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Internet Shutdowns (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: National
Prelims level: Section 144 CrPC
Mains level: Significance of internet in people’s life

Context:

• To rising number of internet bans across the country, the crucial need of internet in day-to-day life is increasingly felt.
• Access to Internet must be recognised as a fundamental right to free speech, basic freedoms and the right to life.

Recent instances:

• There have been more than a 100 Internet shutdowns in different parts of India in 2019 alone.
• In Kashmir, the government imposed a complete Internet shutdown on August 4 2019 (scrapping off Art 370), which continues for months.
• The enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act led to protests all over the country.\
• State governments responded to this by suspending the Internet.
• Assam witnessed a suspension of mobile and broadband Internet services in many places, including in Guwahati for 10 days.
• There were Internet bans in Mangaluru, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
• These bans are being imposed under different provisions of the law.
• These include Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
• Some are imposed without any legal provisions at all.

Significance in people’s life:

• Internet broadband and mobile Internet services are a lifeline to people in India from all walks of life.
• Internet is a main source of information and communication and access to social media.\
• More than that, people working in the technology-based gig economy depend on the Internet for their livelihoods.
• E.g. delivery workers for Swiggy, Dunzo and Amazon and the cab drivers of Uber and Ola
• Internet is also a mode of access to education for students who do courses and take exams online.
• Access to the Internet is thus important to facilitate the promotion and enjoyment of the right to education.
• The Internet provides access to transport for millions of urban and rural people.
• It is also a mode of access to health care for those who avail of health services online.
• Internet is a means for business and occupation for thousands of small and individual-owned enterprises selling products and services online.

Should internet be a right then?

• Access to the Internet is thus a right that is very similar to what the Supreme Court held with respect to the right to privacy.
• It is a right that is located through all fundamental rights and freedoms.
• Internationally, the right to access to the Internet is spelt out in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• It states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
• This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
• The Human Rights Council in a UN resolution made important declarations on promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet.
• The resolution affirmed that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online.
• These include, in particular, freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice.
• The Kerala high court too recently acknowledged this in the case involving Faheema Shirin, an 18-year-old BA student.
• She filed a petition seeking to set aside the rule that denied internet access to women students at night in her hostel.

Conclusion:

• It is time that India recognises that the right to access to the Internet is indeed a fundamental right within constitutional guarantees.

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Private telecom players hike rates, prepaid users to be hit (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Telecom industry
Mains level: Market competition and its effect in telecom industry

Context:

• Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio announce up to 40% increase. The era of low tariffs for Indian consumers seems to have ended as major telcos — Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), Bharti Airtel Limited and Reliance Jio — have increased tariffs by up to 40% for prepaid customers.
• While VIL and Sunil Bharti Mittal-led Bharti Airtel have decided to hike the tariffs with effect from December 3, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio has decided to implement the hike from December 6.
  90% of market:
• The three telecommunication giants together account for over 90% of India’s 1.18 billion mobile subscribers, with the market share of around 30% each split evenly among them. “New plans will be available across India starting 00:00 hours of December 3, 2019,” a Vodafone Idea statement said.
• Bharti Airtel’s statement read: “Airtel’s new plans represent tariff increases in the range of a mere 50 paise/day to ₹2.85/day and offer generous data and calling benefits.”
• Both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel announced new prepaid plans starting with options of 2 days, 28 days, 84 days and 365 days validity and prices starting from ₹19 and going upto ₹2,399. Reliance Jio is yet to announce its new plans.
• Reliance Jio’s new tariffs will be priced 40% higher, but the company promises to offer 300% more benefits to its customers. “Jio will be introducing new all-in-one plans with unlimited voice and data. These plans will have a fair usage policy for calls to other mobile networks. The new plans will be effective from 6th December 2019,” the company said in a statement.
• The hike in tariffs comes after VIL and Bharti Airtel posted record quarterly losses of ₹50,922 crore and ₹23,045 crore respectively owing to an adverse Supreme Court ruling on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR).

Way ahead:

• Both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel also have an outstanding debt of over ₹1 lakh crore each.
• According to government data, the liabilities in the case of Bharti Airtel add up to nearly ₹35,586 crore, of which ₹21,682 crore is the licence fee and another ₹13,904.01 crore is the spectrum usage charge (SUC) dues (excluding the dues of Telenor and Tata Teleservices). Vodafone Idea has an estimated liability of ₹44,150 crore post the Supreme Court order and made provisioning of ₹25,680 crore in the second quarter this fiscal.
• Commenting on the hike, Chief Marketing Officer of Bharti Airtel Shashwat Sharma said the operator’s new mobile plans offered “tremendous value” and “a superior network experience” on the 4G network.

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India’s forest cover is rising but northeast and tribal areas lose (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: India State of Forest Report
Mains level: Highlights of the India State of Forest Report

Context:

• The Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, released the biennial “India State of Forest Report (ISFR)”.
• The report is published by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) which has been mandated to assess the forest and tree resources of the country including wall-to-wall forest cover mapping in a biennial cycle.

Background:

• Starting 1987, 16 assessment have been completed so far. ISFR 2019 is the 16th report in the series.
• ISFR 2019 is the 16th report in the series. In tune with the Government of India’s vision of Digital India, FSI’s assessment is largely based on digital data whether it is satellite data, vector boundaries of districts or data processing of field measurements.

Benefits of these reports:

• The principal aim of India State of Forest Report (ISFR) is to ensure environmental stability and maintenance of ecological balance including atmospheric equilibrium which are vital for sustenance of all life forms, human, animal and plant. The derivation of direct economic benefit must be subordinate to this principal aim.
• The report provides information on forest cover, tree cover, mangrove cover, growing stock inside and outside the forest areas, carbon stock in India’s forests, Forest Types and Biodiversity, Forest Fire monitoring and forest cover in different slopes & altitudes.
• Special thematic information on forest cover such as hill, tribal districts, and north eastern region has also been given separately in the report.
• The satellite data interpretation is followed by rigorous ground truthing. Information from other collateral sources are also used to improve the accuracy of the interpreted image.

Major Findings of India State of Forest Report 2019:

• Area-wise Madhya Pradesh has the largest forest cover in the country followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra.
• In terms of forest cover as percentage of total geographical area, the top five States are Mizoram (85.41%), Arunachal Pradesh (79.63%), Meghalaya (76.33%), Manipur (75.46%) and Nagaland (75.31%).
• The Mangrove ecosystems are unique & rich in biodiversity and they provide numerous ecological services.
• Mangrove cover has been separately reported in the ISFR 2019 and the total mangrove cover in the country is 4,975 sq km.
• An increase of 54 sq Km in mangrove cover has been observed as compared to the previous assessment of 2017.
• Top three states showing mangrove cover increase are Gujarat (37 sq km) followed by Maharashtra (16 sq km) and Odisha (8 sq km).
• Under the current assessment the total carbon stock in country’s forest is estimated 7,124.6 million tonnes and there an increase of 42.6 million tonnes in the carbon stock of country as compared to the last assessment of 2017.
• The annual increase in the carbon stock is 21.3 million tonnes, which is 78.2 million tonnes CO2 eq.
• Wetlands within forest areas form important ecosystems and add richness to the biodiversity in forest areas, both of faunal and floral species.
• Due to importance of wetlands, FSI has carried out an exercise at the national level to identify wetlands of more than 1 ha within RFA.
• There are 62,466 wetlands covering 3.8% of the area within the RFA/GW of the country.

Forest Cover in Tribal Districts:

• The total forest cover in the tribal districts is 4,22,351 sq km, which is 37.54% of the geographical area of these districts.
• There has been a decrease of 741 sq km of forest cover within the Recorded Forest Area/ Green Wash (RFA/GW) in the tribal districts and an increase of 1,922 sq km outside.
• There has been a decline in tree cover inside forests due to tribal populations getting “land titles” (patta) and there has been a rise in trees outside the forest area due to an increase in tree plantation and afforestation activities.

Decline of Forest Cover in North Eastern Region

• Total forest cover in the North Eastern region is 1,70,541 sq km, which is 65.05% of its geographical area.
• There has been a decrease of forest cover to the extent of 765 sq km (0.45%) in the region. Except Assam and Tripura, all the States in the region show decrease in forest cover.

