Making it Happen Now
I had set up a team of experts in 2018 to draft the Dhan Vapasi Bill, which was sent to every Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MP. The Bill laid out the roadmap to making Dhan Vapasi happen. It envisioned establishing four Corporations. Surplus public assets would be identified by the Identification Corporation. The Identification Corporation would ensure clear titles to the assets. The Restructuring Corporation would restructure the assets to optimise the saleable value. The Auctioning Corporation would conduct the auction of the assets and the sale proceeds would be deposited in the Dhan Vapasi Fund. The Fund Management Corporation would manage the Dhan Vapasi Fund and return the wealth accumulated in the Fund to the citizens of India using its beneficiary database.
This is the right time to revisit the Dhan Vapasi Bill. The pandemic has created an economic crisis that calls for bold actions. A 10% GDP contraction will hit poorest the hardest. Implementing bad policies could set India back by many years and push many Indians back into the poverty trap that they had just escaped from.
Returning people’s wealth to them would also reduce the size of the government, reduce the waste and inefficiency associated with the hundreds of schemes and subsidies that are supposed to help the needy but instead are a source of corruption. It will increase economic and civic freedoms, which will catalyse economic growth and job creation.
This return of public wealth must be universal because this surplus belongs to all, rich and poor alike. It is the moral thing to do and economic efficiency considerations support the idea. The non-discriminatory return of wealth also prevents vote-bank politics that plagues India’s democracy.
If we have to break free from the politics of poverty and build a path to prosperity, we need to dismantle the anti-prosperity machine engineered by our political class. The starting point is to recognise the right of every family to have an equal ownership of the public wealth of India, and receiving income from that in terms of unconditional annual transfers. Taking away public wealth from government control and returning it to us, the people, is a necessary and important step towards comprehensive freedom that Indians must have in a free India.
Dhan Vapasi is the universal prosperity revolution that can fulfill the Constitution’s promise – to secure for all citizens freedom, equality and prosperity. Dhan Vapasi is the real freedom to live life on our own terms – without the government as our master, with fellow Indians as partners in progress. It is about fairness and justice. It is the right of every Indian.
Here is a compilation of all the relevant additional information about Dhan Vapasi.
