark skinned frail old man looking at the sky covering his fore head with his hand ’.
All our leaders forgot that ‘Farmers of the nation are the fathers of the nation’
Poor planning for farmers have led to a stage that the government had to push over 7 billion dollars to rekindle the rural India.
Prices of the agricultural produce are going sky high, and the grocery items are supposed to reach a new high from the next month onwards when the rainy season is over. Adding to this, about 70 % of the population lives below the poverty line revealed a national study early 2009.

Aviation sector:

Thanks to our efficient Aviation Minister, the biggest and the only government carrier is bankrupt. All the airlines are bleeding. New airports are in bad shape, the waiting time is an average 30 minutes before landing and 20 minutes before takeoff. Air India burnt more than Rs.150 Crores for the waiting time in the air.

Foreign policy:

We are surrounded by hostile neighbors and all the time is spent in fire-fighting with Srilanka, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bangaldesh and Burma. With such ‘un-cooperative’ neighbors. In addition to this, we don’t share the same relations with US & USSR (CIS). USA is openly supporting Pakistan with arms and ammunitions ,and doing a lip service to India.

With such relations, do we not conclude that the foreign policy is a total failure? Our entire diplomatic energy is wasted balancing equations of power
Sharm-Al-Sheikh was another blunder after JLN took Kashmir to United Nations. We must wait and watch as the future unfolds in the Indian Foreign diplomacy.

Defense & Internal Security

Our moon mission is a failure, our fighter planes are being called flying coffins. And there is a serious issue with attracting talent in the army.
Earlier it was Kargil, Kandahar , Kashmir and then it was terror attacks. We are still waiting for the next anniversary of attacks to repeat. We are not prepared to avert any attacks

Healthcare

Neither there is Health nor care. Swine flu is taking its toll and health minister is giving absurd statements. Millions of kids die every year due to malnutrition. 75 % of the population is anemic. The Cardiac diseases and diabetes are taking away millions of Indians away from us every year with India not having an effective coverage system.

Judiciary

With Crores of cases pending in courts , anyone who says he respects judiciary is respecting the inefficient and corrupt and insulting the nation. We can certainly be forced to abide by the decisions of the courts but the question of respecting the judiciary in its current form is not acceptable

Opposition

At this point in time, Indian democracy should have has a strong opposition. Unfortunately, BJP is paying for its misdeeds and image and self projection issues of its top two leaders. It is high time; it shapes up to ensure that it plays the role of an impactful opposition party in India.

Hope that the good sense will prevail


Rajendra Pratap Gupta
office@rajendragupta.org
0922 33 44 542