I’ll quote Bob Marley here. It will explain everything.
“If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy. … Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”
What do you understand by tax-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio? Compare India’s tax-to-GDP ratio with that of OECD economies and comment whether India should strive to increase this ratio or not. (200 Words)
Do you support the proposal of taxing agricultural income of farmers in India? Substantiate. (200 Words)
Do you think lack of employment opportunities is one of the major causes of protests seeking the status of Other Backward Classes (OBC) by prominent castes in India? What measures can government take to empower these communities without giving them reservation? Critically examine. (200 Words)
Discuss objectives and design of the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban (rural-urban) Mission. Would this Mission act as complementary to Smart City mission? Examine. (200 Words)
The recent violent protests by Jat and Patidars demanding reservation under OBC are termed as the unreasonable demands. Do you agree? What are the causes behind such demands? Should they be fulfilled? Critically comment. (200 Words)
Reasonable reasons behind such demands are as below :
1) Unemployment : Failure of state to create adequate employment opportunities for its educated youth.
2) Partial success of reservation policy : Increased competiton due to partial success of reservation policy which bring some socially disadvantaged sections par to the general people.
3) Largely failure of Reservation policy : Anger towards state’s largely failed reservation policy whose benefits are being accrued by well-off eligible communities.
4) Education : Lack of access to affordable, quality higher education instittutes in India.
5) Agriculture : Agrarian distress due to back to back droughts which affected prosperity of these communities.
Critically discuss the elements and objectives of the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. Do you think this scheme was needed when Members of Parliament are already getting funds under the MPLAD (Member of Parliament Local Area Development) scheme? (200 Words)
According to ambitious “Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana”, each member of parliament will choose/adopt a village in his/her constituency (any constituency in state for RajyaSabha members and village in nearby constituency for urban constituency members) to fulfill the following broad objectives
1. Use of already existing schemes to develop model villages—Adarsh Grams—and development of new initiatives within the local contexts of the village.
2. Developing the model for local development which can be replicated in other villages as well.
The Goal is that each MP will have developed 3 villages by the end of 2019 and 8 by 2024.
As a granular level, Adarsh Gram is expected to have minimum basic facilities like pucca houses, all-weather roads with covered drains, electrification of all houses, street lights, drinking water, pucca infrastructure for Anganwadi, schools, gram panchayats, availability of modern education mechanisms, post office etc.
No separate funding had been allocated for this scheme but it has to accrue from other schemes like Indira Awas Yojana, MGNREGS, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, MPLADS, Gram Panchayat’s Revenue, Central & State grants, CSR funds etc.
In the second phase of scheme parliamentarian’s response was not at all encouraging where only a handful of them (32/785) adopted the second village. Their apathy towards this scheme can be understood;
• As there are no dedicated funds for the scheme and
• no accountability for the implementation of this scheme.
MPLADS funds are for broader utilization and SAGY focuses specifically on a village so it is not fair to say that SAGY is redundant when MPLADS is existing.
There are no doubts that intentions around SAGY are good but to encourage it, the government should come up with some innovative ideas like;
• competition and awarding best Adarsh Gram and its MP
• Encouraging that some % of funds from schemes like MPLADS to be utilized for SAGY
• building accountable and transparent mechanism for its implementation.
• Along with MPs also nominating a corporate to adopt a village, and it can be added to their CSR profile.
Waiting for legislative action to bring reforms in various sectors is both cumbersome and time-consuming process. What executive measures can be introduced to reform sectors across exports, taxation, small scale industries, labour and infrastructure? Examine. (200 Words)
Logjam in consecutive parliament sessions, led the govt to come up with executive measures:-
Reforms in export sector:-
– Increasing the time period to claim MEIS benefits.
– Allow manually submitting of the shipping bill.
– Provision to self-certify the origin of various goods, which usually take a considerable time.
Labor reforms:-
– Uniform period across states to renew factory licences (currently range from 1 to 5).
– Fixing timeline to decide pending cases by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (currently stretched upto 15 years)
– Need to disinvest PSU.
Taxation reforms:-
– To boost SEZ, invitation to FDIs and high budget allocation, to grow more employment opportunities.
– Repeal of retrospective taxation.
Infrastructural reforms:-
– Setting of 3p-indian institute, to handle effectively projects under ppp mode.
– Revision of DFI( development financial institution) to instil long term investments in infrastructure.
Reforms in Small scale sector:-
– Need to recapitalise MSMEs.
– Provisions to make it women friendly.
Need of the hour to re-evaluate economic sector, with easy and friendly labor laws, strict implementation of anti dumping laws to maintain domestic competition healthier, fast adjudication of financial cases by setting specific tribunals, and fast implementation of GST only then projects like MII and SISI can successful.
