Daily wage Vs Monthly wage

I've often wondered whether companies are justified in paying their employees their salaries towards the end of the month and not on a daily basis. In other words why should employees give their employers a month's credit ? The corpus that companies like Infosys, IBM etc payout towards salaries amounts to a few hundred crores every month. For example, taking an average salary of Rs 50000, IBM India spends an approximate amount of Rs 500 crores monthly. Invested at even 5% interest, just imagine the amount IBM must be making month on month, year on year !

What happens to all this money ? How is it shown in the Books ? Should not these benefits be passed on to the employees ?

Companies in the US make salary payments fortnightly. I guess that's somewhat better but the argument remains the same.

Of course, since I'm not an economist, I'm not sure if there is something fundamentally flawed with this thinking. Also, I'm not sure how clients make payments for projects executed - before, after or during.

But I keep wondering. Am I onto something ?

Commonwealth Games - Delhi 2010

It is several years since it was officially known that Delhi will be hosting the Games. And yet there is a mad scramble to finish the arrangements in time - and that too after a major stink was raised in the world media about the pathetic conditions of the infrastructure. The living quarters of the athletes was reportedly a mess - to say nothing about the actual venues.

They'll fix it. That, I'm pretty sure about. There's too much at stake for them not to. But it is sad that measures are being taken to fix things only after things came to such a pass. It only means that supervision and monitoring of the contractors was poor which can only mean that the bureaucrats were in cahoots with the organizers and the contractors. Millions, probably billions of rupees must have been siphoned off. Middlemen must have laughed all the way to the bank. Politicians and bureaucrats must have become crorepatis overnight at the expense of the nation.

I happened to go through some websites of some prominent world newspapers (Sydney Morning Herald, BBC, The Dawn etc). The way scorn was heaped on India and the Indian way of cobbling together an event of this magnitude was shameful. No matter what is done to salvage the Games from here on in, the damage is done. Here was a good opportunity for us to demonstrate to the world that we stand second to none in hosting mega events. Of late, India has captured the imagination of the First World like never before. The Games could have driven home the point that India has truly arrived. But that is not to be. We have actually gone back a few years. The costliest Games ever may well turn out to be the shabbiest.

But the incorrigible optimist that I am, I can only hope that this country is one step closer now to realizing that corruption is eating away at the vitals of the nation. Maybe we have learnt our lesson.