Basic objectives that should be fulfilled to increase Green cover:

• Maintenance of environmental stability through preservation and, where necessary, restoration of the ecological balance that has been adversely disturbed by serous depletion of the forests of the country.
• Checking soil erosion and denudation in the catchments areas of rivers, lakes, reservoirs in the “interest of soil and water conservation, for mitigating floods and droughts and for the retardation of siltation of reservoirs.
• Checking the extension of sand-dunes in the desert areas of Rajasthan and along the coastal tracts.
• Increasing substantially the forest/tree cover in the country through massive afforestation and social forestry programmes, especially on all denuded, degraded and unproductive lands.
• Meeting the requirements of fuel-wood, fodder, minor forest produce and small timber of the rural and tribal populations.
• Increasing the productivity of forests to meet essential national needs.
• Encouraging efficient utilisation of forest produce and maximising substitution of wood.
• Creating a massive people’s movement with the involvement of women, for achieving these objectives and to minimise pressure on existing forests.
• Conserving the natural heritage of the country by preserving the remaining natural forests with the vast variety of flora and fauna, which represent the remarkable biological diversity and genetic resources of the country.\

Conclusion:

• India is among few countries in the world where forest cover is consistently increasing.
• In the present assessment, the total forest and tree cover of the country is 80.73 million hectare which is 24.56 percent of the geographical area of the country.
• The top five states to have shown an increase in forest cover include Karnataka (1,025 sq km), Andhra Pradesh (990 sq km), Kerala (823 sq km), J&K (371 sq km) and Himachal Pradesh (334 sq km)
• The government applauded that this is very encouraging for us as it means that we are on the right track to achieve our Paris Agreement commitment of 2.5 -3 billion carbon sinks.

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A weak test: On Swachh ranking of cities (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: Swachh Survekshan Survey
Mains level: Major highlights of the Swachh Survekshan Survey

Context:

• The NDA government’s Swachh Survekshan, the ranking system for clean cities, was rolled out four years ago as the answer to a problem that municipal law failed to solve.

Background:

• Sanitation and public health are responsibilities of State governments, and it is no secret that they have spectacularly failed at managing growing volumes of municipal and hazardous waste.
• The problem has only been compounded by the absence of plans that take a holistic view of housing, sanitation, water supply, waste management and transport.
• Ahead of the launch of Swachh Survekshan 2020, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is once again trying to stir up competition among cities, by pre-ranking them for their performance during 2019 and assigning points to be added this year.

Is it called as a weak test?

• As an idea, unleashing the competitive spirit among States may seem appealing, but in reality, the problems confronting urban India require large-scale infrastructure creation, full adherence to legal requirements on waste management, and transparent technical audits.
• Many cities remain clueless on handling their waste, one shocking example being the rising mountain of garbage at the Ghazipur landfill in Delhi.
• Ironically, Bhopal, which figures among the top five cleanest cities under the just-released list, continues to live with the effects of the gas disaster of 1984. Ranks and prizes clearly cannot solve the national waste management crisis.

Looking ahead:

• To the next edition of the Survekshan, the Urban Affairs Ministry has identified ambitious targets: “100% processing and safe disposal of waste, complete faecal sludge and septage management, and wastewater treatment and reuse.”
• These are major tasks. The Ministry has also sanctioned funds under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) to help States set up facilities necessary to manage waste.
• States should ask for extended funding under such schemes to create the infrastructure for a future-focused clean-up and, simultaneously, institute measures to reduce waste.
• The emphasis worldwide is on creating a circular economy centred at the principle of material recovery from all kinds of waste, reuse, recycling and reduced pressure on natural resources.

Conclusion:

• A sound ranking of cities and towns would naturally give the highest weightage to this dimension of sustainable management, replacing symbolism with an environmentally sound approach.
• Such rigour in policy formulation can make the Centre’s goal of eliminating single-use plastic by 2022 seem more realistic, and industry would find a compelling reason to switch to alternatives.
• Retooling Swachh Survekshan 2020 to go beyond perception management and adopt sustainability is essential to make it a genuine contest.

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Chief of Defence Staff (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Chief of Defence Staff
Mains level: Role and power of CDS

Context:

• General Bipin Rawat taking over as the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) on New Year’s Day, a new structure is being created in the Defence Ministry.
  CDS is a ‘dual-hatted role’
• The dual-hatted role refers to the two hats the CDS wears: one of the permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee which has the three service chiefs as members, and the other of the head of the newly created Department of Military Affairs (DMA) in the ministry.
• The former is a military role while the latter is a role in the government;
• It is as the head of DMA that his major responsibilities within the ministry will be discharged.

Charter of DMA:

• The ministry already had four departments: Department of Defence; Department of Defence Production; Department of Defence Research and Development; and Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare.
• Each of them is headed by a Secretary, with the Department of Defence being the nerve centre of the ministry, looking after all issues pertaining to the armed forces, defence policy and procurement.
• The charter of duties of the DMA was so far looked after by the Department of Defence, which is headed by the Defence Secretary who is also the secretary in-charge of the Defence Ministry.
• Work exclusively pertaining to military matters will fall within the purview of the DMA while the Department of Defence will deal with larger issues pertaining to defence of the country.
• To give an illustrative example, this means that while tri-service military training institutions will fall under the DMA, organisations like IDSA and NDC whose remit is broader than military matters will fall under the
  Department of Defence.

Are the armed forces not departments of the ministry?

• No, the service headquarters, and thereby the armed forces, are attached offices in the ministry.
• They used to come under the Department of Defence so far, but will now fall under the ambit of DMA, and will have an appropriate mix of civilian and military officers at every level.
• Attached offices are generally responsible for providing executive direction required in implementation of policies laid down by the department to which they are attached, in this case now the DMA.
• They also serve as a repository of technical information and advise the department on technical aspects of questions they deal with.
• In essence, they are executive agencies carrying our directions of the Defence Ministry whose task is to draft them, obtain approval from the government and communicate them for implementation to the defence services.

But won’t the CDS command the three service chiefs, and be the single-point military adviser to the government?

• No, neither. He will act as the Principal Military Adviser to the Defence Minister only on tri-services matters.
• The three service chiefs will continue to advise the Defence Minister, as done so far, on matters exclusively concerning their respective services.
• The government has also made it explicitly clear that the CDS will not exercise any military command, including over the three service chiefs.
• But the service chiefs will be members of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, which will be headed by the CDS.
• And the DMA, headed by the CDS, will also have the armed forces under its ambit — if promotions, postings and disciplinary matters of three services fall under the DMA, it will give the CDS extensive influence over the three service chiefs.

Have the service chiefs lost any of their major powers or tasks to the CDS?

• None of the powers of the service chiefs, including of advising the government, has been curtailed and transferred to the CDS.
• The only thing is the role of Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, which used to be headed by the senior-most chief by rotation.
• That has been shelved with the CDS being the permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, where he will be supported by the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff.
• The CDS has been given a time-bound task, to be done within three years, to bring about jointness in operations, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, and repairs and maintenance of the three services, which will eventually lead to shedding of responsibilities by the service headquarters.
• As the head of the DMA, the CDS has to also facilitate restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/ theatre commands.
• This is again a far-reaching move, which will potentially impinge on the remit of the service chiefs.
• The nature of government functioning and his dual-hatted role will decide the different kind of powers, access and relationships that will be forged by the CDS.
• Norms of functioning and political guidance, more than hard-coded bureaucratic rules, will determine the functional efficiency and effectiveness of the CDS and it will be upon General Rawat to establish this as the first incumbent of the new office.

Conclusion:

• As per the gazette notification issued by the government on December 30, the Department of Defence headed by the Defence Secretary will be responsible for the “defence of India and every part thereof, including defence policy and preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution and after its termination to effective demobilisation”.

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Weighing in on the public sector privatisation debate (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: BPCL
Mains level: Privatisation of public sector undertakings

Context:

• There seem to be broadly three positions with respect to the privatisation of public sector undertakings (PSUs).
• The left position is “PSU is family silver and should not be sold irrespective of its performance”.
• The divergent stand is that “business is not the business of government”, which found resonance in the United Kingdom, and, of late, in India. There is also the third position: Why privatise profit-making PSUs?
• Why do you sell the family silver? Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) which is making handsome profits, comes under this category.

Case of loss-making units

• Loss-making PSUs certainly merit privatisation — but no one would buy them with their huge debt and employee liabilities.
• The government may even have to pay the buyer, as it happened in the case of the Delhi Discom privatisation.
• Even then it may be worth it, since privatisation will stop fiscal flows to these PSUs.
• Alternatively, there is the exit route through the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
• Privatisation is not a default option; rather, it is resorted to only out of extreme necessity.
• As World Bank consultants said on the Delhi Discom privatisation: “Privatization is resorted not just when the firm makes losses, but only when the physical performance is so bad that the PSU becomes a political embarrassment to the Government.”
• This may explain the hesitation to privatise some of the largest loss-making PSUs — Air India, the BSNL and MTNL — as the embarrassment threshold may not have been reached as yet.

Meeting fiscal targets

• The Finance Minister’s disinvestment target of a little over a lakh of crores for the current fiscal has to be met.
• It is this fiscal requirement that now drives privatisation. Let us revisit the question: Should profit-making PSUs be privatised?
• It is good to remember what former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once said on the issue. He made the assurance that the government would not “privatise profit making PSUs working in competitive environments”.
• That is, if the output price is a competitive price and you still make a profit, then you are efficient and the need to privatise does not arise.

Abolishing monopoly background:

• The case now being the monopoly cartel of the oil majors, BPCL, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited — with the autonomy given being used for monopoly pricing, then your profit is no longer an index of your efficiency.
• In that case, privatisation will still bring in benefits of the efficient operation of private sector through reduced costs.
• Examples of PSUs that made monopoly profits and still inefficient were Coal India and Indian Airlines (IA). For IA, there was poor punctuality, high staff-to-plane ratio, high operating costs and overall customer indifference.

Scope for improvement:

• The BPCL is not inefficient but its privatisation still offers scope for improvement.
• When a company such as this has never faced any serious competition, it is impossible to even discuss the issue of efficiency or inefficiency.
• There is no comparable firm in the private sector to benchmark it with.
• However if one looks at just about any public sector company in India, it is impossible to argue that the BPCL can be an exception.
• Over the years, the financial performance of oil marketing companies has undergone a bureaucratic process called “administrative price mechanism”.
• All one can say is that the oil PSUs have been allowed to make profit; if one can use The Economist’s phrase again, they can be called “allotted millionaires”.
• On the non-financial performance side, it would be difficult for the BPCL to show what innovations it has implemented over the years either in marketing or refinery operations.

Accompanied by competition

• There is no point in converting a public monopoly to a private monopoly; it will only result in inefficiency being replaced by private profits.
• Privatisation must be accompanied by competition in the post-privatised scenario.
• However, the government will face a dilemma.
• If you want a high price, you must allow a monopoly situation post-privatisation, and if you want competition and low price for consumers, you must be content with a modest sale price, as the post-privatisation valuation of the firm critically depends on the market structure post-privatisation.
• If that is to be competitive, other PSU national oil companies such as the IOC and HPCL should also be privatised.
• There is also no issue of national security for downstream oil firms. Oil marketing companies, even if they are not in the public sector, can be made to own strategic petroleum reserves as in most of Europe and by the government itself as in the U.S.
• Thus privatising the BPCL does not compromise India’s national security.
• Similarly, LPG and kerosene subsidies can be handled by direct benefit transfer, which is already in vogue in the case of LPG.
• There is an argument advanced in the case of the BPCL: that the government paid about ₹622 crore in today’s money to acquire it, while it now has a market value of around ₹85,000-1,15,000 crore.
• How did ₹622 crore balloon into this amount even after the time value of money adjustment?
• After all, in the interim period of many years, the firm would have invested, out of retained profits, and also generated further monopoly profits for dividends which explains its increased value.
• This is not by its virtue of being a PSU. The BPCL is not a golden goose. It may be an ATM.

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Infrastructure push: On Centre’s ₹102-lakh-crore plan (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: National Infrastructure Pipeline
Mains level: Economic growth investment and challenges

Context:

• For an economy that is tottering, a big bang announcement from the government can sometimes work to turn around sentiment.
• The unveiling by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday of a mega push to infrastructure investment adding up to ₹102 lakh crore over the next five years belongs in this category.
• Projects in energy, roads, railways and urban infrastructure under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) have been identified by a task force.
• About 42% of such identified projects are already under implementation, 19% are under development and 31% are at the conceptual stage.

National Infrastructure Pipeline:

• The NIP task force appears to have gone project-by-project, assessing each for viability and relevance in consultation with the States.
• Considering that the NIP will be like a window to the future, a constant review becomes paramount if this is not to degenerate into a mere collation and listing of projects.
• A periodic review, as promised by the Finance Ministry, is necessary.
• The government’s push on infrastructure development will not only enable ease of living — such as metro trains in cities and towns — but also create jobs and increase demand for primary commodities such as cement and steel.
• From this perspective, this push to invest in infrastructure is welcome.

Challenges ahead:

• Identifying the projects to be put on the pipeline is the easy part. Implementing and commissioning them will be the more difficult one.
• There are a few hurdles that the NIP task force needs to watch out for.
• The financing plan assumes that the Centre and the States will fund 39% each while the private sector will chip in with 22% of the outlay.
• Going by the present fiscal situation, it will be no small challenge for the Centre to raise ₹39 lakh crore, even if it is over the next five years. The financial position of States is even more perilous.
• The ₹22 lakh crore expected from private investment also looks steep considering the lack of appetite for fresh investment by the private sector in the last few years.

Way ahead:

• This factor has been a major drag on economic growth.
• Given the scale of investment, debt will play an important role and it remains to be seen if banks have gotten over their apprehensions on infrastructure financing as a major part of their bad loans originated there.
• The cooperation from States becomes very important in implementing infrastructure projects.
• The experience on this count has not been very happy till now.

Conclusion:

• While these are genuine obstacles that the task force needs to manage, these should not detract from the need for a concerted effort to invest in infrastructure.
• The key will be following up and reviewing the pipeline at regular intervals.

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The need for a single energy ministry (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Kelkar Committee report
Mains level: Unification in governance

Context:

• A sole point of reference in the sector is necessary to ensure energy security, sustainability and accessibility
• Five different ministries along with a multitude of regulators govern India’s energy sector.
• Petroleum and natural gas, coal, renewable energy and nuclear energy have separate ministries or departments.
• We also have a Ministry of Power, along with State-level bodies that regulate electricity distribution companies, or DISCOMS.
• Add to this, the presence of different regulators for each type of fuel and energy source which makes it cumbersome for businesses operating in this sector. \
• Further, the petroleum and natural gas sector has two regulators – Directorate General of Hydrocarbons for upstream activities and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board for downstream activities.

Data constraints

• There are also issues with data collection. No single agency collects energy data in a wholesome and integrated manner.
• Data pertaining to consumption are barely available while supply side data collected by agencies of respective ministries are riddled with gaps.
• The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation collates data available from various ministries and conducts surveys at sporadic intervals.
• On the energy efficiency front, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency is the sole statutory authority with the mandate to regulate energy efficiency on the consumption side.
• There is no agency or body for the same purpose on the supply side.

Comparison with energy governance models across the world:

• Developed and efficient countries such as the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom have their vibrant, diverse and prolific energy sectors administered by a single ministry or department.
• There are also instances where the energy ministry is in conjunction with other portfolios such as environment, climate change, mines and industry.
• The U.K. has the “Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy”, France has the “Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Marine Affairs”, Brazil has the “Ministry of Mines and Energy” and Australia has the ‘Ministry of Environment and Energy’. The predominance of unified energy ministries is evident.

Kelkar Committee report:

• The Kelkar Committee in its report “Roadmap for Reduction in Import Dependency in the Hydrocarbon Sector by 2030” (2013) stated that “Multiple ministries and agencies are currently involved in managing energy-related issues, presenting challenges of coordination and optimal resource utilization, hence undermining efforts to increase energy security”.

Draft National Energy Policy:

• In the Draft National Energy Policy (NEP), the NITI Aayog has advocated that a Unified Ministry of Energy be created by merging the Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), Coal (MoC), New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Power (MoP).
• The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has been left out since it has implications beyond the scope of energy and involves national security issues.
• The proposed ministry would have six agencies under it to handle various aspects of the energy sector — Energy Regulatory Agency, Energy Data Agency, Energy Efficiency Agency, Energy Planning and Technical Agency, Energy Schemes Implementation Agency and Energy Research and Development Agency.

Enabling optimization:

• To optimise our limited resources to meet the goals of energy security, sustainability and accessibility.
• Allow for a quicker policy response.
• Formulating an integrated and wholesome energy policy.
• Lack of coordination among ministries.
• The absence of good quality consumption data and an inadvertent promotion of their own fuels over other choices, which may not always be the best option.

Steps taken towards unifying the governance structure:

• The present government has already taken some steps towards unifying the governance structure of the energy sector such as appointing a single minister for both MNRE and MoP.
• This move has been lauded across sections of society as both those sectors are heavily interlinked.
• Having the same person heading both of these ministries will help resolve long-standing issues faced by both conventional and renewable power generators such as power balancing and transmission infrastructure planning.
• The hotly debated issue of non-payment of dues by DISCOMS to the generators might also be resolved with such synergy in administration.
• In the past too, this government has had the same minister for MNRE, MoP and MoC with great results in village electrification, LED bulb distribution (Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All, or UJALA), power sector reforms (Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana, or UDAY), coal block e-auctions and alleviation of coal shortages.
• This demonstrates the intention of the political leadership to reform the energy governance structure.

