BANKING ON WOMEN

The All Women Bank needs to be free of bureaucratic hurdles

In a budget speech that looks more mundane than otherwise, the proposal of setting up an All Women’s Bank was one of the high points among the declarations. It invariably drew applause from all stakeholders and parties involved – from the political opponents to women’s rights groups to NGOs. The area of women’s issues is one of the most case sensitive ones in India – the other one being minority issues. However, it may turn out to be all empty promises and no substance! There is, without doubt, bipartisan benefit here with the government scoring brownie points on women electorates and women at large.

The All Women Bank will start off with six unspecified branches across the country. It should well be set up in the rural and backward hinterland rather than in the metropolises. The former’s need for the project far exceeds the latter! There are far more illiterate women in the rural belt than in their urban counterpart. According to the 2011 Census, the rural female literacy stands at 58.75 per cent compared to urban female literacy rate of 79.92 per cent. On top of it, generically rural women are less independent than urban women along with lower employment rate. Therefore, the government should shed its  stereotype metro-first attitude towards anything that catches media hype and set up the units in the areas where status of women are at its lowest ebb. If it does, the project can head towards certain degree of success relating to empowerment of  rural women. It will also create new employment for women and new avenues for their self-sufficiency. With all these potential merits lined up, it is sure to attract accolades from different quarters, and it did! The director of SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association), spokesperson of Akshara, a renowned NGO related to women’s cause and even the founder of Mann Desi Mahila Sahakari Bank, the first rural bank for women established in Maharashtra in 1997 sounded optimistically towards the decision.

However, one wonders how much difference realistically can the women’s bank make to the condition of women? Could the government have diverted the funds towards more pressing problems that women are facing – like maternal care, child development, malnutrition – which are more direct problems for women and must be tackled discreetly? The accrued benefits that the government is talking about, like extending loans only to women and access to credits, could have been extended through unisex banks as well. In case of increasing the loan amount to women only, the government could have created a quota for women or could have spent money on campaigns encouraging women to access the banking services and so on. This would have had a stalling effect on the opportunity cost incurred from excluding the male customers that these women’s banks will reject. Further, the poor and illiterate women that these banks should be targeting will invariably face red tape and bureaucratic entanglement that can have an off setting effect on its efficacy. The illiterate or semi-educated women might face enormous hassles to comply with the complex and oft en painstaking formalities that go with accessing public sector banking enterprises.

As if Mr. Chidambaram doesn’t know it! But still his decision probably is the carrot to win over the very important women electorate segment, which can prove to be crucial in the forthcoming election. A gimmick that can even raise concerns regarding the government pathway of gender apartheid!

THE GREAT INDIAN ELECTIONS

Elections are more about luring voters!

Unlike many post-colonial nations, which have descended to dictatorships or sham democracies, India has wedded to a reasonably stable democracy unhindered throughout its post-independence stint. However, the success of very essence of democracy in India were largely held off , especially if benchmarked against the best examples of it, because of certain challenges caused by the some basic deficiency in the country’s social and political dynamics. India’s political outfits have time and again exploited the short memories of poor and illiterate (or at best the semi educated) masses that forms the basis of the country’s electoral pattern. Therefore, the inefficiency and status quo of the country’s/state’s incumbent governments are ratified by the voters on the merit of just few months of developmental work before the election. It is an enigma why the voters are such crassly swayed by the otherwise pillaging politicians and cannot see the devil in their stealth! So, projects worth hundreds of crores are announced and brandished before election to tilt the electoral balance in favor of the ruling parties. And such is India’s electorates’ psychographics that in many instances it works too! The best example of it has been in West Bengal, where for 34 years of Left Front rule there were no anti-incumbency factors at all despite their shoddy and slapdash work during the tenure. They derived latitudes by tall talks and announcing projects before elections that were either never implemented or remained incomplete once the election was over. The flaunting of projects and schemes just before election has become a norm throughout the nation in the hope of shaving down opposition’s margins. Before the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) election this year projects worth Rs. 519 crores were announced along with major reforms in the transport sector worth hundreds of crores.

To beat these faltering, the Election Commission of India in its model ‘Code of Conduct’ has specified strict Do’s and Don’ts for the political parties: it has banned announcement of new schemes, projects, financial grants and laying foundation stones that are rooted in the sole effort to influence the voters. Yet, the parties escape these rules by announcing schemes just before they come into effect, as has been the case in West Bengal, Gujarat and other places. One of the reasons why the incumbent parties can create firewall by these announcements even though the voters know it to be a bogus is because they hardly have any other options! The cliché is followed by each and every party, which provides no alternatives for the voters that can crystalize into a realistic change in governance. And most importantly, the election in India in most instances are not fought on developmental issues at all – they are fought on the flimsy lines of caste, creed, religion…et al. The illiterate or semi-literate electoral base cannot believe any paradigm change in their lives is possible at all – so their voting decision is not based on positive signals of developmental issues, but on the regressive demographic matters.

Another interesting signal that helps decipher a phenomenon before election is the unearthing increasing cases of scams and financial embezzlement! That’s because it is most accurately foretold that the politicians would resort to corrupt practices when implementing welfare schemes for their voters.

COMPETENT ADMINISTRATORS?!?

Competent administrators can do more justice to their posts

The grind that one has gone through dealing with Indian bureaucracy not only represents their corruption and sloths but also their incompetence. The flaws in the recruitment process and the regulations of the bureaucrats have overbearing effect on the outcome of their efficiency level that really doesn’t match what it should be. A very important Ministry like Defence or Science & Technology are no different either, with the recruitment process of bureaucrats lacking in every aspect of the yardstick and in the process inviting criticism that can put the Ministry off-guard regarding the credibility of the employees of its bureaucracy.

The bureaucrats are recruited from the general streams and then trained to hone their skills required for the requisite job. The training and their ability to grasp the skills requires a few years – and since they generally are positioned at a particular office for 5 years before they are rotated – the cycle almost comes to completion by the time they are ready with their wherewithal for the job and they are moved out! Therefore the looming wastage of time, human resource and money is enough to prove that the government is not doing its bit to improve the quality of its bureaucrats. In Ministry of Defence, particularly, this kind of knowledge and expertise gap frequently leads to delay in different activities like acquisitions, training, military readiness and expenditure. The late Mr. K. Subrahmanyam’s recommendation suggested on the similar line highlighting the incident of Defence Ministry duplicating the military’s file through the bureaucrats as a case in point.

Praveen Kishore, a World Bank fellow, and a candidate from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in one of his reports suggests that "Opening up the higher civil service, particularly at the senior levels, could be beneficial." This can obviously act as a catalyst to the general improvement of Ministry's infrastructure, acquisitions and project completion. In China, more than 75 per cent of political seats are occupied by young technocrats thus making sure that the efficiency is at its peak from day one, unlike our country wherein bureaucrats take years to get settled and conversant with work culture and technology. The same is true for UK, Singapore and other nations. A few nations went ahead and have established world-class institutions of politics, governance and administration. Such institutions are present in nations like China, US, Israel, Mexico, Mongolia, Singapore, Ecuador, New Zealand, Japan, Sri Lanka, Liberia and even in Kuwait - to name a few, literally.

