The Hindu Business Line : Have we become too immune to election gimmicks?

STORY so far: Breaking from my usual routine, I bunk office and bike off to city outskirts. I venture into mud tracks and end up in a village where I get a firsthand feel of rural economics. As I return to the city, I wonder if there is enough shine in the villages.

Episode 70

Saturday morning, as I take the beach road, there are hundreds of flags fluttering uniformly and brightly, with their poles tied to railings on the platform, rather than puncturing the newly-laid surfaces. There are thousands of people on both sides, dressed in white, and waiting for their leader.

Not much of slogan shouting or song blaring, but at a crossing, there are dozens of chappals strewn around, at least till the next Onyx truck would come by to clear the remnants of some law and order exercise. However, for most people, it is routine that is important so we proceed to our usual destinations, following our own trajectories.

"If we become so insensitive to elections, we might one day have to think of some alternative mechanism to choose our representatives," I think.

*********

At work, there were to be at least three meetings during the day. The first was with our bankers, discussing the topic that concerned almost all exporters, rupee appreciation. When in school, I used to think that our currency should become more and more valuable, rather than being criticised as being worth only 30 paise or whatever.

Only with economics inputs, and foreign trade perspective, it is possible to appreciate that appreciation is not beneficial if you want to compete in the global market. Already, our exports were suffering due to duty cuts making imports cheaper; but the continual dollar decline meant that our buyers would think twice before giving us the order.

You would be surprised that many CAs who can rattle off tax section numbers that would sound like bus routes don't understand what it means when the one-year premium of US dollar, which was 5-6 per cent, has come down to 0.65 per cent. Or, why the graph descends when the rupee appreciates, and vice versa.

Chandru pointed out, with his workings, how we were taking a hit of 10 per cent in our revenues with the creeping rise in the rupee's value. "Some of our orders are on hold," said Gupta, "and the buyers are asking us to reduce prices." Boss looked around to check if I had any news, good or bad, and I didn't want to disappoint him. If I had not grasped the problem I would have said, "Let us depreciate the rupee using double shift allowance!" but that would have earned me a sack order immediately.

I said, "Our industry body, along with the association of EOUs and SEZ units, has made a representation to the Ministries of Finance and Commerce to intervene and set things right." Everybody nodded. "What's in our hands is to see how far we can bring down the transaction cost." The ball was now in the bankers' court.

I then made a PowerPoint presentation that depicted the components of our transaction cost, and indicating where savings were possible. "There is very little we can do," said our banker. "It is the government that has to reduce tax and simplify procedures." I didn't give up: "It is that little that matters." At the end of that meeting, we got a commitment from the bank on some `temporary' concessions that would ultimately soften, if not remove, the negative impact from rupee appreciation.

The second meeting was with an expert on WTO matters who was visiting the boss. Topic was agriculture, something dear to my heart. The half hour I spent there, along with the R&D chief and Gupta, pointed clearly to the need for countries such as India to work together if the collective voice has to be audible enough in world forum.

I remembered how at a recent meeting, Dr M. S. Swaminathan had spoken about the difficulty for developing countries in competing with developed countries where "agriculture is technology, capital and subsidy intensive." You may wonder what a CA has to do with agriculture. It may come as news to you that one of the important issues in any competition is cost.

The third meeting was "an important one" as boss had told me, but got postponed when he called me to say, "Not today, Swati." I looked at the watch and with still about an hour to go for the usual close of workday, I decided to steal off, so buzzed Chandru. "Hey, I'm going."

*********

When you have time to kill, you look for avenues to spend the same. And so it happened that I got interested in stopping by at a road junction where a pandal had been put up and a political party was campaigning for elections. Festoons, microphones, loudspeakers, crowds, and all those trappings of party were present. What the neta was shouting at the top of his voice didn't seem to make any sense, though I could understand he was praising somebody and denigrating somebody else.

I was, however, watching how a bunch of these white-clad party functionaries were holding their own darbar in the rear rows. A beggar was asking for alms as if he had deluded himself to believe that people in public service had public good in their minds. The functionaries were animatedly talking and I heard at least some words: "Cash... lakhs... lorry... knives... bombs... fight... revolt... "

*********

At the mailbox: "Hi Swati," writes in Sriganesh, working as Senior Account Executive, in a leading IT PR firm, to air his views about the HR issue raised in these columns a couple of weeks ago. "Interesting, one of my clients, Dax Networks, has abolished office culture except for the headquarters in Chennai. Other places, marketing as well as technical people have been given laptops and mobile phones through which they interact with customers and prospects.

"Teams meet every weekend to discuss work. Reports are sent daily. A good example of people not bound to travel down to office and then go to the field. Imagine, people in Mumbai and Delhi who have to travel quite a distance just to make to the office."

That's fine, but will it work everywhere? "The same may not be applicable to manufacturing and other organisations like BPO outfits," adds Sriganesh. "In these two areas there are shifts and productivity is an important criteria. In a factory where the assembly lines are integrated if one employee does not turn up, it could lead to reduction in productivity. So it is for each organisation to decide what they require." Thanks Sri, for those inputs.

There are mails on whether there is any `shine' to boast of in our villages, and I'd take them up next week.

(To be continued)

Swati_CA@hotmail.com

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