The ‘Jal Shakti’ example:

• They have already shown a disposition towards unifying critical ministries.
• Ministry of Jal Shakti which was formed by merging the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
• The objective of this action is to unify water management functions, treat the issues of water management holistically and ensure better coordination of efforts.
• This was a crucial decision at a time when nearly 600 million Indians faced “high to extreme water stress”, while 75% households did not have drinking water on their premises.

Way ahead:

• Accepting and implementing the recommendations of the NEP on reforming energy governance, which is to be placed for the approval of the Cabinet soon.
• It would need to be carefully traversed given their hard-hitting implications on the existing bureaucratic structure. But nothing is more important than ensuring energy security, sustainability and accessibility.

Conclusion:

• In this age of energy transition, this can only happen with quick and holistic decision-making as well as providing a level playing field for various fuels, all of which can happen if a single ministry handles the entire sector.
• Such a Unified Ministry of Energy will not only enable India to keep up with the global energy transition but also to continue to be a leader in adopting cleaner energy sources.

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A persisting variance: On sustainable goals index (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Sustainable goals index
Mains level: Highlights about the performers of SDG Index

Context:

• The NITI Aayog’s Sustainable Development Goals Index for 2019, released on Monday, does not reveal any surprising information.
• The South’s Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka are joined by Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Goa as the best performers while the northern/north-central and north-eastern States have been laggardly in achieving the U.N.-mandated goals by 2030.

Key highlights about the performers of SDG Index:

• Poor performers such as Uttar Pradesh have shown discernible advances in the indices — measured between 2018-19 especially in adopting cleaner energy and improving sanitation.
• But the regional divide is stark in basic livelihood goals such as “eradication of poverty”, and “good health and well being” or even in measures such as “industry, innovation and infrastructure”.
• This points to variances in both State governance and in administrative structures and implementation of welfare policies.
• The South, led by Kerala and Tamil Nadu, has done much more in orienting administrative institutions to deliver on basic welfare, leading to actions on health care, education, poverty eradication and hunger, with a governance structure tuned to competitively monitoring actions on these fronts.
• Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where outcomes have remained relatively poor despite there not being much of a difference in the governance structure.
• The obvious answer to the puzzle could be the presence of historical socio-political movements that have resulted in greater circulation of elites in power and which have addressed issues related to welfare more thoroughly in the South Kerala and T.N in particular.
• These States need to go further in reaching the UN’s SDGs and achieving the living standards of both the first world and other developing nations.
• The western States, especially Gujarat and Maharashtra, are also better off in economic growth and industry, indicating a diversified economy, higher employment ratios, skilled labour and better entrepreneurial culture.
• A major fault-line in India is in achieving gender equality, where barring middling performers such as Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir, the rest of the country falls short.

Key points of sustainable goals index:

• Low sex ratio (896 females per 1,000 males).
• Poor labour force participation and presence in managerial positions (only 17.5% and 30%, according to the report),
• High level of informality of labour, a major gender pay gap (females earn 78% of wages earned by males in regular salaried employment),
• Lack of adequate representation in governance (14.4% in Parliament, but 44.4% in local government) besides high crime rates against women and girls are among the major national level indicators that have contributed to this.

Conclusion:

• States need to climb a mountain to achieve gender equality, but immediate steps such as enhancing women’s participation in governance through parliamentary reservations would go a long way in addressing several of the issues faced by them.

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Big infra plan (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Public-Private Partnership model
Mains level: Role of PPP model towards achieving 5 trillion economy

Context:

• The government is placing its bets on rapid infrastructure development to achieve India’s $5 trillion economy goal by 2024-25.
• Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a big ₹1.02 trillion infrastructure spending plan for the next five years.
• Under it, the Centre and states would each shoulder 39% of the investment burden, while the private sector would bear the rest.

Various challenges faced by the government:

• An asset-liability mismatch is risky.
• The public-private partnership finance model has sought to provide a more workable solution, although its success too has been chequered, at best.
• Land acquisition delays, weak enforcement of contracts and sundry difficulties in the conduct of business in India have also served to dissuade private participation.
• The scope of the challenge on hand can be gauged from India’s recent record in pushing infrastructure development.
• India managed to spend only ₹51,000 crore on it over the past six years.
• To double that figure in one less year would require major moves to ease the path. Until then, the plan could be greeted with cautious optimism. Given the resolve, it could be achieved.

Conclusion:

• The public-private partnership finance model has sought to provide a more workable solution, although its success too has been chequered at best.

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Domestic political climate affects external relations. India must recognise this urgently (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Major challenges ahead towards India’s strategic policy

Context:

• India will need some decisive domestic course-correction in the new year to prevent the crystallisation of serious external challenges.
• An India that turns on itself is weaker abroad and invites external meddling. And the combination of internal strife and a faltering economy could turn out to be a dangerous recipe for India’s polity.
• Internal political accommodation and economic revival hold the key to India’s diplomacy and foreign policy in the coming days.

Factors boosted India’s IR:

• In the 21st century, two important factors have boosted India’s international relations.
• India’s rapid economic growth stemming from the reforms of the 1990s. It put India on the course to join the league of major powers.
• The expanding size of the economy and the attractiveness of its market was reinforced by another important factor.

Strategic and Economic importance:

• India’s growing economic weight, many in the world believed, would translate sooner than later into military power and that, in turn, could make Delhi an important player in shaping the regional balance of power in Asia and the Indian Ocean.
• This would eventually reshape the structure of the international system.
• The rise of India’s hard power capabilities was complemented by its soft power defined by India’s democratic values, the spread of Indian culture and the positive influence of its diaspora.

Major challenges:

• It is easy to underestimate the weight of India’s soft power that is both intangible and difficult to measure.
• The idea of shared political values with the West played a critical role in ending the decades-old high technology blockade against India and improving the country’s standing in the West.
• India’s democratic values were of little strategic consequence during the Cold War, but they helped cement India’s strategic partnerships with the US, Europe, Japan and other Asian democracies in the new century.
• India’s ability to live with religious, linguistic and ethnic differences highlighted its political exceptionalism amidst the proliferation of intra-national conflicts and civil wars around the world.
• The diaspora, once seen as an asset, is now becoming part of Delhi’s foreign policy problem. India’s internal divisions are inevitably transmitted to the diaspora that, in turn, feeds into the emerging negative sentiment towards Delhi.
• The sharpening religious divide within the country coupled with the renewed confrontation with Pakistan is generating major headaches for the conduct of India’s external relations.
• Just when India seemed to be pulling away from Pakistan — in terms of economic performance, internal unity and international salience — and poised for a larger global role, Delhi appears to be sliding back into a regional conflict with Islamabad and, more dangerously, towards a Hindu-Muslim conflict at home.
• For most nations today, domestic economic policy and, increasingly, technology policy are shaped by a dynamic interaction between the internal and external.
• Few would contest the proposition that absolute economic sovereignty is unsustainable in a globalised world.
• While one can control the degree of exposure to the world, there is no room for absolute separation.
• The political sovereignty has never been absolute and is always constrained by size, economy, geography, demography and history. There is no country that does not have internal fault lines.
• Maximising political sovereignty necessarily involves limiting domestic conflict and strengthening internal political coherence.

Way ahead:

• Few countries, however, have had to bear the kind of religious burden that independent India has. The partition of India along religious lines has left Delhi with extraordinary challenges about sustaining religious harmony at home and maintaining reasonable relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• All governments in Delhi have struggled to cope with the bitter legacies of Partition.
• The very nature of these challenges inevitably produced much ambiguity, self-doubt and vacillation in India’s engagement with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• It will be a great tragedy if the NDA government’s attempts to answer some of these challenges ends up exacerbating them.

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Happy New Year (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: National
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Challenges ahead for India in 2020 to protect the idea of Indianness

Context:

• A year which began with the people electing a government with an overwhelming mandate to rule ended with some of them talking back to it that’s a reason to hope.
• The government may look like an implacable monolith, the people are not one.
• How large are the protests against the new law that seeks to recast citizenship in majoritarian terms?
• How many of those turning out on the streets are students from select urban milieux?
• How many non-Muslims are speaking out to oppose a law that, alongside the NRC, discriminates against Muslims?
• These are some of the important questions that will be carried over into 2020.

