In a democracy with a federal structure ,  public waste  is generally a  bye  product .  This can be in the form of time over runs or cost over runs of  projects executed  by the government departments  to create a new utility or expand an existing utility . Out dated medical  supplies in a hospital or old equipment awaiting disposal  or surplus funds not expended at the end of an accounting year all fall in this category . There is no effort made to monetise this waste in Rupee terms and assess the financial loss incurred  by the tax payers .

The second category is the time wasted in waiting for services  – mostly the opportunity losses . Examples are traffic jams , queues in the civil services offices for passport , ration cards , ration retailing  , hospital services  , traffic stoppages or diversions due to VIP movements , power outages  or stock out situations in a public distribution system  . Does any one in authority monitor the produtivity losses due to such disruptions in routine work or movement ?

Multiplying  the monetary  costs  of waste and wasted time  in public domain  will be desirable to stream line  utility services and this will  facilitate  long term savings  and re-allocation of saved money for other development works .

A vibrant democracy should avoid waste of any kind and focus on cost savings  in a continuous manner .


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *