THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 28 APRIL
No barrier to naming Lokpal: SC
‘Opposition leader’s absence no hurdle’
•The Supreme Court on Thursday found the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act of 2013 an “eminently workable piece of legislation”, which provides for the appointment of Lokpal Chairperson and members even in the absence of a recognised Leader of Opposition (LoP).
•The judgment goes against the very logic of the government’s argument that appointment of Lokpal Chairperson and members is not currently possible, and would have to wait till the 2013 Act is amended to replace the LoP with the single largest Opposition party leader.
•Under the 2013 Act, the appointments to Lokpal are made by a committee of the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, LoP, Chief Justice of India and an eminent jurist.
•As the 16th Lok Sabha does not have a recognised LoP — the Congress could not get the required 10% membership in the Lok Sabha in the 2014 polls — the implementation of the Lokpal Act was stalled.
•But the judgment authored by Justice Ranjan Gogoi differs. Highlighting India’s commitment to ‘zero tolerance against corruption’, the court said an existing law cannot be put on hold merely because Parliament is working on a better law.
PM launches low-cost flights
Shimla-Delhi, Kadapa-Hyderabad flights flagged off under UDAN programme
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the lives of the middle class were being transformed, while inaugurating the first flight under the UDAN —Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik — scheme for regional connectivity.
•The Prime Minister inaugurated the first UDAN flight on the Shimla-Delhi route and simultaneously flagged off flights on the Kadapa-Hyderabad and Nanded-Hyderabad sectors through a video conference from Shimla.
•“I had always wanted the man in streets wearing hawai chappals (slippers) to do a hawai yatra (plane journey),” said the Prime Minister in his short address at Shimla’s Jubbarhatti airport.
•The Shimla-Delhi flight is operated by Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, which has deployed its 42-seater ATR plane on this sector. The fare for 24 seats onteh flight has been fixed at Rs. 2,036. However, the Shimla-Delhi flight can accommodate a maximum of 15 passengers, while the Delhi-Shimla flight can carry 35 passengers due to height and temperature factors, according to Air India.
•Air India will receive a subsidy of Rs. 3,340 per passenger from the government for capping the fare. The government will collect 80% of the subsidy by charging a levy of up to Rs. 50 per ticket on flights deployed on the national route. The remaining 20% will come from respective State governments.
•Mr. Modi said air travel under the UDAN scheme would cost less than even taxi fare on a per kilometre basis. Five airlines —SpiceJet, Alliance Air, TruJet, Air Deccan and Air Odisha Aviation — recently won bids to fly 128 routes connecting 70 airports under the regional connectivity scheme.
Judicial performance index proposed
NITI Aayog for outsourcing non-core functions of police
•The NITI Aayog has proposed the introduction of a judicial performance index to reduce delays and the outsourcing of non-core functions of the police to private agencies or other government departments, in a bid to fix justice system that is in ‘dire need of reform.’
•The government’s think tank has also mooted changes in criminal justice and procedural laws, a repeal of all irrelevant legislation by March 2019 and reforms in land ownership laws — which account for 67% of litigants in civil suits.
•The creation of a judicial performance index that could help High Courts and their chief justices keep track of the performance and processes at district courts and subordinate levels for reducing delay, should be ‘the first step’ in judicial system reforms, the Aayog has said in its draft three-year action plan discussed with Chief Ministers on Sunday.
Bid to end delays
•The performance index for courts will entail fixing of ‘non-mandatory time frames for different types of cases to benchmark when a case has been delayed.’ The index can also include certain progress on process steps already approved by High Courts and such an annual evaluation should give judges in High Courts ‘a sense of where they are failing and what they need to fix.’
•“Since the subordinate judiciary is largely within the domain of the High Courts, this could also spur competitive reform of the judiciary in those States,” the Aayog reckons.
•To improve the quality of policing, the think tank has asked the Home Ministry to create a task force to identify ‘non-core functions’ that can be outsourced to private agents or government departments in order to reduce the workload of the police.
•“Functions such as serving court summons and antecedents and address verification for passport applications or job verifications can be outsourced…” the Aayog said in a chapter on improving the rule of law.
•India’s police to population ratio should reach the United Nations norms of 222 per lakh population, over the next seven years, from the current level of 137. Red-flagging the adverse implications of crimes against women beyond ‘the obvious horror for affected individuals’, the Aayog has asked the Home Ministry to push for greater hiring of women in the police force, with a target of 30% of all new recruits.
