New Delhi: Notwithstanding the government’s reluctance to reveal the cost of the prime minister’s gifts to foreign dignitaries, a disclosure made by Washington has said that a diamond Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted to US first lady Jill Biden in 2023 is worth about $20,000.
At the rupee’s closing exchange rate on Tuesday (January 7) of roughly 85.7 to the dollar, the synthetic, 7.5-carat diamond that Modi gifted is worth Rs 17,14,000.
That’s no trifle – actually, it was the most expensive gift the first couple received from a foreign dignitary that year as per the disclosure by the US president’s executive office.
To put Rs 17.14 lakh in some perspective, The Wire took a gander at what it could potentially fund – from teacher salaries to toilets and subsidised homes – were it in the government’s coffers for use within India instead.
Four government primary school teachers for a year
The average salary received by a government primary school teacher per month is Rs 31,255, as pegged by the 2023 edition of the ‘State of Teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education Report’ prepared at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Going by this figure, Rs 17.14 lakh can pay the monthly salaries of four teachers for 12 months each.
About 14.7% of government primary schools in 21 states in India identified as major states were single-teacher schools according to 2021-22 data, as cited in this article in The Hindu. Averaged across these states, there were 33 students in each such school, but there could be up to 96, as in Bihar, on average. One additional teacher could make a difference in such schools.
2.77 lakh mid-day meals
Under recently revised government estimates, the material cost per child per day of a mid-day meal served to Bal Vatika and primary school students in most states as well as Delhi and Puducherry is Rs 6.19. The estimated cost of the 7.5-carat diamond can thus cover 2,76,898 mid-day meals for this category of student.
According to this report in the Times of India published last month, mid-day meal workers serving as both cooks and helpers in Delhi, Goa and some northeastern states are paid an honorarium of Rs 1,000 per month for six to eight hours of work a day, as opposed to other states, where the honorarium can be as high as Rs 12,000 depending on the respective governments’ discretion.
If this is right, then Rs 17.14 lakh can help give a one-time bonus of Rs 5,000 to 342 such mid-day meal workers.
Incentives for 142 toilets under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Gramin
The rural avatar of the Swachh Bharat scheme provides for a Rs-12,000 incentive for the construction of ‘individual household latrines’ in the homes of select beneficiaries, among them all below poverty line households, who do not have a toilet in their home. Rs 17.14 lakh can cover the cost needed to incentivise 142 such toilets.
Hundred days of MGNREGS work for 34 two-member households
Assuming that a rural household has two working members and can avail itself of all 100 days of work it is entitled to per year under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, then the current fiscal’s average wage rate per person per day of Rs 249.67 would mean that Rs 17.14 lakh can cover 100 days of employment for 34 such households.
Forty-two families in which a manual scavenger is identified
The Self-Employment Scheme for the Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers provides for Rs 40,000 as compensation to a family in which someone is identified as a manual scavenger. With Rs 17.14 lakh, this compensation can be given to 42 such families.
However, when asked how many instances of manual scavenging the Union social justice ministry had recorded in the preceding five years, junior minister Ramdas Athawale said in parliament that there was “no report” on the matter. Activists who work to eliminate the practice have frequently contested the idea that manual scavenging has been eliminated from India.
One family affected by the Manipur violence
In 2023, Union home minister Amit Shah said that the next of kin of those who die in the ethnic violence of Manipur will be entitled to compensation of Rs 10 lakh. Rs 17.14 lakh can fully cover the compensation to the next of kin of one victim of the strife.
Official estimates say 226 people have died in the violence, but the Union government’s expenditure of Rs 7.35 crore towards compensation (it pays half of the Rs 10 lakh compensation in each case, while the state government covers the other half) suggests it has covered compensation for 147 families, as The Wire reported earlier.
Subsidy for six houses under the PMAY-U
With the ‘beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement’ vertical of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban – meant to provide housing to people in the economically weaker sections – making available subsidies of up to Rs 2.5 lakh, the sum of Rs 17.14 lakh can cover the cost of subsidies for six houses under the scheme.
(This article was first published in The Wire)
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