But whatever the answers may be, this much is certain:

• The pushback against the majoritarian impulse that began in 2019 is a reminder of democracy’s capacity to spring surprises even after a verdict as decisive as the one that returned the Narendra Modi government to power.
• The opposition to the citizenship law, mostly peacefully, and mostly by students and the young, will have forced an arrogant government, quick to label any and all protest as anti-national, to backtrack on an imminent nationwide NRC.
• The dissent of the states, with several chief ministers speaking out against the CAA-NRC, will have reinstated some of the waning faith in the checks and balances of a layered polity.
• The stirrings in the Opposition space, still timid and hypocritical, still lacking the moral clarity and energy of, say, the young women and men of Jamia Millia Islamia, will have restored a bit of the imperilled sense of a vibrant democracy.
• There is immense reassurance to be drawn, too, from the fact that in the 70th year of the Republic, the Constitution, and its Preamble, with its promise of liberty, equality and fraternity for all, became the emblem of the protests, their centrepiece.

Way ahead:

• Precious lives have been lost in Uttar Pradesh, where the government has sought to outlaw and criminalise democratic protest.
• In Kashmir, the partial restoration of telecom services on the last day of the passing year only served to draw attention to a people still isolated, their political leaders still under lockdown after the abrogation of special status in August.
• The solidarities forged in 2019, and the broadening of circles of empathy, are a work in progress.

Conclusion:

• Resistance to the shrinking of the idea of Indianness will have to be accompanied by political and institutional efforts towards making it wider and more inclusive in the year to come. Happy New Year.

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India’s solar storage needs a leg-up (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Lithium-ion batteries
Mains level: India’s potentiality of producing renewable energy storage

Context:

• Unlike conventional energy, renewable energy (such as solar) cannot be generated with precision, since the sun is out only for a few hours in a day.
• It needs to be stored so it can be used when needed.
• The economics of battery-tech is compelling. India’s cumulative battery requirements between 2026 and 2030 will be at least 2,410 GWh.
• Assuming that India will manufacture both cells and packs while importing only cathodes (depending on technology used), the country can cater to nearly 80 per cent of the ₹9.3-13.7 lakh crore market.

Lithium-ion batteries:

• The lithium-ion batteries are lighter and more compact than lead acid batteries, are well known, newer tech such as saltwater batteries are being increasingly considered.
• These batteries don’t contain heavy metals, relying instead on saltwater electrolytes.
• The former need to be disposed of with special processes, a saltwater battery can be easily recycled.
• India needs to figure out what its best option is, and soon.
• Tesla Motors launched its home battery product, the Tesla Powerwall, back in 2015. But India has not even taken the first step in this direction.

Steps towards reduction of greenhouse gas emissions:

• India has set a goal of producing 40 per cent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
• Additionally, by 2022, the government is aiming to produce 175 GW through renewable sources — 1 GW could power 3,00,000 homes.
• The government has said the right things. However, the question of how the solar energy will be used without storage remains.

Conclusion:

• Globally, storage prices are dropping, driven by usage of solar energy in automobiles and consumer electronics.
• Battery-pack costs are down to less than $230 per kilowatt-hour in 2016, compared with almost $1,000 per kilowatt-hour in 2010.
• Battery packs open up demand for electric vehicles. As the government envisions a ‘one nation one grid’ system, the question of storage assumes special importance.

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A group of theocracies: On why India should rebuff OIC on Kashmir (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Mains level: Challenges ahead for India in International Organisation interference

Context:

• The improvement in India’s ties with the Gulf countries is often cited as a major success of the present government.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s focus on relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which he has visited more than once in his tenure, and his personal ties with their most powerful royals, has yielded accolades and promises of investment.

Background:

• In March 2019 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj addressing the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi, a breakthrough for India.
• The government’s outreach to the grouping was seen as a way of strengthening ties with the “Muslim world” including West Asian countries where more than six million Indians live and work.
• In June, the OIC appointed a “special envoy” on Jammu and Kashmir, and subsequently issued several strongly worded statements on the government’s decision to amend Article 370 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, or the CAA.

Present situation:

• Last week, according to Pakistani officials, the OIC decided to convene a special meeting in Islamabad in 2020 to discuss the Kashmir issue and the repercussions of the CAA, after discussions the Saudi Foreign Minister had in Islamabad.
• It should be clear to the government that the engagement with the grouping this year was a miscalculation.
• In any case, the basis of the OIC is a unity between theocratic Muslim states, an idea that India, as a secular country with a large Muslim population has never been aligned with.
• At all costs, attempts by the OIC to make statements and arrogate to itself the well-being of India’s Muslims must be rebuffed as gross interference.

Way ahead:

• However, New Delhi must note that the OIC’s recent statements also stem from a broader tussle within the grouping that has become a concern for traditional leaders, the KSA and the UAE.
• The challenge comes chiefly from Malaysia, where Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has revived his plans for a “reformed” OIC, and has enlisted other challengers to the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi domination of the pan-Islamic movement including Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
• The OIC’s criticism of India is a clear attempt at reaffirming its leadership of the movement.

Conclusion:

• New Delhi must strengthen ties with its strategic partners in the region on both sides of the divide without taking sides or becoming collateral damage in the internecine warfare between them.
• But it must also be wary of groupings with nothing in common other than a religious world view.

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Governance Index: On study of States on governance (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Governance
Prelims level : Good Governance Index
Mains level : Highlights the findings of the Good Governance Index

Context:

• The nation-wide comparative study of States on governance carried out by the Government of India, as seen in the Good Governance Index (GGI), is a welcome exercise to incentivise States to competitively deliver on public services to the citizens.

Background:

• This is not the first time that benchmarking of States has been carried out. Different agencies including NITI Aayog, the government’s policy think-tank, are evaluating the States on different parameters.

Key findings of CGI:

• The findings of the GGI’s inaugural edition are significant in many respects.
• Tamil Nadu has always had the reputation of being a better-run State, it is only now that it is ranked first in any study of this kind.
• Its strength has been the ability to ensure stable and smooth delivery of services without much ado.
• But it is not the only southern State to have put up an impressive performance.
• Three of its neighbours are among the top 10 of the big 18 States, one of the three groups formed for the study with the north-east and hill States and Union Territories being the other two.
• Of course, traditionally, the south has been ahead of others in several parameters of development.
• What is more significant about the GGI is that the dubiously-labelled “BIMARU” States are seeking to catch up with others in development.
• Of the nine sectors, Rajasthan, a “BIMARU” State, has finished within the top 10 in five sectors, Madhya Pradesh in four and Uttar Pradesh in three.
• In agriculture and allied sectors, almost all the “BIMARU” States are within the top 10 category and in human resources development, U.P. and Bihar figure.
• In the composite ranking, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are ranked fourth and ninth, respectively.
• The key message is that these northern States can catch up with others in due course of time, if the political leadership shows the will to overcome historical obstacles and stays focused on development.

Shortcomings of this index:

• Any index of this nature is bound to have some shortcomings, at least in the first round, a feature that the framers of the GGI have acknowledged.
• Some indicators — farmers’ income, prevalence of micro irrigation or water conservation systems and inflow of industrial investment — have been left out.
• The indicator, “ease of doing business”, has been given disproportionate weight in the sector of commerce and industries, to the virtual exclusion of growth rate of major and micro, small and medium enterprises.

Way forward:

• Moreover, there will always be an unending debate over which indicators — process-based or outcome-based — should get more importance in the design of such a study.
• Notwithstanding these shortcomings, what is noteworthy is that the Centre has made an attempt to address the problem of the absence of a credible and uniform index for an objective evaluation of the States and Union Territories.
• It goes without saying that the GGI requires fine-tuning and improvement. But that does not take away the inherent strength of the work that has been accomplished, keeping in mind India’s size and complexity.

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Not a drop to waste (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : Governance
Prelims level : Composite Water Management Index
Mains level : Highlights of the Composite Water Management Index Report

Context:

• In 2020, according to the Niti Aayog, 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru, will run out of groundwater.
• The Aayog’s “Composite Water Management Index” (CWMI), released in June, notes that “Seventy per cent of our water resources are contaminated”.

Highlights of the CWMI report:

• Several other reports, including the Central Water Commission’s “Water and Water Related Statistics 2019”, have thrown light on the poor state of India’s groundwater aquifers.
• The urgency of the Atal Bhujal Yojana, launched by the Union Jal Shakti Ministry last week, can, therefore, hardly be overstated.
• The groundwater revival scheme ticks quite a few right boxes.
• It seeks to strengthen the institutional framework of administering groundwater resources and aims to bring about behavioural changes at the community level for sustainable groundwater resource management.
• However, the Yojana that will be implemented in seven states — Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — should only be seen as the first step towards restoring the health of the country’s aquifers.

