3rd January – Editorials/Opinions Analyses

Contents

1. Swachh Survekshan Mission
2. Ruins Of Unilateralism
3. Anti-Defection Law
4. Faulty Delivery System: Potential To Ruin Rural Stimulus
5. Tweaking Direct Taxes
6. Clogged Courts: Burgeoning Pendency Of Cases Defeats The Purpose
7. Revenue Gap

SWACHH SURVEKSHAN MISSION 

What is Swachh Survekshan?

It’s a method of Ranking rural and urban areas, for their attainment of cleanliness.

Nodal ministry

• The Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India takes up the Swachh Survekshan in urban areas
• Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in rural areas.
• The Quality Council of India (QCI) has been commissioned the responsibility of carrying out the assessment
• It promotes an act of cooperative federalism and Competition among cities.

How to improve further:

• India needs a large scale infrastructure creation
• Adherence to legal requirements on waste management(AMRUT mission to fund infrastructure to manage waste)
• Emphasising on creating circular economy to reduce reuse and recycle

SSM 2020

Aim of swachh survekshan mission 2020 is to have 100% processing and safe disposal of waste, complete fecal sludge and septage management.

RUINS OF UNILATERALISM

• The U.S.A. is the world’s mightiest military power and arguably the centre of the post-Soviet world order
• Changes under way over the past decade picked up pace in 2019, showing cracks in the post­-Soviet order.

•  At least three developments in 2019 suggested that the U.S.A.’s ability to shape global politics is clearly receding
  1. Went to Afghanistan 17 years ago to destroy terrorism, but now USA is negotiating deals with Taliban.
  2. Unilateral decision to pull off from joint comprehensive plan of action [JCPOA ]
  3. Growing cracks in NATO because of turkey’s purchase of S400 from Russia.

About JCPOA

• The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a detailed agreement with five annexes reached by Iran and the P5+1 (China France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) on July 14, 2015.
•  The nuclear deal was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, adopted on July 20, 2015.
• Iran’s compliance with the nuclear-related provisions of the JCPOA will be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) according to certain requirements set forth in the agreement.
• On May 8, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the JCPOA and reinstate U.S. nuclear sanctions on the Iranian regime

ANTI DEFECTION LAW

Why in News?

The Karnataka byelection results have widely put to display the ineffectiveness of the Anti­-Defection Law.

Of the 17 defecting Congress­ Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs, 11 were re­elected on a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket

What is Anti Defection?

•  The anti-defection law sought to prevent such political defections which may be due to reward of office or other similar considerations.
• The Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution in 1985(52nd CAA).
• It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House.
• A legislator is deemed to have defected if he either voluntarily gives up the membership of his party or disobeys the directives of the party leadership on a vote. This implies that a legislator defying (abstaining or voting against) the party whip on any issue can lose his membership of the House. 
• The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.

FAULTY DELIVERY SYSTEM: POTENTIAL TO RUIN RURAL STIMULUS

FOCUS: GS2- Governance , GS3: RURAL ECONOMY

Some Concerns in the present economic situation

• Successively declining IIP in September and August, has raised serious concerns about jobs and incomes in the manufacturing sector.
• Failure in recovery of Construction sector.
• Service sector growth is a slowdown story except  government expenditure.
• Private investment showing no sign of recovery
• Consumption continues to show a loss of pace.
• Declining Exports and rising inflation driven by food inflation,

Rural Economy as driver to increase consumption.

Government has NOT released the India’s full consumption expenditure survey of 2017-18

Leaked estimates suggest that consumption expenditure declined by almost 10% in rural areas, which was the focus of schemes.

Puzzle: Consumption declined if government transfers went up

Per National Statistics Office (NSO), the problem may lie in a broken delivery system and exaggerated claims of transfers by the government.

Government claims are  often found to be at variance with actual survey data.

It indicates towards serious problems of service delivery of government schemes.

