It is hardly a state secret that the state governments spend bulk of its resources in supporting themselves. Salary and pension for teachers, policemen, doctors and clerks take up as much as 40 to 50 per cent of its revenue. In sharp contrast, the “manpower cost” of most successful business houses rarely exceed 15 per cent of the turnover.

Ironically, government employees do not constitute the bulk of the population either. In Jharkhand, their number may not exceed 10 lakhs, which is just about 3 per cent of the state’s population.

It would, therefore, be a good idea to conduct an audit of the government employees. How much work do they do? What is their productivity and what do they achieve on an hourly basis? Is it possible to deploy them more wisely? Can fewer people deliver more work with the help of technology or a change in systems? Introducing a self-appraisal system for government employees and conducting an audit on manpower, therefore, will be an essential part of planning.

Therefore, I propose to entrust the job to five or six business schools, including IIMs and the XLRI, for conducting the audit in different parts of the state. With two months set aside for preliminary discussions and two more months for making preparations, they will be expected to complete the exercise in six more months. For this, I would set aside Rs 15 crore.

A key problem with popular governments is that they refuse to function on business principles. Every business thrives by increasing revenue, cutting cost, investing prudently, hiring people wisely and retaining the brightest people they have. Businesses also prosper by ensuring that they build up reserves for lean days, do not lose money and expand or diversify in emerging areas.

What do governments do to “earn” money? In Jharkhand, for example, the government could have made money by ensuring proper sale and “export” of minerals. But while coal smugglers and iron ore exporters at Chaibasa laugh all the way to banks, the government sits back, content to receive cess that they receive without making any effort. In fact, no effort is made to plug the leakages in the lucrative activities.

It can demand that power plants, tourism development corporation, transport corporation, the mineral development corporations etc. earn enough money and start paying dividends to the government. It can settle land, acquire land, create water bodies to sell industrial or irrigation water. It can also explore how to benefit from its forest wealth.

But in order to learn how to generate revenue, the government must first study the experience of other states and then constitute an expert body to prepare a resource-map and plan for it. Banks, think-tanks, chambers of commerce, consultants and business schools can be roped in to study various areas. Therefore, I would have set aside Rs 12 crore (at Rs 1 crore a month it is not an insubstantial amount) for these activities, which would benefit the state in the long-run.

Pending the panchayat election, I would have invited every village to take the initiative to form a gram sabha, elect a functional body and fix their priorities. The first 500 of such village bodies then would have been sanctioned Rs one crore each to execute one or two projects they finalise. I would also have taken up five districts and planned to spend Rs 500 crore on developing infrastructure, health facilities etc. in these districts as a “demonstration” project.