THE CONTEXT: The 17th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) ministerial meeting was held on 1 April 2021. Though the grouping is ready to move forward, a number of obstacles stand in the way of this, including regional tensions, uncertainties surrounding SAARC, and China’s involvement in the multilateral.

ABOUT THE RECENT BIMSTEC SUMMIT

The 17th Ministerial virtual Meeting of BIMSTEC leaders was held on April 01, 2021. Here are the major outcomes of the summit;

• India’s commitment to further building the momentum of regional cooperation under the BIMSTEC framework and making the organization stronger, vibrant, more effective, and result-oriented.
• India is the Lead Country to Counter Terrorism & Trans-national Crime, Transport & Communication, Tourism, and Environmental & Disaster management.
• BIMSTEC Master Plan for Transport Connectivity for adoption at the next BIMSTEC Summit and three MoUs / Agreements for signing at the next BIMSTEC Summit.
• Member States to complete their internal procedures for adoption of the BIMSTEC.
• Chair to hold the Fifth BIMSTEC Summit in Sri Lanka.
• BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate, being hosted in India, is fully functional with the state of the art facilities to provide Disaster Early Warnings.

ISSUES FACING BY BIMSTEC IN RECENT TIMES?

BIMSTEC is facing several issues in recent times. Those are posing challenges to the grouping. Major challenges are as follow:

THE ISSUE OF MEETING:

• While most multilateral groupings from G20 to ASEAN and SCO held their deliberations at the highest political level in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, BIMSTEC leaders failed to do so.
• In contrast to a meeting of even SAARC leaders held at India’s initiative a year ago, BIMSTEC could not arrange its ministerial meeting until April 2021.

ISSUES BETWEEN THE MEMBER STATES:

• A strong BIMSTEC presupposes cordial and tension-free bilateral relations among all its member-states.
• This has not been the case, given the trajectory of India-Nepal, India-Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh-Myanmar ties in recent years.

THE ISSUE OF SAARC:

• Uncertainties over SAARC hovers, complicating matters.
• Both Kathmandu and Colombo want the SAARC summit revived, even as they cooperate within BIMSTEC, with diluted zeal.

CHINA PRESENCE IN SOUTH ASIA:

• China’s decisive intrusion in the South-Southeast Asian space has cast dark shadows.
• It is believed that BIMSTEC would make progress if China is accepted as its principal interlocutor and partner. This perspective has hardly any takers in India and its friendly partners in the grouping.

MILITARY COUP IN MYANMAR:

• The military coup in Myanmar, brutal crackdown of protesters, and continuation of popular resistance resulting in a protracted impasse have produced a new set of challenges.

WHY BIMSTEC IS FACING THESE ISSUES?

LACK OF RESOURCES:

• Despite its huge potential, the forum has long suffered from a lack of resources and proper coordination among its member states.
• Many factors have contributed towards the sluggishness of BIMSTEC and it is still beset with difficulties.
• India, its largest member, has often been blamed for not providing strong leadership.
• Consequent to the slow progress of its mandate, Thailand and Myanmar have often seen ignoring BIMSTEC for ASEAN Forum.

LACK OF PROPER MEETINGS:

• The relevance of BIMSTEC as an organization can be gauged from the fact that only four meetings have been held since its inception 21 years back.
• It took seven years for its first summit to take place in 2004 in Thailand; the second one was held four years later in 2008 in India; the third one six years later in Myanmar in 2014 and the fourth summit has just concluded in Nepal on 31 Aug 2018.
• It also took 17 long years for this Forum to establish its permanent secretariat in Dhaka in 2014.

LACK OF ECONOMIC COORDINATION:

• The organization currently faces the challenge of realizing its vision of an integrated economic space and a bridge between South and Southeast Asia that drove its founding members.
• The BIMSTEC Free Trade Agreement (FTA), signed in 2004, is yet to be implemented.
• The protectionist economies of South Asian countries and so-called national interests are making free trade an unattainable objective.
• Countries like Bangladesh on the other hand, often fear that whenever India discusses connectivity, it means benefits only for India.
• Such fears & apprehensions question the basic fabric of BIMSTEC and foster mistrust, thus blighting any prospect of free movement of goods.

ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES:

• BIMSTEC Secretariat, established in 2014 in Dhaka, has been unable to adequately contribute to the development of the organization, and its negligible budget affects its capacity to perform a basic convening function.

ROHINGYAS FACTOR:

• The Rohingyas factor emerged as a major issue.
• Their refugee crisis has complicated relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar, may affect BIMSTEC’s multilateralism in the future, and completely derail its efforts to foster regional cooperation.

MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN MEMBERS:

• Another challenge lurking in the forum is the impression that it is an India-dominated bloc, a problem that India faced for a long time in SAARC too.
• This perception of Indian hegemony, coupled with the over-dependence of BIMSTEC Countries, on China, seems to be a major impediment to this Forum’s success.
• Nepal’s pulling out of the ongoing BIMSTEC military exercise being conducted in India probably substantiates this point.
• The underlying aspiration of China to be part of BIMSTEC, on the same lines as it harnesses a desire to be a permanent part of SAARC groupings, further aggravates the problem.

PRESENT DYNAMICS & RENEWED INITIATIVE

However, two recent developments have generated renewed hopes for BIMSTEC to forge an effective regional group for broader economic integration.

1. First was the Outreach Summit, held in Goa, India in October 2016, wherein the BRICS-BIMSTEC leaders pledged to work collectively towards making BIMSTEC stronger. This Summit, brokered by India, has certainly reinvigorated BIMSTEC by inviting its members to participate in a larger platform like BRICS, comprising five major emerging economies of the world.
2. The second is the concluded Fourth summit of BIMSTEC at Kathmandu from August 30 to 31, 2018. The theme of the summit was ‘Towards a Peaceful, Prosperous and Sustainable Bay of Bengal Region. Representatives of all member nations explicitly showed their renewed desire to forge ahead on mandated objectives with the signing and adoption of the Kathmandu Declaration.

THE ANALYSIS

• The 18-point Declaration is expected to enhance the effectiveness of the BIMSTEC Secretariat by engaging it in various technical and economic activities in the region. Foreign ministers of BIMSTEC countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of BIMSTEC Grid Interconnection.
• The Declaration stresses ending poverty in the region by 2030 & strongly condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It covers issues such as agricultural technology exchange, gradual reduction of the impact of climate change, increased trade and investment, and ease in visa processing for the people of member states. It also highlights the importance of trade and investment as one of the major contributing factors for fostering economic and social development in the region.
• It now remains to be seen as to how all the seven members can take this momentum forward in making BIMSTEC more ‘effective’, ‘visible’ and ‘result-oriented’ as well as draw synergies with other groupings to hasten the process of integration for the benefit of 1.6 billion people in the region.

RELEVANCE OF BIMSTEC FOR INDIA

• For India, BIMSTEC stands at the very important juncture of ‘Neighborhood First’ and ‘Act East Policy. Its relevance to India is driven by two key factors, one, the potential economic rewards of greater regional connectivity it provides. Second, the rapidly changing geostrategic context of Asia and India’s need to look at the Bay of Bengal as a key theatre for containing an increasingly capable and assertive China.
• BIMSTEC, unlike SAARC’s subcontinental focus, is the only forum that brings together India’s strategic peripheries under one single grouping. Regional integration comes more naturally to India through BIMSTEC vis-a-vis SAARC, which is dominated and hamstrung by tensions between India and Pakistan. BIMSTEC also allows India to push a constructive agenda to counter Chinese investments.
• Three projects pending with BIMSTEC, when finished, are likely to transform the region, especially India.
• Kaladan Multimodal project linking India and Myanmar: The project envisages connecting Kolkata to Sittwe port in Myanmar, and then Mizoram by river and road. India and Myanmar had signed a framework agreement in 2008 & are yet to be finished.
• Trilateral Highway connecting India and Thailand through Myanmar: The highway will run from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar thereby establishing connectivity between India and Southeast Asian countries. The project is currently underway.
• The goods and vehicles: were signed in the year 2015 and is, awaiting internal clearances of some members, involves the movement of goods and vehicles. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal (BBIN) have signed this pact. Trial runs are on.
• India has finally realized that the lack of importance given to BIMSTEC can seriously jeopardize its economic and strategic agenda. Consequently, it has committed to re-energising BIMSTEC, which was evident during the BRICS Outreach Summit. This pragmatic step on India’s part lucidly demonstrated its intentions &potential to play the role of a regional leader.

BIMSTEC VS. SAARC: WHICH IS MORE SUITABLE FOR INDIA?

If India wants to prove itself as a regional power, as the largest country in South Asia, India cannot escape its responsibilities under SAARC. The following points explain the differences between SAARC and BIMSTEC. In the end, it can be seen that none of them can substitute for each other. Rather, they can complement each other’s roles.

PARAMETER: VIBRANCY AND DYNAMISM

BIMSTEC:

• BIMSTEC meetings have been held only four times in the last twenty years.
• BIMSTEC meetings are rather considered to be retreats for the leaders of the member nations and there are hardly any talks on policy.
• As of now, BIMSTEC finds vibrancy since India is using it to promote its Act East Policy that aligns with the Look West Policy of Thailand.
• It is argued that India also uses the BIMSTEC platform to substitute SAARC. However, the success of BIMSTEC does not render SAARC pointless; it only adds a new chapter in regional cooperation in South Asia.

SAARC:

• SAARC on the other side is a more active group. Over the last 32 years, ignoring the annual SAARC summits that have been postponed 11 times for political reasons, SAARC has been assiduously nurtured through a multitude of meetings and initiatives, including 18 summits.
• This has seen it evolve a whole set of conventions, organs, and mechanisms and a network of more than a dozen regional centers and other institutions, with a secretariat in Kathmandu.
• Since the SAARC summit has only been postponed, not cancelled, the possibility of revival remains.

PARAMETER: GOALS

BIMSTEC: BIMSTEC’s role is more restricted to the economy and regional integration only.

SAARC: 

• SAARC has broader goals compared to BIMSTEC.
• SAARC is aimed at promoting the welfare of the people; accelerating economic growth, social progress, and cultural development; and strengthening collective self-reliance.
• Other objectives include strengthening cooperation with other developing countries and cooperating with international and regional organizations with similar aims and purposes.

PARAMETER: INTRA-TRADE

BIMSTEC: Trade among the BIMSTEC member countries reached six percent in just a decade.

SAARC: In SAARC, it has remained around five percent since its inception.

PARAMETER: CAPACITY OF THE SECRETARIAT

BIMSTEC: The BIMSTEC secretariat faces a severe resource crunch, both in terms of money and manpower, which has adversely affected its performance.

SAARC: SAARC secretariat has more resources. This can be used when SAARC meetings are held.

PARAMETER: COVERAGE

BIMSTEC:

• BIMSTEC is interregional and connects both South Asia and ASEAN.
• BIMSTEC provides SAARC countries a unique opportunity to connect with ASEAN.

SAARC:

• SAARC is a purely regional organization.
• Thus, it is also possible that both the regional organizations can thrive together and even prove complementary in geographically overlapping regions.

CHALLENGES & IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIA

India faces a few challenges which need to be ironed out for the smooth functioning of BIMSTEC. From the strategic perspective, two factors merit as a challenge;

• The first is India’s realization that regional integration in South Asia would work only if Pakistan was not involved. Thus projecting BIMSTEC as more relevant in spite of its overlapping mandate and members with SAARC, appears a daunting task for India.
• The second factor is China’s strategic & economic influence on BIMSTEC members, who can make BIMSTEC hostage to Indo-China regional rivalry. India, therefore, will have to carefully navigate through this emerging regional geopolitics& reassure South Asia that the region can work together to achieve common goals with India playing its due role.
• India is currently the largest contributor to the BIMSTEC secretariat’s budget with an annual contribution of Rs 2 crore (32% of the total budget) for 2017-18. With the secretariat now planning to strengthen its capacity, India may need to consider allocating more resources. India’s generosity would be a key test of its commitment to the subregional grouping.
• Another issue that besets BIMSTEC is that it is an India-dominated bloc. However, due to changing Geo-economics, most of the smaller neighbors today are more willing to engage India due to its economic rise. India needs to proactively engage them and show sensitivity to their concerns.

HOW BIMSTEC CAN REINVENT ITSELF

BIMSTEC as a Forum is well equipped in facilitating this new regionalism. However, its visibility needs to be enhanced for which its member states should:-

• Instill in the organization a vision for a cooperative, multilateral, regional order which is based on principles of liberalism, not on unilateralism.
• Empower the BIMSTEC secretariat with greater financial resources enabling it to proactively drive the organization’s agenda.
• Prioritize sustained physical connectivity and high-quality infrastructure, to facilitate greater regional flows of goods& services.
• India’s role as an informal leader has to be expanded.
• Open BIMSTEC to cooperate with regional powers committed to inclusive regionalism to include Australia, European Union, Japan, and the United States.

CONCLUSION:

BIMSTEC holds the catalytic potential to transform the economies of member states and create a peaceful, prosperous, and integrated neighborhood. The road from potential to reality will be successfully traversed only when all actors and stakeholders come together to play their role well to achieve a shared dream of peace, stability, and prosperity for this dynamic region.

THE CONTEXT: During the COVID-19 second wave, the government’s efforts to tackle this unprecedented crisis have all but collapsed. Only a proper institutional design will ensure that we are equipped better to tackle future similar disasters.

PRESENT INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

• The Disaster Management Act, 2005, and Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 are used to tackle the Covid-19 Pandemic.
• As public health is a state subject under the Indian Constitution, State Governments have issued orders under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 (EDA)
• The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) issued guidelines considering the “coronavirus pandemic” as a “disaster” within the meaning of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (DMA).
• The Disaster Management Act, 2005 provides those powers which the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 does not provide and allows the Central Government to take the necessary steps for a functional response.
• On the health advice side, there are bodies like the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) and Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).

 NEED FOR A SEPARATE AUTHORITY

Limitations of Epidemics Disease Act, 1897:

• The EDA was enacted in the wake of the bubonic plague epidemic in 1896, in Bombay and it has just four sections. It doesn’t define “epidemic disease”. Its concise nature gives wide powers to the executive.
• The Central government’s power under this law only seems to be restricted to controlling the movement and detention of vessels at ports.

Disaster Management Act: 

• Disasters are normally geographically-localized catastrophic events, disrupting normal life for a few hours or days, but unlike a public health epidemic, do not last over a long period of time.
• While the DMA offers effective and aggressive measures to combat any kind of disaster, including epidemics, it may be inadequate due to two issues.

1. While the definition of a “disaster” under the DMA may be wide enough to include an epidemic, it does not contain any specific provisions or the graded approach to deal with the unique problems created by an epidemic.
2. Even the aggressive measures provided for in the DMA may be inadequate due to the exponential growth rate of the pandemic.

Others:

• The use of such an ad-hoc institutional architecture with a multiplicity of statues has resulted in a patchwork response against the epidemic in several areas.
• As the frequency of pandemics is expected to increase in the future due to factors like climate change and global warming, an empowered Central authority may be constituted with a clear mandate to control pandemics.

EXAMPLE OF DISASTER MANAGEMENT

• Looking at a parallel example, India has done well in its institutional design for tackling natural disasters other than pandemics.
• Through the Disaster Management Act 2005, the Union government set up multi-disciplinary Disaster Management authorities from the national to the state, district, and local levels.
• These authorities were assigned clear functions and responsibilities. A separate fiscal window was carved out to deal with natural disasters.
• The purpose of such a design was to create a rapid response structure free of bureaucratization.
• The success of this approach has been seen in the way India has since handled natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, and earthquakes.

DESIGNING AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM FOR PANDEMICS

Basic Rules:

• First, functions ought to be carefully allocated to different levels as exclusively as possible. Some concurrency of action is inevitable, but too much overlap between the functions of different levels can create confusion and dilute accountability.
• Second, finance must follow function. No mandates must be given to institutions without giving them recourse to adequate resources for execution; if unfunded mandates exist, sooner than later, they will not be carried out.
• Third, every institution that is given a mandate must be given command and control over the staff and other capacities required to deliver that mandate effectively.

Pandemic Response Authority:

• There is a need to establish a high-powered Pandemic Response Authority at the national level and mimic the structure of the Disaster Management System.
• A Pandemic Response Unit should be established on the lines of NDMA like authority or body, having representation from both the Centre and states, responsible for designing and implementing well-coordinated surveillance, identification, contact-tracing, quarantine, isolation, testing strategy, and treatment.
• While establishing a new Pandemic Response Unit, care must be taken to avoid the danger of over-centralization. It is quite possible that a Pandemic Response Unit becomes a super-ministry, exercising unnecessary discretion and hampering effective response rather than aiding it.
• Ideally, what can be done at a lower level ought not to move upward. Only those residual matters that cannot be handled at a state or local government level need to be handled by an apex unit.
• Matters that have wide repercussions across jurisdictions are best centralized. So also are matters that enjoy scales of economy.

Functions:

• Four important matters in which a Pandemic Response Unit would add value would be in strategic medium-term and long-term planning, promoting research, international cooperation, and capacity-building.
• Develop, exercise, and periodically revise national and state pandemic preparedness and response plans in close collaboration with human and animal health sectors and other relevant public and private partners with reference to current WHO guidance.
• Anticipate and address the resources required to implement proposed interventions at national and sub-national levels, including working with humanitarian, community-based, and non-governmental organizations.
• Develop national surveillance systems to collect up-to-date clinical, virological, and epidemiological information on trends in human infection with seasonal influenza viruses, which will also help to estimate additional needs during a pandemic.
• Identify, regularly brief, and train key personnel to be mobilized as part of a multisectoral expert response team for animal or human influenza outbreaks of pandemic potential.

CONCLUSION:

Public health planning should have been strengthened, taking into account the experiences and lessons learned from the current crisis. Handling of the Covid pandemic in Indian states, in spite of scientific and public health advances, demands honest and critical reflections by policymakers and health experts alike. Political accountability has to be fixed and there is a need to get the management response right. It is priorities to set up systems that can work are set up, and they work right. If that is not done, we will continue to suffer far into the future.

THE CONTEXT: The government has set its sights on an aggressive plan to sell its equity holdings in State-owned enterprises from which it hopes to rake in Rs 1.75 trillion. In order to do so, the govt has significantly widened the scope of its privatization plan by unveiling a new policy for strategic disinvestment of public sector enterprises that will provide a clear roadmap for disinvestment in all non-strategic and strategic sectors.

THE PRESENT PRIVATISATION POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT

Fulfilling the governments’ commitment under the AtmaNirbhar Package of coming up with a policy of strategic disinvestment of public sector enterprises, with the following feature

• Strategic Sector: Bare minimum presence of the public sector enterprises and remaining to be privatized or merged or subsidiaries with other CPSEs or closed.
• Strategic sector: industries considered strategic if it has large innovative spillovers and if it provides a substantial infrastructure for another forum in the same or related industry

• Following 4 sectors to come under it:

• • • Atomic energy, Space and Defense
    • Transport and Telecommunications
    • Power, Petroleum, Coal, and other minerals
    • Banking, Insurance, and financial services

• Non-Strategic Sector: In this sector, CPSEs will be privatized, otherwise shall be closed.

Non-strategic sector

• will include hotel and tourist services, transportation vehicle and equipment industry and consumer goods trading and marketing and transport and logistics

The policy of the government on the 18 strategic sectors other sectors

18 strategic sectors under 3 different classificatory types are

• mining and exploration
• processing and generation and
• the service sector

Policy regarding PSU by the govt

• Govt will completely exit the non-strategic sector
• in the strategic sector govt will keep a maximum of 1-4 PSU and subsequently opt for strategic disinvestment

 PRIVATISATION OF PSU SINCE 2014 INCLUDING BANKS

The increase of supply of PSU stocks and the constrained investor appetite had started affecting the prices. The trade-off between the political objective to privatize and revenue maximization was witnessed the most in this period. Resultantly, the government resorts to Strategic Sales.

However, in a departure from past govt is also disinvesting profit-making ventures with a rationale that disinvestment of profit-making enterprises by a public offering of shares is desirable as it leads to dispersed shareholding and avoids concentration of economic power.

However, in the case of banks, an amalgamation policy was followed, which reduced the number of national banks from 28 to 12 by merging various banks.

• But even after this, there was no meaningful resolution of the NPA crisis.
  • In fact, post the covid crisis this problem will increase as small banks are facing the problem of balancing credit growth and risk.
  • With the specter of insolvencies looming at the start of pandemic-led lockdown, there was a flight of deposits from small banks to bigger ones.
• In view of this, the govt has focused on taking PSBs out of government control

Overall approach

Since 2014, the Modi government’s strategic disinvestment approach was to sell minority stakes in public companies to raise revenue, while retaining management control. During the 2014-2019 period, the government raised Rs. 2,79,622 crore from the disinvestment of public sector enterprises (PSEs), compared to Rs 1,07,833 crore collected during 2004-14. However, this has changed now. Recently, five companies were up for 100 percent disinvestment, including three large, profitable companies such as Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL), the Container Corporation of India, and the Shipping Corporation.

