Why ELI and PLI Miss the Mark : From Jumla to Jumble
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/debunking-the-myth-of-job-creation/article69924144.ece “Minimum Government and Maximum Governance” was the English couplet that powered the Modi juggernaut in 2014. Another line from the same sonnet was, “Government has no business to be in business.” Those lines weren’t policy; they were poetry. In Amit Shah’s own vocabulary, they were jumlas . And like most poetry in politics, they have aged into parody. Common sense tells us: when schemes multiply, so does discretion . Eligibility thresholds, definitions, continuity tests, pay-out schedules—each becomes a lever in the hands of the bureaucracy. Markets stop being a free actor, ingenuity is replaced by compliance, talent becomes a footnote, and entrepreneurship is reduced to a function of a bureaucrat’s enthusiasm or whim. Even with the best intentions and the clearest rules, someone in an office still decides who qualifies and who doesn’t. That someone is not “the market” —it is the Ba...