The Railway minister has displayed political wisdom by not enhancing passenger fares. It is unfair to say these are populist measures. Delegation of authority and responsibility to the zones is a prerequisite to ensure employee participation in management. This should lead to cost reduction and income enhancement. The interaction of railway officials and customers on a regular basis will help it innovate new methods.
The cooperation of State governments for land acquisition for new lines or widening of existing lines is essential. The minister has to display good communication skills in dealing with chief ministers. With customer savvy measures and employee involvement, Suresh Prabhu can contribute to the economic development of India.
Budgeting expectations
If the developments in the recent past are any indication, the way the finance minister is interacting with industry bosses and cross-sections of people to take stock, it appears the government is well set to do away with the bottlenecks in infrastructure and is proposing to initiate several measures to boost growth. PSBs are also starved of capital; to what extent the government will be able to meet the additional capital requirement of banks remains to be seen. Personal rates of taxation should be slashed to bring more people under the tax bracket. The basic exemption limit should be raised so also investment under section 80C.
Srinivasan Umashankar
Nagpur
Good observations
Your editorial, ‘Dual responsibility’ (February 26) rightly stresses the need for States to play their role. All along the States have been complaining about the lack of financial power to take on developmental activities. The State governments now have nearly 4 to 6 per cent additional finances at their disposal. It is important that this is used for proper activities, instead of blowing it off in waiving loans, subsidies and other doles.
The greatest service governments can do is make people work and grow. By providing employment opportunities, creating an environment for entrepreneur development and promoting small-scale industries, State governments can do yeoman service. Democracy is not dependence on the government and political parties, even though we cannot function in a democracy without them. Every rupee spent should generate growth and change the quality of life for the better.
SA Srinivasa Sarma
Hyderabad
Go for a common market
The article, ‘India can become the food basket of the world’ by Harsimrat Kaur Badal (February 26) is informative, focusing on an important aspect of agricultural production — food processing. The country produces an enormous amount of food, in particular fruits and vegetables, and also loses a huge quantity of the same for lack of adequate storage and processing facilities. Horticulture and olericulture (vegetable production) combinedcontribute more to the growth in agricultural production compared to grains.
It is high time the government thought of an Indian common market, like the European common market (ECM). This will ensure that farmers from the marginal to the rich get fair prices for their produce and price disparities across States are kept to the minimum. Most importantly, it will eliminate the stranglehold of middlemen. For instance, in Europe, price disparities are minimum. Whereas in India, in winter, when a kilo of good oranges would sell for about ₹10-15 a kg in Hyderabad, a consumer in Chennai will end up paying ₹30-35 or more. This is where good infrastructural facilities, including cold storage, good roads, and so on conforming to the idea of a common market come into play. With the available production technology, India can do a lot more For this, visionary leadership is needed.
KP Prabhakaran Nair
Portability and all that
The existing system providing limited portability has not been very successful. If the new system has to be successful, a deadline of two to three working days should be prescribed to the operators to allow for portability, failing which penal provisions should be made applicable. To ensure smooth transfer of numbers the responsibility for recovering current dues to the existing service provider, if any, may also be shifted to the transferee operator.
M Raghuraman
Trust issues
‘Caught between two Sharifs’ by G Parthasarathy (February 26) is an objective analysis. The world knows that it is the army that calls the shots in Pakistan. Over the years, the army has systematically reduced every elected government in Pakistan to its deputy/errand runner. India’s present diplomatic initiative will bear fruit only if Nawaz Sharif’s response and follow-up actions merit his army’s stamp of approval too. Otherwise, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar’s visit will end up a mere diplomatic nicety. Past experience shows that India’s trust deficit with Pakistan has been mounting.
CG Kuriakose
Kothamangalam, Kerala
Good job, minister!
The railway minister seems to have focussed on improving commuter comforts right from booking the ticket till the end of the journey. Booking has become easier, including online with food preference, a bottom sleeper preference for senior citizens, middle berths for women, clean toilets inside and outside trains, pure drinking water, faster trains, safety measures and so on. He has not been tempted to announce new trains which he rightly said would be done after checking the ground reality. In fact, he has not gone for populist measures but concentrated on improving the functioning of the system and the image of the Railways.
Of course, for the so-called experts, it may be disappointing. But for commuters, if all the announcements made by the minister are implemented at least to some extent, he will be seen to have done a good job. People are fed up with populism, they only want results. In this case, that would be travel comfort.
VS Ganeshan
Bengaluru
Funding of PSBs
The 14th Finance Commission has suggested to government to engage in radical thinking before funding PSBs. What is the reason for high NPA figures in PSBs? It was due to wrong policy directions from the government and the RBI that PSBs fell into this rut. The wrong directives on loans without security in the following sectors must be withdrawn: Educational loans up to ₹7 lakh; MSME loans up to ₹25 lakh; agricultural loans up to ₹1.00 lakhs without any security; the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts can be given overdraft up to ₹5000 which will be classified as priority sector lending; the RBI directives on write-off and settlement of loans.
PSB boards are not allowed to make their own decisions. They operate within a framework of rules and directions of the RBI and the Centre. The pressure of priority sector lending sits heavy on nationalised banks. Private sector banks do not follow any of these directives. In the matter of charging rates of interest on loans also, the PSBs are controlled, whereas private banks are not tied down with regulations.
Apart from this, PSBs are forced to lend huge amounts to infrastructure, iron and steel, aviation, and mining and textiles. Most of the loans in these sectors are NPA due to slow economic growth. Instead of analysing these factors, PSB managements and employees are being blamed for lack of ability, knowledge and governance. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can come to a PSB, open an account and demand loans, and refuse to repay them.
N Krishnan
Poonithura, Kerala
Who cares?
The AAP government in Delhi has slashed power bill costs and announced free water and sewage bills. Every year the Delhi government will bear about ₹1,427 crore for electricity subsidy and ₹250 crore for free water. Many other States have similar or other free or subsidised provisions, some far exceeding these figures.
It is not easy to criticise such massive subsidies and free distributions, even on the ground that the concerned State does not have huge incomes to finance various public services, maintain and improve the State infrastructure and fund new development activities. That is because they are seemingly for the relief of the common people. At the same time, governments are not keen to raise taxes to cover the additional costs falling on them, because more taxes are resisted by the people themselves. . As for the views of neutral critics, who cares?
R Veera Raghavan
Chennai
Erratum
The table on fertiliser companies’ revenue and profits that accompanied the report ‘A tidy harvest for investors this year’ (February 17) was erroneous. Please see the link http://goo.gl/1JI6ov for corrected and updated figures.