Currently, there is no system or procedure of even evaluating the 'acquired-competence' of a babu even after five or six years of his recruitment. In spite of suggestion in ARC (that has been acknowledged and accepted), no much heed can be seen in administrative reforms. This gives rise not only to corruption but also creates leakages in the delivery mechanisms. Without an iota of doubt, an war veteran or an seasoned aviation professional would do more justice to Defence or Aviation respectively than a bureaucrats with an Arts background.

The candidates recruited for bureaucracy must have technical background where the need for training can be avoided to a large extent and thereby precious time, money and resources can be saved. The five years taken by bureaucrats to learn the nitty-gritty can be saved by deploying him to a department for which he is fit for! The same approach can be replicated to all Ministries, that calls for expertise and technical competence, for averting the risks and enhancing performance for all the stakeholders involved, at large!

MANUFACTURING DEFECTS

Focus should not be only on service but manufacturing as well

The economies that focused on strengthening their manufacturing sector, post World War II, have prospered and became global economic superpower to reckon. However, in India, the manufacturing sector has been a laggard compared to the fast and racy service sector. As a result, the service sector’s contribution to the economy is 56.4 per cent compared to manufacturing sector’s 26.4 per cent. Only some patches of growth trajectory experienced by the manufacturing sector even if impressive and optimistic is never enough to catch up with the service sector in terms of employment generation and human capital exploiter.

However, the wide eyed analysts are staring at the stunning performance of the manufacturing sector that jump started from December last year delivering the highest growth rate in previous 6 months. The HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ India (PMI) – a production measure – is ever increasing peaking in December with an impressive 54.7 points, if anything, is an indicator of rising demand and frantic purchasing. However, in spite of this high gliding manufacturing run, the employment creation bottleneck persists as it used to be. The primary reason for that is high worker to fixed capital ratio or in simple parlance capital intensive industries that has become the preferred choice for both promoters as well as the consumers. A twin and opposite development of capital intensive export products have more than doubled from 25 per cent in 1993 to 54 per cent in 2010 on one hand, and labor intensive products, which has 30 per cent share has exactly halved during the same period to 15 per cent (based on the estimate by Indira Gandhi Institute of Developmental Research). As a result, despite some erratic and sometimes notable growth in the sector the employment growth has plummeted from 2.61 per cent in 1993-94 to 1.02 per cent in 2009-10.

In contrast, the service sector is expanding in leaps and bounds producing nothing short of an eye-popping contrast! In fourth quarter of FY 2011-12 when industry sector was growing at 1.9 per cent, the service sector was striding miles ahead at 7.9 per cent. Consequently, the top 3 employment generators in India for 2012 have all come from service sector viz. Healthcare, Hospitality and IT/ITES. This paradigm is the cornerstone for even engineers from top institutes opting for service when they should be engaging themselves for manufacturing sector, for which they are trained. The fees for IIT students was a huge subsidy delivery even till the last year, when it was pegged at Rs.50,000 a year, a subsidy of Rs, 1 lakh per student per year. And where are the returns of this investment, meant to train the students as functions of manufacturing sector boost, going to? Either to the foreign shore to bolster their own industry or to IT or banking sector for which engineers are not trained in IIT at the first place! But at last the government has realized the vain nature of the fund flow and decided to off-load the subsidy burden for the IIT students. The other government engineering colleges too pins to be on the same trail and it requires some extraordinary policy measures from the HRD ministry to reverse the trend.

The neglect of manufacturing sector and its dwindling health can stage perils for Indian economy in terms of long term prospects. The post war miracle economies of Germany and Japan were driven mainly by manufacturing boom and now the mercurial rise of Chinese economy is based on the same footing. India should not leave its future at the mercy of just one sector and put out the importance of manufacturing sector in its entirety!

RESPONSIBLE POLICING

Behavioural training of police can refurbish their image

When the Indian public life is riddled with corruption,  scam, crime and other ghoulish social manifestations; a recent incident with my colleague forced me to wonder whether every stakeholder in the paradigm is worth demonizing! My colleague and his wife went for a holiday to Trivandrum via Cochin. They reached there by bus from Cochin at 11:00 at night only to find that all budget hotels were occupied. Despite visit to several hotels, they failed to find one that had rooms vacant for them. After their visit to probably the last hotel in that area, they saw a police van standing next to their cab. Drawing inferences from their past experiences, they knew that they were heading for trouble. He almost imagined how these police would take them to the police station, harass with all sorts of nonsense and then draw money from them. But on the contrary, the police team was in fact eager to search hotel for them at that wee hours! And the gesture was extended by none other than Assistant Commissioner of Kerala Police who was patrolling the area at that time. He then assisted them to a compatible hotel and arranged an accommodation and further offered them an accommodation at police club the next day. What was the icing on cake was that he called up the next afternoon and gave his advice on the places of interest in the city. This is seriously a rare 'encounter' one can ever have especially if one is from a city like Delhi. Cases of police misbehaving with civilians are plenty across the nation. In a recent case reported from Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, 2 ITBP personnel molested the wife of a shop-owner during a search operation.

It is my sincere conviction that this one man is not in isolation to experience but a flag bearer of a changing police attitude across the country. The Shipra Path police station of Jaipur being recognized as the best Asian police station, the mission of Tamil Nadu police of ‘Friends of police Movement’, Mumbai Police’s determination to protect, particularly, the weak and downtrodden et al. are some of the genuine pointers towards the same.

After recent cases of heinous crimes that rocked the nation, there are certain police forces in India which have already taken steps to curb crimes committed on women and children. It was way back in 1987, when UNICEF proposed a project in training of the force for better security of women and children. A very few police forces at that time came forward to comply with. However, Mr. Ajai Kumar Singh of Bangalore Police was the only exception where the programme was implemented. An outlay of Rs.50 lakh per annum is spent annually by police force in Karnataka for training of its police with perceptible positive results. Another welcome step was taken by the National Human Rights Commission in association with IGNOU in 2011 by launching a 5-days online training programme on creating mass awareness of human rights for police personnel.

Therefore, better training and greater accountability certainly will help the Indian police force rise in the benchmark of the best in the world. The building of people centric police require reforms involving total change programme, skill enhancing methods and implementing and institutionalizing change interventions. Otherwise, the people who require them most have to be at the mercy of some few exceptions. What is more important is that imbibing the trend of doing ethical policing a matter of pride and dignity by the Indian Police Force will add great value to make Indian internal security system the best in the world!

DEREGULATING REGULATIONS!

Deregulation of diesel price would reduce irrational subsidies!

Finally, after series of flawed policies, I saw some sensible and path-breaking policies being announced by our incumbent government. After rounds of debates and discussions, the government finally took the ‘obvious and long-awaited’ decision of deregulating the diesel prices across the nation! This one policy that should have been implemented a way back, came at the time when the nation is facing an economic turbulence and the ruling government is fighting for its survival! Keeping everything at bay, deregulating diesel price would solve multiple problems and in all probability, would provide an impetus to the economy as well.