Background:

• India has had a Groundwater Management and Regulation Scheme since 2013. The Atal Bhujal Yojana will draw on some of the institutions created by this scheme, especially village-level water user associations (WUAs).
• The Jal Shakti Ministry will have its task cut out.
• The Niti Aayog’s CWMI notes that though “80 per cent states have a regulatory framework to establish such associations, progress on the ground is weak”.
• Less than 50 per cent states involve the WUAs in critical groundwater management decisions like those pertaining to irrigation resources, according to the CWMI.
• The Atal Bhujal Yojana would do well to follow the Niti Aayog’s recommendations for strengthening the financial state of the WUAs, including allowing these bodies to retain a significant portion of irrigation fees.

Significance of groundwater boosting:

• Groundwater contributes to more than 60 per cent of the country’s irrigation resources.
• Power consumers in the agriculture sector are billed at highly subsidised rates, which several studies have shown accounts for the over-extraction of groundwater.
• However, there is also a substantial body of work which shows that it is politically imprudent to install electricity meters on farmers’ fields.
• The discourse on groundwater use has to move beyond this binary: Ways must be found to balance the demands of farmers with the imperatives of reviving the country’s aquifers.
• One solution — tried out in parts of Punjab — is to gradually reduce subsidies and offer cash compensation to farmers for every unit of electricity they save.

Conclusion:

• The CWMI report talks of other solutions like persuading farmers to adopt more efficient technologies such as drip irrigation.
• By emphasising on local-level institutions like the WUAs, the Atal Bhujal Yojana has signaled the Jal Shakti ministry’s inclination towards such persuasive solutions.

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Digital literacy is integral for financial inclusion (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : RTGS
Mains level : Highlights of the Nandan Nilekani’s report

Context:

• The RBI’s policy to promote digital inclusion, making online remittances through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) facilities in savings bank accounts free from January 2020 is indeed significant.
• The facilities are also now made available on 24/7 basis, allowing for quick fund transfer round the clock.

Highlights of the Nandan Nilekani’s report:

• The report envisaged a ten-fold increase in digital payments in the next three years.
• The RBI reinforces the easing of the digital payment foothold with several continuing collaborative measures that can evolve a robust and seamless payment ecosystem.
• Enhancing access to financial touch points and reducing the cost of access have been the twin drivers of digital inclusion.
• The recent growth in digital banking infrastructure could foster a cultural shift in the intensity of use of electronic modes of payments and settlement.
• Its adoption even in the hinterlands with the active use of business correspondents is encouraging.

Spurt in digital infrastructure:

• The banks have started expanding the base of alternate electronic delivery channels at a much faster pace, after mobile connectivity and network, and Internet services were made accessible and affordable to people at the bottom of the pyramid.
• As a result, the number of point of sales terminals increased from 12,11,890 in September 2015 to 45,89,727 by September 2019, while the number of debit cards increased from 604 million to close to 835 million during the same period.
• Close to 1,200 fintech companies collaborate with banks to expand digital outreach in different forms.
• Forty-five wallet players, 50 UPI-based payments service providers and 142 banks on the UPI platform are actively coordinating with each other to deliver services to customers.
• Such a digital spread extends to telecom companies, e-commerce entities, banks, Internet companies and even messaging applications.

Recent policy initiatives:

• Small finance banks (SFBs) and payments banks have also been set up to improve outreach and to pursue FI, for the benefit of people at the bottom of the pyramid — migrant labour, village workforce, low-income households, small businesses and other unorganised sector entities.
• The scope for setting up new SFBs has also increased with its licenses now available ‘on tap’, and cooperative banks and payments banks can also apply for conversion into SFBs with certain relaxations.
• Non-bank peer-to-peer lenders and the introduction of a new type of prepaid payment instruments will go a long way in deepening FI through further digital penetration.
• Merchant discount rates — the charges that merchants have to pay to banks on transactions done on debit/credit cards — were waived in the Union Budget presentation for 2019-20.
• Companies with a turnover of ₹50 crore or more are mandated to provide free facility of payment through Rupay debit cards and UPI QR codes to customers from January 2020, and a tax of 2 per cent will be levied on entities drawing cash of over ₹1 crore in one year.
• In view of these recent efforts, digital payment volumes have seen considerable growth.

Global position:

• Global Microscope-2019 report on the ‘enabling environment for financial inclusion and the expansion of digital financial services’ released by Economic Intelligence Unit, ranked India well ahead of its peers among the 55 countries studied.
• The report assessed regulatory and policy environment in its approach towards digital inclusion, though it did not measure FI outcomes.
• The progress in five domains considered by the report were related to government and policy support, stability and integrity products and outlets consumer protection and infrastructure.
• Among the BRICS economies, the ranking of India is considerably ahead — with India at the 5th slot, Brazil 9th, China 11th, South Africa 13th and Russia 19th.
• This affirms that India is steadfast in pursuing FI through digital thrust, for which infrastructure is being built and policies are made inclusion-friendly.
• The global recognition of India’s policy thrust for pursuing FI through digital approach is encouraging, tackling inoperative accounts and deepening FI efforts to realise its actual potentiality to contribute to economic the wellbeing of the society remains a formidable challenge.

Financial awareness:

• Financial inclusion(FI) work to ensure that the benefits of inclusion reaches the intended target group of the society, seminal changes need to be introduced in the spread of financial and digital literacy and credit counselling.
• While many stakeholders have been doing sporadic work, they are not coordinated enough to optimise its effectiveness.
• Inadequate institutional efforts to disseminate financial awareness at the grassroots level are keeping even financially connected masses (those having bank accounts and debit cards) away from the formal financial system.
• Adequately equipping and empowering institutions engaged in disseminating comprehensive literacy programmes will be essential to unleash the potentiality of the huge financial and digital infrastructure built and designed to sub serve FI.

Way ahead:

• These formal/informal institutions should be able to coordinate among themselves to galvanise services of informal local bodies, social agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs).
• Such local workforce may be formed into voluntary change agents with some structure of incentives to unleash their full potentiality.
• Business correspondents in villages can be an integral part of such change agents to create social awareness and to highlight the benefits of the formal financial system.
• Over period of time, such institutions should be able to phase out informal money lenders who charge usurious interest rates and make people perpetually indebted flogging them into debt trap.

Conclusion:

• The missing link in FI is now obviously the lack of financial and digital knowledge of massive user base.
• It is the right time to accelerate literacy campaigns ,particularly when digital culture is spreading fast with introduction of thd GST, FASTags and other online utilities of daily use.
• Right synchronisation of comprehensive literacy efforts with the evolving payment and settlement ecosystem should be able to take India close to the end-state objectives of FI by 2030, by when the sustainable goals of UN are to be achieved.

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Bank outreach to MSMEs and transmission of rate cuts continues (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : eBक्रय
Mains level : Steps for enhancing towards digital transactions

Context:

• Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman here today discussed banking issues with chiefs of Public Sector Banks (PSBs), chief executive of Indian Banks’ Association and representatives of leading private sector banks.
• Finance Secretary, Revenue Secretary, Economic Affairs Secretary, Electronics and Information Technology Secretary, CBI Director, RBI representative and the chief executive officer of NPCI were also present.

Steps for enhancing digital transactions:

• In order to strengthen the digital payment eco-system and move towards less-cash economy, Hon’ble FM in her budget speech of 2019-20 had, inter alia, announced that business establishments with annual turnover of more than Rs. 50 crore shall offer low cost digital modes of payment ( such as BHIM UPI, UPI QR Code, Aadhaar Pay, Debit Cards, NEFT, RTGS etc.) to their customers, and no charge or Merchant discount rates (MDR) shall be imposed on customers as well as merchants.
• To facilitate implementation of this announcement, it was decided as under:
• Department of Revenue (DoR) will notify RuPay and UPI as the prescribed mode of payment for undertaking digital transactions without any MDR.
• Accordingly, all companies with a turnover of Rs. 50 crore or more shall be mandated by DoR to provide the facility of payment through RuPay Debit card and UPI QR code to their customers.
• All banks will also start a campaign to popularise RuPay Debit card and UPI.