Enforcing contracts
•Citing inordinate delays in India’s judicial system and its low rank on enforcing contracts in the World Bank’s ease of doing business report for 2017, the think tank has also called for streamlining judicial appointments on the basis of online real-time statistics on the workload of pending cases.
•Such data will help enable “priority appointment of judges at the lower judiciary levels keeping in mind a scientific approach to assess the number of judges needed to tackle pendency,” the Aayog said.
Lack of intelligence inputs hurting Army
Constant protests, deployment of local police for election duty said to have stymied information flow
•The pre-dawn attack on an Army camp in Panzgam village near Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday is the latest among a string of attacks on military installations over the last two years, and symbolic of a dramatic turnaround in the nature of violence in the Valley.
•According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 88 security forces personnel were killed in the State in 2016, the highest since 2008. This year, at least 15 personnel have already been killed and the Army anticipates a flare-up in attacks as summer sets in. Both 2015 and 2016 saw six major attacks each on military installations. In comparison, there were just three attacks in 2014 and even less the year before.
•Sources in the Army say this is due to a combination of factors — from an increase in number of terrorists in the Valley to limited intelligence inputs to conduct operations. “Ascendency establishment of the terrorists is happening now,” an officer said, adding that two years back there were 150-200 terrorists while now there are about 250 to 300. To stop that, kinetic operations by the Army should go on, and for that intelligence should keep coming in, the officer said. The Army gets specific intelligence from local police and then conducts targeted operations. But with elections scheduled, the police were deployed for law-and-order duties, stymieing the flow of information, the officer said. The constant protests in the Valley over the past year also affected this information flow.
•The Panzgam camp — located in an area of 600x400 metres, and about 20 km from Kupwara — functions as a rear administrative area for over nine Army units, including artillery and infantry. Officials said that terrorists likely chose the camp assuming that the response would be much higher as several different units function there.
Element of surprise
•On fatalities suffered by security forces, the officer said that terrorists always have the element of surprise during which most of the casualties actually occur. “The first round is always to them. After that they are quickly localised and eliminated.” Panzgam has a two-layer perimeter security, with the inner and outer fences separated by 50-75 metres.
•In the aftermath of the terror attack on Pathankot Air Force station in January 2016, a high-level committee chaired by the former Army Vice Chief, Lt. Gen. Philip Campose, was constituted by the government to review the security in place at major military installations and recommend measures to strengthen it. However, officials said, given the large number of Army camps along the Line of Control and International Boundary, it is not possible to upgrade each and every one to the same level. Then there are issues such as terrain and location. “If a person is determined, he can always come in,” the officer noted.
Lokpal panel: CJI among equals
His opinion need not always get primacy, says apex court
•The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the provision of the Lokpal law giving no primacy to the Chief Justice of India's opinion on who should be appointed as Lokpal Chairperson and Members.
Legislature’s prerogative
•The Chief Justice of India's opinion need not always get primacy. It is the prerogative of the legislature to decide whether the opinion of the Chief Justice of India should get primacy.
•It is not the mandate of the Constitution that in all matters concerning the appointment to various offices in different bodies, primacy must be accorded to the opinion of the Chief Justice or his nominee, the court held.
‘Not questionable’
•A Bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi made these conclusions in a separate judgment dealing with a petition filed by an NGO — Just Society — against the Lokpal Act of 2013 not giving any primacy to the opinion of the CJI or his nominee judge in the matter of selection of Chairperson and Members of the Lokpal.
•“If the Legislature in its wisdom had thought it proper not to accord primacy to the opinion of the Chief Justice or his nominee and accord equal status to the opinion rendered by the Chief Justice or his nominee and treat such opinion at par with the opinion rendered by other members of the Selection Committee, we do not see how such legislative wisdom can be questioned on the ground of constitutional infirmity,” Justice Gogoi wrote in the judgment.
‘UID-PAN linking a Faustian bargain’
Linking Aadhaar with essential activities will turn the nation into a concentration camp, SC told
•Lashing out at the move to link Aadhaar to the permanent account number and filing of income tax returns, senior advocate Shyam Divan told the Supreme Court on Thursday that the Constitution was not a charter of servitude.