Now that diesel price is being deregulated, the staterun oil marketing companies can decide diesel prices in sync with global crude oil prices. The oil company would no more have to sell diesel at lower price than required or a price that spelled losses for the economy at large. This would not only reduce the gap between petrol and diesel prices but would save crores by sidelining the huge subsidy (worth Rs 95,000 crore per year) that is currently being allocated for keeping the diesel prices low! A back of envelope calculation shows that a one unit price hike in diesel price would save 4,000 units of subsidy. This further will help the government to reduce the fiscal deficit and maintain a judicious fiscal deficit to GDP ratio! As per a study by CARE research, “Every rupee hike in diesel price trims under-recoveries by approximately Rs 80 billion annually... An overall diesel price hike of Rs 5/litre by the end of FY14 along with currency appreciation is expected to reduce losses on sale of diesel to an average of Rs 5/litre for FY14 compared to current losses of Rs 9.6/ litre.” Furthermore, deregulation of price would eventually reduce hoarding and black marketing of diesel. I still remember the beelines at fuel station hours prior to the fuel price hikes and also the ‘no-availability’ status of fuel the very next day – a clear case of fuel hoarding! Given the price gap between diesel and petrol price, subsidised diesel is mostly redirected to affluent than needy.

This move will finally bring back the private players in the arena. Reliance Industries, Shell and Essar Oil which had to shutter down their fuel station a couple of years back, would now be back in business. Now both the government owned pumps and private players would try to woo their customers with other freebies as diesel would be sold at same price by both these entities. However, the government needs to chalk out clear plans of reimbursing the premium from farmers and other allied sectors. No doubt, this would definitely increase the input costs for the farmer, but just like LPG cylinders, these pockets of population can be issued a limited supply of subsidised fuel through privately owned authorised outlets!

In order to cushion the customers from sudden price hike, the policy makers can either adjust the tax structure in order to keep the price within a stipulated band or can offer subsidy to the players (both public and private) whenever global crude oil prices reaches a limit that is beyond the affordability of the end consumers. All in all, finally the taxpayers money would not channelized to SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) owners and shopping malls in form of subsidy. The money now could be used as funds for refurbishing the agriculture sectors and providing them with greener and cheaper modes of energy. And finally for all the naysayers, just like LPG price deregulation (and subsidy removal) did make the entire process transparent, diesel price would make the entire oil cartel transparent!

BRIDGING THE GAP

Irregularities in teachers' appointment would decay the system

A couple of weeks back, INLD leader Ajay Chautala along with 51 other people were convicted for illegal recruitment of teachers by CBI special court. The state High Court passed on the case to the centre and asked for CBI intervention as it saw involvement of many elite politicians and dignitaries in the same. Ajay and his group deployed more than 3,000 JBT teachers in various schools of Gurgaon by creating forged papers and through back-door entry. But then, this case comes as no surprise to me, but what is interesting to note is the way schools recruit teachers and above all, the amount of money these teachers are ready to pay to get into a reputed school.

As per Government Primary Teachers Federation, this back-door entry also halted the promotion of old teachers (whose promotion were due) as the entire fleet of staff are now under suspicion and scrutiny. The entire process had cost these individuals not less than Rs. 4 lakhs, in any case, which interestingly would be more than their average annual salary in all probability. But then, this is not only one of its kind scam. Almost two years ago, a number of politicians were charged for irregularities in teachers' recruitment process in Meghalaya. In this case too, teachers were recruited for lower primary schools of the state. In an another case, teachers were found paying heft y amount (ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000) for getting themselves transferred to the location of their choice.

On hindsight, this may seem a simple case of back-door entry but when seen from a wider perspective, the real issue would become quite vivid. These cases of irregular teachers’ appointment echo the very gap between demand and supply of teaching staff. In simple word, shortage of teachers at primary school level is massive. For instance, there are over 26,000 vacancies of school teachers at different levels in Haryana. Moreover, the Uttar Pradesh Basic Education Board has invited online applications for filling up of 72,825 posts for primary teacher in 75 districts of the state and West Bengal Board of Primary Education has issued notification for 34,559 assistant primary teacher vacancies recently but the positions remains to be vacant, still. So much so, the last date of application and examination dates for the same has been postponed many times. Such dearth of staff also has deteriorated the quality of education across the nation. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2012) for rural India, released a few days ago by PRATHAM, speaks volumes about the sorry state of primary education of our country. As per the report, in 2008, “only about 50 per cent of Standard 3 students could read a Standard 1 text, but by 2012, it declined to 30 per cent. About 50 percent of the Standard 3 kids cannot even correctly recognize digits up to 100, where as they are supposed to learn two digit subtraction.”

All said and done, teaching as a career, especially at primary level, still is more for job-security and parallel income through tuitions and coaching. Obviously, opaque recruitment process and lack of performance- evaluation system are the key reasons for such malaise. Not only, this hampers the delivery of course module but also create huge disparity between standard of education across various cities and states. In such circumstance, only an automated and centralised (and may be partially outsourced) system of teacher recruitment would be able to save the skin of already decaying public schooling system. In the current scenario, where scams are haunting the primary education system, neither Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) nor Right To Education (RTE) would bear the right fruit!

KATI PATANG

Domestic kite industry must go global to survive

I have always been a staunch believer of organising the so-called unorganised sectors of India. Not only it makes economic sense but also have a positive long term ripple effect on the society. It helps these unrecognised professionals to have a better and decent life and above all, showcase their produces at national and even the international market. Amidst all the dying industry, one industry which recently caught my fancy was the Kite Industry. Although Kite flying is a very old practice (and tradition) in India but these days one can see them being flown mostly during Basant or Uttrayan or International Kite Festivals.

Recently, the International Kite Festival, like every year, saw kite lovers from across the world gathering at Somnath in Gujarat to test their kite flying skills. This is not the only Kite festival but many such events take place across the nation during various weeks starting from December. However, in spite of such colourful hue this industry is one of those industry which is moving towards its declining stage. Undoubtedly, this industry needs a complete overhaul and lot of attention as many households are surviving on this seasonal industry only. The demand for kites may seem seasonal (in domestic market) but in reality its completely converse. A study of Chinese market and global demand for Kites makes it vivid that this seasonal industry can be made a conventional industry if tapped at global level. As a matter of fact, after declining by 50 per cent over the years, the industry is still worth almost Rs 1200 crore. Moreover, it employees over 70,000 artisans and seasonal workers across the nation with Bareilly, Jaipur, Kolkata, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad and Lucknow forming the major kite-making hubs. Taking about international market, in US and Canada, kite industry is estimated to be around $150 million (roughly Rs 750 crore market).

The kite industry has witnessed a major downfall particularly due to three main reasons. Firstly, Kite is still a seasonal industry in India. Once the festival gets over, business slacks to the point of being almost non-existent. Secondly, rising cost of raw materials along with increased competition from China-made products has made it less attractive proposition. According to a survey conducted by Assocham, “there has been an increase of about 25-30 per cent in the prices of raw materials like paper, string, powder used to colour the strings, sticks and the VAT due to which there has been a sharp decline of over 50 per cent in the business at kite shops.” Thirdly, domestic kites maker are not aware of global demand and different festivals like Weifang International Kite Festival, China; Bristol International Kite Festival, UK; Borneo International Kite Festival, Malaysia; International Kite Festival, France; Cape Town International Festival, South Africa; Washington State International Kite Festival, US and many other such festivals that takes place across the globe.