Banks restored to health for lending:

• Extensive reforms carried out by the Government have restored banks to health, with the gross NPAs of PSBs declining from Rs. 8.96 lakh crore in March 2018 to Rs. 7.27 lakh crore in September 2019, their provision coverage ratio rising to their highest level in seven years, and banks returning to profitability, with as many as 13 banks reporting profits in H1FY20.
• With the Essar resolution decision, banks have recovered Rs. 38,896 crore, in addition to Rs. 4.53 lakh crore recovered in the last 4½ years.
• PSBs have attached assets worth over Rs. 2.3 lakh crore over the last three financial years and to enable online auction by banks of attached assets transparently and cleanly for improved realisation of value, eBक्रय, a common e-auction platform was launched today by the Finance Minister.
• The platform is equipped with property search features and navigational links to all PSB e-auction sites, provides single-window access to information on properties up for e-auction as well as facility for comparison of similar properties, and also contains photographs and videos of uploaded properties.
• As on 27.12.2019, a total of 35,000 properties had been uploaded on the platform by PSBs.
• To strengthen banks, in addition to the recent infusion of Rs. 60,314 crore, additional infusion of Rs. 8,855 crore (Rs 4360 crore to Indian Overseas Bank, Rs 2153 crore to Allahabad Bank, Rs 2142 crore to UCO Bank and Rs 200 crore to Andhra Bank) has been approved and would be released shortly.
• Having improved asset quality and internal resource generation, PSBs are now fully poised to support prudential credit growth towards a $ 5 trillion economy by 2025.

Robust banks to lend without undue apprehensions:

• Bankers were assured that prudent commercial decision-making would be protected.
• To allay any apprehensions in this regard and to take feedback, Director, CBI also attended the meeting. It was decided that—
• CBI would develop a mechanism as recently introduced for income tax notices, so that CBI notices carry a registration number to avoid any scope for unauthorised communication and consequent harassment.
• While pursuing criminal action against those responsible, the agency shall be sensitive to the distinction between genuine commercial failures and culpability. It was also noted that there is need for preserving the value of the business enterprise by treating it on a separate footing from culpability of individuals, if any.
• PSBs may report instances of fraud through e-filing of FIRs on a designated email address of CBI so as to avoid scope of any arbitrage due to information asymmetry.
• CBI would create a dedicated phone number on which any person could give information regarding any undue harassment by the investigative machinery.
• Banks were also advised to ensure rigor and adherence to objective standards in selection of forensic auditors and devising objective SOPs for carrying out of forensic audit. To this end, the Indian Banks’ Association was requested to—
• To strengthen the forensic auditor empanelment process;
• To put in place robust arrangements for assessing adherence to standards by forensic auditors; and
• Tie up with CBI for training forensic auditors.

Credit outreach by banks:

• PSBs have sanctioned over 11.68 lakh Repo-linked loans to retail borrowers for home/vehicle/education/personal loans and to micro and small enterprises, amounting to Rs. 1.32 lakh crore post Finance Minister’s announcements on 23.8.2019 on measures to boost the economy.
• All PSBs have introduced checkbox-based OTS and have sanctioned settlements under OTS in over 5.26 lakh accounts amounting to Rs. 16,716 crore, post Finance Minister’s announcements on 23.8.2019.
• In order to address the working capital needs of MSMEs on account of stress arising from delayed payments, PSBs are offering up to 25% enhancement in working capital limits for standard MSME accounts as a Standby Line of Credit and have launched a MSME Outreach Initiative for restructuring of stressed standard assets as needed on priority and in a timely manner, besides providing new term loans, payment solutions for delayed receivables, bill discounting and trade finance.
• A total of 5,38,440 MSME loan accounts have been restructured in terms of RBI’s circular dated 1.1.2019, out of which 1,65,104 accounts have been restructured since October, 2019.

Support to NBFCs and HFCs by PSBs:

• The Cabinet has approved the recently launched Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme (PCGS) that would now cover NBFCs/HFCs which may have slipped into SMA-0 (up to 30 days overdue) category during the one-year period prior to 1.8.2018, and asset pools rated BBB+ or higher. Under PCGS, Government has already approved issuance of guarantee for buy-outs of NBFC asset pools worth Rs. 4,294 crore from 10 NBFCs/HFCs covering a wide spectrum of entities.
• Post ILandFS default, aided significantly by Government support, assets of NBFCs have grown by 12.83% from Rs 28.31 lakh crore to Rs 31.94 lakh crore, and assets of the 211 larger NBFCs with 81% of market share have grown at an even higher rate of 19.69%. Bank exposure to NBFCs has grown at a much higher rate of 17.46% as compared to market financing.
• Similarly, 76 out of 101 HFCs with 82% of market share have shown a positive asset growth of 18% post ILandFS default from Rs 8.45 lakh crore to Rs 10 lakh crore. Exposure of banks and NHB to the 76 performing HFCs has grown by 38% post ILandFS default, as compared to 14% growth in market financing to these HFCs.

Conclusion:

• Thus, the NBFC/HFC sector post IL&FS default, is now stabilizing and good NBFCs/HFCs are able to raise funds from market even at times at rates less than the pre-ILandFS rates.
• The market is, however, distinguishing between good and not-so-good entities which is reflected in the better entities being able to obtain higher financing from both banks and the market.

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What is the directive on detention centres? (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : Polity
Prelims level : National Population Register
Mains level : Constitutional framework about forming detention center

Context:

• On December 24, the Union Cabinet approved an outlay of over ₹3,941.35 crore for updating the National Population Register (NPR) across the country, barring Assam.
• A mandatory exercise, the NPR is to be conducted between April-September 2020.

Key highlights:

• The NPR, first collated in 2010, already has a database of 119 crore residents. The fresh exercise will collect data on additional parameters such as “place of birth of father and mother, last place of residence” along with details like Aadhaar (optional), voter ID, mobile phone and driving licence numbers.
• As in the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, and subsequent response furnished by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in Parliament from 2012 onwards, the NPR was the first step towards compiling the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) or National Register of Citizens (NRC).
• According to the Rules, a person’s citizenship status will be decided by local officials. No new law or rules are needed to conduct this exercise across the country. The Assam NRC, conducted under the supervision of Supreme Court, excluded at least 19 lakh out of 3.29 crore residents.
• There are apprehensions that people will have to dig out old documents to prove their residency in India on the lines of the exercise done in Assam.
• After the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed on December 11, there are fears that those excluded from NPR-NRC will be sent to detention centres. The government has denied that the NPR and the NRC are linked.

What are detention centres?

• The Centre has the power to deport foreign nationals staying illegally in the country under Section 3(2)(c) of The Foreigners Act, 1946. State governments have also been entrusted under Article 258(1) of the Constitution to take similar steps.
• In 1998, the MHA under the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government wrote a letter to all States and Union Territories asking them to restrict the movement of convicted foreign nationals who had completed their jail sentence.
• The letter said that they be confined to one of the detention centres/camps, pending confirmation of their nationality from the country concerned and to ensure their physical availability at all times for expeditious repatriation/deportation as soon as the travel documents are ready.
• The centres are also used to hold foreigners who have been caught overstaying their visa term.
• In 2009, the instructions were sent again to States, “conveying the detailed procedure to be adopted for deportation of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh”.
• States were asked by the MHA to set up sufficient number of detention centres where the “suspected illegal immigrants would be detained pending their deportation”. Similar letters were sent in 2012, 2014 and 2018. On January 9, 2019, a detailed manual on “model detention centres” was circulated to make a distinction between “jails and detention centres”.
• The manual was prepared after a petition filed by activist Harsh Mander on September 20, 2018 in the Supreme Court of India to highlight the plight of families languishing in six detention centres in Assam where members of the families who were declared foreigners were put in camps separated from each other.

Which are the States that already have detention centres?

• Delhi has one detention centre at Lampur on the outskirts. It is under the operational control of the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and is maintained by the Delhi government.
• The ward holding Pakistanis is under the watch of the Special Branch of Delhi Police and other nationalities are under the FRRO. Both FRRO and the Delhi Police report to the MHA.
• A detention centre was set up at Mapusa in Goa on February 7. Rajasthan has a detention centre located inside Central Jail in Alwar.
• As of now there is no separate detention centre in Punjab and foreigner detenues are kept in a segregated place at Central Jail in Amritsar.
• A separate detention centre is going to come up in a new jail being constructed in Goindwal Sahib in Tarn Taran district that is expected to be completed by May 2020. A detention centre on the outskirts of Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru is all set to get operational from January 1, 2020 onwards.
• Maharashtra identified land to build a detention centre at Nerul in Navi Mumbai. But Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray assured a delegation that it was not connected to NRC. There is a report that the plan has been scrapped.

What about West Bengal and Kerala?

• West Bengal had identified two locations, at New Town in Kolkata and Bongaon in North 24 Parganas district to construct the detention centres.
• But Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she will not allow any such centre in the State. Kerala, which was in the process of identifying a location to build a centre, has put it on hold.

What is happening in Assam?

