Money Capital

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Many of us often substitute money for capital and vice versa. They are negligently deemed interchangeable and equivalent in pronouncing similar meanings.

However, this is truly false to believe through the telescope of economists. Banerjee & Nigam (2001) asserts,

“The money which is used for further production of wealth is called capital. Money lying idle with a person cannot be categorized as capital. Also the money spent for consumable goods like cloth, food, books etc. cannot be included in the category of capital, because such investment cannot be used for further production”

Under their lens, one salient feature that clearly helps us distinguish money from capital is with regard to their nature of existence.

Money has the same design and nature throughout. Capital on the other hand consists of shape, design, size and nature. Hence, in the case of our country, Ngultrum exists in the same design and nature, whereas capital exists in the form of dams, hydropower, Education City, IT Park, Botanical Garden, Domestic Airports, and Dungsam Cement Project.

Major projects of such kinds, although, are built only with the muscle of Rupee [INR]. And of late, the Rupee crisis has predominantly surfaced on every moving lip. It is never surprising to have ourselves mesmerized after such issues take over the front pages of media and newspapers.

I am literally not an economist or a critic with an eligible Economics background. Neither is I a qualified expert nor a celebrated scholar to surface the issue. Yet, being the true son of this beautiful Himalayan Kingdom, it messaged me that I have every inherent constitutional fundamental right to voice in. Having said this, it doesn’t necessarily connote that I can criticise every issue that floats in the media.

Nevertheless, it’s always worth clearing the road of our confusion. It is extremely sad to observe few of our people, without having adequately defined and qualified the exact terms of crisis, taking pride to illustrate the sheer negligence and irregularities of our first serving government. They accuse the government of insurmountable loans and debts as if the funds are silently pitched into their personal possession. While criticism of the government is an absolute necessity, justifications and rationalization of our points are critically important. 

In the current pages of time, Bhutan might face an adequate rupee shortage or has not fallen out completely. Almost ten hydro-power projects have been fed with a huge amount of rupee and this has swept the huge bank account to such investments. This is the Bhutanese capital. The money invested here can produce and duplicate revenue and wealth for the people of her country in the years to come after its completion.  

 
I had visited Tala and Chukha Hydro Power while I was a final year trainee teacher as a part of my Physics Education tour. It was a privilege for me to have been a chief reporter for the college.  

I was interviewing the Executive Engineer, CHPC

There were three main turbines in the Chukha powerhouse and by the time we reached there, two were kept running their errand while one was under maintenance accordingly with their annual schedule.  I asked if they shut down three turbines together and complete the maintenance work rapidly. The Executive Engineer, with a giggle, said, even the shutdown is for a minute, Bhutan will be losing almost eight million. Oh, what a sum.

The Physics group that toured Chukha & Tala, 2007

This is one simple citation of money changing to capital in Bhutan. Having meagre domestic productions and more input than the output, it is this reason we at times are hit by the blows of perceiving rupee shortage.

This shortage is good. A day will come, where due to this shortage Bhutanese will proudly write elsewhere that their main domestic wealth is hydropower. To this addition, I have read a newspaper that read rivers in Bhutan are potentially not glacier-fed.

If such initiatives are not undertaken by the government, in a fear of a loan and debt, when will Bhutan realize the Nine Millennium Goals that include Poverty Reduction and happiness, as proposed by our Honorable Lynchoen Jigme Yoezer Thinley?  Under what enterprise will make Bhutan realize the visions of Bhutan 2020 in being a self-reliant country?

Thus, the blow that hit the market at present is solely a money crisis and not exactly a capital catastrophe. It is a way of crafting a newer and our own way to escape from the revenue generation tsunami.