State governments and Central government may take a lesson or two from Gujarat as the state’s kite manufacturing industry has grown by six-fold during the past five years with the help of annual International Kite Festival that the state has been hosting since 1989 as part of the official celebration of Uttarayan. Replicating Gujarat, other kite making hubs should organise such international festival with grandeur and also make provisions for kite makers to sell their products at other international kite festivals too. At a central level, more footfalls for the same can be made possible by merging our kite festivals with Incredible India campaign. Here, we are just not taking about a dying industry but also about a decade old tradition.

FAULTY FORENSIC LABS

New forensic labs are vital for speedy justice

Since last couple of weeks, there have been protests going on all across the nation demanding quick and fast justice delivery. This is not the first time when a criminal is scott free due to delays in our judicial mechanism. Without any apprehension, the entire onus of delays lies on the courts which are struggling with less manpower and insufficient resources. And then, further going down is our investigative team, which again is equipped with stone-age facility and faces huge shortage of staff. Amidst all these loopholes, one peripheral of justice delivery mechanism that is largely getting ignored is our investigation laboratories. In simple terms, cases linger on for ages as the investigating teams fail to present sufficient scientific evidences on time. And, the reason for the same is the sorry state of our forensic labs.

Against conventional notion, forensic labs not only help in providing clues for criminal cases but also for civil and statutory cases. Today, forensic labs are called-in for cases related not only to murder, rapes and assaults but also for theft s, property disputes, document verification, forgery tests and truth analysis. As of now, we have less than 30 forensic labs where cases coming in for investigation from all corners of the country. On an average a single Forensic lab handles only 4000 cases annually while the demand for the same runs in tens of thousands per forensic centre! Moreover, only a handful of these labs are equipped enough to handle such large inflows.

As per a media report, around 4000 cases of sexual assault on women are yet to be solved at forensic level itself! These cases are pending from last 2-3 years. The problem gets augmented as one gauge through the vacancies at these forensic labs, still more than 100 seats are vacant (especially those at technical positions). There are labs where even “sufficient amount of chemicals required for several tests” are not even available. Even cases related to corporate fraud, computer fraud, child paternity cases and DNA tests are in the queue waiting for their trial, which can’t be moved even by an inch without forensic reports. Such poor state of infrastructure not only delays the cases but provides ample time to the culprits to tamper and dodge the evidences and in many cases even steal and damage the evidences, thus, leaving no scientific evidences of their crimes. Moreover, given the sophistication with which crimes are committed (and technologies with which the evidences are tampered) forensic investigation has become evident to prove the verity of samples in possession. Numerous cases like Aarushi- Hemraj murder case, Nithari serial murders case, Priyadarshini Mattoo Case and many other similar cases got delayed because of inadequacy of labs. In spite of these cases attracting media-attention and public outcry, no much heed was seen as most of the vital clues were either destroyed in the process or most of important investigative reports were waiting their turn in various labs across the nation!

In such scenario, the only escape from the problem is to invite private players in this sector too. Tenders should be invited for opening new forensic labs and for operating the existing ones. However, privatization would only take care of half of the problem. The shortage of staff would still keep these labs inefficient and slow. Fast track and short term recognised courses in forensic training should also be encouraged at various levels, especially at vocational training levels. Undoubtedly, the entire process calls for huge investment. But then this in long term would compensate for the investment by decreasing the cost incurred due to prolonged cases and delayed justice. As of now, fast track forensic labs are just part of Bollywood scripts!

Cashing on the cash

Direct cash transfer schemes are still quite perforated

After series of debates and arguments, over the decades, the incumbent government has finally realised the flaws of direct subsidy and thus announced their intentions of implementing direct cash transfers to the people. There is not even an iota of doubt that the subsidies were always vague in nature and rarely reach the actual beneficiaries, these are meant for. Most of the time, the subsidies meant for the bottom of the pyramid trickle up and reach to those who are at the top of the pyramid. There are innumerable examples of government employees and rich villagers carrying BPL cards and thus availing the benefits meant for the poor and needy popula. This is a major reason for the money collected as annual taxes from common Indians got redirected to the coffers of the rich and not for who it was collected from and the real poor. Eventually, the band of bottom of pyramid kept on widening and never saw any breakthrough. In spite of several economic measures, the gap between rich and poor never got bridged. Be it fertilizer subsidy, gas subsidy or oil subsidy, most of these services were majorly availed by those who had enough and by those who belonged to the upper category of haves and not by those who struggled as have-nots and are lingering in poverty!

After six decades of policy making, the policy makers adopted the globally practised direct cash transfer scheme. No doubt, this very scheme is million times better than the currently practised subsidy scheme. At least, the money paid by tax payers would reach the families. If one goes by global examples, cash transfers have helped many nations reach their target audience directly. For instance, a huge paradigm shift was brought in Sierra Leone through cash transfers to farmers with an intention of aiding them to purchase agricultural tools and inputs.

However, there are lot of misses between the cups and lips when it comes to implementation of the said policy. Firstly, there are still hundreds of villages where banking facility is not inclusive. As per the latest Census, merely 60 per cent of all households have access to banking services and the formal banking system. Still, more than 60 per cent of the rural population does not have bank account and only 25 per cent of rural dwellers uses banks for availing credit facility. In such a bleak scenario, direct cash transfers through bank transfers would fall flat. Thus the first and foremost challenge to the policy makers is to bring these villagers under the ambit of conventional banking system ensuring that every single individual has bank account. Moreover, there still exists a huge task of opening a bank account for all these villagers and even before that providing them with relevant documents (read: identity and address proofs) to do the same. Further, every village, through numerous channels, have to be educated about the benefits of banking system and thus have to be roped into the concept of ‘financial inclusion.’

The next issue with direct cash transfer is in the access to cash itself. Most of the households in villages are male dominated. In simple words, the financial decisions are sole proprietary of the males in the family. This would not only become victim of gender discrimination but also may dilute the very objective of cash transfer. It has been widely seen that if cash handling by men is quite skewed as compared to women. Even in NREGA schemes, the cash disbursed to workers are used more for household by women and more for alcohol and tobacco by men. In a classic case of Malawi (published in a paper titled, ‘Cash Transfers in the Context of Pro-Poor Growth’), it was found that “the value of cash transfers was undermined by the exceptional increase in maize prices during the 2001-2002 season: in May 2001, the monthly cash transfer purchased 70 kg of maize, but only 16 kg by February 2002. As a general lesson, cash transfers are likely to be inadequate in the absence of measures to address wider economic instability.” Going by various precedence, there is a huge probability of the money being used for anti-social and non-essential purposes. This may lead to alcohol abuses and other form of misuse and thus leading to incidences of domestic violence too.

The scheme on the hindsight looks quite promising, but then there are numerous perforations in its practicality and applicability. Thus to make it foolproof, along with widening the banking system and increasing financial inclusion, the policy-makers need to draft clauses that would ensure more judicial usage of hard-earned money.
Thus as solutions, cash can be disbursed in the form of debit card that can be swiped only for listed commodities at authorized outlets or there should be applied mechanism to ensure relevant usage of the money. This will solve two purposes. One it will keep track on prices charged by the traders and would keep checks on dummy transactions. Even remittance slips can be offered which can be used as cash coupons or promissory notes (in lieu of currency, like Sodexo passes) at any outlet. These two steps are obviously not a foolproof steps but will put a capping on misuse of funds and above all provide government with more time to make the policy better and educate people on importance of savings and proper investments. Else it will get reduced to a vote bank politics in the veil of populist agendas, as always.