Some discrepancies observed:

• A recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has  flagged irregularities in Ujjawala scheme
• Discrepancies have been noted on claims of toilet construction between data from NSO surveys and administrative data.  ODF and usage of toilets data also provides some sense of irregularities
• Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, has also run into trouble, with only 76.2 million people having received the money until 30 November 2019. 
• Among other major schemes, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is suffering from delayed wage payments and non-availability of work.
• In PDS , Government has large stocks of food grains and failing to release it. This has effected the Procurement by FCI

Revival

• Rural economy is the key to act as demand multiplier
• However, Most schemes are suffering from lack of financial and administrative support.

• Impact on rural income can happen only if broken service delivery system is repaired and made efficient

TWEAKING DIRECT TAXES

Why in News?

Government tax revenues have dwindled in 2019-2020. slowdown in the indian economy resulted in reduced GST collections and lower direct tax rate. Government is finding ways in which it can increase the revenue and give push to public spending.

Direct taxes do have a certain advantage for a country’s social and economic growth. To name a few,

• It curbs inflation: The Government often increases the tax rate when there is a monetary inflation which in turn reduces the demand for goods and services and as a result of descending demand, the inflation is bound to condense.
• Social and economic balance: Based on every individual’s earnings and overall economic situation, the Government has well-defined tax slabs and exemptions in place so that the income inequalities can be balanced out.

CLOGGED COURTS: BURGEONING PENDENCY OF CASES DEFEATS THE PURPOSE

• Inordinate delays and adjournments keep the wheel of justice away from people
• Cases are pending  for decades, defeating the very purpose of providing relief to the litigants.

• Judicial delivery mechanism has failed to keep pace with the mounting number of cases. Statistics of the Punjab and Haryana High Court reveal a staggeringly worrisome scenario.
• According to the National Judicial Data Grid, the Punjab and Haryana High Court accounts for the second highest number of pending cases after the Allahabad High Court.
• The HC steps into 2020 with a distressing backlog of over five lakh cases.
• The Punjab HC has shortages of 30 judges
• Unless urgent reformatory steps are taken to address the issue effectively.
• The Economic Survey 2018-19 pins the blame for the clogged courts on the acute shortage of judges in the country.
• As per Law Ministry data, India has just 19 judges per 10 lakh people. The Law  commission’s recommendation to increase the ratio to 50 judges is gathering dust.

• Poor administrative infrastructure contributes to the rising legislation
• Frequent adjournments and inadequate arrangement to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearing.
• Administrative support to the judges is critical to fast-tracking cases.

REVENUE GAP

• The Centre’s gross tax revenues have grown by a mere 0.81 per cent in the first eight months (April to November) of the current financial year while budget had pegged it at 18.3 per cent this year.
• Centre may have to cut back on spending in order to meet the fiscal deficit target. Considering that higher government spending has propped up the economy so far, any cuts in spending will aggravate the slowdown.
• Lower capital spending will also have implications for the plans for the infrastructure pipeline unveiled by the finance minister recently.
• There is stress on both tax and non-tax revenues.
• On the direct tax side: The reduction in the corporate tax rate on revenues is not immediately clear, corporate tax collections have contracted by 0.91 per cent over the same period, as against a target of 15.4 per cent.
• Personal income tax collections have fared marginally better.
• Central GST collections at the end of December would stand at Rs 3.72 lakh crore, compared to the full year target of Rs 5.26 lakh crore.
• This implies that CGST will need to average Rs 51,207 crore per month in the current quarter to meet the target, as opposed to the current average monthly collection of Rs 41,375 crore.
• Concern over meeting this year’s disinvestment target.
• As against a target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore, collections so far have been only Rs 17,364 crore. It was hoped that the sale of BPCL would help meet the target but it is unlikely to materialise soon.
• State governments are also facing difficulties with revenue growth slowing down sharply. And as, put together, spending by states far outstrips that by the Centre, cutbacks in state spending will have serious implications.
• Though it is possible that both the Centre and the states deviate from the fiscal road-map, borrow more to finance their spending, higher borrowing could push up bond yields, negating the impact of monetary easing.