Universalization of Education in India

Universalization of Education in India: Right to Education Bill

                     Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world       -Nelson Mandela

India’s greatest wealth lies in its human resources. Universal schooling of decent quality could be the single biggest move it makes towards future prosperity. Towards this end the Government has come up with Right to Education Bill which promises free education for every child in the 6-14 age- group. 

                   Education requires substantative not just symbolic action.

Merely passing laws without sustained political attention that plugs financial and administrative gaps in the school sector is going to fail. One of the problems of taking a purely legislative view is to define who will be held responsible if a child doesn’t attend school.

A related problem is to set out clearly who will pick up the bill for universal education, estimated to cost Rs 55,000 crore a year to implement. It is supposed to split between the centre and states but the precise arrangement is yet to be known. The most controversial provision of the Bill is to drag the private sector in by imposing an obligation on private schools to take in at least 25% of its students of its students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Their fees will supposedly be paid by the government, a promise it’s unlikely to keep. Providing free education for all should be unambiguously the government’s responsibility. Countries haven’t made rapid strides towards universal literacy by palming off the responsibility on the private sector. That will stunt the growth of the private sector rather than lead to universal literacy

Union Budget 2017 :What to expect from Agriculture

The Budget 2017 has been prepared. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated the ‘Halwa Ceremony’ that marks the printing of the Budget documents. For the next 10 days, more than 100 officials of the finance Ministry will stay in budget printing press in New Delhi and they will be not be allowed step out of the premises till Jaitley's budget speech is over on 1 February 2017.

Ending decades of colonial hangover, the annual budget presentation date has been preponed by one month to improve the effectiveness. Previously, the annual General Budget was presented on the last working day of February.

As per an announcement made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the early budget cycle will affect the real economy in a positive manner as the money will be available for schemes by the starting of the financial year in April.

Added to this, rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on 1 July 2017, impact of the demonetisation drive and cashless economy initiatives have made the Budget 2017 a unique document in more than one sense.

Compared to other sectors of the economy, agriculture is the most sensitive to any policy changes with respect to subsidies, taxes, cesses and promotional schemes. Farmers always look up to the government for seeds, fertlisers, energy subsidies, minimum support prices, procurement of the produce, etc.

It is ironic that even after 69 years of independence and pro-active measures to liberalise the economy, the completely privately-owned agricultural sector has no momentum of its own and is dependent on ‘external’ administrative measures for survival.

Against this backdrop, we present an overview of the Indian agriculture sector that include the challenges faced by it and the solutions one can expect from the Budget 2017.

Present state of Agriculture/Challenges faced by the Agriculture Sector

• Positives: The Central Statistics Office (CSO) recently estimated that the agriculture sector will grow at 4.1% during 2016-17. This development is a big relief to farming community given the lackluster growth in previous years.

• The agriculture GDP grew up by just 1.2% in 2015-16 and experienced a 0.2% contraction in 2014-15 due to consecutive monsoon failures and the resultant production deceleration and heightened rural distress.

• Improved water storage in reservoirs due to favourable monsoon and higher crop prices has led to an increase in sown area in the Kharif as well as the Rabi seasons.

• Negatives: Agricultural productivity in India is one of the lowest in the world. For instance, China produces more than 600 million tonnes of food grain, compared to India’s 251 million tonnes (2015-16) from a cropped area, which is less than that of India.

• Some may argue that India’s poor productivity is linked to small landholding size. However, this is not entirely true. China achieves this ‘super productivity’ with a holding size that is almost half of India’s 1.15 hectares.

• Over the past few years, the share of agriculture and allied sectors has been declining. This trend is of great concern for the policy makers. Because, around 58 per cent of rural households, who are primarily dependent on agriculture for livelihood, are contributed only 15% of Gross Value Added (GVA) during 2015-16 at 2011-12 prices.

• The fact that the services sector accounts for 52% of national output with not even half of the human resources employed in agriculture shows the imbalances in the economy.

• Agriculture is the largest informal sector of Indian economy. Hence, lack of social safety nets make farmers and agricultural labourers vulnerable to frequent financial shocks due to changes in demand in India and abroad, fluctuations in rainfall and policy changes.

• As per an estimate, farmer suicides increased by over 40 per cent between 2014 and 2015. While 2014 saw 5,650 farmer suicides, the figure crossed 8,000 in 2015.

• Despite being an agriculture country, India imports pulses and vegetable oils in large volumes. This causes considerable loss of precious forex reserves.

Recent measures to strengthen agriculture sector are –

The Union Budget 2015-16 identified Agriculture and Farmers Welfare as one of the nine pillars to transform India into a developed nation. Accordingly, the government has decided to take measures to double farmers’ income by 2022. Some of those measures are -

• Creation of a dedicated Long Term Irrigation Fund in NABARD with an initial corpus of Rs 20000 crore.

• Four new projects were launched with an investment of Rs 850 crore to improve livestock. The new projects are Pashudhan Sanjivani, Programme on Advanced Breeding Technology, E-Pashudhan Haat and Nakul Swasthya Patra.

• A Unified Agricultural Marketing ePlatform was set up to provide a common e-market platform for wholesale markets.

• Under the MGNREGA, 5 lakh farm ponds and dug wells in rain fed areas and 10 lakh compost pits for production of organic manure are taken up.

• Krishi Kalyan Cess of 0.5 percentage was introduced on all taxable services starting from 1 June 2016. The proceeds are exclusively used for financing initiatives for improvement of agriculture and welfare of farmers.

• Surcharge levied at 7.5 per cent of undisclosed income is renamed as Krishi Kalyan Surcharge (KKS). The proceeds from the cess are used for development of agriculture and rural economy.

Some of the other measures are –

• In tune with the changing attitude of the government vis-à-vis agriculuture, the Ministry of Agriculture was renamed as the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare in 2015.

• In 2015, the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) was launched to promote organic farming.

• Under the scheme, farmers are encouraged to form groups or clusters to take up organic farming methods over large areas.

• In July 2015, the Union Cabinet approved the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) with an outlay of 50000 crore rupees.

• The PMKSY seeks to bring all the existing water conservation programmes under a common platform so that a comprehensive and holistic view of the entire water cycle is taken into account.

• In January 2016, Union Cabinet approved the Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana as a comprehensive agriculture insurance scheme.

• The scheme is a big relief for farmers in distress as it covers all the commercial and horticulture crops and even post harvest losses.

• Interlinking of Rivers Programme has been given a new push by the government. Recently, Rs 9,393 crore Ken-Betwa river interlinking project has received clearance from the environmental appraisal committee (EAC) and Tribal Affairs ministry.

Relevance of Agriculture to the overall Indian Economy

• Despite its low-level of contribution to GVA, the overall growth of the economy is largely dependent on the growth of agriculture sector due to the forward and backward linkages it has with other sectors of the economy. For instance, we frequently come across the situation that whenever the IMD downgrades monsoon forecast by any reason, we can find immediate crashing of the sensitive index (SENSEX).

• The Majority of the population who are dependent on agriculture are poor and illiterate. They neither have alternate skills nor sufficient savings in case of crop failure. Hence, the agriculture development is not a luxury, but a necessity for the country.

• The present pace of food grain production is not adequate to meet the nutrition requirements of over 1.5 billion population in 2050. Since the land as a resource is limited, it is through improvements in productivity and production, we can achieve the desired level of output.

• Achieving income security for farmers is the need of the hour. The government gives different types of subsidies to farmers like fertilizer, irrigation, equipment, credit subsidy, seed subsidy, export subsidy, etc to help the farming community.

• Although these subsidies are meant to help those farmers who are in distress, they have their own share of negative effects on the Indian economy.

