Wasted Resources

THE Economic and Functional Classification of the Central Government Budget, 1979-80, brings out once again how larger and larger resources are mobilised by the government supposedly for financing economic development, whereas in fact a smaller and smaller share of the resources so mobilised is spent on development programmes. In other words, there has been, particularly since the mid-sixties a continuous diversion of government's resources from developmental to non-developmental uses. Such non-developmental expenditures do generate money incomes, which mostly get appropriated by that small segment of the population which controls the physical assets of the community. Since the linkage effects of increased commodity production based on the consumption patterns of this segment are minimal, even the indirect impetus to development as a result of the growth of government expenditure is small.