THE EVOLUTION OF PSU FROM 1956 TO 1999

Historical antecedents Industrial Policy in India:

• National Economic Planning Committee set up by the All India Congress Committee in 1937: suggested vigorous efforts for India’s industrial development through a mixed economy with a dominant role for the public sector.
• Peoples Plan’ prepared by Mr. M N Roy: all-in-all role to public sector and financing of the industrial plan through internal resources
• Bombay Plan (Tata-Birla plan) recommended government support for industrialization, including a direct role in the production of capital goods. It had called for a substantial role of the private sector in the industrial development
• Defense of India Rules (interim rule): The plan suggested by the interim government for industrial development categorized industries into four divisions, of which two were exclusively reserved for the public sector and these related to core and heavy industrial sectors. Of the remaining two, public and private sectors were allowed access to intermediate industries forming the third sector, while the consumer goods industry was reserved for the private sector [Trivia: first Industrial Policy Statement of 1948 was a restatement of the 1945 categorization as adopted by the interim government.]

Industrial Policy Statement – 1948: 

Industries were divided into four broad categories

• Exclusive State: Monopoly included the manufacture of arms and ammunition, production and control of atomic energy, and the ownership and management of railway transport
• State Monopoly for New Units
• State Regulated category
• Unregulated private enterprises

Industrial Policy Resolution – 1956: 

• It was shaped by the Mahalanobis Model of growth, which suggested that emphasis on heavy industries would lead the economy towards a long-term higher growth path. The Resolution widened the scope of the public sector. The objective was to accelerate:
• Bombay Plan prepared by leading Indian industrialists in 1944-45 had recommended government support for industrialization, including a direct role in the production of capital goods.
• Economic growth and boost the process of industrialization as a means to achieving a socialistic pattern of society.
• The Industrial Policy Resolution – 1956 classified industries into three categories
• The first category comprised 17 industries exclusively under the domain of the Government. These include, inter alia, railways, air transport, arms and ammunition, iron and steel, and atomic energy.
• The second category comprised 12 industries, which were envisaged to be progressively State-owned but the private sector was expected to supplement the efforts of the State.
• The third category contained all the remaining industries and it was expected that the private sector would initiate the development of these industries, but they would remain open for the State as well
• Despite the demarcation of industries into separate categories, the Resolution was flexible enough to allow the required adjustments and modifications in the national interest.

Industrial Policy Measures in the 1960s and 1970s: 

• Industrial Licensing Policy Inquiry Committee (Dutt Committee), constituted in 1967, recommended that larger industrial houses should be given licenses only for setting up industry in core and heavy investment sectors, thereby necessitating reorientation of industrial licensing policy.
• The new Industrial Licensing Policy of 1970 classified industries into four categories.
• The first category, termed as ‘Core Sector’, consisted of basic, critical, and strategic industries.
• The second category termed as ‘Heavy Investment Sector’, comprised projects involving an investment of more than Rs.50 million.
• The third category, the ‘Middle Sector’ consisted of projects with investment in the range of Rs.10 million to Rs.50 million.
• The fourth category was ‘De- licensed Sector’, in which investment was less than Rs.10 million and was exempted from licensing requirements.

Industrial Policy Statement – 1980: 

The Industrial Policy Statement of 1980 placed the accent on the promotion of competition in the domestic market, technological up-gradation, and modernization of industries A number of measures were initiated towards technological and managerial modernization to improve productivity, quality and to reduce the cost of production. The public sector was freed from a number of constraints and was provided with greater autonomy. There was some progress in the process of deregulation during the 1980s. In 1988, all industries, excepting 26 industries specified in the negative list, were exempted from licensing. The exemption was, however, subject to investment and locational limitations. The automotive industry, cement, cotton spinning, food processing, and polyester filament yarn industries witnessed modernization and expanded scales of production during the 1980s.

PRIVATISATION FROM 1991 TO 2014 AND PROS AND CONS

Phases of Disinvestment Policy in India

Phase 1 91 to 99: Disinvestment was mainly through the Sale of Minority Shareholding in CPSEs. Mostly, the auction method was adopted for the sale of a minority shareholding, though Global Depository Receipts issues have been reported to as well in the last two years of that phase. There were no Strategic Sales in this period. The ideological focus was on gradual privatization. Further, the focus was also on the modernization of PSUs, in order to increase their ‘efficiency’ while protecting the interests of employees. But, the main aim was to mitigate the fiscal deficits of the government. It never focused on revenue maximization. However, with Rangarajan Committee a shift from public offerings to strategic / trade sales was witnessed in the field of core and non-core.

Phase 2 99 to 03: The ambit of disinvestment was widened the most during the second phase. Targets higher than ever before were set, a Department of Disinvestment was constituted on 10th December 1999 and later a full-fledged ministry was set up, an aggressive disinvestment policy was pursued and the government exited several PSUs completely. Consequently, with a higher supply of  PSUs’ shares in the still-developing market, prices of equity sold were low, subsequently destroying the value of PSUs, resulting in the government failing to achieve the disinvestment targets.

Phase 3 03 to 009: The government adopted the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) and the following are the aspects of the program that related to the public sector5:

• The government was to retain the existing “Navratna” companies.
• The program stated that profit-making PSUs will not be privatized and in line with this disinvestment through strategic sale of profit-making CPSEs was called off.
• Public Sector companies and nationalized banks were encouraged to enter the capital market to raise resources and offer new investment avenues to retail investors.

There were no targets fixed and the total receipts. Disinvestment was majorly done through the Offer for Sale or Sale route. It was in this phase that the National Investment Fund (NIF) was constituted. All the proceeds from the disinvestment of central PSUs were transferred into this fund and 75% of the annual collections of the fund had to be invested in social sectors. The management of it was assigned to public sector mutual funds.

Phase 5 09-14: The disinvestment process restarted with full vigor, but the government didn’t resort to the Strategic Sale route. In most years, the sale of minority shares was done through an offer for sale.

How not disinvest?

A model is followed in India, which neither qualifies as disinvestment nor privatization. In such a transaction—where one PSU is buying out another take place. This resulted in a transfer of resources already with the public sector to the government and did not lead to any change in the stake of the public sector or government in disinvested PSUs. It can be seen as merely money-making exercise merely moneymaking measures. (ONGC-LIC, HPCL-ONGC) Further, the government is not exiting completely in many of the PSU thus creating contrived confusion in the policy framework (Air India)

THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PRIVATISATION POLICY BY THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT

Is privatization of bank panacea for success

• Private players in the financial sector are prone to failure: this fact gave the world economic shock of astronomical proportion, which was overreachingly created by private bank
• Private banks fail all the time the 20 years from 2001 to 2020, as many as 559 private banks with assets of $721 billion failed in the US
• The principle followed by private banks is when they make profits, it goes to shareholders: When they make losses, it gets socialized and falls in the lap of the government to make good the deposits either through insurance or taxpayer bailout. (Yes Bank, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), bailed out the above bank.)
• Big private banks can fail any time: There is a myth that if a bank gets large enough, it will not fail. While one can agree that the larger the bank, the greater its ability to absorb losses, this does not mean it cannot fail. The axiom “Higher you go, harder the fall” applies best to private banks. Yes, Bank, Citi Bank, Washington Mutual Bank are all such examples.

Looking at the larger interest

• The move towards divesting ownership in strategic sectors will have long-term consequences. A diluted public sector would possibly mean that India missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on the global distrust against Chinese supply lines in the wake of the current crisis.
• Moreover, the valuation of PSU is at an all-time low. At the start of NDA-2, the valuation of PSU at the BSE was 22% which has reduced to 9.4% in Oct 2020.
• At present, because of the crisis presented by the pandemic, it is highly unlikely that more than 10 percent of the shares of the LIC are subscribed, as the market may not be able to absorb more.

 whether privatization is the only option for PSUs

PSU models in different countries

PSUs exist virtually everywhere. In, Asia, where PSUs have played an important role in shaping the economy. According to an OECD report, PSUs pulls plenty of economic might-

• in China, they account for 30% of GDP,
• in Vietnam 38%,
• And they account for roughly a fourth of GDP in India and Thailand.
• PSUs are also big employers in many of these countries — 15% in China, 5% in Malaysia.
• PSUs play an important role in BRICS economies.
  • According to a recent KPMG report, of the 2,000 largest companies globally, 260 are from BRICS economies.
  • About 123 or 47% of the largest BRICS enterprises are PSU. The market value of PSU amounts to 32% of GNIs (gross national income) among all BRICS countries.

All the above example shows that privatization is not the only panacea for bringing efficiency, improving productivity, and building productive assets.

THE GLOBAL PRACTICES

Reshaping the PSU buy other countries

Three former planned economies have set up centralized holding entities — SASAC in China in 2003, SCIC in Vietnam in 2007, and Druk Holdings and Investments in Bhutan. In 2006, the Philippines pioneered the development of a PSU governance scorecard which has become an important tool for pushing PSU reforms. Since 2004, Malaysia has rolled out a comprehensive ‘transformation program” to overhaul its PSUs.

An incorporated holding company Temasek to better manage its assets on a commercial basis was launched in Singapore. This allowed its Ministry of Finance to focus on policymaking. At inception, Temasek’s initial portfolio was S$354 million, spanning 35 companies. Thereafter began the process of restructuring SOEs. Some were corporatized and privatized, others were allowed to go for big global expansions.

THE CHINA EXAMPLE: 

In 2003, a holding company, the State-Owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission (SASAC) was created to manage the SoEs. The agency, which controls nearly 100 of the largest SOEs, lies “at the heart of China’s industrial deep state.

WAY FORWARD: WHAT INDIA CAN LEARN?

Negative bids: The government should permit negative bids: a bid where the government pays someone to take the company off its hands. Negative bids were an important part of the massive privatization, which took place in Germany after the end of socialism and helped to get productive assets rapidly into the hands of efficient managers in the private sector.

MOU models: In South Korea PSUs with high social obligation operate with private sectors with the help Of MOUs. But one of the most important things, that is forgotten in the outright privatization of CPSUs is that it is unaccompanied by the necessary reforms in the overall regulatory framework in which they operate. Reforms of the regulatory frameworks and the markets are crucial for the performance of both PSUs and private companies, ensuring a rule-based competitive structure covering entry, exit, bankruptcy, and competition among existing companies, as manifested by the British privatization of the 1980s and 90s.

CONCLUSION:

While the experience of other countries is available to India by way of guidance, it would have to evolve its own techniques, best suited to its level of development. The historic, cultural, and institutional context influences the way in which and the pace at which privatization is implemented. Where the market economy is not fully developed, ways would have to be found to safeguard the interests of consumers and investors, which would ensure a fuller play to the wealth-creating role of the entrepreneurs.

THE CONTEXT: Recently the Government of India has passed three farm bills that are being widely criticized by many farmer organizations. The farm bills are criticized for being pro-market reforms that have the potential of harming farmers’ interests in the long run.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Since 1991, economic liberalization and reforms by successive governments across the political spectrum – except during the lost decade of 2004-14 – have enabled a return to these core economic principles.
• That these timeless principles – advocated in as disparate Indian literature as the Arthashastra and the Thirukural – work is seen in the enormous prosperity well-regulated markets have delivered since 1991. Even the Chinese economic miracle is testimony to the role of markets in enabling economic prosperity for citizens.

WHAT IS FARM BILL 2020?

• In September 2020, the Indian government passed three agricultural bills, which are – Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bil, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance, Farm Services Bill, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
• The new farmers’ bill allows the farmers to sell their products directly to private buyers breaking the monopoly of man is regulated by the government. The people get empowered to get into a legal deal with the companies and produce agro-products for them. The farmers’ bill India also allows stocking of food articles by the agri-businesses removing the ability of the government to impose arbitrarily.

The three farm acts:

1. Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020

• This act allows farmers to engage in trade of their agricultural produce outside the physical markets notified under various state Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee laws (APMC acts). Also known as the ‘APMC Bypass Bill’, it will override all the state-level APMC acts.
• Promotes barrier-free intra-state and inter-state trade of farmer’s produce.
• Proposes an electronic trading platform for direct and online trading of produce. Entities that can establish such platforms include companies, partnership firms, or societies.
• Allows farmers the freedom to trade anywhere outside state-notified APMC markets, and this includes allowing trade at farm gates, warehouses, cold storages, and so on.
• Prohibits state governments or APMCs from levying fees, cess, or any other charge on farmer’s produce.
• The three farm acts are likely to have a significant impact on farmers and agriculture in the country.

2. Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020

• The act seeks to provide farmers with a framework to engage in contract farming, where farmers can enter into a direct agreement with a buyer (before sowing season) to sell the product to them at pre-determined prices.
• Entities that may strike agreements with farmers to buy agricultural produce are defined as “sponsors’’ and can include individuals, companies, partnership firms, limited liability groups, and societies.
• The act provides for setting up farming agreements between farmers and sponsors. Any third parties involved in the transaction (like aggregators) will have to be explicitly mentioned in the agreement. Registration authorities can be established by state governments to provide for an electronic registry of farming agreements.
• Agreements can cover mutually agreed terms between farmers and sponsors, and the terms can cover supply, quality, standards, price, as well as farm services. These include supply of seeds, feed, fodder, Agrochemicals, machinery and technology, non-chemical agro-inputs, and other farming inputs.
• Agreements must have a minimum duration of one cropping season or one production cycle of livestock. The maximum duration can be five years. For production cycles beyond five years, the period of agreement can be mutually decided by the farmer and sponsor.
• The purchase price of the farming produce—including the methods of determining the price—may be added to the agreement. In case the price is subject to variations, the agreement must include a guaranteed price to be paid as well as clear references for any additional amounts the farmer may receive, like bonus or premium.
• There is no mention of minimum support price (MSP) that buyers need to offer to farmers.
• Delivery of farmers’ produce may be undertaken by either party within the agreed time frame. Sponsors are liable to inspect the quality of products as per the agreement, otherwise, they will be deemed to have inspected the product and have to accept the delivery within the agreed time frame.
• In the case of seed production, sponsors are required to pay at least two-thirds of the agreed amount at the time of delivery, and the remaining amount is to be paid after due certification within 30 days of the date of delivery. Regarding all other cases, the entire amount must be paid at the time of delivery, and a receipt, the slip must be issued with the details of the sale.
• Produce generated under farming agreements are exempt from any state acts aimed at regulating the sale and purchase of farming produce, therefore leaving no room for states to impose MSPs on such produce. Such agreements also exempt the sponsor from any stock-limit obligations applicable under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. Stock limits are a method of preventing hoarding of agricultural produce.
• Provides for a three-level dispute settlement mechanism: the conciliation board—comprising representatives of parties to the agreement, the sub-divisional magistrate, and appellate authority.

2. Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020

• An amendment to the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, this act seeks to restrict the powers of the government with respect to the production, supply, and distribution of certain key commodities.
• The act removes cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion, and potatoes from the list of essential commodities.
• Government can impose stock holding limits and regulate the prices for the above commodities—under the Essential Commodities, 1955—only under exceptional circumstances. These include war, famine, extraordinary price rise, and the natural calamity of grave nature.
• Stock limits on farming produce to be based on price rise in the market.  They may be imposed only if there is: (i) a 100 percent increase in the retail price of horticultural produce, and (ii) a 50 percent increase in the retail price of non-perishable agricultural food items. The increase is to be calculated over the price prevailing during the preceding twelve months, or the average retail price over the last five years, whichever is lower.
• The act aims at removing fears of private investors of regulatory influence in their business operations.
• Gives freedom to produce, hold, move, distribute, and supply products, leading to harnessing private sector/foreign direct investment in agricultural infrastructure.

ARGUMENTS SUPPORTING THE FARM LAWS

The purpose of the new farm laws is to end the historic exploitation of farmers at the APMC markets and free them from the clutches of the middlemen. Farmers who sell their produce to mandi merchants, or ‘arhatiyas’, at agricultural produce market committee (APMC) markets still receive informal white slips with the transaction amount scribbled on them, making the record non-transparent. The purpose of the new farm laws is to end the historic exploitation of farmers at the APMC markets and free them from the clutches of the middlemen.

Economic history of exploitation at mandis:

• Fifty-five years since the APMCs were introduced, the country’s farmers are still receiving a low share of the consumer’s rupee as indicated by a Reserve Bank of India study covering mandis in 16 states, 16 food crops, and 9,400 farmers, traders, retailers.
• The farmers’ shares were 28 percent for potato, 33 percent for onion, 49 percent for rice, a crop with minimum support price (MSP) guarantee.
• The provision of MSP alone will not ensure farmers draw a greater share of the consumer’s rupee because supply is greater than demand.
• The demand is also influenced by schemes such as the national food security mission, where food grains are offered free or at low prices. When rice and wheat are offered virtually free of cost, why will the consumer buy Ragi, Jowar, Bajra at a higher price?
• Injecting competition by widening farm markets will benefit farmers, which the three farm laws aim at.

Inefficiencies in APMCs:

• The APMCs still don’t issue formal receipts which are supposed to mention the price, quantity, or quality of the produce.
• Further, due to interlocked markets, farmers are forced to sell to those middlemen who they have borrowed money from, starting off a vicious circle of exploitation in times of distress sales.
• Buyers make a large income from informal lending. Such illegal paired with unfair deductions, undercover sales, cartels, and collusions at APMCs have continued denying remunerative prices to the farmers.

Widened markets benefit farmers:

• Due to green revolution technologies, supply has increased but is limited to APMCs for handling. This causes the prices to be capped at a lower value. Permission to buy or sell outside APMCs will benefit farmers by creating new supply or value chains.
• The nominal protection coefficient (domestic price divided by international price) for agriculture is 0.87. This implies that farmers can get at least 13 percent higher prices in international markets by exporting.

Infringement of rights: 

• Farmers’ right to sell their produce to whomever, wherever, whenever, and in whichever quantity cannot be infringed upon. The elasticity of price transmission between that at APMCs and farmgate price (market value minus selling cost) is impressive. Thus, buyers outside APMC will have to compete with APMC prices and vice versa to attract farmers’ produce.

No interference with the state:

• Entry 26 of the state list enables states to regulate trade in agricultural commodities within their boundary. But this is subject to entry 33 in the concurrent list, which allows both the Centre and the states to frame these regulations.
• Such market reforms can double farmer incomes. Also, with Article 249, the Centre can enact the law in the national interest of saving farmers from exploitation by middlemen.

Multiple markets and competition:

• Allowing buyers outside APMC mandis promotes competition and halts exploitation. At present, while consumers are paying a higher price, farmers are still receiving lower returns due to inefficiencies and imperfections. Thus, setting the markets right is crucial through the new laws.
• Unified market platform (UMP) in Karnataka resulted in an increase of prices by 38 percent. This implies that current market prices are depressed by 38 percent due to a lack of adequate competition. Opening up the markets can push the APMCs to offer competitive prices.
• Competition in procurement and distribution costs can also reduce from 30 percent to 15 percent.

Bihar’s impressive performance:

• Economic reforms in Bihar in 2005 that removed the APMC act resulted in impressive agricultural and overall performance.
• Before 2005, Bihar’s economy grew at a rate of 5.3 percent while India’s economy grew at 6.8 percent. After the reforms, Bihar’s economy grew at 11.7 percent with a 4.7 percent agriculture boost, while India’s economy grew at 8.3 percent with agricultural growth at 3.6 percent.
• Between the pre and post-reform period, the average wholesale price of paddy increased by 126 percent, maize by 81 percent, and wheat by 66 percent.
• Considering the impact of reforms on crop output, in the pre-reforms (2000 to 2007) and post-reforms (2008 to 2015) period, the growth rates of the output of field crops (1.53 percent, 4.29 percent) were higher than that of horticulture crops (-3.51 percent, 2.85 percent), with an impressive growth rate of the overall output of agriculture and allied sectors (2.57 percent, 4.66 percent).

Contract farming:

• Contract farming enabled farmers to offer products at a predetermined price. When the market price is above the contractual price, farmers have the liberty to sell at a higher price.
• Small farmers have benefitted more than large farmers in contract farming as income derived per acre was the highest for small farmers.

Agriculture markets starved of 3Cs: 

• Agricultural markets are starved of capital, competition, and commitment. Capital injection postpones the operation of the law of diminishing marginal returns.
• The gross private capital formation in agriculture is 75 percent. Investment in marketing infrastructure, processing, logistics benefits society, where the private sector has potential. For these, political will is crucial and hence, the Union government should not repeal the three laws.
• New provisions of the Essential Commodities Act enable scale economies in agricultural marketing to attract private sector investment.

National overseeing authority: 

• Farmers cannot be left to the free will of competitive markets due to skewed asset distribution. A national body, a national agricultural marketing board similar to TRAI and SEBI, needs to be created to enhance the bargaining power of farmers and protect them, along with purchasers, sellers, and consumers from possibilities of exploitation.

WHY ARE THE FARMERS PROTESTING AGAINST THE FARM BILLS?

• More than half of all government procurement of wheat and paddy in the last five years has taken place in Punjab and Haryana, according to Agriculture Ministry data. More than 85% of wheat and paddy are grown in Punjab, and 75% in Haryana, is bought by the government at MSP rates. Farmers in these States fear that without MSPs, market prices will fall.
• These States are also most invested in the APMC system, with a strong mandi network, a well-oiled system of arthritis or commission agents facilitating procurement, and link roads connecting most villages to the notified markets and allowing farmers to easily bring their produce for procurement. The Punjab government charges a 6% mandi tax (along with a 2.5% fee for handling central procurement) and earns annual revenue of about ₹3,500 crores from these charges.
• The very right of the Centre to enact legislation on agricultural marketing. Article 246 of the Constitution places “agriculture” in entry 14 and “markets and fairs” in entry 28 of the State List. But entry 42 of the Union List empowers the Centre to regulate “inter-State trade and commerce”. While trade and commerce “within the State” are under entry 26 of the State List, it is subject to the provisions of entry 33 of the Concurrent List – under which the Centre can make laws that would prevail over those enacted by the states.
• Entry 33 of the Concurrent List covers trade and commerce in “foodstuffs, including edible oilseeds and oils”, fodder, cotton and jute. The Centre, in other words, can very pass any law that removes all impediments to both inter-and intra-state trade in farm produce, while also overriding the existing state APMC Acts.