• As per an estimate, around Rs 72000 crore were spent in the form of subsidies in 2015-16 alone. These burgeoning subsidy bill compels the government to raise money from additional taxes in the budget, which will further raise problems for the common man.

What are the steps to be taken to revive Agriculture?

• The proposed Model Agricultural Land Leasing Bill by the T Haque Committee of NITI Aayog should be enacted to secure ownership rights of land owners without compromising on security of tenure to tenants.

• In the Budget 2017, Arun Jaitley should declare investments aimed at improving agricultural productivity as tax free.

• This measure will encourage farmers with sufficient financial resources and land to invest in mechanization, high yield variety seeds, etc.

• In order to better target subsidies, the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme should be expanded to fertilizer subsidy programme.

• As the policy experts suggested, Agricluture should be moved from the State List to the Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. This measure will be a big relief for State governments which are dependent on the Union Government for financial resources.

• In order to ensure income security for farmers, allied activities of agriculture must be given enough attention. As announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2015 in Toronto, India should take up the challenge of ‘four-coloured’ revolution — Green (agriculture), White (dairy farming), Saffron (energy) and Blue (tapping marine resources) to achieve all-round development.

• Mechanization of agriculture is still a distant dream. Necessary steps should be taken in the form of tax incentives to manufacturers and farmers to realize this goal.

• Indian farmers are no longer insulated from demand and supply fluctuations in the global market. Hence, the government should take necessary steps to educate and inform farmers about the global trends and policies on a periodical basis.

• In a nutshell, it can be safely concluded that if at all India wants to achieve faster and more inclusive growth, the revival of agriculture is a must.

Conclusion

Food security is an essential component of national security.  In its formative years, independent India literally lived from ship to mouth. India was dependent on wheat imports from the USA under the US Public Law 480. From that stage of apathy, India transformed herself as a net food exporter by successfully implementing initiatives under the Green Revolution.

However, we should not be content with our past achievements. So far, the focus was on incremental changes in quantity. From now on, the government should concentrate on qualitative changes in order to create a virtuous cycle for the farming community.

Let us hope the upcoming Budget 2017 will come up with expected solutions to the problems faced by the Agriculture sector.

Union Budget 2017 : Reforms in Political Fundings

      

                                       The Union budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley on 1 February 2017, unveiled a slew of measures including political funding reforms.  For political-electoral reforms, the budget 2017 included the recommendations made by Election commission of India. Earlier, the Election Commission had recommended a reduced cap of Rs2,000 to regulate anonymous donations and curb political parties that are established only with “an eye on getting the benefits of income tax exemption” available to political parties.

 Limit on cash donations

The budget reduced anonymous cash donations to political parties up to Rs2,000. It is one-tenth the current level. In Budget speech, Arun Jaitley also announced a Rs 3 lakh cap on cash transactions. He said the government is considering a law to confiscate properties of offenders, including those suspected of economic crimes, who flee the country.

Earlier, political parties were bound to maintain a record containing details of the donor for every donation above Rs 20,000 in cheque but not less than this. This limit created a loophole of splitting the funds into smaller denominations and not maintaining any record for the same.

The reduced amount of undeclared donations will help in tackling this problem of maintaining the record of donated money. 
Donations would still be made without any limit by account payee's bank draft or cheque, or e-clearing system through a bank account or electoral bonds.

Digital boost in Political Donations

This reform also intends to discourage cash transaction and encourage transparency in political donations. For this, the budget proposed the idea of providing an additional alternative to digital payments.  Apart from it, the use of digital payments in political donations adds an additional challenge i.e. maintaining the secrecy of donations.

Finance Minister mentioned that donors have also expressed reluctance in donating by cheque or other transparent methods as it would disclose their identity and entail adverse consequences. And to resolve such concerns, the finance minister proposed the introduction of electoral bonds which is explained below.

