“Education cess (@ 2%) … Rs. 18.34 “ …. This quotation is from my monthly electric bill. And I am proud enough to serve the poor children of this country…. INDIA. But when I woke up today a different emotion filled my heart and soul considering the same quotation as above. It was the newspaper that played the culprit.
It has been a week that India lifted the ICC Cricket World Cup after 28 years. It has been a week that we all bled blue. We cried together as Team India roared with the trophy. All Indians followed the single religion – Cricket. Not a day after this event had occurred, every minister around were up on their toes to show their honor and gratitude to the Indian Cricket Team. So we came to know that BCCI will be presenting the glorious squad with a prize money of 1 crore INR each, the Delhi government INR 2 crore, Punjab INR 1 crore, Uttarakhand a house in Mussourie and land for a cricket academy and the railways says that they can travel AC-I Class free for life. Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam of Tamil Nadu has already violated the Model Code of Conduct and has decided to pay the Indian cricket team and Ashwin a prize money of INR 3 crore and INR 1 crore respectively.
Now, the question that is on every Indian’s mind is, “Where is the money coming from?”. Well our journalists have the answer. These special prizes are generally awarded from a fund that has an allocation of INR 2.4 Cr this year. So the extra money is being drawn from either the education or development fund. Yes, you read it right. The education cess that we pay is being used as the prize money for the champions. But why should one be angry? These men have served the nation and we should honour them.
In a country where we are still fighting against illiteracy and child labour, where projects are being stalled for the non availability of funds, a country where the roadways are the greatest challenge to our intra SAARC trade (Courtesy: SAARC Yearly report ), where over fifty percent of our agricultural production goes to waste due to improper storage and improper marketing chain, development fund is being used as prize money for sportsmen. But why should one be angry? The cricketers are poor fellas. For an example MS Dhoni with an annual income of INR 300 Crore is one of the highest tax payers of the country.
With a literacy rate of 74.04% (as in 2011) , with 41.6% of the total Indian population under the poverty line, with a rural population of 72.2% (as per Census 2001), with our major rivers polluted as hell due to shortage of fund in the river cleanup programmes across the country, a country with an yearly loan in the world bank touching up to 9.3 billion USD in 2010, the ministers are ready to show off their honour and gratitude to the Team India. But why should one be angry? According to the cricketers, these prizes never turn to reality. Remember 2007, when India won the ICC T20 World Cup, every player in the squad were allotted INR 10 laks. But according to the cricketers, they never received more than fifty percent of the prize money. So, hello ministers, where is the extra money going ?
P.S.: Im not against Team India. They deserve honour, they deserve privilege. But one does not require to be a rocket scientist to realize that hardly any cricketer would board a train to travel from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. One can easily make out where the extra money goes. (Ill keep mum on this). If we want to honour them, lets honour them in real sense. Lets present Bharat Ratna to the best of the bests, and some other honorary medal to others. Lets not give them some truckload of cash in a country that is already cripple and struggling to keep itself upright.
No comments:
Post a Comment