•“We are independent citizens who cannot be forced by the State to part with our fingerprints in exchange for being able to file our income tax returns,” Mr. Divan added.
•He termed the newly inserted Section 139AA in the Income Tax Act, which mandates the linking of Aadhaar with PAN, a “Faustian bargain”.
•Linking Aadhaar with essential activities of life, such as opening a bank account, filing returns and buying property or a vehicle, would turn the “entire nation into one large concentration camp where citizens are under State surveillance round-the-clock.”
Limited authority
•A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan assured him that the court was still alive to its past orders that Aadhaar should be “purely voluntary” and not forced on citizens.
•“In our Constitution, we have given ourselves the right to govern through our elected representatives. Government has limited authority over us. You [State] don’t want to give me benefits, that’s all right. But you cannot, for your tax-efficiency purposes, force me to part with my fingerprints without my free, informed and voluntary consent,” Mr. Divan argued.
•At this point, Justice Bhushan wondered why people should have a problem parting with their biometric particulars for getting Aadhaar when they have none whatsoever for procuring a passport to go abroad.
•“State has a legitimate interest in getting a citizen’s biometric details for a passport,” responded Mr. Divan, who represents petitioners, including the former Army officer S.G. Vombatkere.
•“For one, God forbid, if something happens to him when he is abroad, the State needs these particulars to identify him. These are permitted and legitimate purposes for collecting biometric data. Besides, if you go to another country, you have to abide by the laws of that country. But Aadhaar is being insisted in every walk of life.”
Privacy of the body
•The law had stopped considering the physical body as a domain of the state ever since the time slavery was abolished.
•“I am a law-abiding person. I am a tax-payer. Every man has a property in his own person. The philosophical foundation of the ‘body’ is that it is my self-authenticated source of valid claims. They are collecting biometric details of even children,” he said.
Respect for privacy
•Mr. Divan said the State had respected the privacy of the body of its citizens even in the pre-constitutional times.
•He referred to the Identification of Prisoners Act of 1920 in this context.
•“The Act allowed authorities to take finger and foot impressions of the inmates. These were used to identify them in case of a prison break, etc. However, these records were to be destroyed immediately at the end of their prison term. Collection of biometric details had always been for narrowly-limited purposes even in times before the Constitution was framed,” Mr. Divan told the Bench.
India, Sri Lanka sign energy pact
Spotlight on Trincomalee projects
•Following Wednesday’s overarching Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between India and Sri Lanka, both sides will collaborate in a host of energy and infrastructure projects across the island, The Hindu learns.
•The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi says the MoU provides a road map that will require further discussions.
•“Our vision to promote connectivity and development takes Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas to our external environment, and naturally to neighbourhood first,” said the MEA spokesperson on Thursday.
•The MoU — signed in New Delhi during Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit — includes the setting up of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in suburban Colombo and a solar power plant in Sampur in Trincomalee; Indian assistance to enhanced use of natural gas in Sri Lanka; joint investment in the petroleum sector and partnerships in highways and transportation, the spotlight remains on the proposed joint venture to develop a World War-era oil storage facility in Trincomalee, the strategically located port town on the island’s east coast.
•As per the MoU, the countries will also jointly set up Industrial Zones and Special Economic Zones in Sri Lanka. Colombo has been keen on attracting Indian investment into the island.
Learning to run twice as fast
The challenge of the States in achieving a debt ceiling of 20% by 2023 threatens overall fiscal responsibility targets
•It is no mean achievement that the daunting fiscal deficit target of 3.5% of GDP for the past year was met. Beyond the 3.2% fiscal deficit target for the current year, the government has accepted a 3% target thereafter. Continuing this trend in the future will enable the realisation of the preferred 60% debt-GDP ratio by 2023. The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Review Committee report, now in the public domain, has preferred a debt to GDP ratio of 60% for the general government by 2023, comprising 40% for the Central government and 20% for the State governments. Given the recent track record, there is a reasonable probability of the Central government achieving the 40% debt to GDP ratio. The focus now is on the States. Can they, in partnership with the Central government, enable the near optimum of 60% to be achieved by the terminal date? For international investors and rating agencies, what matters is the fiscal position of the country as a whole. The challenge of States achieving a debt ceiling of 20% by 2023 is undoubtedly Herculean for more reasons than one.