ISSUE REGARDING THE BILL

• Yes, there were many flaws in the decades-old APMC Act, but critics believe that the need was to plug the loopholes instead of introducing a new system altogether. A similar system has already been introduced in America and some European countries where it has failed miserably, we can only hope this does not happen in India and government will not repeat those mistakes.
• From the attitude of the government, the stand of the government is very clear that it is not going to change anything because already it has been termed as Masterstroke. Right now, it is just an Act both are results are possible; farmers income becomes double as said by the government, or their conditions worsen as feared by farmers. History is the best judge. While the intent of the Government is laudable, we will be able to see the results of these new Acts after a few years only. Right now, everything is just speculation.
• The bill has triggered strong protests all over the country. Let’s have a look at the issues that are triggering so many protests across the nation.
• These new farmers’ bills might end MSP or minimum support prices and this bothers the farmers.
• Another concern is the lack of bargaining capability with big companies. The people involved in farming might get the freedom to deal with the biggest of the companies but due to the lack of knowledge, he/ she might not be able to negotiate the best possible terms.
• Outside the mandis or government-regulated markets, there is hardly any regulation, and a grievance redressal system is also not present there.
• The new farmers’ bill may weaken the APMC system which is considered to be very helpful for small farmers.
• As per the suggestions of agricultural economists, the focus should be given to strengthening APMCs rather than transferring everything to private entities.
• Many are fearing that the people involved in agriculture might be turned into slaves due to contractual farming.
• Due to the removal of restrictions on food storage, big companies may store agro products in huge quantities and create artificial hikes in price.

WAY FORWARD

Three fundamental reforms are necessary to make India’s growth more just and more inclusive.

• The first is, policymakers must listen to the less powerful people in markets. Therefore, institutions that represent small people — associations and unions of farmers, informal workers and small enterprises — must be strengthened, not repressed. When reforms are supposedly in their interests, they have a right to be heard.
• The second is the formation of cooperatives of producers and workers. By aggregating the small into larger-scale enterprises owned by themselves, not only do the producers have more power in negotiations with their buyers, suppliers, and with government, they are also able to retain a larger part of the value they generate and increase their own incomes and wealth. Government regulations must encourage the formation of strong cooperatives, and improve their ease of doing business.
• The third is, market reformers must clean up their ideological lenses and see the reality of where power lies in markets. As Barbara Harriss-White, a scholar of India’s agricultural markets once observed, “deregulated imperfect markets may become more, not less, imperfect than regulated imperfect markets.”

CONCLUSION:

• Farmers are debt-ridden, starved of funding and of assured price mechanism. The three legislations if taken together accentuate the crisis even further. In the absence of a guaranteed support price mechanism, the legislations even fail to mention very strong support for the MSP as a benchmark price as a fundamental condition for open agriculture trade and winding up of mandis. For years farmers have demanded statutory support prices for their produce from the government.
• There is a need to restore the shaken confidence of the agrarian sector. In order for that to happen the government of India needs to give an iron-clad guarantee on holding the price line 100% over and above the inflation-linked cost of production to the primary producer and not allowing any players to offer a price below that line to them. Only such a guarantee will ensure the confidence of the farmers in the system.
• We need to understand that if the country has to come out of its grave economic crisis, the answer does not lie in the economies of the urban or of the extractive economies of the capital. The answer decisively lies in the revival of the rural with dignity and respect. The country, it must be understood, cannot survive if the rural falls and chances of such an event happening today can only be averted with a considered policy response initiated with empathy and care.

THE CONTEXT: India is the second-most populous country of the world, counted among the most rapidly growing economies of the world. Realizing that a fast spread of COVID19 in India would wipe out a huge part of the world population, the government of India found itself in a dilemma of whether to save lives or livelihoods. Prioritizing lives for livelihood, the state governments are announcing lockdown. This measure is supposed to leave a lasting impact on the economy, especially on the working class and migrant labour. This article suggests measures to the government to balance between saving lives and the livelihood of these vulnerable classes.

BACKGROUND OF THE ISSUE

• The uncertain nature of the pandemic is making it extremely difficult for governments across the world to formulate policies. However, the challenge is bigger for India.
• Given the huge informal economy of the country filled with migrant labour, expectedly the lockdown led to the loss of livelihood for many, as a result of which hundreds and thousands of migrant labourers again started leaving their workplaces to go their respective hometowns, leading to lockdown violations.
• Loss of livelihoods of the migrant labour, however, is not the only problem that the country is staring at. The lockdown could spell havoc for a huge number of small and medium enterprises of the country, leading to further loss of jobs, causing slow demand, a slump in production, and the vicious cycle of economic downturn.
• Besides, with the crop harvesting around the corner, locking the farmers inside their houses may adversely affect the agricultural produce for the season.

WHY LIVES vs LIVELIHOOD HAS BECOME AN ISSUE IN INDIA?

Although, in 2020 and now in 2021 government gives priority to lives against the livelihood and imposed lockdown but this is the issue, why the debate is on high in the case of India? These are four major reasons behind this debate

• India is reporting an exponential increase in the number of cases tested positive for COVID-19. For the last ten years, India recorded more than 3 Lac cases per day.
• India is the second-most populous country in the world.
• India is mainly an agrarian economy with a high proportion of migrant labour.
• Indian economy is in a problem of sorts due to the rising fiscal deficit in the country.

In this situation, the government has very limited options related to both lives and livelihoods and facing a dilemma. During the pandemic in 2021, the government has given priority to lives on livelihood and imposed many lockdown (although, it is not notional-wide). This situation has impacted the poor labour class and migrant workers, especially and started reverse migration like 2020. Now this situation has again raised questions that how government can save both lives and livelihoods.

WHO ARE THE MOST VULNERABLE IN THIS SITUATION?

There is no doubt that poor urban people and their working class with the migrant Labour class is most vulnerable to this situation. Because;

• Job losses: When the government has given priorities to lives (like the present situation), it will affect the production of working units and there will be laid off.
• Lack of sustainable income and savings to ensure food: Most of the working class and urban poor are daily basis workers and their earnings is very low. So that they will face the issue of sustainable income.
• No safety net: Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970 conferred on casual labour a legal status by providing a mechanism for registration of contractors engaging 20 or more workers. Though it was never effective. Although in 2020 the government made some reforms and brought Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 to replace all such Acts, the outcomes of these reforms is yet to come.
• Migrant labours are not the priority of government policy: During the pandemic, the government did not make any significant attempt the safeguard these vulnerable sections of society. Although, the government announced a free ration for 80 crore families under PMGKAY it is not sufficient to make any positive impact.

IMPACT OF THE SITUATION

1. REVERSE MIGRATION: It will start, reverse migration, which was seen in 2020 (in some parts of the country it is already started).
2. ISSUE OF WORKERS FOR URBAN UNITS: After reverse migration of labours, there will be a shortage of workers, which will hit the outcome of pandemic impacted units.
3. UNEMPLOYMENT: As government gives priority to lives, this is impacting small units at a large scale and many of them are suiting down, which will lead the unemployment after the pandemic.
4. POVERTY: As migrant workers and urban poor labours, who are already vulnerable to becoming poor, has no safety net, there is a chance that the present scenario will increase the poverty in India.
5. HEALTH CRISIS: When large-scale population migration occurs as a direct result of a health crisis, the movement mostly tends to be internal, temporary and early on in the health crisis.
6. INCREMENT IN FOOD INSECURITY: Another major challenge raised by the pandemic could be on food security and nutrition. The COVID-19 may bring hunger to millions of people around the world. Available evidence suggests that insecurity is one of the main reasons why people abandon their livelihoods and move to other places. Crisis increases food insecurity and limits the livelihood options of migrant populations.
7. IMPACT ON RURAL ECONOMY: The migrant worker population has led to a growing domestic remittances market, estimated to exceed Rs. 1.5 lakh crores annually. Effectively, this implies that migrants working in urban areas are sending money back to their families in villages worth two-and-half-times the annual NREGA budget.

These money transfers, from migrant labourers to villages, serve 10 per cent of households in rural India and finance over 30 per cent of household consumption in remittance-receiving households, buttressing the importance of urban growth for rural families.

• Of India’s workforce, around 90 per cent is in the informal sector, millions of whom have migrated from their villages in search of a better living. In terms of sheer numbers, these inter-state migrants make up for a colossal magnitude, underlining their importance in India’s economic structure.
• The Census 2011 pegs the total number of internal migrants in the country (accounting for inter-and intra-state movement) at a staggering 139 million.
• Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the biggest source states, followed closely by Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal. The major destination states are Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
• The Economic Survey of 2017 used monthly data on unreserved railway passenger traffic between every pair of stations in India for the years 2011-2016.
• The key idea was to Usenet annual flows of unreserved passenger travel as a proxy for work-related migrant flow. This data shows that such migration within India is between 5 and 9 million annually.

PUSH AND PULL FACTORS OF MIGRATION

Pull Factors:

Economic motives loom large in all human movements but are particularly important with regard to migration.

Pull Factors:

• More jobs
• Better jobs
• Higher wages
• The promise of a “better life”

Push Factors:

Economic push factors tend to be the exact reversal of the pull factors:

Push factors:

• Overpopulation
• Few jobs
• Low wages
• Lockdown
• pandemic

WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR THE SUPPORT AND EMPOWER INDIA’S MIGRANT WORKERS?

• Migrant labourers are the backbone of India’s informal sector and micro, small and medium enterprises.
• Their crisscrossing of states for jobs signifies economic integration, and also inter-regional and rural-urban disparities. While empowering themselves, they also enrich their home and host states.
• The lockdown has threatened to unravel this fabric. Their exodus from host states has created a humanitarian and health security challenge, and a logistical nightmare.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

To tackle the challenges posed by the situation, the governments announced should take some important steps.

Direct cash support: The government has to ensure that these people are able to survive themselves during the lockdown period. To make it happen, the government needs to distribute direct cash to such vulnerable populations.

Free food grain: Shortage or non-availability of food grains may cause damage. India has got 60 million tonnes of food grains stored in its warehouses. This is high time that the government distributes these food grains to the vulnerable population free of cost. This measure would complement the direct cash transfer in a big way.

Save SMSEs to save livelihoods: To restrict the loss of livelihoods, it is critical to saving the small and medium enterprises of the country. A package for the small and medium enterprises of the country cannot, therefore, be avoided. Also, on the lines of the innovative measures adopted by the UK and Finland, the government may also bear partial wages of the employees, once the lockdown ends.

Package for the agrarian sector: Given the agrarian nature of the Indian economy coupled with the fact that crop harvesting is around the corner, a harvesting-time relief package for the farming class may help survive the economy in a big way.

Increase social sector budgeting: The pandemic is a wake-up call for the government to increase the spending on improving the health and (medical) education infrastructure in the country.

Financial provisions: The financial system of India has performed overwhelmingly over recent times. To tackle the challenge of the pandemic, the Reserve Bank of India did cut the policy rates. The adoption of similar measures by all the banks in the country would augur well for helping the vulnerable population survive themselves.

• It is important to collect comprehensive migrant worker-related data and statistics that are skill, sector-, and gender-disaggregated, pan-India and state-wise. Its absence has blindsided all on the scale of the migrant labour challenge and frustrated efforts to reach them to help with food, cash health services, shelter or relocation to home/host state.
• The information asymmetry poor migrants faced to access information on relief, benefits and transport need to be addressed. Well-functioning hotlines, outreach systems and providing low-cost smartphones and IT education are crucial.
• Many migrant workers left cities for fear of disease and stigma, job, shelter, income, food insecurity, and to be with families. Others stayed in cities due to pulling factors: Better wages, jobs, economic and social upward mobility prospects.

CONCLUSION: Targeted ecosystem support for migrant workers is a major thrust of the government policies. A veritable Abhiyaan for migrant workers’ welfare and empowerment must be driven by state governments on a war-footing. At this time, migrant workers’ well-being and unleashing their potential is vital to India’s survival and economic revival.

THE CONTEXT: The recent state Assembly Elections have raised a debate on whether the Election Commission of India needs to be further strengthened as an independent institution or whether political actors voluntarily need to be more rule-abiding, which was the basis on which the Model Code of Conduct was adopted in 1962.

ISSUES HIGHLIGHTED DURING RECENT ASSEMBLY ELECTION

THE ISSUE OF MODEL CODE OF CONDUCT: In simple terms, a Model Code of Conduct is a set of minimum standards and codes for political parties, their candidates, and supporters to adhere to, to ensure free and fair elections. Bur in recent it has been alleged that Mode code of conduct is working in favour of central govt. During the Bengal poll West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked for the renaming of the Model Code of Conduct as Modi Code of Conduct.

THE INFLUENCE OF RULING PARTY: The comeback of the single-party majority in Parliament in recent years has once again brought the issue of the heavy influence of the Executive on the Election Commission of India under scrutiny. For instance, the Madras High Court had to direct the ECI to probe allegations against BJP in Puducherry, where it was accused of stealing Aadhaar details of voters for targeted campaigning. It was expected that ECI could have taken suo moto cognizance of this incident. Again in West Bengal, there have been allegations that Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) are acting under influence of the ruling party at the Centre.

THE WORKING PROCESS OF ECI: ECI conducted the election of West Bengal in eight phases, which raised many questions. At a time when the country is facing the worst situation of the pandemic, the eight phases in a single state election question the credibility of the commission, whether the commission is working under pressure. Moreover, the madras high court is criticize the ECI and said to Election officers should be booked under murder charges.

DECISION-MAKING AUTONOMY OF COMMISSIONER IS UNDER DOUBT: It was seen in the Ashok Lavasa case (member of the ECI from January 2018 to August 2020). On occupying the position, Lavasa apparently chose to take an “independent” view on certain issues. Suddenly, cases against his family members were opened up. Being the senior-most, Lavasa would have been the logical choice for the post of CEC but finally chose not to put up a fight and went on to join the Asian Development Bank.

QUESTION ON THE RATIONALITY OF ECI: In the recent Bengal election, there have been various incidents that merit such kind of reasoning whether it was EVMs VVPATs being found at a TMC leader’s residence in Uluberia or in a BJP candidate’s car in Assam, the alleged distribution of cash coupons by BJP during the West Bengal polls or the most recent controversial remark by Mamata Banerjee on “United Muslim” appeal.

OTHER ISSUES: There are many other issues that were highlighted in contemporary times:

• TRANSPARENCY IN THE FUNDING OF POLITICAL PARTIES: Recent debate on the electoral bond shows that there is a lack of transparency in the funding of political parties, which led to the black money.
• CRIMINALIZATION OF POLITICAL:  According to the ADR report, 42% of elected MPs are from a criminal background in the 2019 election.
• VIOLENCE DURING THE ELECTION: Although violence during the election has been declined it is still continuing and recently in Bengal. In the recent election, the clash between BJP and TMC volunteers was a very serious issue.
• USE OF BLACK MONEY IN ELECTION: Although, the election commission has set an upper limit of 70 lakh for election campaigning spending the actual figure is more than this limit. It is well-known fact that black money is frequently used in the election.
• Apart from the above challenges, there are many other challenges against the election commission, such as

• Misuse of caste and religion for electoral gains
• Regulating Political Parties
• Role of media (including social media)
• Regulating the political parties and internal democracy in them.
• Illiteracy of voters
• Awareness among the voters about the candidate’s background.

Such allegations are obstructing the independent and autonomous image of ECI.

HOW ELECTION CAN WORK AS AN CREDIBLE INSTITUTE

• The Election Commission needs to come up with reforms focusing on not only regulating the conduct of the candidates during polls but also putting in place a performance report of the candidates.
• Such a report should not only talk about the political performance of the candidate but in case of a first-time candidate highlight his/her prior conduct before joining politics as it would enable the electorate to assess the credibility of the candidate.
• This would also enable the electoral to go beyond factors like caste, community, religious identity, or the self-proclaimed claims of candidates.
• In order to maintain the integrity and credibility of such a report, it would be best if it is prepared by the Election Commission that not only releases data through internet, television, or other audio-visual means but bestows the responsibility on the booth level officers to disseminate such information into each and every part of the concerned constituency.
• In this respect, the recent Kerala High Court judgement directing the Election Commission to ensure that the voters must be able to see names, photographs, and symbols of candidates on the EVM machines with clarity acts as an example that the Commission can follow.

N. SESHAN REFORMS CAN BE A ROLE MODEL

• Seen in this light, inspiration can be drawn from TN Seshan who as a Chief Election Commissioner between 1990 and 1996 brought about massive changes and made the ECI an independent institution in spirit.
• He had brought about changes in the conduct of elections by employing special electoral officers to ensure compliance with the Representation of People Act, 1951, to check for incendiary campaign speeches, voter intimidation, vote-stealing, and other tactics often associated with electoral violence.

1. Reforms did by Seshan as CEC:

1. Introduction of Voter IDs for all eligible voters.
2. Strict actions for implementation Election Code of Conduct
3. Set expenditure limit for candidates in the elections
4. Prohibition of distribution of liquor/money during elections.
5. Prohibited bribing or intimidating voters.
6. Use of official machinery for campaigning. But unfortunately, this practice is still prevalent.
7. Implementation of the law in the election process.
8. Autonomous status to Election Commission of India.
9. Prohibition of use of loudspeakers and high-volume music without prior written permission.
10. Prohibited candidates from demanding votes on the basis of caste or communal feelings.
11. Prohibition of use of the religious place for election campaigns.

2. Legacy of T. N. Seshan

• This was the time when the Election Commission was known to a few people and the biggest festival of democracy i.e. Election was under the shadow of big politicians but the entry of T. N. Seshan compelled everybody to accept that the Election Commission is a constitutional body and it has some powers too.
• Although, in starting many political parties and everybody stands against him later on this situation became like “Seshan versus Nation”. But later on, the election reforms have taken place in the country and the country experienced many new reforms in the way of the election process.
• He imitated many crucial reforms to clean the Indian politics and reestablished the reputation of the Election commission as a result Mr. T.N. Seshan is known as the father of electoral reforms in India.

WHY DOES INDIA NEED ELECTORAL REFORMS AGAIN LIKE SESHAN DID IN THE PAST?

The constitutional body in India is facing many challenges and criticisms. To the unwillingness of the political parties, Indian politics is still dominated by the rich peoples and now Indian politics became the symbol of 3Ms; Money, Muscles, and Media (including the social kind).

HOW THE IMAGE OF THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA IS DECLINING?

1. N. Seshan brought radical changes in the Indian election process and re-established the image of ECI as a watchdog of the Indian political process but in recent time the body is facing the above issues and continually losing it reputation as a credible body.

• Although ECI is facing several issues like ECs, allegations of partisanship, and new problems such as voter bribery and paid news.
• But 2019 general election and recent assembly elections, the wake of incidents involving a breach of the Model Code of Conduct were at their peak.
• Other important issues highlighted in the letter included transfers of top officials, voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) audits, violations of the MCC by Rajasthan Governor and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, and also corrosion of the political discourse in general.

Apart from the above issues, there are many others which were emerged during the 2019 general election and recent assemble elections

• It faced the wrath of political parties for acting in a biased manner in respect of Model Code of Conduct violations by some powerful leaders. It has been accused of being selective.
• It had no convincing logic for eight phase elections in West Bengal while there was a single phase in Tamil Nadu.

The above incident made the role of ECI doubtful a group of retired bureaucrats and diplomats wrote a recent letter to the President of India in the context of these incidents, expressed concern over the Election Commission of India (EC’s) “weak-kneed conduct” and its institution credibility.

WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE REFORMS TO MAKE THE ECI CREDIBLE AND INDEPENDENT?

STEPS NEEDED: A SELECTION PANEL FOR APPOINTMENT

EXPLANATIONS: Like CVC, CBI, NHRC, LOK PAL, etc, the ECI should also have a selection panel for greater transparency in an appointment.

STEPS NEEDED: RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE PANEL

EXPLANATIONS: A 2015 Law Commission report on electoral reforms says the Constituent Assembly did debate the process of appointment of the CEC and ECs during which a suggestion to subject such appointments to confirmation by a two-thirds majority in the Parliament was made. However, a joint session of the Parliament rejected it and left the option open for the Parliament to make appropriate legislation. In 1990, the Goswami Committee report suggested that the CEC should be appointed by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha; The Second Administrative Reforms Commission of 2007 too backed a similar arrangement: A collegium consisting of the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Law Minister and Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha should make recommendations to the President for an appointment. In 2015, the Law Commission also proposed a three-member collegium consisting of the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, and Chief Justice of India for such appointments. It provided a comparative picture: In the US, the federal election commissioners are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate; in Canada, they are recommended by a House of Commons resolution and in South Africa by the National Assembly.

STEPS NEEDED: AN INDEPENDENT SECRETARIAT

EXPLANATIONS: Another key reform would be to provide the ECI with a permanent and independent secretariat to protect its staff from various pulls and pressures from the executive. It does have a separate secretariat, but its senior officials, including Deputy Election Commissioners and DG level officers, are drawn from civil services belonging to different states and are on deputation for a limited period. Only the lower-level officials are permanent staff from their own rank. The Goswami Committee recommended an arrangement similar to that of the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha secretariat provided in Article 98(2), which permits the Parliament to regulate the recruitment and service conditions of persons appointed to the secretarial staff in either House of Parliament.

