Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Union Cabinet gets healthier and richer by the day

The Hindu P. Sainath P. Sainath
Daily wage labourers are seen outside the office of Planning Commission in New Delhi. A report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector recorded that 836 million Indians live on Rs.20 a day or less. File Photo: V.V. Krishnan

The worse off the poor become, the healthier our Ministers get.
Air India might not be doing as well we'd like it to. But the braveheart who flew it fearlessly into dense clouds of debt is doing okay. Praful Patel (who no longer holds the aviation portfolio) added, on average, over half a million rupees every day to his assets in 28 months between May 2009 and August 2011. This might be an understated figure since it is based on his own word. Ministers tend to be modest in these matters. But given the official data, the math is inescapable.

In his 2009 poll affidavit, Mr. Patel said his assets were worth over Rs.79 crore. Let's assume he listed all he had up to April 2009, the polls being in May that year. Compare that figure with the more than Rs.122 crore that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) put up against his name online this month. Since this increase occurred in 28 months, my math says that averages over Rs.5 lakh a day. (I can add, though not at the speed of Mr. Patel.)
The worse off the poor become, the healthier our Ministers get... Read more of ministers becoming richer by the day
Related Reading
Not poor if you earn Rs. 32 a day: Planning Commission

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