Drag factors for States
•First, the best of times, so to say, on fiscal issues may be somewhat behind us. As a 2013 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development paper by David Turner and Francesca Spinelli points out, “A key issue in assessing long-run fiscal sustainability is the future trend of the differential between the interest paid to service government debt (r) and the growth rate of the economy (g). For highly indebted countries, an increase in this differential of a couple of percentage points, if sustained, could lead to a change from a declining to an explosive path for the debt-to-GDP ratio.” A negative interest rate-growth differential (i.e. r-g, growth rate greater than the interest rate) causes debt to GDP to decline over time. However, the advantages on account of a favourable r-g depend primarily on the level of debt stock. In this context, the Union government, which has larger domestic liabilities of 49.23% of GDP as compared to that of the States (21% of GDP), benefits more due to a negative interest rate-growth differential. The combined debt dynamics necessitate States to run successively lower primary and fiscal deficits just to maintain their combined debt to GDP ratio at the current level. This is a classic case of the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass saying, “If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
•Second, the role of exogenous factors in fiscal corrections of the States. Till FY13, fiscal conduct of the States was exemplary, strictly adhering to and even outperforming the targets of the Fiscal Responsibility Legislations (FRLs). No doubt positive externalities facilitated this outcome. Consolidation of Central loans and debt waiver to States based on their fiscal performance effectively reduced their interest payments to about 0.9% of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). Given the debt-restructuring scheme of the Twelfth Finance Commission (FC), Central relief packages and positive economic scenario, it is difficult to differentiate the fiscal correction due to improved management and fiscal discipline.
•Third, the recent marked deterioration in fiscal health of the States. The Fourteenth FC enhanced the borrowing limits up to 0.5% of GSDP for the States. This was conditional on debt to GSDP ratio being less than or equal to 25% and/or interest payments being less than or equal to 10% of the revenue receipts in the preceding year. The fact that only six States in FY17 were eligible for enhanced borrowing is indicative of States’ decaying fiscal prudence. The recent spate of farm loan waivers is episodic and symptomatic of deteriorating State finances.
The way forward
•Given these complexities, what is the way forward? What are the instrumentalities available with the Central government to ensure greater convergence? The most obvious one is the prudent use of powers defined in the Constitution of India under Clause (3) of Article 293. This makes it mandatory for a State to take the Central government’s consent for raising any loan if the former owes any outstanding liabilities to the latter. One or two States may indeed reach that position, endangering this constitutional instrumentality of the Central government. It would be interesting to see what happens when States cease to have any outstanding liabilities to the Central government. Recently, the Union Cabinet has permitted State government entities to directly borrow from bilateral partners for vital infrastructure projects. Incentivising prudent fiscal management is a welcome initiative.
•Looking beyond, there must be symmetry between the cost of borrowing and the quality of financial governance. Combined market borrowings have been rising consistently from 18% in FY11 to 28% in FY16. The gross market borrowing of States through State Development Loans (SDLs) increased by a sharp 27% in FY17 from Rs. 2.9 trillion in FY16. Markets expect this to rise even further by 22% in FY18 consequent upon pay revisions, implementation of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) and exclusion of State governments from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF). Risk variations across States are not reflected adequately in the cost of borrowings. This is a major concern. Fiscally healthy States should be enabled to attract higher investments at lower costs.
•Two, ushering in transparent accounting practices. It is being increasingly acknowledged that the current stock of State debt at 21% of GDP could be underestimated owing to fallacious budgetary practices and operational intricacies. Off-budget expenditures through State Public Sector Undertakings’ (PSUs) borrowings and explicit guarantees offered by the States do not form a part of State government liabilities. Private researchers and public auditors alike have been pointing out the growing trend of off-budget public spending and mis-categorisation of budget data. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), while appraising States’ finances, has repeatedly censured such practices. The Fourteenth Finance Commission’s (FFC) recommendation of adopting “a template for collating, analysing and annually reporting the total extended public debt in their respective budgets as a supplement to the budget document” must be implemented.
