Why is it stated that 'poor people live in rich India'?
Since independence, India’s rulers have become rich, but not its people. The government of India is the largest owner of wealth in India. The central government controls vast resources at its disposal including thousands of hectares of public lands, lakhs of crores worth of minerals, offshore resources, and through its stake in more 300 Central Public Sector Undertakings. In addition, state governments have their own share of wealth.
The people of India collectively own wealth this “public wealth”, which is in the form of public lands, the minerals, public sector corporations, spectrum, etc. The government is the trustee of the wealth of India for the benefit of the people. Even as our wealth should be used for the benefit of the people as per the constitutional mandate of the government, in seven decades since independence, we have barely derived any benefits from our public wealth. Instead, this wealth has continuously been abused, misused, or underused by politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies.
The government has to focus on its core functions such as upholding the rule of law, providing public infrastructure, and maintaining national defense. These essential functions of the state have been mostly neglected since independence. India’s state machinery is woefully inadequate to maintain law and order. Only with limited and strong governments at centre and local levels, we will be able to live in a free and prosperous country that our forefathers fought for.