DOCUMENT 127 (c) Finance such an expanded programme of employment generation by imposing and collecting much larger amounts of direct taxes from the rich; (d) Curb imports of goods and technology to the essential minimum in order to conserve foreign exchange; (e) Energise the drive towards self-reliance by controlling and regulating the operation of multinational capital; (f) TBKC strong punitive measures against hoarders, black marketeers, smugglers, speculators and tax-evaders; (g) Use the public sector as a bulwark against imperialist penetration and the attempts of monopoly capital to frustrate this strategy of self-reliant development aimed at benefitting the working people; and (h) For this purpose alter the character of the public sector from that of a bureaucratically run cluster of enterprises to one which is run democratically by associating the workers in decision-making and is fully answerable to the people. 3.1 All this must be part and parcel of a plan and the planning machinery currently much devalued must be restored to a position of eminence, whereby all aspects of economic policy flow logically from the objectives of the plan. 4.0 A programme of employment generation involving about Rs 10,000 crore of expenditure per annum to start with, on the average, would put about Rs 100 per household per month into the hands of the population below the poverty line. This is based on the estimate that about 300 million people are today living below the officially defined poverty level. Further, assuming that the wage component of such a programme would be at least 70 per cent and on the average a household would number five persons, the annual additional income thus accruing to the benefitted rural household amounts to about Rs 1,200 in a full year. Such a volume of additional public expenditure could have inflationary potential. To prevent this inflationary potential from realising itself: 4.1 The public distribution system must be expanded to cover the minimum requirements of the entire population in certain essential commodities. In order to ensure that this programme has no impact on inflation, the market mechanism can be largely by-passed, by making a part of the wage payments in kind. The present time is in fact, particularly propitious for launching such an employment programme without fear of inflation because of the availability of large foodgrains stocks (close to 30 million tonnes) with the government and unutilised capacity as well as unsold stocks which currently exist in industries like textiles. 4.1.1 In this connection, it may be mentioned that of the four major components of the wage basket—foodgrains, clothing, edible oil and kerosene—all four fall partly or fully within the public sector. While foodgrain stocks are held bv the government, commercial fuels—soh coke