This refers to Subir Roy’s article “How technology can help diesel subsidy” (Value for money, December 19). Better targeting of subsidies is possible — once it is technology-enabled. However, is that the direction India wants to take? Should we increase government control over distribution of resources – and indirectly promote a mai-baap mentality – or should we work towards allowing market forces to control pricing and leave the government to don the supervisory cap? The point is, as soon as we talk of segmenting consumers into subsidy/non-subsidy categories, the market gets segmented based on end-users, introducing artificial distortions in the economy. Economic distortion creates tremendous scope for black marketing commodities, misuse of discretionary powers and inclusion of non-entitled individuals in subsidy schemes (by ethical and unethical means). Thus, the best way out seems to be total decontrol of not only the administered pricing mechanism for petrol and petroleum products, but also management of sectors such as land, mineral resources, forests, food grain, sugar, among others, being discussed on a daily basis. In the rarest of rare cases, specific sections of society at the bottom of the pyramid should be given direct cash transfers under one umbrella rather than several channels, such as food scheme, diesel, kerosene, and so on, to reduce leakage of public resources.
Sanjiv Kumar Trivedi Greater Noida
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