THE BROKEN SATELLITE

Satellite towns are more expensive than metros!

The opportunities that the metropolises offer are often off set by the rising living expenses, which have a cooling effect on happiness level of the dwellers, in the long run. The exceeding household budgets often influence the middle class to head towards the satellite townships at the periphery of the metropolises as a destination for settling down. The entire concept of satellite was devised to reduce overcrowding of main metros and trim down migration to mega cities. However, the entire objective of city planning went down the drain, as government failed to provide a metro-like life style at an affordable price to the satellite towns’ dwellers. On the contrary, it’s the residents of metros who are finding it cheap to lead their lives in so-perceived expensive cities.

Gurgaon which was a barren wasteland till about 30 years ago and was developed to push corporate and executives out of the capital city, has surpassed Delhi in Consumer Price Index. According to Numbeo, consumer prices in Gurgaon are advanced by 12.52 per cent compared to Delhi. Consumer Prices including Rent is higher by 15.40 per cent, housing and commercial rent by 25.37 per cent and grocery prices by 13.35 per cent. The rent in Gurgaon is higher by miles. One BHK in the downtown that cost the buyer Rs.10,000 in Delhi would be Rs. 15,000 in Gurgaon, a gap of 50 per cent, while a same apartment in the interior is pegged around Rs.7,000 for Delhi and Rs. 9,500 for Gurgaon, the latter being up by almost 36 per cent. Even transportation costs more in Gurgaon with local transport being higher by 25 per cent and taxis by 42 per cent.

Delhi’s next neighbor, Noida, too is expensive on many criteria’s. The meals in a mid-range restaurant in Noida would cost about 30 per cent more than in Delhi. Some of the most important essential commodities in Noida exceed their cost in Delhi viz. rice (up by 33 per cent) and chicken (3 per cent). Thus the myth is busted that Delhi is costlier than its peripheral satellite towns, a major driver for migration into the dwelling units of those zones.

The picture in the greater Mumbai zone portrays a similar trend line. The Mumbai’s adjacent town Thane recorded an 11 per cent higher consumer prices than Mumbai, as well as higher grocery price by the same margin. The transportation cost difference is a massive 108 per cent in favour of Thane for local transports, 3 per cent for taxi fare, and 10 per cent for gasoline price. The higher Thane-Mumbai price ratio extends with higher electricity, cooking gas, water and garbage by considerable 59 per cent. These commodities are major differentiators in determining monthly household budgets. Navi Mumbai is even costlier than Thane. While the rate per square foot for 2 BHK flat in Thane costs up to Rs. 20,000 it is cut above in Navi Mumbai ranging up to Rs. 30,000. In Kolkata too, its Satellite town of Salt Lake is one of the most expensive localities and upcoming Rajarhat is the hottest real estate market with one of the highest appreciation of prices.

It can be ascertained that satellite towns, in no way, a cheaper sanctuary, rather a more costly prospect. This reason alone is silently casting a reversal of trend of what is called reverse migration. Disillusioned by the expansive budget that the middle-class households thought they would be able to curtail in outskirts of the metros – they are tiptoeing back to where they migrated from. As the goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. The government urgently needs to draft policies to reduce prices of basic commodities in all satellite towns or else damage would become irreparable!

E-MORAL SCIENCES

Introducing cyber laws in school curriculum is imperative!

Today cybercrimes are not only the most misunderstood Criminal Act but also are the one which is being executed from the ease of one’s living room. Going by reports and media compilations, cybercrimes is emerging as the most-practiced criminal activities among educated youths and also among school-going teenagers. With internet offering all the ways of committing these crimes on platter, anyone with even little proficiency in computing tries his hands at one or the other version of cybercrime. Most of these criminals are first-timer who on the outset does not even realise that their actions are actually felonies.

Be it juveniles or grown up youths, most of these people try their hand on identity theft , hacking, spreading viruses, downloading illegal music/movies, posting derogatory content, defaming users and many other such acts. Most of these crimes are treated as fun-element and a matter of elitism amongst the peers which is the underline reason at the first place. For instance, some hacking for the first time has no knowledge about the trap he/she is falling into and the repercussion that it would bring with itself. Most of the time, it is done to impress friends or attracts applauds of the peers. Unlike other conventional crimes, cybercrimes is still deemed unconventional as most of the cyber users fancy hacking and other related activities and treats these as entertainment rather than an offence. The basic difference between cybercrimes and other similar crimes is the fact that unlike other crimes, cybercrimes is introduced to kids by their friends or by the some virtual user. Even today, when IT and internet has become an important part of school curriculum, cybercrimes are still to see a dawn.

With cybercrimes being attempted at every other home, it’s imperative to introduce the same at age (and in the way), schools introduce other criminal and unethical behaviours. Around 1,630 arrests were made for cybercrimes (under the Information Technology Act, 2000) in 2011 alone, which is a sharp increase from 2010 by almost 100 per cent. With emergence of smart phones and mobile telephony, cybercrimes have seen a paradigm shift . A flip through any national daily would be enough to gauge the spread of such crimes. According to the TCS GenY survey 2011-12, comprising over 12,000 school students, between the age group of 12 and 18, found that around 85 per cent of students possess FB accounts. The survey further found that, “the average time spent online by 33 per cent of children surveyed is about 60 minutes, while around 6 per cent say they spend more than six hours on the Internet.” Most of these users today access the internet through their smart phones, which are at their disposal at their convenience and demands virtually no checks and authentication.

At the disposal of the government wonks to curb problem are certain laid down cyber laws circling Information Technology Act, 2000. The IT laws in the country are protected by harshest of punishments sweeping through the legal bindings for anybody daring to flout it, including children and juvenile students. The measure up of the legal actions that can be initiated against the perpetrators of cybercrimes can be with a fine up to Rs 1 crore or up to 10 years of imprisonment. Th at talks as loudly as possible of imminent danger that young students are susceptible to regarding their misadventure that is often a figment of young blood verve than cold-blooded crime endeavour. Therefore introducing and comprehensive explaining of cyber laws’ details should be the first priority of education bureaucrats to insulate the adolescent sorcery with internet rather than ruining their career.

ATM PIN GOES PUBLIC

Third-party outsourcing can create mayhem in banking sector

It is often said that frauds with financial and personal details of customers in banking operations take higher dimensions when the service is outsourced to a third party. This new consumer hazard is becoming a way of fast money for call centre executives! It is especially gaining ground after the Standard Chartered and Citibank fraud revelations. Standard Chartered outsourced money laundering violations to third parties in US resulting in massive embarrassment for the company of having to deal with huge flow of cash entering Iran in violation of US laws. Although, it didn’t involve loss of personal funds of the consumers through their stolen information, but it did vindicate the vulnerability of the banking system and its pressing problem of outsourcing data. The disappointment was more direct to consumers in the Citibank case, which involved specifically to security issues. It was a classic case of credit card cloning that took place in April 2005 involving a sum of $350,000.

