Economy ,Economics and You I am one of the 1.2 billion people of our beloved nation .

Our nation with 1.2 billion residents grouped into millions of families , with breadwinners, who work and earn for themselves and also to provide for food, education , health and other needs of their dependents , is a large economy . From a macro perspective an economy represents the all economic activities taking place within the borders of a nation, beginning with the basic requirements of clothing , shelter and food and extending to any conceivable product or service in demand at various scales , within or outside the country . For example liquor is one of the important item in demand in Kerala and production, supply and consumption of liquor has a significant impact in the economy of Kerala and the expenditure patterns of Kerala society. . It is important to note that none of us can individually produce all items required to meet our own needs. Consider a simple example of A , who suddenly crave to eat chicken , but finds that he has only ducks . Whereas B craves for ducks , but posses only chickens . Both these individuals could satisfy their wants by exchanging their resources. An exchange of goods is s called the barter system, one of the earliest modes of an economic transaction , which satisfied the needs of residents of a society. However due to its practical difficulty in operation in a large society the concept of money was introduced .Now money is the standardised commodity which is accepted by any one in exchange of the sale of their goods/ services . However, money is of value only if they can be exchanged for goods / services .The existence of goods / services is a prerequisite for money to derive its value. Now how do we have goods and services? Goods are produced or services rendered by a combination of the productive effort of people and Infrastructure (capital and resources) of the country . The sum total of the value of goods and services so brought into existence within the borders of the country is called the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) . Can anyone recall the GDP of our country . It comes to around 1.6 trillion dollars . Which is almost close to 80 lakhs crore rupees . Does this figure sound astronomical . Yes in a macro sense . But this amount is the collective value of goods which have to be used by some 1.2 billion people, about Rs.66666 per annum , or Rs. 5000 per month, if income is equitable distributed to all 1.2 billion residents .

Dear friends, We have to take into account the fact that income not distributed equitably. In fact it is distributed in a highly in equal manner. Unfortunately a sizeable portion of our brothers and sisters are not able to meet even their basic needs and on the other hand some of our citizens are figuring in the list of the richest people in the world. Some of us are unemployed , starving and do not have access to medical care or social security.

How do we as a nation uplift our millions from poverty y and unemployment . This question is easy to answer but rather difficult to execute . The key to find a way out of this difficult situation lies in o increasing the level of output of the goods and services of the country . To me , this require a threefold approach. Firstly, a quantum jump in development of the infrastructure facilities within the country .We have to invest heavily on the development of roads , ports and airport Simultaneously we have to tackle the problem of red tapisim and corruption. Thirdly we have to improve the productivity of our people. Friends it goes without saying that time is money , a minute of time saved would represent a collective savings of around 500 million minutes, if we take into account the size of the labour force of this country on a conservative basis . This is almost equivalent to working 2853 years by an individual person . By building roads , ports and airport , materials and services could be quickly transported . By quick transportation , time can be saved and this time can be used for productive purposes thereby yielding the whole nations output for goods and services . I must say that though slowly ,we are recognizing the need for development of infrastructure and concerted efforts have been taken in this direction. In the last few year itself we have built state of the art airports and have also improved the facilities at many ports including our very own cochin port . Having said this i want to add that a lot still needs to be done. Our country is still plagued with the disease of corruption , excessive bureaucracy and red tapism .As per the IMF withregard to ease of doing business , India ranks low down in the order at l 132nd position out of a total of 182 economies . Friends , as i am speaking now hundreds and thousands of my fellow brothers and sisters are dying without foods , the lives of many million Indians have been ever since

their birth been nothing but filled with sorrow , difficulty , constant fear of insecurity . We need to create employment , for which we need productive infrastructure, for which we need investment. Since the needed investement cannot be funded from within the country alone we have to attract foreign investment. Despite all this , we have or rather the governments elected by us have over the years created an environment where outsiders still perceive us as a difficult country for doing business . This state of affairs have been created mainly due to the bane of corruption , red tapisim (which is nothing but the existence of excessive procedures for obtaining clearance to undertake productive activities) and excessive buerocracy . Do not for one moment think that these facts have been fabricated by IMF for undermining us. Just look at the various corruption scandals of recent origin . Commonwealth scandal with reported misappropriations close to Rs. 70000 crores , 2G scandal of Rs. 1.30 lakh crores and now the Coal gate scandal of more than 1.5 lakh crores . These aggregate to a whoppingRs.3.5 lakh crores s . And this may be only the tip of the ice berg . Imagine what difference this would have made to the millions of poor Indians if this sum alone was used for developing critical infrastructural facilitates. It is sad to note that the corruption goes hand in hand with inefficiency. Where power crises is the order of the day in most of our villages and even metros and towns , about 1/3rd of the total electricity produced is lost in transmissions . When people starve about 14 million tonnes of food grain worth over a whopping 7000 crores are reported to be lost every year due to lack of appropriate storage facilities . Friends , I think you will agree that corruption and lack of political will are our greatest bane. Friends, Population is not the bane of our country. India is not poor only because it has a large mouth to feed nor We have huge traffic jams because of the huge density of people .. If you refuse to acknowledge this then please look at Japan and Korea , both these countries have density of population similar to us but the similarity ends there. Both Korea and Japan have almost 15-20 times indias per capita income, and friends both these nations were rebuilt virtually from nothing at the end of the second world war . Friends, on the contrary , population is our greatest strength . By 2020 , the average Indian would be 29 years old , as against compared to the average of 37 of China and 45 of USA. What does this mean? It means that we are

becoming increasingly becoming a young nation, while the population of all the other countries are ageing , we are becoming younger . We are going to have a vast labour pool of young people in the coming years and if we are able to educate them and equip them with proper skills , friends , the productivity of our young labour force is likely to outweigh those of the other nations , with corresponding increase in our national output , which in turn would be an impetus to maintain and increase our growth rates . Also our nation stands to gain a lot of foreign exchange through the export of surplus labour and labour related services . Friends , despite all the weakness , there is no denying the fact that we are a rising economic super power . As of now we are one of the fastest growing economies amongst all the emerging nations . The world has at this juncture bestowed us with a lot of opportunities . We have a great asset in our human resource force .In the coming years , if our 1.2 billion citizens are able to make the most of these opportunities by developing an educated and skilled labour force , world class infrastructures , ease of business by doing away tardy legislative procedures etc , I am sure that in another 15-20 years we would find our place amongst the enviable category of developed nations. Let us do our very best to contribute to this highly probable growth story. It is imperative to avoid loss of production and for a start let us try to resist , the strikes and hartals which is plaguing our state.If this is not possible or practical , let us try to do our best to be productive on that date even when sitting at home because every minute lost is almost equivale to 2853 years of labour of an individual person to this great country . Thank you and Jai Hind.