STEPS NEEDED: PROTECTIONS TO ECS ON PAR WITH CEC

EXPLANATIONS: It has also become necessary to look at the process of removal of the ECS. While Article 324 (5) provides protection to the CEC by saying that his/her removal from office shall be on “like manner and on the like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court” and “the conditions of service of the Chief Election Commissioner shall not be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment”, no such protections are available to the ECS. They are at the mercy of the government and CEC. Extending the constitutional protections available for the CEC to the ECs become significant in the light of a public spat between the CEC Sunil Arora and EC Ashok Lavasa over clean chits given selectively to some political leaders over poll code violations and non-inclusion of dissent notes in the official orders.

WAY FORWARD

Re-inventing consistently: EC should continuously re-invent its powers given to it under Indian Constitutions as done by many previous CECs like T. N. Seshan. It is a constitutional body, which makes it one of the most powerful bodies in India.

Recognizing the diversification of campaign media: Recognising the diversification of campaign media is the first step towards addressing the rampant flouting of the MCC. The framework for understanding and addressing the various forms of voter manipulation must be fundamentally reimagined by the ECI.

Voter Awareness: Voter Awareness is an ultimate and effective solution, which makes candidates more accountable to their voters and stop flouting the MCC every now and then. EC has launched voter awareness campaigns like SVEEP. It has also made people as participants remain vigilant in the polling process through cVigil App where anyone can upload election malpractices.

Amending the appointment and removal process of ECs: Government should consider the recommendations by ARC-II and Law Commission reports regarding the changes required in the appointment and removal of ECs and make it stronger.

THE CONTEXT: Recently, the Centre has passed ‘The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2021’.The act has come into effect from 27th April 2021. The act is being criticized for being unconstitutional and against the 2018 judgement of the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India.

EVOLUTION

• Delhi was given a fully elected legislative assembly and a responsible government through an amendment in the constitution in 1991. Though technically a Union Territory, Delhi was treated as a special case, being the capital of the country, and given a special constitutional status by Parliament in the exercise of its constituent power as against its normal legislative power.
• Article 239AA was added to Part VIII of the constitution, which contains general provisions relating to the administration of Union territories. This article provided for an assembly, fully elected, and a council of ministers responsible to the assembly. It conferred on the assembly the power to legislate on all matters in the state list as well as the concurrent list except land, police, and public order.

THE RELEVANT LAWS

The laws relevant to understanding the relation between the Lieutenant Governor and the Chief Minister in Delhi are:

• Article 239AA of the Constitution,
• The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 (GNCT Act),
• The rules formulated under this Act (Transaction of Business Rules), and the relevant judicial pronouncements.
• The recently passed ‘Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment)’ Act, 2021.

The relationship between LG and CM: It needs to be said that the precise contours of the sharing of powers between the Lieutenant Governor and the Delhi government are a grey area. The crucial constitutional provision relevant to the issue is Article 239AA (4) which says: “There shall be a Council of Ministers… in the Legislative Assembly, with the Chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Lieutenant Governor in the exercise of his functions in relation to matters with respect to which the Legislative Assembly has the power to make laws, except in so far as he is, by or under any law, required to act in his discretion.”

DELHI’S PECULIAR NATURE

While this justification for the Chief Minister to appoint the Chief Secretary may hold good for States, is it the same for Delhi? Delhi is a peculiar case, neither being a State, nor a Union Territory. So, Article 239, which deals with Union Territories, does not apply to Delhi. Instead, Delhi is governed by Articles 239AA and 239AB, introduced by a constitutional amendment in 1991.

The crucial constitutional provision relevant to the issue is Article 239AA(4). Two conclusions can be drawn from reading the provision, Article 239AA (4):

• The Lieutenant Governor will have to make decisions based only on the “aid and advice” of the Chief Minister in the exercise of all matters on which the Legislative Assembly has the power to make laws. Consequently, the Legislative Assembly of Delhi has the power to make laws on all matters in the State List and the Concurrent List in the VIIth Schedule of the Constitution, except entries related to public order, police, and land. (See, Article 239AA(3)); and conclusion
• The Lieutenant Governor can act at his own discretion only when there is a specific law conferring this discretion on him. Section 41 of the GNCT Act deals with the discretionary powers of the Lieutenant Governor. There is no such law granting discretion, to the Lieutenant Governor for making such appointments currently.

ABOUT THE NCT (AMENDMENT) ACT

The NCT Amendment Act amends the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991. The Act provides a framework for the functioning of the Legislative Assembly and the government of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi.  The Act amends certain powers and responsibilities of the Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor.

1. Restriction on laws passed by the Assembly: The Act provides that the term “government” referred to in any law made by the Legislative Assembly will imply Lieutenant Governor (LG).

2. Rules of Procedure of the Assembly: The Act allows the Legislative Assembly to make Rules to regulate the procedure and conduct of business in the Assembly. The Act provides that such Rules must be consistent with the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha.

3. Inquiry by the Assembly into administrative decisions: The Act prohibits the Legislative Assembly from making any rule to enable itself or its Committees to (i) consider the matters of the day-to-day administration of the NCT of Delhi and (ii) conduct an inquiry in relation to administrative decisions. Further, the Act provides that all such rules made before its enactment will be void.

4. Assent to Bills: The Act requires the LG to reserve certain bills passed by the Legislative Assembly for the consideration of the President. These Acts are those: (i) which may diminish the powers of the High Court of Delhi, (ii) which the President may direct to be reserved, (iii) dealing with the salaries and allowances of the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, and members of the Assembly and the Ministers, or (iv) relating to official languages of the Assembly or the NCT of Delhi. The Act requires the LG to also reserve those Bills for the President that incidentally cover any of the matters outside the purview of the powers of the Legislative Assembly.

5. LG’s opinion for executive actions: The Act specifies that all executive action by the government, whether taken on the advice of the Ministers or otherwise, must be taken in the name of the LG. The Act adds that on certain matters, as specified by the LG, his opinion must be obtained before taking any executive action on the decisions of the Minister/ Council of Ministers.

CONSEQUENCES

1. Committees will cease to exist: The committees of the Delhi assembly including the Public Accounts Committee, the Public Undertaking Committee, etc. Will cease to exist as the rules under which they are set up will become void because these committees scrutinize, inquire into or investigate the decisions of the government.

2. No responsibility of LG for the Delhi legislative assembly: The LG, who will be the government, is under no obligation to implement any law passed by the assembly or carry out the directions of the house as he is not responsible to the assembly.

3. Non-functional government: The elected government of Delhi will wait endlessly for the LG’s opinion without being able to execute their decision. So, the decisions of the cabinet or of the ministers will mostly remain on paper only. Thus, the government will become non-functional.

CRITICISM

1. Negates Cooperative Federalism: This move by the Government of India, not just negates cooperative federalism, but also undermines constitutional norms, democracy, and even the Supreme Court of India’s constitution bench court judgement.

2. Weakens Federal Structure: This will weaken the federal structure of this nation. In a large country like India, with diverse cultures, languages, religions this diversity has to be celebrated.

3. Backward-looking legislation: When the government of India Act, 1935 was enacted, our freedom fighters had also fought against the overriding powers given to the Governor-General. Unfortunately, this bill takes us back to the British era and disempowers an elected government that had been voted in by the people of Delhi. This act takes us back to the legislation of early independent India i.e. Nehruvian era. At that time, there was Lieutenant Governor and there was a municipal corporation. When the member for Rajya Sabha had to be elected, there was a system of elections via the electoral college. People of Delhi would only vote so that members could be elected to the Rajya Sabha. But then, there were 20 Lakh people in Delhi. Today, there are two crore people. Aspirations have grown and this voice came from the ground that the people of Delhi want their voice to be heard.

4. Constitutional Challenge: To use legislative power like this, just because the center can, also raises questions of constitutional governance and constitutional morality. A city of two crore people can’t necessarily be deprived of statehood or be given a rather watered-down version of statehood.

5. Irresponsible use of power by the center: Whenever the center usurps too many powers, it is the states that suffer, the people in the states that suffer. It is rightly said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

HOW CAPITAL CITIES ARE ADMINISTERED ACROSS THE GLOBE?

Large countries, especially those with a federal/quasi-federal polity, have great difficulty in allowing their capital cities to function as regular provinces.

1. Washington, DC, USA: Washington DC’s residents got the right to vote in presidential elections only in 1961. Their only representative in the House of Representatives is a delegate-at-large who has no voting rights. They have no representation in the Senate. And remember, this is a country that was founded on the concept of “No Taxation without Representation”. The city has an elected mayor and a 13-member elected council, but while they can propose the city’s budget, Congress approves it. There is occasionally a desultory demand to convert DC into a state, but this has never been seriously considered.
2. Canberra, Australia: Canberra (capital of Australia) is another federally-run capital, with an elected legislative assembly and a CM, such as Delhi. However, they essentially deal with health, education, and the environment. The assembly is competent to make laws, but these can be superseded by the national parliament.
3. London, Great Britain: According to the official website, the mayor of London “has a duty to set out plans and policies for London covering transport, planning and development, housing, economic development and regeneration, culture health inequalities and a range of environmental issues including climate change and air quality”. However, the mayor does prepare the budget for these activities as well as for the police and fire brigade. The 25-member elected Greater London Assembly can only overturn the mayor’s budget by a two-thirds majority. It also scrutinizes the mayor’s proposal and has a monthly question hour at which the mayor, transport, and police commissioner explain their actions.

CONCLUSION: The crux of any government is in the process of the legislation and without the power to implement laws, any government will be reduced to a paper tiger. It is for this reason that the law has clearly established that where there is a legislative power, there has to be executive power. Do not deny the citizens of Delhi their rights. When they voted, it was not only pressing a button. They voted to elect people to govern them. Today, the center is denying them that right to be governed by the government they have voted to power. India’s case is a little different in the sense that LG is a political appointee of the Union Government and enjoys similar powers as governors in various states. He is a nominal head. So, the complete power of the administration of Delhi should not be vested with the LG only.

THE CONTEXT: The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the whole world and changed the shape of global politics. Global responses are needed to confront global diseases. With regards to vaccine access, some countries have been much more fortunate than others. Therefore, the concept of vaccine diplomacy has become a major foreign-policy talking point. The Indian government was one of the first nations to engage in vaccine diplomacy under the “Vaccine Maitri” initiative.

WHAT IS VACCINE DIPLOMACY?

• The coronavirus vaccine — one of the world’s most in-demand commodities — has become a new currency for international diplomacy.
• Vaccine diplomacy is a measure to assist countries that may not otherwise have access to vaccines. In many ways, it mimics other diplomatic channels.
• Countries that produce vaccines can set up bilateral supply agreements with countries that need vaccines, which become a tool of soft power, or outright diplomatic allegiance. They are using the vaccine to find favor or improve strained relations.
• There is a multilateral agreement, Covax, brokered by the WHO and other international organizations, to provide vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries. Then there are bilateral agreements between individual countries.
• The strategy is similar to the energy supply agreements that were sought internationally, including by the US, to face energy crises in the early 2000s.

INDIA’S VACCINE DIPLOMACY

• A global challenge of this magnitude requires a global solution, based on international health cooperation between public and private-sector stakeholders.
• And India recognized early on that it could play a unique role in that process. India is already known as the pharmacy of the world, manufacturing some 20% of all generic medicines and accounting for as much as 62% of global vaccine production, so it was quick off the mark when the pandemic struck.
• India began its Covid outreach even before the vaccines were in place. India sent out 446 million HQC tablets and 1.54 billion paracetamol tables to 133 countries. Besides hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, as well as diagnostic kits, ventilators, masks, gloves, and other medical supplies were also exported. Once India’s domestic vaccination campaign started, a wide range of countries began asking the country for vaccines.
• India’s vaccine sharing policy stands out given the alarming increase in ‘vaccine nationalism’. Its “Vaccine Maitri” campaign has shipped hundreds of thousands of Indian-made Covishield vaccines, to more than 90 countries.
• Indian vaccines have been flown to most of the country’s neighbors, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Myanmar, and Nepal, and also farther afield, to Seychelles, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Pacific Island, Caribbean, and African countries. Indian vaccines are arriving even in richer countries like the United Kingdom and Canada
• Many of the recipient countries have signed so-called vaccine pacts with India on a government-to-government basis to finalize the number of doses and determine whether they will be provided under grant assistance or under commercial terms.
• India has tied with other nations like the Quad partners, who at their first virtual summit pledged to supply at least one billion doses of vaccines to Indo-Pacific nations by the end of next year.
• Additionally, India and South Africa have also urged the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Council (TRIPS Council) to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 so that the vaccines and other new diagnostic technologies are accessible to poor countries. Although WTO members have failed to reach a consensus on the proposal, several developing countries have rallied behind this effort.

India’s vaccine diplomacy in numbers

Total countries: 95

Vaccine Grant: 107.15 lakhs

Commercial: 357.92lakhs

Covax : 198.628lakhs

Total: 663.698lakhs

A NEW ARENA FOR INDIA-CHINA STRATEGIC COMPETITION

• India’s vaccine diplomacy puts it in direct competition with China—whose vaccine distribution is clubbed with its broader geopolitical ambitions.
• In fact, it has even explicitly included vaccine distribution in its broader Health Silk Road initiative, which aims to bolster China’s international soft power. China is providing vaccines to many countries involved in its Belt Road Initiative, essentially protecting its investments.
• While China is trying to rehabilitate its image on the world state given that it’s been tagged as the source for Covid-19, India is using the country’s capacity in the pharma sector subtly to advertise an alternative to China’s economic and geopolitical dominance.
• While China has been secretive in releasing data about its vaccines, leading to controversies over their efficacy of them, India organized trips for foreign ambassadors to visit pharmaceutical factories.
• China wanted to project its vaccines as effective and more suited for use in and around its immediate neighbors, yet there is a preference for Indian manufactured medicines amongst most Southeast and South Asian countries as the Indian brands continue to evoke feelings of trust and quality
• Not only has India overshadowed China as a provider of cheap and accessible vaccines to the Global South; it has been quicker and more effective. For example, Indian vaccines beat China’s into Myanmar, Cambodia, and Afghanistan.
• China had a long history of seeking political, commercial, or diplomatic gains for its various projects. India does not have a history of seeking special benefits from its health assistance; India has long been seen as a helpful partner in ensuring affordable drugs and vaccines to lower-income countries.
• Vaccine manufacture and distribution is one area where India has some comparative advantage over China, which usually overshadows India in military and economic might. Quad’s vaccine initiative comes as a direct response to China’s efforts to compete through vaccine diplomacy.

BENEFITS

Boost to soft power: India’s vaccine diplomacy is, of course, not purely altruistic. While there are commercial benefits, vaccine diplomacy is an extension of continued investment in promoting India’s soft power abroad. At a time when most rich countries are criticized for hoarding vaccine doses and “vaccine nationalism” is common, the vaccine Maitri program has raised India’s standing and generated great international goodwill.

Enhanced global standing: Delhi’s supplies make for a key diplomatic initiative in a year when India is at the UN Security Council and ahead of the G-20 it will host in 2023. India has supplied vaccines to at least 50% of the Least Developed (LDC) countries and one-third of the Small Island Developing (SID) countries. These are the two major small-country groupings that have an influential voice at the United Nations. The effort may one day help India secure recognition as a global power – with a permanent UN Security Council seat.

A new dimension to “Neighborhood First”: India is keen on mending its ties with Bangladesh. The COVID-19 vaccine can ease the tensions. Similarly, vaccine diplomacy provides an opportunity for India to resolve outstanding issues with Nepal. In Indian Ocean countries like the Maldives and Mauritius, India’s vaccine diplomacy can help foster stronger ties in the region, and offset China’s growing influence attributable to its financial investments and social development projects.

Countering China: In South Asia, where China’s presence has grown in recent years, India’s ‘vaccine diplomacy’ could help to even out the playing field. India has a longer track record of supplying medicines and vaccines to the rest of the world, especially to low- and middle-income countries. The key elements of India’s vaccine diplomacy have merged into the Quad vaccine initiative under which vaccines will go to countries in the Indo-Pacific region — the battleground of contestation between the Chinese and the Quad’s sphere of influence.

Human-Centric Globalization: Indian-made vaccines do not require storage and transport at very low temperatures. This makes them much more manageable for lower-income countries which lack significant cold chain infrastructure. For small countries, it is not just the ability to buy, but also the resources to access markets. The big debates around globalization are ‘equity’ and ‘fairness'”.Most of the developing countries wouldn’t have gotten their vaccines so early if India had not supplied them. This reinforces human-centric international cooperation and globalization.

Global public good: India’s initiatives to make vaccines widely available to developing countries, together with growing evidence of the benefits from making COVID-19 vaccines accessible, suggests that during a pandemic, medical products must be treated as global public goods. Several studies caution that low vaccine availability, especially for smaller countries, will prolong recovery and trigger significant increases in global inequalities. The equitable distribution of vaccines is in the economic interest of every country.

Economic Benefits: India’s manufacturing sector will attract more foreign direct investment. Greater cooperation over supply chains will help strengthen Indian pharma in the long term aim to ease dependence on imports of active pharmaceutical ingredients from China.

CONCERNS AND CHALLENGES

Citizens first: India has exported three times as many doses as it has administered to its own people. Citizens are increasingly demanding that the domestic population be served first to quell infection rates locally, prior to sending shipments abroad. Furthermore, even with vaccination efforts underway globally, new strains of coronavirus are emerging quickly, emphasizing that inoculation efforts must continue to move forward as quickly as possible.

Second wave: There has been questioning of India’s Vaccine Maitri initiative in some quarters as the crisis at home has unfolded in the past few weeks. India has vast populations of its own to inoculate. And that India, with its sharp spike in cases in this wave, poses a global health threat. It is in the interests of the world to ensure that Indians are vaccinated. Vaccine Maitri gave signals that India needs no help.

Vaccines nationalism: Vaccines are manufactured through long and complex global supply chains and bottlenecks have arisen from “Vaccine nationalism”. Many of the countries are restricting access to materials needed to build more supplies. For example, America invoked the Defense Production Act to safeguard supplies for its own manufacturers.

Failure to add capacity: Poor judgment on India’s domestic requirement and the failure to back up vaccine diplomacy ambitions with adequate manufacturing capacity has meant that both domestic and international vaccination efforts have been ruined leaving several neighboring nations high and dry. As India stopped exports of vaccines last month because of a fresh surge of the pandemic, Bangladesh is scrambling to get sufficient quantities of vaccines. Bangladesh will be looking towards China and Russia if India is not able to honour its commitment.

Other concerns: There are mounting concerns about rising case numbers, the emergence of COVID-19 variants that may not respond to existing vaccines, and an economy that has not yet fully recovered, which will intensify the challenge India confronts in fulfilling its obligations to developing countries while also meeting domestic demand.

ANALYSIS

With its advanced cutting-edge healthcare in the private sector and reputation as a health destination, it was natural that governments in the region would look to vaccines manufactured in India. By exporting doses of the COVID-19 vaccine under the Vaccine Maitri initiative, India is fulfilling its role as a responsible nation. The smaller countries that have received Indian vaccine doses are indeed very grateful for our help. By sending vaccines to our neighbors and by supplying them to countries in the Indian Ocean Littoral countries, India has demonstrated both goodwill and capacity. India is using its soft power to assist developing countries, a role that it has increasingly been playing as a development partner.

Vaccine diplomacy has earned India a huge name. It has—or will— change the dynamics in the days ahead like few things have. The world is seeing India differently. Its generosity and infrastructure have come into the public eye. Like information technology, which put India on the world map, pharmaceuticals will do the same. It is good both for Brand India and Makes in India. The world’s top vaccine companies, like Russia’s Sputnik and Johnson & Johnson, will certainly want facilities in India.

There has been questioning of India’s Vaccine Maitri initiative in some quarters as the crisis at home has unfolded in the past few weeks. Reasonable questions can be asked about the need for India to supply vaccines and other products to the world at large when there was a crisis at home.

In some ways, the answer to this can be relatively simple: That this is rooted in India’s civilizational ethos. While it might be commonplace for some nations to suggest that it is in the interest of the wider world to focus exclusively on their citizens, it’s not a narrative that India can uphold at any level. At a time when the Indian situation looked stable, it was morally right for India to support other parts of the world that were in greater pain.

India’s ‘Vaccinemaitri’ approach was trying to ensure no one gets left behind. The virus knows no borders and equitable access to vaccines is critically important. The country’s ability to make vaccines is a result of international cooperation which is not a one-way transaction. It is important to recognize that global support for India is also a reciprocal appreciation of New Delhi’s efforts over the last few months.

Delhi’s decision to start sending vaccines to its neighbors in South Asia and other countries who have asked for it is the right step forward for India in its relations with its neighbors. It holds immense potential for a new kind of diplomacy in the region, one based on the common good and common interests of the South Asian people.

In diplomacy today, doing good is being smart, ‘vaccine Maitri’ reflects the larger outlook of ‘VaisudhaivaKutumbakam’ (the world is one family), health security is now integral to national security. Health security is emerging as a priority area for cooperation and India can play an important role in it.

WAY FORWARD

• Vaccine multiculturalism should be promoted through an international collaborative effort under the aegis of the unsubscribed sustainable development goals.
• India is one of the biggest producers of vaccines, but we need to ramp up production even more. Global vaccines that have Indian collaborations need to be given the license without the mandatory bridging trials.
• The government must ensure that its domestic vaccine requirements are being adequately met.