The expression of risk in banking/financial fraud is as grave, if not more, in India as in other developed countries like US and UK. It is because of loopholes in our regulations and greater propensity to outsource services by our banks. For instance, allotment of bank account, credit/debit cards, cheque books, ATM PIN And other such details are dispatched to the customers through outsourced sources increasing the risk of misuse. Further, while sharing the ATM network by the banks SPDI (Sensitive Personal Data or Information) is shared with outsourced executives. Also, the personal information is often shared with other banks or vendors in calculating reward points in credit cards. Last but not the least; SDPI is also pooled in case of Internet banking with the BPO employees.

The government of late has resorted to recovery work by enacting statutes that will protect customers’ interest. Some lukewarm regulations were enacted under Information Technology Act, 2000 to monitor over the online financial fraudulent, and later on Reserve Bank of India introduced guidelines in 2001 emphasizing the consumer data confidentiality could not alleviate their security related fears to a large extent. This corroborated the attempted introduction of “Personal Data Protection Bill 2006” in a proposal to enhance the privacy of the consumers. But the bill did not see the light of the day then and in 2008, certain acts of the bill were amended to safeguard personal information and SPDI. Even though the sharing of data is not prohibited altogether because that will jeopardize the progress of banking industry but certain procedures are laid down regarding data collection, data transfer and data disposal. Under the act in case of “wrongful loss or gain” for an individual because of breach of data protection, the victim can claim to the adjudicating officer a compensation sum up to Rs. 5 crores. Also, a formal note of consent must be derived from the consumers before sharing his information by the banks.

However, in retail banking (where the threat of legal entanglement is lower because of the lower capacity of a single retailer to successfully prosecute a bank) it’s a mix of captive banking and outsourcing. Still, banks and financial institutes resort to third party for their banking needs, thus giving the keys of one’s bank account to several persons. In this age of internet banking, its important for these banks to inform the consumers with the details of all those who have the keys of his/her accounts. This may not completely eradicate the problem but would also share some accountability with the end-consumer too!

GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK!

Merely taxing diesel vehicles can backfire!

The debate on subsidy on diesel price never seems to reach a consensus. On one hand, diesel subsidies are important to keep food prices and transport prices under check, while on the other hand, this subsidy is being exploited by luxury car owners and owners of commercial hubs. In simple words, tax paid by the aam adami which is meant for societal development is latently being directed as subsidies to industrialists and rich business houses! Thus it becomes far more important for the government to either come up with a differential pricing system or some other model which categorises these two different set of users under two different price bands.

In the same light, the Supreme Court has recently floated a proposal to impose “a green tax on new and existing private diesel vehicles to check pollution in the National Capital Region.” The bench proposed to tax diesel vehicles with a green tax that would be 25 per cent of the cost of the vehicle. This is to make sure that the subsidy being offered in form of lower diesel prices comes back to the government. The initiative looks quite promising but then there are lots of misses between the cup and the lip. These taxes may later increase the sale of second hand diesel vehicles (which is more polluting) and may deter the sale of new diesel cars.

Contrarily, green taxes are a globally practiced method of encouraging green-vehicles and not the other way around. A report by Professor Robert N Stavins of Harvard Kennedy School published by Harvard University states that such initiatives can accrue ‘double dividend’ as it will discourage non-green vehicles and also would be a source of new revenue for the government. However, merely collecting taxes and fines won’t solve the purpose. There needs to be a system of using the collected amount in more judicious manner, especially towards refurbishment of traffic and transport structure. As per Media report published in November 2012, Pune despite of collecting Rs 4 crore (out of polluting vehicles in form of green taxes) failed to utilise the money for any purpose, leave aside using the same for pollution control. Nagpur is another example wherein they raked in Rs 1.30 crore but again didn't use the money for any pollution control measures. The same is true for cities across the nation.

Almost all countries across the world are tweaking with their green taxes with an objective of eliminating polluting vehicles in next couple of decades. Sweden is all set to increase taxes by almost 35 per cent on polluting cars while exempt taxes on electric vehicles to push green-electric vehicles on the road. Similar measures are being adopted by other EU nations including Germany that went steps ahead in implementing taxes that would encourage the manufacturers to design greener cars! Similar systems are also present in UK, US and Australia.

The proposal suggested by the Supreme Court should, along with taxing polluting vehicles, have provision of floating market with affordable electric and hybrid cars and cars running on gases. This multi-dimensional policy would serve dual purpose of both preventing misallocation of diesel subsidy and enhancing pollution control measures. The Supreme Court recent decision should also keep in consideration the cost of manufacturing diesel vehicles. Given the fact that diesel vehicles are relatively expensive than their petrol counterparts, such taxes can further dent the automobile market. The Supreme Court and the policy makers should include clause that provides incentive to green vehicles manufactures and dealers. Let this policy be not a half-backed and self-destructive one!

IITF IS STILL AN INFANT

Expos and trade fair needs to match the global standards

The importance of trade fairs has never been so profound. The recent IITF 2012 opened the gates for budding as well as established enterprises to showcase their products and services that eventually allows them to display and project their services not only to their potential customers but to the entire region at large. The power of trade fairs notwithstanding, it is fascinating to delve into its genesis that dates back to the medieval era in Europe. Since then, its impact has grown from strength to strength through the industrial revolution in Britain and Europe and later in North America. The trade fairs, in fact, became the face of industrial revolution that reflected its vitality and showcased the same to the world.

The trade fairs, unlike consumer fairs, do not have any restrictions to curtail the entry of the general public. Thus, the hype that surrounds the event invites the participation of not only professionals and company representatives but also the intrigued public. The large trade fairs are gala affairs that attract an onslaught of advertisements and media frenzy that is, even sometimes, carried on as developmental strategy for the host city. The biggest trade fair in India is India International Trade Fair (IIFT) which takes place at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. It has entered its 32nd year in the 2012 event with a deep reservoir of strength in their roster of 7,000 exhibitors that include 350 overseas firms’ participation across 28 countries. It can also boast of 1 million visitors last year that turned the organisers proud that a world class trade fair atlas is beginning to take shape in India. Some of the other Indian trade fairs include the India Int’l Maritime Logistics Expo in Mumbai, International Leather Goods Fair in Kolkata, India International Leather Fair in Chennai, Arogya in Trissur and Aahar – The Int’l Food Fair in Shillong, to name a few.

However, in spite of commendable efforts to retool and upgrade the Indian trade fairs, it’s still way below the global standards. The Canton Fair held in Guangzhou, China draws 207,103 participants from across the globe taking place at a state-of-theart venue with world class infrastructure that’s beyond the imagination of the IIFT’s unglamorous grind. The total size of exhibitors in Guangzhou crossed 24,415 professionals hailing from over 200 countries with total business transaction touching a humongous $ 36,800 million last year. It boasts of wonderfully craft ed pavilions separately for national and international participants drawing huge pool of visitors. In its 105th session, the data for number of booths surpassed 55,800 with business turnover of $ 262.3 million and was attended by 165,436 visitors. In Germany, Angela Merkel endorsed a massive 134 international trade fairs that encompassed 159,945 exhibitors of whom 55.4 per cent are foreign nationals. Leading the pack of quality as well quantity gap is United States, which host 2,500 trade shows every year! The coveted top position is occupied by Consumer Electronics Association’s International CES held every year at Las Vegas Convention Center with an expansive 1,442,000 sq ft floor space, followed by The Association for Manufacturing Technology’s biennial International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago and Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute’s biennial Pack Expo also held in Las Vegas. These are world shows where Indian trade fairs don’t stand a chance to compete, be it scope, size or frequency. Indian shows, run-down and neglected looks need a boost at the earliest because in this age of publicity, Indian products and services along with its image should be light-years ahead of where Indian trade fairs are stuck in today!