Introduction of Electoral bonds

The budget 2017, mentioned a proposal by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow political parties to issue electoral bonds to raise money. Under this process, these bonds can be bought from any notified bank and used as donations. 
The bond will be redeemed via the Election Commission or any other body formed for regulating the same at the bank account specified by the political party. The election commission or any other regulatory body would be acting as an intermediary. This process will make the donations anonymous for the political party, which will not be able to know the source of money.

Each party will specify only one bank account. 
Apart from it, the political parties will be obliged to file returns of donations with a consolidated amount, instead of specifying each donation obtained within a specified time period under the Income-tax Act. 

Amendment in  the RBI Act

 For issuing the electoral bonds, certain modifications would be required in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act. The finance minister has given a date for the implementation of this change from April 1, 2018.

Facts about  Funds Received by Political Parties in India Associations of Democratic Reforms released a datasheet about the donations in political parties which revealed that 1. Over 70 percent of funds received by seven national and 50 regional parties, as per filings to the Election Commission (EC) between 2004-05 and 2014-15, came from unknown sources.  2. The total income of national and regional parties was over Rs 11,367 crore, as much as Rs 7,832 crore came from unknown sources. 3. During 2004-15, the Congress received the highest amount of over Rs 3,982 crore, of which a whopping 83 percent came from unknown sources.  4. The ruling BJP got over Rs 3,272 crore of which 65 per cent came from unknown sources while the CPM, which got Rs 893 crore, had 53 percent from unknown sources. 5. The BSP which declared that it received Rs 764 crore during 2014-15, claimed to have received every rupee from unknown sources.  6. The SP received Rs 766 crore or 94 per cent of the total funds of Rs 819 crore from unknown sources.

On view of Non-Detention Policy

On view of Non-Detention Policy in School Education System,India  The non-detention Policy was introduced as a part of the continuous and comprehensive Evaluation(CCE) under the right to education Act(RTE) in 2010 to ensure all round development of the students.

                         Since it was felt that it was demotivating to compel a child to repeat a class,which might force him/her to abandon school learning altogether.In addition,the fear of examination hurts a childs developmental plans and does long term damage.It has also been argued that it helps keep children stay away from social evils including Juvenile crimes.

                       However,Supporters of revoking the policy have argued that automatically promoting all students to the next class leaves very little incentive for student to learn and the teacher to teach well.When students know that they won't be detained for academic performance or low attendance,it builds very little motivation.It ends up hurting the learning interest of other students who want to study furthur . Teacher loses interest as well and the overall quality of education suffers.

On this topic ,What would you suggest a better policy of education which would create better environment for children along with Better Quality or the current non-Detention policy with many ups n down.Comment

Demonitisation In India(Good n Bad)

        
             The recently announced scrapping of 500 and 1000 notes denomination currency is expected to end the circulation of unaccounted wealth inside the country.It is aimed at curbing the flow of black money in the economy by turning the ill-gained cash of corrupt officials and/or tax evaders into nothing but paper.

                However ,cash is only one form in which black wealth is held. It can be held in gold , real estate,antiquities etc. Demonetisation only target that part of existing black wealth which is held in cash whereas the objective must be to cleanse the system of corruption.tax evasions and the generation of black income.

               What are the steps that will discourage fresh black income from being generated in future.Some steps which can be taken are : 
*Increasing transparency and accountability where huge financial amounts are involved.
*Lowering tax rate and simplifying tax system to improve compliance eg.GST,direct tax code
*Reducing stamp duty for real estate sales.
*Introducing reforms in electoral funding,including transparency in party finances.
*Pursuing high profile corruption cases to send a message that corruption cannot be tolerated.
*Reducing discretion without safeguards in both central and state governments.

           At the same time it must be kept in mind that demonetization is only one in a series of steps such as income declaration scheme, the benami transaction (prohibition) bill on black moneyetc. To be truly effective it needs to be followed up by some more such reforms to tackle corruption and generation of black income.