•Three, emphasising quality of expenditure. A recent HSBC report notes that “quality of state spending (proxied by the ratio of capital to current spending) has been gradually worsening over the past few years”. The share of States’ revenue expenditure in total expenditure has remained around 80% and States’ non-developmental expenditure has risen by over 50% from FY2013 to FY2016. The RBI’s latest assessment of State Budgets with the theme, ‘Quality of Sub-national Public Expenditure’, raises the concerns about dominance of revenue expenditure in the States. While the quantum of “untied funds” from the Centre to the States has increased owing to the recommendations of the FFC, expenditure on physical and social infrastructure by the States has remained stagnant. These very concerns were expressed a few days ago at the NITI Aayog meeting of Chief Ministers. While according permission to States to undertake fresh borrowings, their expenditure quality should be a prime condition.
•Four, encapsulating ‘Fiscal Discipline’ in determining inter se tax shares of different States. Fiscal discipline as a criterion for tax devolution was used by Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Finance Commissions for incentivising the States in prudent management of its finances. However, the FFC dropped this indicator and accommodated ‘Population (2011)’ and ‘Forest Cover’ in its devolution formula. Given the deteriorating condition of State finances, the Fifteenth Finance Commission could consider restoring fiscal discipline as a determinant for horizontal devolution of funds.
•Borrowing today to pay tomorrow is by no means financially viable for long-term growth. After all Thomas Jefferson had said, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is swindling futurity on a large scale.”
In four doses
The first malaria vaccine is cleared forpilot tests, raising hopes about wider use
•Beginning next year, the World Health Organisation will begin pilot tests of the injectable malaria vaccine RTS,S (or Mosquirix) on 750,000 children aged 5-17 months in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. The vaccine has been successfully put through a Phase III trial, in which the drug is tested for safety and efficacy. Any decision on wider use will be taken based on the results of the pilot tests in the three countries. If the vaccine does indeed prove to be ready for large-scale use, it will be a milestone in the fight against malaria. Although the number of cases globally and in the African region came down by 21% between 2010 and 2015, in 2015 itself the number of deaths worldwide on account of the disease was as high as 429,000. According to WHO estimates, Africa accounted for 92% of these deaths, and 90% of the 212 million new cases that year. In such a scenario, even a vaccine with limited benefits could yield a substantial improvement. The vaccine, given in four doses, protects against Plasmodium falciparum , which is the most prevalent malaria parasite in Africa. The three countries have been chosen as they have settings with moderate-to-high transmission of malaria and already have in place malaria control programmes such as the use of bed-nets, rapid diagnostic tests and combination therapy. Each country is to decide where precisely to run the pilots.
•The first three doses of the vaccine will be administered with a minimum interval of one month between each dose, followed by the fourth dose 15 to 18 months after the third dose. The first dose will be administered at about five months of age and the third dose has to be completed by nine months of age. While the drop-out rate increases as the number of doses increases, the biggest challenge is the fourth dose, which warrants a new immunisation contact to be made 15 to 18 months after the last dose. In Phase III trials, the efficacy of the vaccine was around 30% when children received all the four doses; the vaccine also reduced the most severe cases by a third. But there was a significant drop in these benefits when children did not receive the fourth dose. Given the low protection efficacy of the vaccine even in tightly controlled clinical settings, the pilot tests will be useful in evaluating the likelihood of replicating the immunisation schedule in the context of routine health-care settings. Also, the extent to which the vaccine reduces the all-cause mortality has to be evaluated as this was not “adequately addressed” during the trial. There is, specifically, a need to ascertain if excess cases of meningitis and cerebral malaria seen during the trials are causally related to the vaccination. Unlike other vaccines, the less-than-optimum protection offered by this vaccine would mean that existing malaria intervention measures will have to be used in conjunction to reduce the incidence of the disease.
Direct tax base to soar in 3 years
Demonetisation, steps to curb black money to spur increase: NITI Aayog
•The NITI Aayog expects India’s direct tax base to rise significantly over the next three years, due to demonetisation and steps taken to curb black money by the government, pegging the direct tax to GDP ratio at 6.3% in 2019-20 from 5.6% in 2016-17.
•“The forecasted direct tax to GDP ratio is 5.8%, 6% and 6.3% in 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, respectively,” the government think tank estimated in its draft three-year action plan for the economy, where it has also recommended measures to increase the tax base, such as phasing out myriad exemptions.
Demonetisation windfall
•Demonetisation, it noted, had led to a significant increase in bank deposits which is likely to result in disclosure of “a significant amount of income that would not have been done otherwise.” Therefore, it has argued that there could be a significant one-time increase in the direct tax revenues for 2017-18, although such an increase has not been factored into its estimates.
