This is with reference to the report, “IIM-A up in arms over draft Bill curtailing autonomy” (June 26). The human resources development ministry’s proposed Bill, with the predominant objective of interfering with the governance mechanism of the professional education institutes such as IIM, IIT, IISc, needs to be put down.
The government and politicians should pay tangential service to such bodies, rather than meddle with the day-to-day administrative and governance issues.
Let there be governance in politics instead of politics in governance. Already, Indian educational institutions do not rank well globally. As indicated in the report, change for the sake of change and politicians’ interference in all walks of life of the entire populace are not going to do any good.
We can observe how things have gone wrong as a result of political interference in the administration of sports in the country.
RS Raghavan
Bengaluru
Toxic assets
The Reserve Bank governor’s comments in the preface of Financial Stability Report that banks will feel the heat of bad loans for some more time only is rather surprising. Banks have been facing the brunt of bad loans ever since prudential norms have been introduced.
Year on year, more fresh NPAs are being added. No sincere efforts have been made either by the government or the RBI. The speed at which the asset reconstruction companies are taking up stressed assets has come down.
No efforts have been taken up to speedily dispose of the cases at debt recovery tribunals where a huge amount is blocked. Because of this, credit offtake has come down, reducing interest income, which has affected net profit.
TSN Rao
Bhimavaram, AP
Cluster development
This refers to “Sprouting of a thousand small towns” by Arup Mitra (June 25). India’s population problem and unemployment crisis can’t be solved by migration from rural to urban centres. It has proved unviable. The right course lies in “cluster development”.
A cluster is a group of proximate villages within a radius of 15-20 km, the population of which make it an economically viable and self reliant unit. A sizeable population spread over a large area will avoid a congestion problem.
Such clusters should have good intra and inter road connectivity. We may call it as “ in-situ ” urban development. Such clusters will be capable of providing self employment/wage employment to its workers and minority will be retained with agriculture. Kirana shops, vegetable vendors, clothing shops, vehicle repairing shops will be viable units along with doctors, tailors, hair dressers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians ,smiths as services providers. The government should provide a cluster shopping centre, power and water supply, schools, colleges, hospitals and good road connectivity.
Trupti Goyal
Jodhpur
Make it simple
While the the new ITR is being revised and revamped, care should be taken to ensure that we get all the right columns (‘Simpler is better’, June 26).
These new columns must not accept junk values and information that has no relevance. We need to put our focus on Form 26AS and also get into more services into it as well. As tax payers we need easy forms and automated solutions.
Kamal Anil Kapadia
Mumbai
It is just as well that the Railways is exploring the possibility, feasibility and sustainability of solar energy to pull trains (June 26). The Indian Institute of Science scientists are taking ride in the Chennai-Coimbatore Shatabdi, with solar panels on top, to record how much power it could generate. Taking up the task as a pilot project is a welcome development.
HP Murali
Bengaluru
Erratum
The picture carried with the report ‘Pepperfry pursues offline buyers aggressively; ties up with HomeStop’ (June 26) was that of Ashish Goel, CEO of Urban Ladder, and not of Ashish Shah, Founder and COO of Pepperfry. The error is deeply regretted.
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