Recent Parliament deadlock and the sensitive nature of some sectors have prompted GoI to take executive measures for reform :
1) Export : Foreign Trade Policy(2015-20) which aims to double the export has introduced various incentives to boost export. But, certain reforms such as increasing time period for claiming MEIS benefits, allowing self-certification of origin of goods are required.
2)Texation : Urgent need to either completely get away with the MAT (Minimum Alternate Tax) or reduced to its original rate of 7.5% to revive SEZs (Special Economic Zones) to attract foreign investment, create employment, boosting exports.
In addition, It is high time to get away with the Reterospective texation which has hindered the growth of Make In India campaign.
3) Labour : There is need of uniform period for factory licenses to renew which currently varies from 1 to 5 years. Secondly, there is urgent need to fix the timeline for the pending cases before the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction. Finally, reform the existing labour laws to decrease the incidence of informal employment.
4) Infrastructure : Firstly, to provide single platform dealing with all PPPs under infrastructure sector, urgent need to set up 3P India institution. Secondly, There is urgent need to revive DFIs ( Development Financial Institutions) to make available long term- capital for the infrastructure sector.
However, Resorting to the executive measures and by-passing the legislative procedure as envisaged in our constitution is not a justifiable for the world’s fastest growing economy being the world’s largest democracy. It can damage our image as the most favourable destination as we argue on our unique 4 D’s – Democracy, Demography, Demand and recently added De-regualation.
Such executive measures should be adopted only when Parliament is not in session & economy desperately needs reforms.
Analyse the rates of unemployment and causes for their variation across regions, gender and religions in India as per latest surveys. (200 Words)
Self-employment is the major source of income for almost half the households, across all religious groups, in rural areas, followed by casual labour.
In urban areas, the proportion of households deriving major income from regular wage or salary earnings is the highest. Half the Muslim households in urban areas have self-employment as major source of income, the highest among all religions, while regular wage or salary earnings was the highest for Christians with 45.8 per cent households.
A) Variation across regions:
1) In rural areas the unemployment rate remains stable
Reason :
– Many people in rural areas go for self employment and casual labour.
– Poor and less educated people can’t afford to remain unemployed and do any kind of job.
– Agriculture provides all year employment in rural araes.
2) In urban areas rate of unemployment decreases.
Reason :
– Most of households are educated and get regular wages and salaried jobs.
– Self emplyment is another good sources of income.
– Various opportunities are avaialble in urban areas to get jobs in different sectors acc to capacity of individual.
B) Variation across religions:
1) Hindus have lowest rate of unemployment in both urban and rural araes.
Reason : Either they get good jobs or willing to do any sort of work.
2) Christians have highest rate of unemployment in both areas rural and urban.
Reason :They are educated and rich and don’t do any job untill they find suitable job for them. But in urban araes some of them do salaried jobs.
3)Unemployment rate decreases for sikhs in rural araes as they go for self employment and all work in casual labour sector.
4)Unemployment rate is higher for muslims in both rural and urban areas . Some of them go for self employment though.
C) Variation across Gender: Some stability is seen in rural araes between male and female.
1) Rate of employment higher for males
Reason :
– They can do any kind of work.
-They are sole bread earner of families.
– Mostly they do rural urban migration.
– Good educated than women mostly in rural areas.
2) Rate of unemployment in women less in urban areas
Reasons:
-In rural areas mindset of family prevents women to do work.
– Less educated in rural areas so don’t get good job , mostly do agricultural work
– Richer family won’t let there women to work
– In urban women are doing jobs in MNCs , BPOs as they recieve good education
– In rural areas MGNREGA provide work for women so it leads to stability.
India is pursuing an ambitious renewable energy (RE) target of 175 GW by 2022. Examine the role of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) in helping India achieve this target. (200 Words)
Reform needed – CERC emphasised the need for ring fencing the state load despatch centres (SLDCs) and a special scheme for capacity building of SLDCs.
CERC, an autonomous, statutory body and the main electricity regulator, is important because:
1. Tarriff setting – As per the Power Tariff Policy, CERC sets up the tariff or the rate of inter-state electricity projects. Tariff determines how viable a project can be, with a higher tariff incentivising businesses including RE to set up more plants
2. It collaborates with the government and the CEA (Central Electricity Authority ) to set up right policies for RE Incentivisation, such as that of Net Metering, Roof Top Solar Policy of Green Energy Corridor
3. It guides and collaborates with the State Electricity Reform Commissions (SERC) in estimating the tariff of power, setting of RPO (Renewable Purchase Obligations ) for every state
4. It ensures development of power market through power exhanges, power trading, granting open access to generators, etc
To expand the efficacy of CERC , it is the duty of the govt to make it more financially independent by setting up of separate funds as advised by the 14th Finance Commission. The more independent it becomes, the more our electricity sector can develop
Saurabh Baranwal 