•As per its estimates, gross tax revenue (total tax receipts before deducting the tax share of States) will rise from Rs. 17.03 lakh crore to Rs. 19.49 lakh crore this year and rise further to Rs. 25.81 lakh crore in 2019-20 at an annual growth rate ranging between 12%-17%.
•Citing the recent steps to curb black money generation and the drive to replace cash transactions along with simplification of tax norms that are being considered, the Aayog said: “The cumulative result of these measures would be increased tax compliance and an expansion in the tax base. Going forward, this will lead to increase in direct-tax to GDP ratio.” The Aayog has recommended a massive increase in outlays on healthcare and railways and road sectors over the next three years, with the share of healthcare spending in total government expenditure expected to rise from 1.7% in 2015-16 to 3.6% by 2019-20.
•“Health expenditures contribute directly to enhancing the social welfare of people and in developing human capital. The increased allocation should be utilised towards public health, state level grants, fiscal incentives and human resources for health to states to improve health outcomes,” it said.
‘Revival of fertilizer plants can make India an exporter’
The restart of four plants can add 75 lakh metric tonnes
•The Centre’s revival of four fertilizer plants at a total cost of Rs. 50,000 crore has the potential to turn India into a fertilizer exporting country from an importing one, Chemicals and Fertilizer Minister Ananth Kumar said.
•“When all these plants (at Barauni, Singhri, Gorakhpur, and Talcher) start, they will add about 75 lakh metric tonnes to the output, taking the total capacity to about 320 lakh metric tonnes,” Mr. Kumar told reporters following a joint review meeting with Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Power Minister Piyush Goyal. “From a fertilizer importing country, we will be capable of exporting.”
•“In agriculture, one of the most important issue is that of fertilizer,” Mr. Pradhan, who was also present at the press conference, said.
•“The expenditure and the construction activities for all four plants will begin in calendar year 2017 after the monsoon, and depending on the availability of the Prime Minister, he will lay the foundation stones at that time,” he said.
Eastern region
•Mr. Pradhan also emphasised the Centre’s plan to improve development in the eastern region of the country, adding that massive infrastructure investment in the region would be a boost to a ‘Second Green Revolution’ in the region.
•“A massive investment of Rs. 50,000 crore is being undertaken for the revival of the closed fertilizer plants and setting up of a gas pipeline network to connect Eastern India to the national gas grid,” Mr. Pradhan said.
•“Of this, Rs. 20,000 crore would be invested to revive the plants at Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Barauni (Bihar) and Sindri (Jharkhand).”
•The government will be investing Rs. 8,000 crore in the Talcher fertilizer plant in Odisha through a consortium comprising Fertilizer Corporation of India, Gas Authority of India Limited, Rashtriya Chemical and Fertilizer Limited, and Coal India Limited. The Talcher facility will also be the first plant to deploy a coal gasification system.
•“We have already improved the capacity of the existing fertilizer plants from 225 lakh metric tonnes to 245 lakh metric tonnes at no additional cost,” Mr. Kumar said.
Flexible pension for informal staff mooted
They face disasters, irregular incomes
•Workers from the informal economy and the agricultural sector should be allowed flexible contributions and withdrawals from pension plans due to the vagaries of their incomes and the risk of disasters, a report by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority said.
Specific scheme
•The ‘Financial Security for India’s Elderly’ report by PFRDA and Crisil also recommended a specific pension scheme for young women along the lines of the government’s Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme for young girls. “There are labourers who work on a daily basis and are unsure of whether they would be employed the next day,” the report stated.
•“Also, agriculture sector employs the highest population in India and is highly dependent on monsoons. In a year of bad monsoons, the earnings of many of the farmers are very low even to suffice their basic needs, let alone put something aside for pension in later years.”
•“Given such irregularities in income, flexible contributions could be allowed,” the report added. “Similarly, in case of extreme events such as floods, drought or severe financial hardships, the subscriber could be allowed to make flexible withdrawals.”
•Since women, who account for 70% of non-workers in India, are financially dependent on their male counterparts, and generally outlive men, the ‘feminisation’ of the elderly is going to be increasingly evident in the years to come, and could bring with it huge fiscal burdens. “Similar to a Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme, where parents are incentivised to save for their young daughters, a scheme can be provided for the young ladies.”
