Thursday, April 9, 2009

Dr Subroto Roy on Dr Raja Chelliah

He writes with a dimmed mind by remembering his meeting with Dr Raja that “The institute he founded appears to consist mostly of a name and some buildings and a lot of wasteful bureaucratic public expenditure as is typical of the new Dilli Raj of recent decades.   I recall a heated discussion with two of his successors there in the late 1990s in which they somehow attempted to say they were beyond Government of India control and could do as they pleased (which they had in fact proceeded to do).  Neither could be said to have been familiar with Indian public finance data at the degree of precision necessary to grasp  the fiscal problems Dr Chelliah had warned against.  Like the Planning Commission and similar sets of public buildings, it is all mostly a waste;   Delhi’s “think tanks” have been largely incapable of any real thought.” 

In fact the same point was already raised by another economist Suman Bery, who is also head of NCAER.

3 comments:

Dr Subroto Roy said...

A dimmed mind? Not really. That's the way normal memory works.

Oh yes, the post has been slightly revised too.

Chandra said...

Thanks for your comments,

I agree, memory stays with some shapes in our eye that helps to recollects the stored ones.
You may like to read what Prof Pulin B Nayak says on Prof Chelliah!
http://chandra-porul.blogspot.com/2009/04/in-search-of-a-real-doyen.html

Dr Subroto Roy said...

Your term "dimmed" is really rather objectionable especially as you are not known to me and seem to choose to remain anonymous, besides your association with P Shah. Please delete the reference to me if you are not able to remove the word.
SR