CONCLUSION: Vaccine diplomacy was a good move to boost India’s international image and spread goodwill by coming to the aid of humanity. India had come in for fulsome praise across the globe for its desire to help the world. The WHO had on several occasions commended India for its desire to act as a responsible global power. India’s vaccine diplomacy has been a boon to the country’s aspirations to be recognized as a global power. In combating the pandemic, it has gone well beyond the routine provision of health care or the supply of generics. To be sure, it is uncertain whether promoting soft power through healthcare exports significantly boosts a country’s position in the global order. But if and when the permanent seats at the United Nations Security Council are ever rearranged, grateful governments will know who has done the most.

“GST has been a milestone in the economic landscape of India. It has decreased the number of taxes, compliance burden and overall tax burden on the common man while significantly increasing transparency, compliance and overall collection.”#4yearsofGST.

                                                                                                                            ———-PMNarendra Modi

THE CONTEXT: On 1st July 2021, India marked the fourth anniversary of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The date 1st July has been designated by the Central Government as ‘GST Day’, which is celebrated every year to mark the rollout of the historic tax reform. This article will look into achievements, challenges, and expectations related to the GST regime.

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On May 28th, 2021, at the 43rd meeting of the GST Council, finance ministers of many states raised various concerns like delay in payment of GST compensation to states, unilateral decisions, and the overall distrust between central and state governments. Four years after giving up their freedom to tax goods and services in favor of the GST Council, states are of the view that they have been short-changed and their voices muzzled.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF GST

COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM: One of the biggest triumphs associated with GST is cooperative federalism, which has demonstrated successful collective decision-making through the GST Council. India has served as an example to the world by successfully implementing one of the most complex tax transformation projects for the country.

FUNCTIONING OF GST COUNCIL: The GST Council made corrections to law, issued clarifications on complex issues, rationalized GST rates, and introduced relaxations for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, which establishes that the GST Council structure has been very functional and agile.

WIDENED TAX BASE: India’s tax base has almost doubled from 66.25 lakhs to 1.28 crores in the last four years. GST revenue collection in India has been over the Rs 100,000 crore mark for eight consecutive months.

EASE OF DOING BUSINESS: India’s ease of doing business ranking has improved significantly in the last four years. Before GST was implemented, India’s Ease of Doing Business ranking was 130 in 2016. In 2020, India was ranked 63rd on the list.

RATE RATIONALISATION: Over four years GST rates have been reduced on 400 goods & 80 services. According to GOI combined Centre & States rates were above 31% on most items in the pre-GST regime. An RBI report of 2019 estimated that the effective weighted average GST rate declined from 14.4 percent at the time of the introduction of the GST to 11.6 percent.

LOGISTICAL EFFICIENCY, PRODUCTION COST CUT: Over 50% of logistics effort and time is saved since GST has ensured the removal of multiple checkpoints and permits at state border checkpoints. As a result, more road hours and faster delivery have been added which has enhanced the business efficiency in the country. GST has almost ended the era of the multiplicity of taxes and its cascading effect which has sufficiently reduced production costs, leading to better margins for the industry, which were passed on to the consumers in the form of better products or lower prices.

E-WAY BILL: The introduction of the E-way bill resulted in the national unification of permit bill systems, allowing logistics to experience fewer interruptions en route making delivery quick and hassle-free.

COMPETITIVENESS AND COMPLIANCE: GST has improved the competitiveness of domestic industries in the international market by removing hidden and embedded taxes. GST helped in achieving better tax compliance by subsuming multiple taxation and reduction in taxation burden in the last four years.

E-INVOICE: The E-invoicing system helped reduce fake invoicing. The use of technology with online bill generation has resulted in smoother consignment movement and much fewer disputes with officials. After the introduction of E-invoice, GST collections have risen steadily since November 2020, surpassing the Rs. 1 lakh crore mark on several occasions.

REDUCED  TRANSACTION COSTS: After the introduction of GST, there has been a significant reduction in transaction costs. While earlier, all the interstate transactions were loaded with an additional cost of 2% (Central Sales Tax), this has now been reduced to 0%. This reduction has been a huge breakthrough in the interstate movement of products, allowing the country to boast of a single national unified market for businesses.

CHALLENGES/PROBLEMS OF GST

CONCERNS  HIGHLIGHTED BY THE 15^th FINANCE COMMISSION REPORT:

• The multiplicity of tax rates
• The shortfall in GST collections vis-à-vis the forecast
• High volatility in GST collections
• Inconsistency in the filing of returns
• Dependence of States on the compensation from Centre

CONCERNS RAISED BY STATE FINANCE MINISTERS:

• Delay in payment of GST compensation to states.
• The issue of reduction in GST on Covid vaccines and essentials.
• Unilateral decisions such as the imposition of cases (whose proceeds go to only the Centre)
• Vertical split on party lines on key issues.
• Veto powers of the centreonGST Council decisions.

COMPENSATION CONUNDRUM:

• The biggest reason states agreed to give up their autonomy to tax goods and services was an assurance by the central government that it would compensate them for any revenue loss from subsuming indirect taxes such as sales tax/VAT into GST.
• The GST (Compensation to States) Act, enacted in 2017, guarantees states 14 percent annual growth in GST revenue over base year FY16 for five years between July 2017 and June 2022.
• While this worked well till FY19, problems cropped up in FY20 when the Centre started finding it tough to pay states as economic slowdown affected its revenues. The Covid-19 outbreak aggravated the problem by putting huge pressure on both countries and states.

TAX UNILATERALISM: 

• Cess revenue is not shared with states.
• Close to 18 percent of central government revenue is being raised from cess and not distributed (among states). Total control of finances is with the central government.
•  It needs to be discussed and reviewed.

EXPERTS CONCERNED OVER GST GROWTH:

• Experts believe the government has been unable to widen the tax net, which is why GST collections have not increased beyond a certain limit.
• Some experts suggest that the GST net may not widen further as many small businesses have not enrolled under the tax regime due to complex paperwork.

CONSTANT AMENDMENTS:

• Over the last few years, the GST law has seen many amendments. To date, more than 1,000 notifications/circulars/instructions/orders have been issued by the government machinery.
• All these revisions often confused the taxpayer and as well the tax administrators which created misunderstandings and misconceptions.

TECHNICAL GLITCHES:

• Continuous system failures and unexpected glitches faced by the industry have forced Government to extend due dates, waiver of late fees and interest liabilities. Late announcements of waiver in late fee have come out as dissatisfaction amongst the honest taxpayers also.
• Small and medium businesses are still grappling to adapt to the tech-enabled regime. The fundamental principles on which the GST law was built viz. The seamless flow of input credits and ease of compliance has been impaired by IT glitches.

IMPLEMENTATION DELAYS:

• The late implementation of E-invoicing, QR code, and E-way Bill blemished the original idea behind this which was contemplated as a revolutionary change in the tax system to curb tax evasion.

NON-IMPLEMENTATION OF GSTR-2:

• GSTR which was the only control for systemic reconciliation was never implemented. To prevent any bogus claim of ITC, reconciliations are required to be controlled by the system. However, since it was never implemented now taxpayers are asked to provide self-attested offline reconciliations maintained in annual return GSTR 9 or GSTR 9C.

REFUND DELAY ISSUES:

• Automatic processing of export refunds has always been an area of major concern under the GST. Since there are manual approvals involved in the existing process, there are chances of a discrepancy, human error, and delay in refund processing which goes against the expectations of the exporters from the system.

LOW REVENUE:

• Widespread non-compliance and non-filing of GST returns were considerable in the first three years of GST which led to low revenue collections.

WAY FORWARD

The GST structure needs an overhaul for the revenue-enhancing promise to be met. The union can at minimum do three things.

1. Reaffirm its commitment to cooperative, consultative principles of federalism by reforming the functioning of the GST Council.
2. Offer the FY21 compensation cess as a transfer, not a back-to-back loan with the caveat that the compensation rate will be re-negotiated.
3. Be transparent about the current macro-economic scenario through an honest appraisal that revisits revenue projections.

• The pandemic has had severe impacts on GST also and led to economic contraction. Certain structural level changes to the law may help boost the business and economy.
• The policymakers need to contemplate the inclusion of petroleum and related products within the GST
• The GST Appellate Tribunal should be constituted as all taxpayers do not have the finances or means to approach the High Court for every practical difficulty faced.
• Streamlining of anti-profiteering measures and simplification of compliance procedures also needs to be revisited to ensure that the cost efficiency and reduction in prices envisaged under GST law finally reach the common man.

THE CONCLUSION: Although the shortcomings must be swiftly resolved, it needs to be understood that it takes time to reap the benefits of such a mammoth structural change. The law is still a ‘work-in-progress’ and the process of evolution. The union government must act now to deliver on its promise of a ‘Good & Simple Tax’ in the times to come.

THE CONTEXT: The COVID-19 pandemic has not only exposed the vulnerability of the marginalized sections of society but has also seen a lack of communication and coordination between central and state governments in India. The failure on the part of the government to establish a robust communication channel, amongst themselves, has aggravated the sufferings of the poor people. This article discusses the challenges of the federal system in India during pandemic situations.

In addition to this, the article will also focus in brief on how due to its unitary nature, India is facing various challenges like

1. Implementation of big-bang reforms like GST and Farm Bills
2. Implementation of various major steps taken by the government like the abolition of Article 370, CAA and NRC.
3. Encroachment on State List by the Centre like amendments to UAPA and NIA laws, Farm Bills, etc.
4. The recent SC judgement on 97^th Amendment Act.
5. The government seems to be on the slow path to reversals of reforms due to a lack of cooperation and coordination between unions and states.

COVID 19 AND FEDERALISM

COVID-19 has shone a light on one of India’s darkest corners that we stoutly refuse to examine – the lack of coordination between the governments in India. In the following issues, there was a lack of coordination between the governments

• Vaccine procurement,*–
• Pricing and disbursal,
• Oxygen manufacturing and inter-state supply,
• GST rates for covid care resources,
• Trans-state migrating labour,
• National lockdowns,
• Elections in various states,
• Religious gatherings of multi-state relevance,

Thus the absence of planning and coordination across the governments in the country has cost lakhs, perhaps tens of lakhs of lives.

THE CONCEPT OF FEDERALISM

Federalism is a system of government in which powers have been divided between the Centre and its constituent parts such as states or provinces. It is an institutional mechanism to accommodate two sets of politics, one at the central or national level and the second at the regional or provincial level.

There are two kinds of federations

Holding Together Federation: In this type, powers are shared between various constituent parts to accommodate the diversity in the whole entity. Here, powers are generally tilted towards the central authority. Example: India, Spain, Belgium.

Coming Together Federation: In this type, independent states come together to form a larger unit. Here, states enjoy more autonomy as compared to the holding together kind of federation. Example: USA, Australia, Switzerland.

FEDERAL FEATURES OF THE INDIAN UNION

Article 1 of the Indian Constitution states, ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states. The word federation is not mentioned in the constitution.

• Governments at two levels – Centre and states
• Division of powers between the Centre and states – there are three lists given in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, which gives the subjects each level has jurisdiction in:

1. Union List
2. State List
3. Concurrent List

• Supremacy of the constitution – the basic structure of the constitution is indestructible as laid out by the judiciary. The constitution is the supreme law in India.
• Independent judiciary – the constitution provides for an independent and integrated judicial. The lower and district courts are at the bottom levels, the high courts are at the state levels and at the topmost position is the Supreme Court of India. All courts are subordinate to the Supreme Court.

THE RECENT FEDERAL ISSUES IN INDIA

COVID-19 and states depend on a Centre: Since March 2020, the states have faced problems of lack of support from countries like

1. Delay in 14^th transfer
2. GST loss due to transfer
3. CSR under PM CARE FUND and its transfer issues
4. The issues related to supply of Oxygen and Vaccines

Such problems are a clear reminder of the lack of robust Centre-State mechanisms for proactive cooperation.

The farm’s bills: The ongoing farm protests show that there was a lack of adequate consultation with stakeholders. The reforms deal with state subjects, but the states have not been adequately consulted.

The post scenario of the abolition of Article 370: The central government seems to have gone backwards on its J & K policy when it invited the leaders of the erstwhile state for consultation. It again reminds us that the Centre unitary approach is backfiring.

Fundamental structure: The problem, of course, goes back to the very establishment of the Union, denying states their sovereignty (unlike in the US) even as it leaned federal. Subsequent purposeful Constitutional amendments, like expanding Concurrent lists, or the GST, have vigorously engendered centralization. However, the real root of federal rot lies more with states and less with the Union.

Defunct Inter-State Council: As per Article 263 of the Indian Constitution, the Inter-State Council is composed of the Prime Minister, who is the Chairperson, Chief Ministers of States and Union Territories and several Union Cabinet Ministers, and cannot be dissolved or reconstituted. India did set up an Inter-State Council, on the recommendation of the SarkariaCommission in 1990, to recommend policy on matters of common interests across states and the Union. It met a dozen times until 2017. It is extant, but defunct, barely meeting once in three years since the establishment and not at all during a pandemic that requires intimate partnerships and collaboration.

GST Council: The GST Council has been established with only the Union Finance Minister as Chair, and the ability to call for meetings. By any measure, the GST is a multilateral matter, with separate stakeholders, the Union being one. There is no reason why Chairpersonship is not rotated or powers (like calling meetings) are not vested in any or all. In fact, Mumbai city with its mammoth pre-GST Octroi has no say in the Council, and neither does any other local government.

Finance Commission: For a Constitutional body that divides monies between states and the Union, and across states, the Union is but one stakeholder. However, the Union assumes all powers in appointment of the Commission and issuing of its Terms of Reference (ToR), an inherent bias for a federal body. That is why there was controversy o the TOR of the 15^th This is exactly what the Inter-State Council is meant to do; ensure that a ToR is negotiated and balanced.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH DEVELOPMENTS

Such developments have given rise to increasing tension and conflicts between unions and states. Too much politics and too little progress on the quality of governance and grievance Redressal of people. There is also the absence of debate on many matters and issues which reforms are long overdue like criminal justice reforms and police reforms. The issues like disaster management, health, education, etc. Remain like a work in progress. The present government gave a major boost to cooperative federalism and competitive federalism, but the latter is not possible without the former. In fact, collaborative governance has become imperative for any government in contemporary times. The governments need to collaborate and cooperate at multiple levels, but due to the unitary approach, states have less trust in the Centre.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Strengthening Inter-State council: State platform that brings States together in a routine dialogue on matters of fiscal federalism could be the starting point for building trust and a common agenda. In this context, the Inter-state council can be revived. Proper utilization of the institutional mechanism of the Inter-State Council must be ensured to develop political goodwill between the Centre and the states on contentious policy issues. The Punchhi Commission on Centre-State Relations had stressed granting functional independence to the Council so that it can engage vibrantly in policy development and conflict resolution.

Relaxing FRBM Norms: The relaxation of limits imposed by the FRBM Act, regarding the market borrowings by the states, is a step in the right direction. However, these borrowings can be backed by a sovereign guarantee by the Union Government. Moreover, the Union government can provide money to states so that they can take necessary action to deal with the crisis at the state level. The gradual widening of the fiscal capacity of the states has to be legally guaranteed without reducing the Centre’s share.

Horizontal federalism: Horizontal federalism is anchored on the building of a relationship between the constituent units of the federal system, with an oversight power to the federal government. Horizontal federalism needs to be viewed differently from cooperative federalism, where the Centre and the states “cooperate” in the larger public interest. However, the horizontal framework facilitates the coordination of inter-see the provinces on matters of common interest.

Political Will: Upholding federalism requires political maturity and a commitment to the federal principle. A politics of deepening federalism will need to overcome nationalist rhetoric that pits federalism against nationalism and development.

LESSON FROM INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES

Most large democracies like the US, Canada, Australia, etc. Have many governments – provincial ones and a Union.

Australia

• As soon as the pandemic struck, Australia was to retire its existing Council of Australian Governments, an existing inter-government coordinating body in their federal structure, and create a National Cabinet.
• It is composed of all Chief Ministers, Premiers, the Prime Minister and even representatives from local bodies.
• An empowered executive, with select and expert committees and adjunct councils, decides on federal, financial, pandemic-related health, employment, even women’s and children’s safety and security, and with a legal framework as a buttress.
• For doubters asking if Australia or any of the others in a genuine federal partnership between their in-country governments are managing the pandemic better than India, the answer is crystal clear.

In a Westminster-style democracy, India’s national and sub-national governments are elected for parties’ agendas and as of date, India and its states vest their executive powers in close to 40 distinct ruling parties. So the question before us is not if Australia or countries with federal partnerships within are doing better, but if India will now manage COVID-19, and indeed the country in general, better if its various governments with distinct agendas plan and coordinate regularly.

WAY FORWARD

• For India to leapfrog into a developed country, oft-bandied political rhetoric, the country must first be willing to shed its unitary insecurities, govern via a federal body politic, and defer to local and state governments.
• As things stand, the Union has too much power on inputs and too little stake in outcomes. The Inter-State Council must be resuscitated, reinvigorated and chartered to represent a federal India.
• Matters, not only financial but water management, labour, energy, human trafficking and much more, are cross-state matters, which require an ongoing conference between states.
• Intergovernmental cooperation and coordination, yes, but also as much autonomy and agency, given the differences in the social and economic environments across states.

CONCLUSION: ‘One Nation, Many Governments’ is the reality of India, and the Union is but one among the many. India must strive for a boring Union and vibrant states and that indeed will be the hallmark of success, replete with subsidiarity, decentralization and federalism. The ARC-II also recommended almost a decade back the principle of subsidiarity as the basis for governance. The governments have also taken steps like the minimum government and the maximum governance, but they have hardly any impact on the nature of political governance wherein the Centre with one hand cooperate and with other hand coerce states to achieve their political objective. This must change if India wants to realize its potential.

THE CONTEXT: As of Apr 15, 2021, 67279 cases are pending in the Supreme Court while in High Courts the number is a whopping57. 53 lakh. The restricted functioning of the courts during the Covid pandemic has added to the pendency. A NITI Aayog study in 2017, notes that India takes as much as 1,420 days and 39.6% of the claim value for dispute resolution. The above statistics reiterate the need for reforms not only in speeding up dispute resolution but also in having a strong in-country mechanism for out-of-court dispute resolution. Legally, this process is known and is practiced in the forms of arbitration; negotiation conciliation, and mediation. This write up examines the need for institutionalizing an important ADR mechanism in India: Arbitration

UNDERSTANDING ARBITRATION

• Arbitration is a form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Arbitration is a procedure in which a dispute is submitted, by agreement of the parties, to one or more arbitrators who make a binding decision on the dispute.
• In choosing arbitration, the parties opt for a private dispute resolution procedure instead of going to court.
• Unlike litigation, arbitration proceeding takes place out of the court and the arbitrator’s decision is final and the courts rarely reexamine it.
• Usually, all the disputes in which the civil rights of a citizen are infringed and the disputes falling within the jurisdiction of the civil court can be referred to arbitration. But, the disputes which are related to morality, public policy, status, and religious rights are not arbitrable in India.
• Under the Constitution of India, Article 51, India is obliged to encourage the settlement of international disputes by arbitration.

 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ARBITRATION

Arbitration is consensual: An arbitrator proceeding can only take place if both the parties to the disputes have agreed to it.

Parties choose the Arbitrators: Under the Indian Arbitration Act parties are allowed to select their arbitrator and they can also select a sole arbitrator together who will act as an umpire.

Arbitration is neutral: Apart from selecting neutral persons as arbitrators, the parties can choose other important elements of proceeding, such as the law applicable, language in which the proceedings should be conducted, the venue for arbitration proceedings.

The decision of the Arbitral Tribunal is final and easy to enforce: The decision or award given by the arbitral tribunal is final and binding on the parties and persons can appeal only after the expiry of a specified time limit.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF ARBITRATION IN INDIA

PERIOD: ANCIENT

PREVALENT MEASURES: The settlement of differences by tribunals chosen by the parties themselves was well known in ancient India. There were different grades of arbitrators with provisions for appeals in certain cases from the award. The ancient texts of Yajnavalka and Narada refer to three types of popular courts (Puga, Sreni, and Kula).

PERIOD: MEDIEVAL

PREVALENT MEASURES: During the Mughal Dynasty, most villagers resolved their cases in the village courts themselves and appeal to the caste courts or the arbitration of an impartial umpire (“Salis”). In Maratha Empire, It was up to the Panchayat to study the case and pass its judgment impartially or without any bias to any party.

PERIOD: BRITISH

PREVALENT MEASURES: In the British era, the Bengal Regulation of 1772, 1780, 1781 and the Cornwallis Regulation of 1787 recognized and encouraged arbitration. The Indian Arbitration Act of 1899 dealt with arbitration by agreement without the intervention of the court. However, it was in 1940, the first Arbitration Act of the country was enacted.

PERIOD: POST-INDEPENDENCE

PREVALENT MEASURES: In 1977, the Law Commission of India suggested amendments in the Act on grounds of delay, hardship, and other factors that affect smooth arbitral proceedings. Consequently, the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, was enacted. Various Committee reports like Justice B.P. Saraf Committee (2004) and the 246th report of the Law Commission (2014) highlighted the challenges associated with the arbitration legal regime. Ultimately, the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015, 2019, and 2021 brought in crucial changes to the 1996 statute to overcome the shortcomings.

LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF ARBITRATION IN INDIA

• Section 89 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 provides that opportunity to the people, if it appears to court there exist elements of settlement outside the court then the court formulate the terms of the possible settlement and refer the same to Arbitration, Conciliation, Mediation or Lok Adalat.
• The Legal Services Authority Act, 1987 is the basis for Lok Adalat and free legal aid.
• The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 applies to arbitrations inside and outside India.
• The Arbitration Act was also recently amended in 2019 and 2021.
• There have been a series of judicial decisions and legislative amendments in recent years that apply partly prospectively and partly retrospectively.
• An Arbitration clause is a section of the contract that defines the rights of the parties in the case any dispute arises over the contractual obligation
• Arbitration Tribunalmeans a sole arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators.
• An arbitration award is an award granted by the arbitrator in the proceeding before it. This award can be a monetary award and it can also be a non-financial award.

SALIENT FEATURES OF The Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) ACT, 2019&2021

• Arbitration Council of India: The Act seeks to establish an independent body called the Arbitration Council of India (ACI) for the promotion of arbitration, mediation, conciliation, and other alternative dispute Redressal mechanisms.
• Appointment of arbitrators: Under the Act, the Supreme Court (for International) and High Courts (for domestic) may now designate arbitral institutions, which parties can approach for the appointment of arbitrators.
• Completion of written submissions: Currently, there is no time limit to file written submissions before an arbitral tribunal.  The act mandates that the written claim and the defense to the claim in an arbitration proceeding should be completed within six months of the appointment of the arbitrators.
• Confidentiality of proceedings: The act provides that all details of arbitration proceedings will be kept confidential except for the details of the arbitration award in certain circumstances
• The amendment in 2021 did away with the qualifications prescribed for the arbitrators in the 1996 Act and the same will be prescribed by the Arbitration Council. The Act also provided for an unconditional stay by the courts on the enforcement of arbitration awards based on ‘fraud or corruption” in the contract.

AD HOC ARBITRATION AND INSTITUTIONAL ARBITRATION

• There are two types of arbitration – institutional arbitration and ad hoc
• Institutional arbitration refers to the administration of arbitration by an institution under its rules of procedure.
• The institution provides support for the conduct of the arbitration in the form of appointment of arbitrators, case management services including oversight of the arbitral process, etc.
• Ad hoc arbitration is a form of arbitration where the parties and the arbitrators independently determine the procedure, without the involvement of an arbitral institution.
• Institutional arbitration differs from ad hoc arbitration in that several aspects of the arbitral proceedings, such as the appointment of arbitrators, the conduct of the arbitral proceedings, scrutiny of awards, etc. May be determined by the arbitral institution.

The advantages of institutional arbitration over ad hoc arbitration

• Institutional arbitration offers the advantages of providing a clear set of arbitration rules and timelines for the conduct of the arbitration.
• Support from trained staff who administers various stages of the arbitration proceedings, a panel of arbitrators to choose from to decide the dispute are also available.
• Ad hoc arbitration is vulnerable to the risk of dilatory tactics, which increases delays and costs.
• Moreover, where parties are not sophisticated and do not have sufficient knowledge regarding arbitral proceedings, institutional arbitration is highly preferable.
• In India, ad hoc arbitrations tend to be protracted and costly in some cases in the absence of monitoring.
• One of the reasons for these delays and costs is that the fees of arbitrators are charged on a sitting-by-sitting basis without any regulation.

BENEFITS OF ARBITRATION IN INDIA

AREA: ENFORCEMENT

EXPLANATION: Ease of enforcement is often an important deciding factor in favor of arbitration. India is a signatory to the New York Convention. If a party receives a binding award from a country that is a signatory to the New York Convention and the award is made in a territory that has been notified as a ‘convention country’ by India, the award would then be enforceable in India.

AREA: LENGTH OF PROCEEDINGS

EXPLANATION: Indian courts are infamous for endemic delays in resolving commercial disputes.  Arbitration can be substantially quicker as all India seated arbitrations must be completed within 12 months of the constitution of the tribunal.

AREA: NEUTRALITY AND EXPERTISE

EXPLANATION: In arbitration, parties can refer their disputes to a neutral forum.  This is particularly attractive in the context of cross-border transactions.

AREA: PROCEDURAL FLEXIBILITY

EXPLANATION: Arbitration allows parties to tailor procedures to the needs of a particular dispute. In practice, parties often choose institutional arbitration and simply adopt the standard rules and procedures of their chosen institution.

AREA: CONFIDENTIALITY

EXPLANATION: Arbitration hearings are usually held in private and a party is involved in arbitration proceedings is also confidential. By contrast, Indian court proceedings, with some exceptions, are almost always open to the public.

AREA: MAKING INDIA A GLOBAL HUB

EXPLANATION: To develop India as a global hub for international arbitration, we must open ourselves to the outside world and incorporate best practices for creating word class Institutional and legal procedures.

AREA: EASE OF DOING BUSINESS

EXPLANATION: As per the EoDB Ranking by World Bank, India’s position is 163 in the Enforcement of Contract indicator. Thus, foreign investors are increasingly doubtful about the timely delivery of justice, which affects the success of programs like ‘Make in India’.Having a streamlined arbitration regime encourages foreign investments in a country.

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS OF ARBITRATION IN INDIA?

LACK OF CREDIBLE ARBITRAL INSTITUTIONS: Arbitral institutions in India lack access to quality legal expertise and lack exposure to international best practices. Thus the rules and practices followed by these arbitral institutions are often outdated and inadequate.

MISCONCEPTIONS RELATING TO INSTITUTIONAL ARBITRATION: Parties consider institutional arbitration to be substantially more expensive than ad hoc arbitration. This assessment is largely misconceived because numerous arbitral institutions charge very reasonable fees.

FAILURE BY THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS AGENCIES TO USE INSTITUTIONAL ARBITRATION: The general conditions of contract used by the Government and PSUs often contain arbitration clauses, but these clauses usually do not expressly provide for institutional arbitration. For instance, if the government, were to adopt institutional arbitration as a regular practice, the volume of cases moving to arbitral institutions would provide a powerful impetus to institutional arbitration.

JUDICIAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS ARBITRATION: Delays in Indian courts and excessive judicial involvement in arbitral proceedings have resulted in India not being favored as a seat of arbitration. It has contributed to discouraging foreign parties to arbitrate in India. The high pendency of litigation before Indian courts means that arbitration-related court proceedings take a long time to be disposed of.

HIGH COSTS AND INEFFICIENCY: Arbitration proceedings are often dragged on by lawyers on either side filing misconceived applications at various stages of the proceedings. Litigants, too, at times contribute to this delay with their stubbornness in not conceding a loss or defeat.

ISSUE OF TRANSPARENCY: Arbitration hearings are generally held on camera, and decisions are usually not publicly accessible, giving rise to doubts about impartiality and fairness. The aggrieved party may well be stuck with the award and precluded forever from challenging it. In 1984, in Tarapore and Company v. Cochin Shipyard Ltd, the Supreme Court had remarked that an honest man dreads arbitration more than lawsuits. The same fear persists today.

HOW TO INSTITUTIONALISE ARBITRATION IN INDIA?

JUSTICE BN SRIKRISHNA COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS: 

1. Arbitration Promotion Council of India – An autonomous body called the Arbitration Promotion Council of India (“APCI”) and having representation from various stakeholders may be set up by amendment to the ACA for grading arbitral institutions in India.  (The ACA Amendment 2019 provides for an Arbitration Council of India, which is yet to be constituted)
2. Accreditation of arbitrators – The APCI may recognize professional institutes that provide for accreditation of arbitrators. Accreditation may be made a condition for acting as an arbitrator in disputes arising out of commercial contracts entered into by the government and its agencies.
3. Creation of a specialist arbitration bar – Measures may be taken to facilitate the creation of an arbitration bar by providing for the admission of advocates on the rolls of the APCI as arbitration lawyers, encouraging the establishment of fora of young arbitration practitioners, and providing courses in arbitration law and practice in law schools and universities in India.
4. Creation of a specialist arbitration bench – Judges hearing, arbitration matters should be provided with periodic refresher courses in arbitration law and practice.
5. Role of the government and the legislature in promoting institutional arbitration – Measures to promote institutional arbitration, such as facilitating the construction of integrated infrastructure for arbitration in major commercial hubs, adopting arbitration policies providing for institutional arbitration in commercial disputes involving the government, maybe adopted.
6. Changes in ADR culture – Measures may be taken to promote the use of ADR mechanisms, including requiring the provision of mediation facilities by arbitral institutions.
7. Bilateral investment arbitrations involving the Union of India –This assumes relevance in the case of Cairn Energy where the company has accused India of not honoring the Arbitration Award in its favor and also in the context of the revised framework of BIT from India. A few recommendations for effective dispute management and resolution, and dispute prevention include: (a) appointing the Department of Economic Affairs as the Designated Representative of the Government in existing BITs; (b) creating the post of an International Law Adviser, who shall advise the Government and coordinate dispute resolution strategy for the Government in disputes arising out of its international law obligations,

NEW DELHI INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION CENTRE (NDIAC) ACT, 2019:

1. The Act provides for the setting up of an independent and autonomous body, for institutional arbitration.
2. NDIAC will conduct arbitration, mediation, and conciliation proceedings (Yet to be constituted)
3. NDIAC will establish a Chamber of Arbitration which will maintain a permanent panel of arbitrators.
4. Further, the NDIAC may also establish an Arbitration Academy for training arbitrators and researching the area of alternative dispute resolution.
5. It will facilitate the conduct of arbitration and conciliation in a professional, timely, and cost-effective manner and assist in the conduct of ADRs.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCe: SINGAPORE MODEL

• The SIAC (Singapore International Arbitration Centre) has benefited significantly from the support they enjoyed from their government.
• The SIAC was established as a part of the Singapore government’s effort to create an arbitration industry in Singapore.
• It was set up by the government with two governmental agencies, the Economic Development Board and the Trade Development Board as its shareholders, and operated for many years under their aegis.
• The government also played a role in promoting the SIAC at an international level, getting international arbitration practitioners to be associated with the institution.
• The SIAC received financial assistance and/or infrastructural support from the government.
• The Indian government, like the Singapore government, could consider assisting arbitral institutions in India by building suitable infrastructures such as integrated dispute resolution facilities in major commercial centers such as Mumbai and Delhi.

WAY FORWARD

• Effective use of Technology such as e-filing, creating a database of cases, big data analytics, Online Dispute Resolution, video conferencing, etc. needs to be scaled up and be put to extensive use in the process of arbitration
• The Law Commission of India has in its 246^thReport has noted the problems in ad hoc arbitrations and therefore recommends that India needs to promote institutional arbitration where a specialized institution with a permanent character aids and administers the arbitral process.
• Fast-tracking of disputes in case of government contracts requires an independent settlement committee, which could be approached by the stakeholders at any stage of proceedings for the resolution of disputes.
• Judicial cooperation is vital to give effect to the law of arbitration. Therefore, an effort is to be made to identify those steps which would make a good balance between judicial and arbitration, at pre, during, and post arbitral proceedings.

CONCLUSION: Apart from legal reforms, arbitration promotion also needs further support on a few other fronts like the need to decentralize dispute resolution mechanisms. It would also need an administrative mechanism to ensure that arbitration matters have been handled separately and efficiently. For this, the government needs to create an enabling framework for institutional arbitration. The proposed ACI be set up expeditiously for providing leadership in the arbitration landscape of the country. These measures are a must to “resolve in India” which will create a conducive environment for attracting investment and facilitating economic development.

THE CONTEXT: The Indian Constitution provides for affirmative actions in respect of socially, educationally, and economically (EWS reservation) backward classes of society. However, there exists a notion that the reservations in public employments lower the standards of efficiency in administration. Many Supreme Court verdicts seem to imply this aspect. Thus, this article analyses the interplay between Art 16(4) and Art 335 in the light of Constitutional Assembly Debates to see whether the constitution makers intended to make the “efficiency” criterion for restricting the scope of reservation in public employment.

                                                                RESERVATION: CONCEPT AND MEANING

• Reservation is a tool for bringing the marginalized into the frontline of society. It enables the less privileged sections to grab the opportunities of life. Without positive interventions by the governments, these communities would find it impossible to make it into the mainstream. In India, the constitution itself provides for reservations in public employment, education, electoral democracy, etc.
• Although largely based on caste, the reservation is also given based on domicile, gender, age, disability, and even religion. The core of reservation is social mobility in a highly stratified Indian society. The linkage between caste and life chances and caste and human dignity is well established in India. These groups have faced historical injustices and continue to undergo various disabilities. Thus, reservation aims at social emancipation and social mobility of the less fortunate in India. It is not a poverty alleviation program in the economic sense but is one in a socio-political sense.
• Reservation focuses on the redistribution of social power in Indian society by opening up avenues and opportunities to hitherto excluded.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS FOR RESERVATIONS: PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT

• Article 16(3) provides that parliament can make laws to prescribe domicile qualifications for various public employments under the state and the local authority.
• Article 16(4), Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment: The state can make provisions for the reservation of appointments or posts in favor of any backward class of citizens which in the opinion of the state is not adequately represented in the services under the State.
• 16 (4A) was added through the 77^th Constitutional Amendment which provided reservation in promotion for SCs and STs. This article was later amended to provide “consequential seniority” on promotion to these communities.
• 16 (4B) was added through the 81^st Constitutional Amendment to “carry forward” the previous year’s vacancies for next year.
• A General provision under 15(4) also enables the state to take necessary steps for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes.
• Article 335 provides for “maintenance of efficiency of administration” while considering the claims of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the making of appointments to public services and posts. The proviso to 335 deals with reduced evaluation standards for SCs and STs in the promotion.
• Art 320(4): Inter alia, excludes consultation with UPSC in respect of SC and ST’s appointment to government positions.
• It must be noted that the Constitutional Provisions concerning reservations in public employment are only enabling and not mandatory provisions. It means that there is no “Fundamental Right” to the reservation and the state is under no compulsion to provide reservation.

THE RESERVATION VS. MERIT/EFFICIENCY DEBATE: AN ANALYSIS

RESERVATION LEADS TO INEFFICIENCY:

• Because the standards of qualification have been lowered for the” reserved”, they lack the required knowledge and skill needed for the performance of the job.
• Thus the persons recruited in the reserved category cannot perform satisfactorily.
• Hence, the administration becomes inefficient. So they argue for purely merit-based appointments for the sake of efficient administration.
• The Supreme Court of India has consistently referred to the notions of “efficiency” and “merit” while adjudicating the validity of various reservation policies.
• For instance, the Supreme Court has held in several judgments, including M Nagraj 2006 and Jar nail Singh 2018 that the reservation policies made under various provisions of Article 16 of the Constitution would be limited by Article 335.
• Another argument is that even if the reservation is provided, the open category must be filled by persons from the “General Category” only to accommodate merit to the extent possible.

MERIT IS NOT COMPROMISED:

• The constitution does not define the term efficiency in administration. Thus, using a subjective yardstick to measure an undefined criterion lacks validity.
• In BK Pavitra (II) v. Union of India, (2019) the SC  held that “efficiency of administration in the affairs of the Union or a State must be defined in an inclusive sense, where diverse segments of society find representation
•  The “efficiency” construct was used in the pre and colonial era to keep out the lower castes and “Indians” respectively.
• The disproportionate access to resources, socio-economic capital, and networking ties put the dominant classes in a better position to “acquire” merit. Thus, “merit” is not “ purely” competency” but is a product of “privileged existence”
•  An empirical study conducted by Wasserkopfs and Mishra in 2011 has punctured the arguments that “officers of the reserved category are less efficient”. Their study on the number of railway accidents in railway zones proved that zones headed by officers from the reserved category saw a lesser number than those headed by non-reserved officers.
• The Constitutional Assembly debates provided ample evidence that 16(4) and 335 are meant to be standalone articles.    (Read ahead)

INSIGHT INTO THE CA DEBATES: ORIGIN OF RESERVATION AND EFFICIENCY

• The Constituent Assembly, through a resolution on 24 January 1947, had appointed an Advisory Committee to assist the Assembly by drawing upon a “list of fundamental rights, clauses for protecting minorities among others.
• The Sub Committee on FRs drafted Article 10(3) which provided for “reservation in favor of any backward class of citizens, not adequately represented in public service as per the opinion of the state. This article later became 16(4).
• The Sub-committee on Minority Rights’ report covered the claims made by several minority groups: Anglo-Indians, Indian Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Scheduled Castes, etc. It provided under Art 296 that, “the claims of all the minorities shall be kept in view in making appointments to the public services consistently with the consideration of the efficiency of administration”.
• It was from here that the term “efficiency of administration” was brought in the text of the draft Constitution. The term, however, was not defined. This Article 296 later became Article 335.
• LokanathMisra, a Brahmin from Orissa, argued that the clause puts “a premium on backwardness and inefficiency” and also because it was “not a fundamental right of any citizen to claim a portion of State employment, which ought to go by merit alone”. Damodar Swarup Seth, a Vaishya from United Provinces, felt that reservation in services meant the “very negation of efficiency and good Government”. He argued, “The maintenance of efficiency of administration shall be the only consideration” concerning the public appointment.
• These two articles were drafted by two different committees working on two different subjects. Thus, it can be safely concluded that 16(4) and 335 cover separate “subject matter”
• The draft Articles 10(3) and 296 were discussed and adopted separately by the Constituent Assembly. Article 10(3) was included in the Chapter on justifiable Fundamental Rights and did not contain the term “efficiency of administration”.
• Article 296, adopted on a later date, and did not refer to Article 10(3) at all. Moreover, Article 10(3) explicitly provided for reservation in services for backward classes, while Article 296 made only an assurance that the claims of minorities would be taken into consideration.
• It did not explicitly guarantee the reservation for minorities in the services. It appears that the craftspersons of the Constitution had kept the scope of draft Article 10(3) on a higher pedestal in comparison to Article 296.

THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARTICLE 16(4) AND ARTICLE 335

The discussion in the Constituent Assembly shows that it was only Article 16(4) which mandated and empowered the State to make reservations for backward classes of citizens, including the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Article 335, as pointed out consistently by members – particularly by those opposed to the reservation, was being treated as a mere directive. The Constituent Assembly never made Article 16(4) subject to Article 335, rather, accepted it as a standalone and overriding provision, as can be understood by Kunzru’s analysis in the Assembly. Reservation, as provided under Article 16(4), was thus not subjected to the notion of efficiency mentioned in Article 335.

EFFICIENCY AND MERIT ARGUMENT: A MYTH?

CA DEBATES:

• BasuMatari, a member from Assam discarded the arguments about “efficiency of administration” as “just dodges to perpetuate class or territorial interests”.
• He observed that the upper castes benefited in the “jobs, the contacts, and the privileges” during the British regime and that they will ensure that their superiority is never threatened or endangered.
• V. I. Muniswami Pillai, a Scheduled Caste member of the Assembly, remarked that the majority communities must remove from their minds that “those who were chosen from these communities for high offices will not be efficient”. He wished that “the claims of the Scheduled Castes will not be forgotten” by the majority communities.
• J. Khandekar, a Scheduled Caste member from the Congress party, endorsed reservation provision in Article 10(3), as he narrated that the Scheduled Castes candidates “are not selected for the posts” because of the biases of the recruitment panelists.

AMBEDKAR’S VIEW:

• The proponents of the efficiency argument relied upon “educational merit” and “competitive examinations” as the “only test which can be taken to guarantee efficiency”. Ambedkar rejected this argument, stating that the undemocratic education system in India had left out the backward classes thereby the open competition actually became closed!
• He presented a case of “administrative utility” and a “moral case” for the backward classes to have a “favored treatment” for their inclusion in the public services. He argued for the inclusion of different communities in public service to address the class bias and aggrandizement which created more harm than good to the administration.
• The advantage of exclusive privileges of education, social power continued for upper castes even in the colonial era.  In his view, the argument of “efficiency” was a method by upper castes to protect their own interests and structural advantages even in the post-independence democratic polity.

SUPREME COURT:

• The apex court rejected the notion that promotes drawn from the SCs and STs are not efficient or that efficiency is reduced by appointing them. This is stereotypical because it masks deep-rooted social prejudice. The benchmark for the efficiency of administration is not some abstract ideal measured by the performance of a qualified open category candidate.
• Administrative efficiency is an outcome of the actions taken by officials after they have been appointed or promoted and is not tied to the selection method itself. The argument that one selection method produces officials capable of taking better actions than a second method must be empirically proven based on an evaluation of the outcomes produced by officials selected through both methods.
• The candidates who score beyond a particular “cutoff point” are considered “meritorious” and others are “non-meritorious”. This is a distorted understanding of the function “merit” plays in society.
• A “meritorious” candidate is not merely one who is “talented” or “successful” but also one whose appointment fulfills the constitutional goals of uplifting the members of the SCs and STs and ensuring a diverse and representative administration.

EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATION VERSUS GOOD GOVERNANCE

• Ambedkar had consistently distinguished the colonial construct of “efficiency of administration” with that of “good administration”. He asserted that a good administration or government is truly representative. In one of the articles, he had noted: It was through an administration that the State came directly in contact with the masses. No administration could do any good unless it was sympathetic… A representative bureaucracy would imbibe the values, aspirations, and ideas of the diverse communities they come from.
• In colonial times also “Indianisation” of public services was based on the notions of representation and inclusiveness, and not on the exclusionary notion of “efficiency”. For instance, the 1858 act of “good government” aimed at increasing associations of Indians in administration. It was a fact that the European bureaucracy constituted the most efficient government possible. At the same time the European bureaucracy, efficient though it was, was condemned as it was found to be wanting in those qualities which make for human administration. In Modern times, Hitler’s bureau was held to be the most efficient, but hated for its evil actions.
• Giving due representation to various social forces would enhance efficiency. “Good Government” meant that efficiency would be measured by the test of representation and inclusion of underrepresented social groups. Providing representation to backward classes would act as a system of countercheck to protect political democracy from being subverted by particular privileged groups. The inputs and concerns of various sections of society need to be part of the policymaking process which requires a representative administration. Moreover, the notion of Good Governance as expounded by the World Bank and United Nations does not view it through the narrow prism of “efficiency” but conceptualizes it in terms of “democracy and equity “among others.

WAY FORWARD:

• Reservation in public employment for communities that are historically marginalized would ensure a representative administration that reflects their diverse interests and challenges.
• Going beyond reservation through quotas, a quota plus approach to ensuring equal opportunities for all by establishing an “Equal Opportunities Commission” can address the problem of discrimination faced by the backward classes.
• To operationalize the ideal of ” sabkasaathsabkavikas and sabkaviswas ” requires affirmative action programs for the less privileged sections of society which ideally should extend to the private sector.
• Through incentives, encouragement, persuasion, etc. The private sector can also be taken on board to open up opportunities for the backward sections. For instance, conceiving and publishing a” Diversity Index” can put moral pressure on private sector employers to employ the Dalits and other marginalized communities.

CONCLUSION:

In India, government employment is seen as a ladder to power and prestige. Given the conspicuous presence of the state in people’s lives, public employment is a much sought-after avocation. Of late the number of vacancies in various posts and services in the governments is shrinking thanks to the ideology of “minimum government and maximum governance”. The competition for the “shrinking pie” has been intense which is accentuated by poor growth in the economy. Thus, the efficiency, merit, and reservation debate must be seen in this background, although the caste hierarchy is also a decisive factor. As the CA debates and recent SC judgment in BK Pavitra II, 2019 have shown, merit and efficiency must be construed in a wider canvass. Efficiency in the administration is not simply a matter of administration per se, but it heavily depends on the larger political system, civil society activism, and political culture. As Kiran Aggarwal Committee on IAS training has observed “what the services need is not mere efficiency, but also ethos, ethics and equity” which are the prime mover of good governance.

DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SC VIEW IN BK PAVITRA II 2019 CASE?

BASIS FOR JUSTIFICATION: The Law and the Committee recommendation fulfill the three conditions laid down in the Nagraj Case.

EXPLANATION: The three conditions are:

1. Backwardness” of SC/ST communities,
2. The inadequacy of their representation in the services and
3. The overall impact of reservation on the efficiency of the administration

BASIS FOR JUSTIFICATION: Reservation vs. Merit

EXPLANATION: A ‘meritorious’ candidate is not merely one who is ‘talented ’or ‘successful’ but also one whose appointment fulfills the constitutional goals of uplifting members of the SCs and STs and ensuring a diverse and representative administration.

BASIS FOR JUSTIFICATION: Substantive versus formal equality

EXPLANATION: Reservations are thus not an exception to the rule of equality of opportunity. If Article 16(1) merely postulates the principle of formal equality of opportunity, then Article 16(4) (by enabling reservations due to existing inequalities) becomes an exception to the strict rule of formal equality in Article 16 (1).  SC-ST Reservations Are True Fulfillment Of Effective And Substantive Equality.

BASIS FOR JUSTIFICATION: Efficiency of Administration vs. SC-ST Reservation

EXPLANATION: The criteria of ‘efficiency’ in the administration [a term used in Article 335 of the constitution] of government should not only be a ‘merit-based approach and the need to maintain the efficiency of the administration cannot be construed as a fetter on adopting these special measures designed to uplift and protect the welfare of the SCs and STs. While interpreting Article 335, it is necessary to liberate the concept of efficiency from a one-sided approach that ignores the need for and the positive effects of the inclusion of diverse segments of society on the efficiency of administration of the Union or of a State. It said: “Centuries of discrimination and prejudice suffered by the SCs and STs in a feudal, caste-oriented societal structure pose real barriers of access to opportunity. The proviso contains a realistic recognition that unless special measures are adopted for the SCs and STs, the mandate of the Constitution for the consideration of their claim to appointment will remain illusory. The proviso, in other words, is the aid of fostering the real and substantive right to equality to the SCs and STs.

BASIS FOR JUSTIFICATION: Participatory governance

EXPLANATION: Establishing the position of the SCs and STs as worthy participants in the affairs of governance is intrinsic to equal citizenship. Equal citizenship recognizes governance, which is inclusive, but also ensures that those segments of our society which have suffered a history of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression have a real voice in governance. Inclusion is inseparable from a well-governed society.

THE CONTEXT: Recently, the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission has released a draft of a population control Bill which promotes a two-child policy, violation of which would mean people will be debarred from contesting local body elections, applying to government jobs, or receiving any government subsidy. Earlier in 2016 and 2019, a few private member bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha (and are being planned in the coming monsoon session too) regarding population control. Further, according to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates, India’s population will reach 1.5 billion by 2030 and hit 1.64 billion in 2050 while China’s population will reach 1.46 billion by 2030. These developments have generated a debate on various facets of population growth and the need for controlling it. This article examines this issue in a comprehensive manner and thus enables the aspirants to formulate a clear perspective.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: VIEWS OF PROMINENT THINKERS ON POPULATION

Many of the ancient philosophers like Confucius, Kautilya, Plato, and modem thinkers like Adam Smith, David Ricardo and others have deliberated on population issues. For instance, Kautilya, had written in his Arthashastra that ‘a large population is a source of the political, economic and military strength of a nation. The Chinese philosopher, Confucius argued that a numerical balance be maintained between population and environment. Thus, he was not in favour of unchecked growth of population. In ancient Greece, Plato advocated an absolute limit of population. In the modern period, Malthus and Marx have written elaborately on the population dynamics but their views, however differed fundamentally.

MALTHUSIAN VIEWS:

• In his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Malthus argued that because of the strong attraction of the two sexes, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every twenty-five years.
• He contended that the population would eventually grow so large that food production would be insufficient.
• Malthus’s famous statement is ‘Population grows in a geometrical progression and subsis­tence increases only in an arithmetical progression.
• Malthus referred to two classes of checks which kept the population down
• Positive Checks: He spoke of famine, disease, war, pestilence, etc (Related to Mortality)
• Negative Checks: artificial means of birth control, late marriage, moral restraint, and chastity(Related to Fertility)
• He contended that without such restraints the world would face widespread hunger, poverty, and misery
• Malthus saw the tension between population and resources as a major cause of the misery of much of humanity.

MARXIAN VIEWS:

• According to Marx, the widespread poverty and misery of the working-class people were due to the misconceived organi­zation of society.
• He argued that starvation was caused by the unequal distribution of wealth and its accumulation by capitalists.
• It has nothing to do with the population.
• The population is dependent on economic and social organization.
• The problems of overpopulation and limits to resources are inherent and inevitable features associated capitalist system of production.
• If people experience an increase in their income, they are likely to reduce their fertility rate instead of increasing it, as they see that new opportunities are available to their children (for example going to school)
•  Marx believes the low wages of the capitalist system do not give workers this incentive to decrease their fertility and the population growth further increases the labor supply and depresses wages.
• Thus, according to Marx, overpopulation is a normal characteristic of capitalism.

CAUSES OF POPULATION GROWTH IN INDIA

The rapidly increasing population of India is a result of prevailing high birth rates and a large decline in the death rate in our country. According to the World Bank data, the Crude Death Rate (per 1000 people) in India is 7.265 as of the year 2019. While the Crude Birth Rate stands at 17.664. The census data 2011 put these as 7.2 and 22.1 respectively.

CAUSES FOR HIGH BIRTH RATE:

• In India, marriage is not only universal but takes place at an early age. About 80 percent of girls are married during the most fertile period of 15 to 20 yrs. of age
• Poverty means poor people have to spend little on the upbringing of their children. Besides, the children supplement the family income by engaging themselves in some odd jobs at an early age.
• Lack of conscious family planning had also kept the birth rate in India very high.
• In India, religion plays a major role in large size families. Abrahamic faith largely supports the large family size. Even after so many girls in the family, the desire for one son prompts parents to continue with their child-producing activity.
• The infant mortality rate is very high in India due to hunger, malnutrition, and poor living conditions. So the fear of the early death of their infants encourages the parents to have more children.

CAUSES FOR DECLINE IN DEATH RATE:

• Epidemics such as plague, smallpox, TB, and malaria which at one time used to cause a toll of heavy deaths, now have been effectively controlled.
• The percentage of the population living in towns and cities went up from 26% in 1991 and 31.16%in 2011. Better health, hygiene, and sanitation facilities in the town are expected to have lowered the death rate.
• Literacy among women is progressing rapidly. Educated women bring up their children with utmost care. Working women enjoy better economic status and as such, they are healthier.
• Besides the famine of 1943, no other serious famine has occurred in this century. Although famine-like conditions emerged in 1987 in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh yet these were effectively combated to cause any serious loss of life.
• Disaster Management has become part and parcel of the Indian governance process. Physical, Technological, and Human infrastructure have been created to prevent and mitigate the loss of lives from disaster.

CHALLENGES OF POPULATION GROWTH IN INDIA

1. The problem of Capital Formation: High birth rate and relatively high expectancy of life mean a large number of dependents in the total population. The burden of dependents reduces the capacity of the people to save. So the rate of capital formation falls.
2. Effect on Food Problem: Rapid rate of growth of population has been the root cause of food problem. Shortage of food grains obliges the under-developed countries to import food grains from abroad. So a large part of foreign exchange is spent on it.
3. The problem of Unemployment: Large size of population results in disguised unemployment in rural areas and open unemployment in urban areas
4. Poverty: Rising population increases poverty in India. People have to spend a large portion of their resources for bringing up their wards. Hence improvement in production technique becomes impossible. It means low productivity of labor.
5. Population and Social Problems: Population explosion gives rise to a number of social problems. It leads to the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas causing the growth of slum areas. People live in the most unhygienic and insanitary conditions.
6. More Pressure on Land: Due to rising population per capita availability of land goes on diminishing and the problem of sub-division and fragmentation of holdings goes on increasing
7. Impact on Maternity Welfare: In India, population explosion is the result of a high birth rate which reduces the health and welfare of women. Frequent pregnancy without having a gap is hazardous to the health of the mother and the child. This leads to a high death rate among women of reproductive age due to early marriage.

POPULATION CONTROL POLICIES IN INDIA: AN OVERVIEW

Population policy may be defined as deliberately constructed or modified institutional arrangements and/or specific programs through which governments seek to influence, directly or indirectly, demographic change. The population policy of the Government of India has passed through the following phases from time to time:

Pre-Independence Period: The British did not consider population growth as a problem. Their attitude towards birth control was one of indifference because they never wanted to interfere with the values, beliefs, customs, and traditions of Indians. That is why this phase is called the Period of Indifference.

The Period of Neutrality, 1947-51: The period following independence and before the beginning of the planning era was one of neutrality. The Government of India was busy with post-independence problems like rehabilitation of the people following the Partition, reorganization of the States, and Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir.

The Period of Experimentation, 1951-61: During the first decade (1951-61) of planned economic development, family planning as a method of population control was started as a government program in India. The National Family Planning Programme was launched in 1952 with the objective of “reducing the birth rate to stabilize the population at a level consistent with the requirement of the national economy”.

The Beginning of the population Control Policy 1961 to 2000: With the rapid growth of population in the 1961 Census by 21.5 percent, the Extension Approach to family planning was adopted which emphasized the adoption of an educational approach to family planning through Panchayat Samitis, Village Development Committees and other groups. The National Population Policy was announced in 1976 to mount “a direct assault on the problem of numbers. In the post-emergency period, the Janata Government announced a New Population Policy in 1977.

National Population Policy, 2000: National Population Policy (NPP) 2000: The immediate objective is to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure health personnel, etc. The medium-term objective is to bring the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) to replacement level by 2010. The long-term objective is to achieve a stable population by 2045. The Central Government has set up a National Commission on Population (NCP) in 2000 to review, monitor, and guide NPP implementation. It is presided over by the Prime Minister with CMs of states and others as members.

IS POPULATION REALLY EXPLODING?

• During Independence, India was still one of the most populous countries with 350 million people. Since then, the country’s population has quadrupled, with 1.37 billion people in 2019.
• Population scientists have postulated a threshold to the number of births to keep the population under control. This is expressed as the total fertility rate (TFR), which is the average number of children a woman of childbearing age must-have. Population above TFR means growth, while that below TFR means decline. At TFR, the population is maintained.
• For humans, a 2.1 TFR would keep the country’s population stable. The number accounts for one child per mother, one per father, and an extra 0.1 for children who die in infancy and women who die before childbearing age.
• India is very close to this point now, as many states have, in fact, TFR below 2.1. This means India’s population is about to hit the replacement level. Or, there will be no effective population growth. India’s official data suggests this.
• The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4, conducted in 2015-16, found India’s TFR had reached 2.2. Most Indian states had already achieved or were below 2.1 TFR. According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS V 2020), the total fertility rate across most Indian states declined in the past half a decade. In 19 of the 22 surveyed states, TFRs were found to be ‘below-replacement’
• The highly populated states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh acted as outliers in otherwise steadily homogenizing fertility levels across states; they too, however, witnessed a decline from their 2005-06 levels.
• Bihar’s TFR decreased significantly (by 0.4) in the last five years, while information for Uttar Pradesh was not collected in the first phase of the latest round of the survey. Bihar’s TFR was 4 while that of Uttar Pradesh was 3.8 in 2005-06 (NFHS-3).
• Darrell Bricker, an author of the book Empty Planet that predicted an unprecedented global decline in fertility, also says: “India’s TFR has already reached replacement rate.”
• The Economic Survey 2018-19 tabled in Parliament and with a chapter on population, says, “India is set to witness a sharp slowdown in population growth in the next two decades.”
• According to it, the population in the 0-19 age bracket has already peaked due to a sharp decline in TFR across the country.
• The Economic Survey, in fact, suggested massive reorientation of public infrastructure like schools to prepare for less population.
• Estimates based on Census data predict that India will reach a TFR of 2.1 by 2021. When multiple data sources can agree that India’s population growth has shown a declining trend for quite some time now, demographers and sociologists argue that we need not worry about population explosion

WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND POPULATION CONTROL

There are many unintended consequences of India’s family planning policy and programs heavily impacting the rights of women. The various dynamics of this issue are outlined below.

PATRIARCHAL ATTITUDE: Gender norms in our patriarchal society dictate economic responsibilities to men and reproductive responsibilities to women. This is reflected in how family planning measures are used in India: heavily skewed towards female sterilization.

GENDER IMBALANCE: In 2015, of all married people in the reproductive age group, only 47.8% used any modern method of contraception (NFHS 4). Among the people who used contraception, 88% were women – 75% women underwent female sterilization – whereas, of the 12% male contraceptive users, only 0.6% underwent male sterilization.

MISSING MALE SEGMENT: The efforts for population control has mostly translated to controlling women’s, and not men’s, fertility. The program is designed to cater only to women and doesn’t actively engage with men to increase their participation in sharing the burden of family planning. The National Health Policy 2017, released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, aims to increase the uptake of male sterilization to up to 30% but offers no roadmap to implement it nor to tackle gendered challenges that persist in the health system.

ADMINISTRATIVE/POLICY FLAW: According to the National Health Mission Financial Management Report 2016-17, the total expenditure on family planning in 2016-17 was Rs 577 crore, of which 85% was spent on female sterilization alone, and only 2.8% on male sterilization.

VIOLATION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS: The incident in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, in November 2014 highlighted how women from lower socioeconomic groups were sterilized in a camp without proper infection control, leading to severe complications in many women and the death of 15. The Supreme Court of India has highlighted that 363 women, largely from rural and marginalized communities, died between 2010 and 2013 during or after surgery in sterilization camps, and ordered the government to shut these camps down.

CONDITIONS BASED ON POPULATION CONTROL NOT A GOOD IDEA?

• Empirical Study: A study by former Madhya Pradesh chief secretary Nirmala Buch on laws restricting the eligibility of people with more than two children in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan concluded that the two-child norm violates the democratic and reproductive rights of individuals. A high number of women (41 percent) among our respondents faced disqualification for violating the two-child norm. Among Dalit respondents, this proportion was even higher (50 percent),” Buch’s study finds.
• NHRC observations: The incentives/disincentives approach has been denounced in the past by the National Human Rights Commission after such measures were introduced by several States in the 1990s and 2000s, i.e., Haryana, undivided Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.
• Wrong Policy Focus: India is on the path to stabilizing its population. Therefore, the stress on the introduction of punitive measures to ensure population control is misplaced. In fact, a few states that imposed restrictions in various forms to enforce the two-child norm are on the back foot now. Four of the 12 states which introduced the two-child norm have already revoked it
• Exclusion of the poor: Poverty is a major reason for the poorer sections having a larger number of children. By putting conditions like limiting government benefits and participation in electoral democracy to persons having not more than two children, the poor becomes both economically and politically excluded.
• International Experience: After China revised its two-child policy recently, the Population Foundation of India issued a statement saying that India must learn from China’s failed experience with enforcing coercive population policies. It said religion has little to do with fertility levels but what makes the difference is “education, employment opportunities and accessibility of contraceptives”.
• Population Momentum: Despite a decline in fertility, the population keeps growing. Demographers call this the “population momentum”. It is important to understand that even if all the couples in UP were to have two children from tomorrow, the population will continue to grow. This is because of the large number of young people in the state. Unlike in the past, the population is growing not because couples have more children, but because we have more young.

WHAT MUST BE DONE?

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM STATES: Kerala and Punjab have 1.6 TFR, while Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have 3.4 and 2.7 TFR respectively (NFHS 4). NFHS-4 data shows only 22.8 percent of women in Bihar attended school for 10 or more years in 2014-15. In neighboring Uttar Pradesh, the figure was 32.9 percent. In contrast, 72.2 percent of women in Kerala attended school for 10 or more years, while the figure was 55.1 percent in Punjab. So schooling plays a vital role In TFR. The proper implementation of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme can be a game-changer.

REDUCTION IN CHILD MARRIAGES: NFHS-4 data shows an increase in TFR in states with a high number of child marriages. So increasing the age of marriage can help reduce the TFR. Strict implementation of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 along with social persuasion and influence can help in this regard.

AVAILABILITY OF CONTRACEPTIVES: From 1998-99 to 2005-06, TFR declined from 2.9 to 2.7. During this period, the country witnessed a change in social mindset. The use of contraceptives increased by 13.3 percent. Studies by the Population Foundation of India point out the lack of availability of contraceptives both for men and women. Thus reliable access to contraceptives through ASHA workers at the local level need to be ensured.

CHECK UNPLANNED PREGNANCIES: Devendra Kothari, former professor at the Indian Institute of Health Management Research University, Jaipurattributes India’s current population growth to unplanned pregnancies. Based on NFHS 1 to 4, it is estimated that 135 million out of 430 million births were the result of unplanned pregnancies. So proper planning and spacing pregnancies are required.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT: According to the NFHS-4 data, the women in the lowest wealth quintile, and the least educated women, had on average one more child than those with more than 12 years of schooling and in the highest wealth quintile. Thus holistic women empowerment through instruments like “Gender Budgeting” and schemes like Stand Up India, Promotion of SHGs by National Livelihood Missions must be implemented earnestly.

ADHERENCE TO CAIRO CONSENSUS: The Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, of which India is a party (The Cairo Consensus)  has called for the promotion of reproductive rights, empowering women, universal education, maternal and infant health to untangle the knotty issue of poverty and high fertility.

THE WAY FORWARD

• China’s example of a distorted demography (age-sex composition of the population) is a warning against a counter-productive population control bill. Public health matters shouldn’t be coercive in nature.
• When reproduction is controlled or forced, there is a distortion in the working population and the elder dependent population, which can lead to possibly disastrous economic consequences.
• In the case of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh too, a decentralized implementation of family planning policy can bring about a gigantic change and a population control policy will do more harm than good.
• We need to invest heavily in human capital, health, and education for a healthy and productive population that can add to the national and global accomplishments of the country.

THE CONCLUSION: India is on course to achieve the TFR although state-wise disparity exists. Indira Gandhi has said that Development is the best contraceptive. Given the poor developmental and governance indicators of the Empowered Action Groups states (EAG), we can draw a clear causal relationship between high TFR and poor development. In the context of the current population debate, the Governments must not let “politics/elections decide the policies “but should frame them according to hard data. Population size or its growth per se is not the problem but the problem is the distribution of resources and opportunities equitably in the population. The focus should be on “family planning and resource equity” rather than on “population control and unequal wealth creation”.

“The “Rule of Law” is what we fought for; the “Rule by Law” is an instrument of colonial rule. In the face of a pandemic, it’s important to reflect on how the tension between the two defines the quality of justice.”

———- Chief Justice N.V. Ramana

THE CONTEXT: On June 30th, 2021, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana delivered the 17th Justice P.D. Desai Memorial Lecture on the “Rule of Law”. According to CJI, regular participation in polls was not a guarantee against the tyranny of the elected. In his speech, he underscored the pressure of social media on institutions. Identifying Covid-19 as “an unprecedented crisis”, CJI urged the governments to evaluate how they used the rule of law or failed to ensure protection to, and, the welfare of all of our people. This article provides insights into the lecture on the Rule of Law vs. the Rule by Law.