• The final NRC to segregate Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the State from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971 was published on August 31, 2019. Nearly 19 lakh people were excluded from the final list.
• Those who have been excluded may move Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) and can also appeal to courts if the FTs give a verdict against them. This process has not started. The Assam government wants the NRC to be repeated.
• From 1985 till October this year, the FTs declared 1,29,009 people as “foreigners.” through ex parte (one sided) proceedings.
• A total of 4,68,905 matters were referred to the FTs during this period. Most declared foreigners ended up in the six detention camps. To handle the influx of applications following Assam’s NRC, the MHA sanctioned 1,000 additional tribunals. Presently, there are 100 FTs in Assam of which 64 were established in 2014.
• According to a MHA reply in Rajya Sabha on November 27, as on November 22, 2019, 988 foreigners were lodged in six detention centres in Assam.
• From the year 2016 up to October 13, 28 detenues died either in the detention centres or in hospitals where they were referred to.
• Former Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi said in a tweet that detention centres were first built in Assam under High Court’s orders in 2009 for detaining declared foreigners.
• Subsequently, the BJP Government allotted funds of ₹46.41 crore in 2018 and supported the construction of a big centre in Goalpara for housing around 3,000 inmates.

Way forward:

• On May 30, the MHA amended the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 which empowers district magistrates in all States and Union Territories to set up tribunals.
• Earlier such powers to constitute tribunals vested with the Central government only.
• The MHA later issued a clarification on June 11 that “since the FTs have been established only in Assam, and in no other State of the country, this amendment is going to be relevant only to Assam at present”.

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Jal Jeevan Mission

Mains Paper 2 : Governance
Prelims level : Jal Jeevan Mission
Mains level : Jal Jeevan Mission objectives and challenges

Context:

• The Prime Minister released the Operational Guidelines of JJM in a function organised at Vigyan Bhawan, which is observed as Good Governance, here day. The Operational Guidelines will help various functionaries involved in the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission.
• The event was also graced by the Minister of Defense, the Minister Jal Shakti, the Minister of State Jal Shakti. Officials from various departments, farmers from different states, representatives of UN agencies, NGOs/ trusts, and various stakeholders working in the water sector attended the function.

Steps taken by government:

• The Union Cabinet on 13.08.2019 approved Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) to provide Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) to every rural household by 2024.
• As per the information available, out of 17.87 Crore rural households in the country, about 14.6 Crore which accounts for 81.67% are yet to have household water tap connections. The total project cost is estimated to be about Rs 3.60 lakh Crore. Central share will be Rs.2.08 lakh Crore. The fund sharing pattern to be 90:10 for Himalayan and North-Eastern States; 50:50 for other States and 100% for UTs.
• Broad contours of the JJM was circulated to all the States/ UTs giving details of the Mission and expected actions from States/ UTs. A National Level State Ministers’ conference chaired by Hon’ble Minister of Jal Shakti was held on 26/8/2019, wherein modalities of implementation of JJM were discussed at length.
• As decided by the Government, five regional workshops were organized one each in north, east, west, south and north-eastern regions of the country, wherein all stakeholders in water supply like, State Governments, voluntary organizations, development partners, professionals in water sector, etc. participated.
• Further, the Department has carried out review of questions raised by Hon’ble MPs in Parliament, for developing a broad understanding of issues in drinking water supply sector as are being faced in different parts of the country with the purpose that, while formulating guidelines, strategy and implementation aspects to the issues at hand get addressed to the extent possible. Similarly, Standing Committee reports and Audit reports were examined in detail to get an overview of the shortcomings in the implementation of NRDWP so as to address the observations in the guidelines.
• Consultations were also held on implementation aspects of the Mission with other Ministries of Government of India.
• Considering above aspects, Operational Guidelines of Jal Jeevan Mission has been finalized. The Operational Guidelines was also put up on the portal of Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation for feedback/ comments from citizens. The salient features of the guidelines are as follows:
• Time bound completion of schemes taken up under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) has been proposed by providing FHTC to every rural household. No extension of time or cost escalation will be allowed except for the cost towards retrofitting the same to provide FHTCs.
• Priority to cover water quality affected habitations under JJM will be given.

Following institutional arrangement has been proposed for implementation of JJM:

• National Jal Jeevan Mission at the Central level;
• State Water and Sanitation Mission (SWSM) at State level;
• District Water and Sanitation Mission (DWSM) at district level; and
• Gram Panchayat and/ or its sub-committees i.e. Village Water Sanitation Committee (VWSC)/ Paani Samiti at village Level.

Other measures taken:

• Extra budgetary resources will be made available for JJM and is proposed to be allocated along with Gross Budgetary Support among States/ UTs as per the allocation criteria.
• Good performance of the States/ UTs will be incentivized out of the fund not utilized by other States at the fag end of the financial year.
• The fund released by Central Government to the State Governments is to be deposited in one Single Nodal Account (SNA) that will be maintained by SWSM along with State matching share to be transferred within 15 days of Central release. Public Finance Management System (PFMS) should be used for tracking the funds.
• The physical and financial progress of the mission is proposed to be monitored through IMIS and fund utilization through PFMS.
• No expenditure towards centage charges, O&M cost of the schemes like electricity charges, salary of regular staff and purchase of land, etc. will be allowed out of Central share.
• Imbibing the spirit of 73rd Amendment of Constitution of India, Gram Panchayats or its sub-committees will play a crucial role in planning, designing, execution, operations and maintenance of the in-village infrastructure.
• To bring in sense of ownership and pride among rural communities, 5% capital cost contribution towards in-village water supply infrastructure in hilly, forested, and more than 50% SC/ ST dominant population villages, and 10% in the remaining villages is proposed.
• Communities to be rewarded by providing 10% of the in-village infrastructure cost of the scheme which will be maintained by them as a revolving fund to meet any unforeseen expenditure due to break down, etc.
• To handhold and facilitate the implementation of in-village infrastructure and community participation process, Gram Panchayat and/ or its sub-committee, Implementation Support Agencies (ISAs), viz. Self-Help Groups (SHGs)/ CBOs/ NGOs/ VOs, etc. is proposed to be identified and empanelled by state government and engaged by SWSM/ DWSM as per the requirement.
• In order to ensure faster implementation with ‘speed and scale’ in a time-bound manner for providing FHTC in every rural household by 2024, it is proposed to forge partnership with all stakeholders in water sector namely; voluntary organizations, sector partners, professionals in water sector, foundations and CSR arms of various corporates.
• JJM aims at providing potable water in adequate quantity i.e. 55 litre per capita per day (lpcd) of prescribed quality i.e. BIS Standard of IS: 10500 on regular basis. Assured availability of safe drinking water in the household premises will improve the health and thereby socio-economic condition of the rural population and will also bring down the drudgery of rural women, especially girls.

Village action plan:

• Every village is to prepare a village action plan (VAP) which will be essentially having three components namely;
• Water source and its maintenance
• Water supply and
• Grey water management.

District action plan formulated:

• Village action plan will be aggregated at district level to formulate the District action plan which will be aggregated at State level to formulate the State action plan. State action plan will give a holistic view especially covering projects like regional grids, bulk water supply and distribution projects to address the needs of water stressed areas and will also have a plan for ensuring drinking water security in the State.
• SWSM will decide rate contracts and empanel reputed construction agencies/ vendors through centralized tendering and also to prepare design templates for expeditious implementation.
• Mandatory source sustainability measures like rain water harvesting, groundwater recharge and other water conservation measures as along with grey water management (including reuse) are proposed to be undertaken in convergence with MGNREGS and grants under Finance Commission, State Finance Commission, District Mineral Development Fund (DMF), etc. It has been proposed to assess and pool the fund available for drinking water supply from various sources be it, Government such as MPLADS, MLALADS, DMDF or donations whether at State level or village level be strictly utilized as per the approved plans. This helps in preventing creation of parallel water supply infrastructure deviating from the approved plan.
• The guidelines also propose that States will have a definite O&M policy especially to meet with the O&M requirements like monthly energy cost of the PWS scheme, by ensuring cost recovery from user groups and thereby avoiding any unwanted burden on public exchequer.
• JJM envisages a structural change in the provision of drinking water supply services. The service provision should change to ‘utility based approach’ centered on ‘service delivery’. Such a reform is proposed in the guidelines so as to enable the institutions to function as utilities focusing on services and recover water tariff/ user fee.
• Measuring water to ascertain the availability and the quality using sensors based IoT technologies is also proposed in the guidelines.
• Third party inspection is proposed to be undertaken before making any payment to instill accountability.\
• Functionality assessment of the schemes implemented under JJM will be done by Department/ NJJM.

Way forward:

• The guidelines also list support activities like HRD, IEC, Skill Development, etc. to be taken up under JJM.
• Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance is proposed to be an important component under JJM wherein setting up and maintenance of water quality testing labs by the PHE Department and surveillance activities by community will be taken up so as to ensure that the water supplied is of prescribed quality and thereby definition of functionality under JJM is adhered to.

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