GRAFT THE DRAFT MANIFESTO

Parties’ uses development plans as election campaigns

Unlike many post-colonial nations, which have descended to dictatorships or sham democracies, India has sustained to a reasonably stable democracy unhindered since independence. However, the success of the very same democracy in India would raise numerous eye brows if benchmarked against the best examples of it. Certain basic deficiencies in the country’s social and political dynamics have never allowed the nation to maintain a free and fair democratic setup.

India’s political outfits have time and again exploited the short memories of poor and illiterate (or at best the semi-educated) masses that forms the basis of the country’s electoral pattern. Therefore, the inefficiency and status quo of the country’s/state’s incumbent governments are ratified by the voters on the merit of just few months of developmental work, particularly before the elections. It is disappointing to see how voters are insensitively influenced by politicians, who otherwise are busy manipulating the nation and it is much more disappointing to see how people fail to see the devil in the stealth of such politicians! Every now and then, projects worth hundreds of crores are announced and brandished before election to tilt the electoral balance in favour of the ruling parties. And such is electorates’ psychographics that in many instances it works too! The best example of it has been in West Bengal, where for 34 years of Left Front rule there were no anti-incumbency factors at all despite their shoddy and slapdash work during the tenure. They derived latitudes by tall talks and announcing projects before elections that were either never implemented or remained incomplete once the election was over. The flaunting of projects and schemes just before election has become a norm throughout the nation in the hope of shaving down opposition’s margins. Before the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) election this year projects worth Rs. 519 crores were announced along with major reforms in the transport sector worth hundreds of crores. There are innumerable such cases.

To beat this, the Election Commission of India in its model ‘Code of Conduct’ has specified strict Do’s and Don’ts for the political parties. It has banned announcement of new schemes, projects, financial grants and laying foundation stones that are rooted towards the sole effort to influence the voters. Yet, the parties escape these rules by announcing schemes just before they come into effect, as has been the case in West Bengal, Gujarat and other places. The cliché is followed by each and every party, which provides no alternatives for the voters that can crystalize into a realistic change in governance.

Another interesting signal that helps decipher a phenomenon before election is the unearthing of scams and financial embezzlement! Every time one come across a infrastructure development or reconstruction of roads and drains, one can gauge that elections are round the corner. Such initiatives are not only a latent election campaigns but also are a way of generating funds through fixing tenders and kick-bagging.

Election Commission and Supreme Court should immediately bring such populist construction under the ambit of direct election campaign and should check any construction after the stipulated date prior to elections. Moreover, all projects announced during the tenure should be made to complete much before the election campaigns starts, thus keeping the essence of both the ends – election and developmental initiatives- intact!

JOBS APART

Part-time jobs can rejuvenate our economy

As against the conventional wisdom of building a service career as a permanent employee, corporates are increasingly rolling out part time jobs and the employees are only too happy to lap it up. It’s developing into a trend that is evolving at the speed of light speed which is benefitting both employers and employees. The informal workers in the organised companies have risen from a moderate 32 per cent in 2000 to a most expansive 68 per cent in 2010. The figure of part-time workers’ growth in 2009 was over 10 per cent and in 2010 the figure settled at 18 per cent! It shows the lucre that goes with the proposition of temporary jobs, a trend that is ever rising in most of the developing countries, according to the World Development Report, a publication wing of World Bank.

It can be deciphered generically that at least a sizeable proportion of these part time jobs have a reasonably high productivity. And as it happens, it augurs economic efficiency for an economy. Taking up part-time jobs had been common place phenomena in the developed economies and that’s exactly what is brewing quickly in India. The labour reallocation is particularly easy in temporary jobs as it is not confined by the labour regulations, which applies to permanent jobs, and in spite of series of reforms organised jobs are still mired by strict labour guidelines that hinder our economic growth path. Th us the part-time jobs encourage labour flexibility as well as breeds new entrepreneurship that increase the growth and development, a prerequisite to sustain a rise of 7 million working people every year. The part time job spree is also facilitating startups and entrepreneurship. This in turn portends confidence in the country’s future as a high growth economy. Even housewives, who probably were skilled but had to quit jobs for family commitments are earning a handful through the temporary jobs.

The part-time jobs’ credo provides an answer to the unsettling poverty and unemployment through rapid urbanisation in which there is better chance in poverty reduction. The urbanisation actually hasn’t taken off in India in last two decades. In fact India was at par with China in 1990 with 27 per cent of its population living in urban centres but India with its slothful infrastructure and labour laws’ deficiencies have choked the urbanisation growth. The rise in temporary jobs are in a way a policy backlash to faulty labour policies that have pushed the employers towards unorganised jobs more for their firms.

However, part-time jobs are still in low skill-requirement areas. The chance of getting a part time job depends on the industry segment. Teaching was one area where the availability of part time employment was high for a long time, but in recent years, increase of jobs in accounting, business development, pathological lab assistants, data entry operation and many more have shown enough promise for even qualified personnel opting for them. It’s in fact a win-win situation where the employers benefits on cost variability as well as flexibility in their staffing, while the employees can add up to their income without committing a whole time to their company. It has been a big employment generator and very strong anti-poverty measure that needs to pick up more, like in the West, with a shift of attitude that tends to look down upon the part-time jobs. For that, government should take initiative to encourage the trend more so that many in the poverty cycle can break it and come up to overcome scrimp on pay for a decent living.

WELCOME STARBUCKS

FDI would revive India's ignored agriculture

The incumbent government is grinding it out in their apparent effort to convince the farming community that allowance of FDI in retail will actually benefit them. So much effort to convince the truth is required because of a highly charged political surrounding that is reflected in the Opposition’s stand against the move. However, the farming community came together organically and enthusiastically in the difficult task of voicing open support for FDI in retail. A farmers’ delegation recently have thanked Sonia Gandhi eagerly that they feel the move will benefit both farmers as well as consumers. They submitted a memorandum stating that this move has the potential to re-energise the farming sector and projected an air of confidence that it can also prevent the sector from a probable breakdown.

What the retail giants like Wal-Mart can do is a vertical integration in the supply chain, and there by choking the middlemen’s involvement from the system. It is already noticed from certain regions of the country, where deep pocket corporates like Reliance and ITC operate, that farmers have benefited from the organised retail giants’ venture. The model has succeeded because the organised retail has sourced the agricultural produce directly from farmers, which allowed them, to pay the farmers more than what the middlemen could have paid. It is often argued by the people opposed to it that the MNCs would require large farms and thus neglecting small farmers, or the retailers can leave a farmer for better opportunities, even flouting the contract with the farmers. In any of the cases the farmers are not really met with adverse effects. The moot point that is missing with the opposition is that in imperfect distribution channels the benefits of farm products’ price rise are mostly hushed up by the middlemen depriving the farmers completely on the financial gains.

APMC Acts require the agricultural produce to pass through the channels of authorized middlemen before it reaches the end users, portending financial loss for the farmers. Further, Essential Commodities Act, too, is a restrictive instrument that put caps on the volume and distribution of the farm produces, ratcheting the farmers’ despair. Despite some serious efforts by the government, it has failed to bring about any major changes in the APMC Act, as any effort to trim the middlemen attracted strong opposition of state’s traders lobby in the fear of putting their employment at risk. An integration of supply chain is needed that can be transformational in the way agricultural distribution is carried on in the country since independence; by reducing the farm and retail price gap. Unfortunately farmers’ unions are not as strong as middle men’s lobby, which stifle the voice of the farmer in the bargaining power of agricultural marketing. Thus all states should take measures to strengthen the producers association so that their say in the marketing value addition of the farm products can be taken into account. Even the urban people share this point of view that organized retail is a boon. An Ipsos initiated survey conducted in 6 Indian cities, reveal that 51 per cent of the respondents believe that FDI in retail will stoke up the economic prosperity for the farmers and for the country’s economy.

The stage seems set as Starbucks in JV with Tata Tea recently opened its first outlet in Mumbai. With Starbucks coming to India, hundreds of coffee farmers who were once committing suicide (from coffee-growing states of Kerala and Karnataka) should get a new lifeline. The JV aims at sourcing coffee from the local farmers and provides them with training to increase productivity. Starbucks is trying to do something that the government should have done long before. If the same was done by our government then today, Starbucks would have found much steeper competition in the domestic market.

THE DIRTY BUSINESS

Mafia’s are still controlling our waste

The garbage dumps and solid wastes are increasingly becoming up-for-grabs between contractors and mafias, who are competing with each other like never before for share of a larger slice of the pie. In doing so, they are leaving no stone unturned to retool their tactics in escaping the existing laws and manipulate the establishment, in their pursuit of solid waste maneuvering.

In Bangalore, for instance, the mafias who had sole dominion over garbage collection met with a jolt when BBMP (The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) attempted to do it in a better way, by recycling procedures done through increasing awareness for segregation at source, i.e., the households. In retaliation, the mafias have dumped heaps of garbage in prohibited and clean zones. The situation is further mired by the conniving nexus between politicians and contractors in a business that can be described as ‘black gold’ worth Rs.430 crore annually in Bangalore alone. The partisan obligation of the BBMP officials was busted in 2008 by BMTF (Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force) enquiry, where as many as 80 officers and 40 contractors were found in the tangle of financial wrongdoings. Bangalore spends Rs.430 crore a year on garbage disposal, which is way ahead of many metropolitan cities of India like Mumbai (which has double the population of Bangalore) with Rs.191 crore, Delhi with Rs.177 crore and Chennai with Rs.135 crore.

The mafias are in thick in their strive to control the garbage knolls in the country’s national capital too. The prerogatives and the style of operation in Delhi by the garbage mafias are ditto to Bangalore. Th at is the reason, why Delhi government is trying to endorse the privatisation of the business so that mafia-recruited 3.5 lakh waste pickers (mostly children) can also be dealt with simultaneously. Also, on Delhi government’s agenda, waste-to-energy plants, for which the neighbourhood solid wastes are burnt by the government – comes as another blow to the powerful mafia lobbies.

Owing to garbage mafia and cartel, the entire drive of segregation of waste by the civic authorities comes to a stand-still. The rag pickers don’t comply by the governmental/ civic authorities norms and eventually end up picking even the recyclable waste. What’s worse is that these children do so to make living out of paper, plastics, bottles and other similar products at meager price while their employers making millions out of it by selling it to corporations and industries.

The dominance of these unorganised gangsters in garbage collection business can only be weakened throughout and out privatisation which will be a win-win situation for society and local municipal authorities. As it happens across the world, private companies, if given contract, can directly pick waste from the city and eventually use the recyclable materials for their own use. Consider this: 80 per cent of the raw materials for paper industry are consumed from waste paper, the bulk of which is imported with an annual bill of $750 million. Surprisingly, India is likely to use only 20 per cent of the recycled fibre as compared to 40 per cent in many developed countries. Comprehending the same, companies like ITC, Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt. Ltd. and AKC are trying to retrieve the same before it gets lost permanently as landfills.

The government must come forward and at least release this business out of their fist and allow corporate with high level of expertise and professionalism to handle the same. Th is will also work as incentives for motivating environment-friendly corporations and will reduce loss of reusable waste. Above all, it will keep the roads clean and finally will free rag-pickers from the clutches of these mafia’s who after all lead an unhygienic life and later on carry multiple diseases with them.

AUTO WORKS

Auto/taxi mafia is taking a toll on the drivers

Auto strikes are now an integral part of this highly unorganised transport industry. Every other month, some or the other city in India experience this blackmail from either the auto-rikshaw or taxi drivers. Here, the moot point of debate is not whether these auto and taxi drivers are ethical in their deeds or are they taking the entire nation to ransom. The point here is why on the first place are they calling for such strikes and that too so very frequently?

The answers for these two questions that is the biggest cause of concern among auto and taxi drivers. It’s on the account of one issue that has been lingering since years – fare hike vis-à-vis fuel price hike. The recent decision of implementing a GPS based fare meter has resurfaced the entire debate all over again. The on-going strike again raises the issue on how the feasibility of such instrument especially after the fact that the cost of such installation would be borne by the auto drivers. If one goes by the entire business model of this highly unorganised industry, almost all apprehensions would get answered.

Despite the price of auto being fixed by the Supreme Court (as per 1997 SC order, only 55,000 autos can run in the city), an auto in Delhi doesn’t cost less than Rs 6,00,000. As the number of auto rikshaw are fixed that can ply on the roads, a new entrant in the market has to first buy an old rikshaw, deposit the same with the officials and they would be given the permission to buy a new vehicle. The entire process cost him nothing less than Rs 2-3 lakhs. Even after obtaining the permission, he needs to swims through sea full of loan sharks. Most of the agencies that run as auto financers are actually small group of people trying to legalise their black money. During the purchase of permit, the financiers get the vehicle registered against the name of the auto drivers – who are paid almost nothing – and thus get rid of their black money and also get to own fleets of auto/taxis. And what the auto rikshaw drivers gets in return is a salary to the tune of few thousands. And here is why, these people are often seen protesting against any thing that kills their source of income or ask or any investment on a vehicles that is virtually owned by someone else!

It’s estimated that 80 per cent of all autos running in Delhi are under the grip of auto finance-mafia.

What is required is a new set of reforms for this industry. To start with, the entire industry has to be organised. The entire licensing system needs a overhaul wherein, the transfer of vehicles are made stringent which leaves very little scope for any dummy transfers and like. The capping on number of autos should be immediately removed, as it is the case of radio taxis where there is no capping for the same. Next the government should have fair price outlets for exchange of old vehicles with facilities to provide the new entrants with finance and loan facilities. Moreover, the government can start a telephonic booking service call center for auto booking, as in the case of radio taxis, that would eventually allow the market dynamics to decide the price and price slabs. Above all, the government should do away with auto stands (right now there are around 130 auto stands in Delhi), which again lead to cartelisation and small auto regional mafias. And finally, licences and recoginzation to the auto drivers through official registration, where in they need to register the details of the vehicles and the owner. This desk would further make sure that the drivers are paid a minimum salary and auto is being constantly upgraded as per the requirements.Obviously, these policies wont remove all the problems, but would surely make the drivers less hostile, more hospitable and would allow them to have better lifestyle with decent living.