IMPORTANT EXCERPTS OF THE LECTURE

JOURNEY FROM RULE BY LAW TO RULE OF LAW:

• Our struggle for independence marked our journey towards the establishment of a state defined by the “Rule of Law”.
• There was a need to give a guarantee for the laws to be framed with a human face for the benefit of the masses. A framework was needed to ensure this. The framework that forms the binding link between law and justice in this country is what “We the people” gave to ourselves in the form of the Constitution.

CONSTITUTION AND RULE OF LAW:

• The framers envisaged the Constitution which not only took care of the prevailing conditions but would also continue and be relevant for all times to come. Therefore Constitution is conceived as a living document whose contents evolve over the years, as the Courts deal with new situations and question and interpret the Constitution in the light of the same.
• The Constitution embodies within itself the concept of Rule of Law and the same can be witnessed from our Preamble, the Fundamental Rights, the Directive Principles of State Policy, the Separation of Powers, etc.
• By situating the concept of Rule of Law at the confluence of three important values – human dignity, democracy, and justice, our founding fathers showed the path for the rest of the world too.

ADVICE TO JUDICIARY:

• For the judiciary to apply checks on governmental power and action, it has to have complete freedom. The judiciary cannot be controlled, directly or indirectly, by the legislature or the executive, or else the Rule of Law would become illusory.
• Judges should not be swayed by the emotional pitch of public opinion, which is getting amplified through social media platforms. Judges have to be mindful of the fact that the noise thus amplified is not necessarily reflective of what is right and what the majority believes in.
• Social media is incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, good and bad, and the real and fake. Therefore, media trials cannot be a guiding factor in deciding cases. It is therefore extremely vital to function independently and withstand all external aids and pressures.
• The ultimate responsibility of a judge is to uphold the Constitution and the laws. Reason, reasonableness, and protection of human dignity are the values that will serve us well.

THE ROLE OF LAWYERS:

• The “Rule of Law” demands expertise, experience, and commitment. Lawyers should perform their duties with integrity and diligence. We need social virtue rather than economically self-interested behavior.
• Historically, lawyers have a rich tradition of social activism demonstrated by the number of lawyers who participated in the Indian freedom struggle.
• We need now to rebuild and recreate a tradition of civic professionalism. We need a professional ideology about social responsibility.
• Both young and senior counsels should extend a helping hand to those in need of justice. Extending ease of access to justice is no less a social justice.

THE ROLE OF SOCIETY:

• To advance the “Rule of Law” we primarily need to create a society where “Rule of Law” is respected and cherished.
• Only when the citizens believe that they have fair and equal access to justice, can we have sustainable, just, inclusive, and peaceful societies.
• Citizens can strengthen the “Rule of Law” by being knowledgeable about it and by applying it to their daily conduct and pushing for justice when needed.

4 CORE PRINCIPLES OF RULE OF LAW

PRINCIPLE: ‘LAWS MUST BE CLEAR AND ACCESSIBLE’

DETAILS: When laws are expected to be obeyed, the people at least ought to know what the laws are. Law should be worded in simple, unambiguous language.

ANALYSIS/PRESENT STATUS: In India, we are constantly striving to make legislations and judgments accessible to the general public by translating them into various Indian languages.

PRINCIPLE: “EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW”

DETAILS: An important aspect of “equality before the law” is having equal “access to justice”. Access to justice forms the bedrock of the “Rule of Law”.

ANALYSIS/PRESENT STATUS: This guarantee of equal justice will be rendered meaningless if the vulnerable sections are unable to enjoy their rights because of their poverty illiteracy or any other kind of weakness. There is a need for legal empowerment of women. It not only enables them to advocate for their rights and needs in society but also increases their visibility in the legal reform process.

PRINCIPLE: “RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CREATION AND REFINEMENT OF LAWS”

DETAILS: The very essence of a democracy is that its citizenry has a role to play, whether directly or indirectly, in the laws that govern them.

ANALYSIS/PRESENT STATUS: In the seventeen national general elections held so far, the people have changed the ruling party or combination of parties eight times, which accounts for nearly 50 percent of the number of general elections. Despite large-scale inequalities, illiteracy, backwardness, poverty, and alleged ignorance, the people of independent India have proved themselves to be intelligent and up to the task. The masses have performed their duties reasonably well.

PRINCIPLE: “STRONG INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY”

DETAILS: The judiciary is the primary organ that is tasked with ensuring that the laws which are enacted are in line with the Constitution. Judicial review is one of the main functions of the judiciary.

ANALYSIS/PRESENT STATUS: The Supreme Court has held this function to be a part of the basic structure of the Constitution, which means that the Parliament cannot curtail the same. But the responsibility of safeguarding constitutionalism lies not just on the Courts. All the three organs of the State, i.e., the executive, legislature, and the judiciary, are equal repositories of Constitutional trust. The role of the judiciary and scope of judicial action is limited, as it only pertains to facts placed before it. This limitation calls for other organs to assume responsibilities of upholding Constitutional values and ensuring justice in the first place, with the judiciary acting as an important check.

THE RULE OF LAW BY DICEY

• A detailed analysis of the concept of Rule of Law was done by Professor A.V. Dicey who in his book “Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution” published in the year 1885 tried developing the concept of Rule of Law.
• Dicey’s theory of Rule of Law consists of three basic principles:

1. The supremacy of law
2. Equality before law
3. The predominance of Legal Spirit

THE EVOLUTION OF THE RULE OF LAW

• The origins of the Rule of Law theory can be traced back to the Ancient Romans during the formation of the first republic.
• Plato has written that if rule of law is under the supervision of any law then it doesn’t have any value and the concept of state will get collapsed. Aristotle has written that law should be the final sovereign of the state.
• It has since been championed by several thinkers in Europe such as Hobbs, Locke, and Rousseau through the social contract theory.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RULE OF LAW AND RULE BY LAW

RULE OF LAW

DEFINITION: The term “rule of law” comes from the French phrase “la Principe de legality,” which translates to “government based on legal principles.” It is based on the Latin phrase “Lex is Rex,” which translates to “Law is King.”

ORIGIN: The Rule of Law was first originated by Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice in England at the time of King James I. Coke was the first person to criticize the maxims of Divine Concept. He strongly believed that the King should also be under the Rule of Law. According to him, “Rule of Law” means the absence of arbitrary power on the part of the Government.

THE CONCEPT: The state should act as per the “Rule of Law” which is the foundation of any constitution.

RULE BY LAW

DEFINITION: It is based on the Latin term ‘Rex is Lex’ which means ‘King is Law’.

ORIGIN: In his battle against the Church and common law judges, King James I of England triumphed, twisting the phrase ‘Lex is Rex’ to ‘Rex is Lex.’

THE CONCEPT: The state acts as per what it this as lawful rather than what the “Rule of Law” says like invoking section 144 without its necessity.

RULE OF LAW AND INDIAN CONSTITUTION

• In India, the concept of Rule of Law can be traced back to Upanishads. Its traces can also be found in the epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, Ten Commandments, Dharma Chakra, and other seminal documents.
• The Preamble to the Indian Constitution mentions Justice, Liberty, and Equality.
• Articles 13, 14, and 21 of the Indian Constitution promote equality although there are exceptions as well.
• Some Exceptions:
• Articles 15 and 16, Article 105 and Article 194.
• Criminal immunity to President and Governor as mentioned in Article 361.
• Diplomatic Immunity as per the Vienna Convention.

JUDICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS ON RULE OF LAW

The judicial decisions have played an indispensable role to counter any arbitrariness on part of the state.

• In K. Kraipak V. Union of India the Apex Court held that ours being a welfare State, it is regulated and controlled by the Rule of Law.
• In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, the court ensured that the exercise of power in an arbitrary manner by the government would not infringe the rights of the people.
• The Apex Court in Indira Nehru Gandhi Vs. Raj Narain (1975) held that the Rule of Law embodied in Article 14 of the Constitution is the “basic feature” of the Indian Constitution and hence it cannot be destroyed even by an amendment of the Constitution under Article 368 of the Constitution.
• In L Chandra Kumar v Union of India, the court declared the independence of the judiciary to be a part of the basic structure and further the court struck down the amendment to article 323A of the constitution.
• The Habeas Corpus Case (1976) held that article 21 is the sole repository of Rule of law in India.

The International Congress of Jurists declared that the rule of law “is a dynamic concept which must be employed to safeguard and advance the civil and political rights of an individual in a free society.”

ANALYSIS: PRESENT STATUS OF RULE OF LAW IN INDIA

In India, the Rule of Law is not followed in stricto sensu (“In the strict sense.”). There are several instances:

1. Several guidelines have been laid down by the court to curb the practice of honor killing but still, there have been numerous instances of honor killing reported. The decision on honor killing is taken by an extra-constitutional body by the nomenclature of Khap Panchayat which engages in feudalistic activities has no compunction to commit such crimes which are offenses under the Indian Penal Code, 1860. No heed is paid to the basic human right of “Right to life and liberty”.
2. The Sabarimala case verdict throws light upon the discretion of men in abiding by the directions given by the Supreme Court only to the point if they are analogous to the belief they hold. After the verdict massive protests were carried out, there were also occurrences of violence against women who tried to enter the temple. The women were denied their constitutional right to worship and the principles of equality were violated even after the practice was declared unconstitutional by the Apex Court.
3. Another evil practice pertinent in society is that of mob lynching. Supreme Court described it as horrendous acts of mobocracy and stated that “the law is the mightiest sovereign in a civilized society”.

In fact, the present debate has started due to an increase in the incidences of RULE BY LAW like

1. Internet shutdown in J&K for over one year
2. The arbitrary application of laws against media and journalists
3. The arbitrary application of UAPA, sedition law, and NSA against protesters, dissenters, activists, etc.
4. Gagging criticisms on the mishandling of covid second wave

Such developments give a feeling of an authoritarian state and not of a democratic state. The CJI in his lecture has also highlighted how the people have largely plaid their role through 17 general elections and have rejected the governments if they have failed to withstand the rule of law. No government is permanent. Hence, it is the duty cast upon the three organs to play their role in upholding the rule of law.

THE CONCLUSION: The work of ensuring complete justice can never be said to be completed. The mandate of our Constitution is to work tirelessly to surpass our expectations, to make India a country wherein rights are cherished, and which sets an example for other countries to follow.

“Desamamte Matti Kadoi, Desamamte ManushulOi”(“A nation is not merely a territory. A nation is essentially its people. Only when its people progress, the Nation progresses”)

                                                                                                             ———– Maha Kavi Gurajada Appa Rao,

WORLD JUSTICE PROJECT’S RULE OF LAW INDEX

• The World Justice Project (WJP) is an independent, multidisciplinary organization working to create knowledge, build awareness, and stimulate action to advance the rule of law worldwide. Effective rule of law reduces corruption, combats poverty and disease, and protects people from injustices large and small. It is the foundation for communities of justice, opportunity, and peace—underpinning development, accountable government, and respect for fundamental rights.

• The scores and rankings of the WJP Rule of Law Index are organized around eight primary factors: Constraints on Government Powers, Absence of Corruption, Open Government, Fundamental Rights, Order and Security, Regulatory Enforcement, Civil Justice, and Criminal Justice.
• The WJP Rule of Law Index 2020 shows that more countries declined than improved in overall rule of law performance for the third year in a row, continuing a negative slide toward weakening and stagnating rule of law around the world.
• Denmark, Norway, and Finland topped the WJP Rule of Law Index rankings in 2020. Venezuela, RB, Cambodia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo had the lowest overall rule of law scores.
• India is ranked 69th among   128 countries.

THE CONTEXT: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide and subsequent investigation by NCB regarding wide-scale drug usage in Bollywood Industry and Sandlewood (Kannada Film Industry) Drug scandals have been in news for the last few months. This has brought the role of NCB to the forefront. In this article, we will look into the structure, functions, powers, and responsibilities of narcotic agencies in detail and critically analyze lacunae in their functioning and the reforms needed.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS/LAWS/RULES/CONVENTIONS WITH RESPECT TO NARCOTICS

Article 47:

• It directs the State to endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption, except for medicinal purposes, of intoxicating drugs injurious to health.

International Conventions:

• Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, as amended by the 1972 Protocol,
• The Conventions on Psychotropic Substances, 1971
• The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988.

Laws:

• Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940,
• The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985,
• The Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988

THE NARCOTIC DRUGS AND PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES ACT, 1985

• NDPS Act prohibits a person from the production/manufacturing/cultivation, possession, sale, purchasing, transport, storage, and/or consumption of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance.
• It came into effect on the 14th November 1985. The Act extends to the whole of India and it applies also to all Indian citizens outside India and to all persons on ships and aircraft registered in India.
• The Act is designed to fulfill India’s treaty obligations under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
• It made an express provision for constituting a Central Authority for the purpose of exercising the powers and functions of the Central Government under the Act.

NARCOTICS CONTROL BUREAU

The government of India constituted the NCB on the 17th of March, 1986. The Bureau, subject to the supervision and control of the Central Government, is to exercise the powers and functions of the Central Government for taking measures with respect to:

• Coordination of actions by various offices, State Governments, and other authorities under the NDPS Act, Customs Act, Drugs and Cosmetics Act, and any other law for the time being in force in connection with the enforcement provisions of the NDPS Act, 1985.
• Implementation of the obligation in respect of countermeasures against illicit traffic under the various international conventions and protocols that are in force at present or which may be ratified or acceded to by India in the future.
• Assistance to concerned authorities in foreign countries and concerned international organizations to facilitate coordination and universal action for prevention and suppression of illicit traffic in these drugs and substances.
• Coordination of actions taken by the other concerned Ministries, Departments, and Organizations in respect of matters relating to drug abuse.

OTHER NARCOTICS AGENCIES

• Central Bureau of Narcotics (Supervision over lawful cultivation of opium poppy In India)
• Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (It is tasked with detecting and curbing smuggling of contraband, including drug trafficking)
• Customs Authorities
• Border guarding Forces like BSF etc
• State Police, state-level Narcotics agencies, and other law enforcement agencies
• All these agencies help in the control of narcotics drugs in India.

LACUNAE IN THEIR FUNCTIONING

Being used as a political tool:

• As seen in the biased functioning of NCB in various cases viz. SSR case etc
• NCB seems to have waged a war against a section of people from the industry, launching a smear campaign to make individuals look “guilty before proven innocent” through selective leaks to TV channels

Lack of expertise to deal with the latest modus operandi of drug traffickers:

• The global trend of purchasing drugs over the Internet, particularly on ‘darknet’ trading platforms using crypto-currencies has already spread in India.
• Also, poor drug detection training hampers the anti-narcotics operations in the country.

Lack of Human Resource:

• Currently, the anti-drug law enforcement agency (NCB) is working on 60 percent of its total strength of 889 personnel. It has a cadre strength of around 330 personnel, while the rest of its staff is on deputation.

Lack of narco-intelligence:

• Setting up a robust narco intelligence gathering mechanism in the NCB remains a distant dream

India becoming the hotbed of the illicit drug trade:

• India’s two regions such as northwest and northeast are primarily responsible for the spread of drugs in India due to their strategic location.
• International drug cartels are slowly making a base in India. It is apparent from the increase in the foreign nationals arrested for drug trafficking in the country. A total of 219 foreign nationals were arrested for drug trafficking in 2016, and the number jumped to 397 in 2017. Those arrested included nationals from Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and other countries.
• NCB report in 2018 has also said that there was a total of 49,450 cases registered for drug seizure and 60,156 persons were arrested for drug trafficking.
• The size of seizures has also increased over the years.

The increasing threat of Narco-terrorism:

• An Intelligence Bureau (IB) dossier on narco-terrorism reveals that Pakistan’s drug industry has also risen in recent years, and its ISI is now pushing more narcotics into India.

Politically motivated Appointments to Top posts:

• Top appointments are politically motivated and expertise is not given preference.
• The Bureau is currently headed by IPS officer Rakesh Asthana, who is known for CBI-vs-CBI drama.

Lack of coordination among various agencies:

• This leads to failure to prevent drug trafficking and drug consumption in India

State-level agencies:

• Very few states have full-fledged narcotic agencies.

Corruption:

• Narcotic agencies are marred by huge corruption. State police have deep nexus with drug peddlers. Ex: recently Delhi Police Cops confiscated 160 Kg of marijuana but reported only 1 Kg.

WHAT ARE THE REFORMS NEEDED?

Independent functioning:

• There should not be any political interference in the functioning of NCB and other narcotic agencies.
• NCB should be guided by the mandate given under the NDPS Act.
• Appointments should be based on merit, not on political considerations.

Enhancing Expertise through training:

• Drug enforcement professionals’ skills need to be constantly upgraded. There is a need to strengthen training capacities and formulate training strategies as per the changing circumstances.

Personnel:

• NCB needs to have a cadre of its own personnel and it should not depend on the personnel(deputation) from other law enforcement agencies.

Co-ordination:

• Co-ordination among various central and state level narcotic agencies needs to be improved.
• Recently, Govt has constituted Narco Co-ordination Centre (NCORD) under Director-General NCB to provide a common platform for concerted actions by all the drug law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders.

Increased cooperation with neighboring countries:

• There should be an exchange of information and investigative assistance and sharing real-time information and coordination operation with nodal agencies of neighboring countries
• India has signed bilateral agreements on drug-related matters with Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, and Afghanistan and agency-level talks are held regularly between the nodal drug law enforcement agencies of neighboring countries like Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

Strengthening State level anti-narcotic agencies:

• The Center should provide financial assistance to the eligible states for strengthening their anti-narcotics units.

Amendments required in NDPS Act:

• The present NDPS Act fails to differentiate between a casual drug user, a hard addict, a petty peddler, and a seasoned drug trafficker. There is much confusion on the issue of ‘ascertaining quantity’ and ‘purity versus total weight’ as different courts interpreted in different parameters.

Border Surveillance:

• Border Guarding Forces need to enhance their patrolling and surveillance using the latest technological tools and techniques to stop illicit drug trafficking at the borders.

CONCLUSION: Overall, it can be seen that there are various loopholes in the functioning of narcotic agencies in India. Drug menace is a very serious issue impacting the country’s security. Creating law & order issues and destroying the youths in our society. Time has come to carry out radical reforms in their functioning so that India escapes from becoming the “drug capital” of the world.

Narcotics vs. psychotropic substances (As per NDPS Act)

• The narcotic drug” means coca leaf, cannabis (hemp), opium, poppy straw, etc.
• “Psychotropic substance” means any substance, natural or synthetic, or any natural material or any salt or preparation of such substance or material included in the list of psychotropic substances specified in the Schedule.

Ex: LYSERGIDE (LSD), ETICYCLIDINE (PCE), MDMA, DIAZEPAM, etc.

THE CONTEXT: The recent farmer agitation has brought the issue of farmer distress front and center in the public consciousness. The time seems ripe to find new solutions to the structural challenges facing farmers. One of the solution is to support farmers by Direct Income Support (DIS) but in recent time several reports highlighted that such schemes are facing many challenges. In this article, we will discuss that what should be the way forward for the effective implementation of these scheme.

INCOME SUPPORT SCHEME IN INDIA FOR FARMERS

• In agriculture, there are two major types of government support measures. The first one is price support measure and the second is income support measures.
• Price support means the government is procuring the agricultural produce from farmers at a remunerative price. India’s Minimum Support Price based procurement is a classic example of price support scheme.

DIRECT INCOME SUPPORT

• The second type of support is DIRECT INCOME SUPPORT (DIS).In this scheme, government transfers direct payment to the poor farmers.
• Under the WTO terminology, it is called Direct payments to farmers or Decoupled Income Support. Decoupled means such an income transfer to farmers will not influence (or minimum influence) production and price of the respective crops.

PM KISAN SAMMAN SAMMAN NIDHI

• The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is the first universal basic income-type of scheme targeted towards landed farmers.
• It was introduced in December 2018 to manage agricultural stress.
• Initially, the scheme was targeted at small and medium landed farmers, but with the declining growth in gross value added of the agricultural sector, it was extended to all farmers in May 2019.
• This direct benefit transfer scheme was aimed at addressing the liquidity constraints of farmers in meeting their expenses for agricultural inputs and services.

Features of the scheme:

• Income support: The primary feature of this Yojana is the minimum income support it provides to farmers. Each eligible farmer family is entitled to receive Rs.6000 per annum across India. However, the amount is not disbursed at once. It’s divided into three equal instalments and meted out four months apart.
• Funding: PMKSNY is an Indian government-sponsored farmer support scheme. Therefore, the entirety of its funding comes from the Government of India.
• Identification responsibility: While the responsibility of funding lies with GOI, the identification of beneficiaries is not under its purview. Instead, it’s the responsibility of State and Union Territory governments.

BENEFITS OF DIRECT INCOME SUPPORT

Direct Income Supports’ ability to encourage farmers to raise production is less. At the same time, it has some positives:

• There is no leakage – income is transferred through DBT.
• There is protection for farmers against income loss and adverse terms of trade impact on agriculture.
• It is less distortionary and is WTO combatable; there is less influence on production and price.
• Farm income support is superior to price support as it is crop neutral. The farmer is getting reward for continuing with agriculture whatever may be the crop he is cultivating. On the other hand, India’s MSP historically, favored wheat and rice farmers as procurement was concentrated on these two crops.

PM KISAN AFTER TWO YEARS: A CRITICAL REVIEW

The PM KISAN scheme has completed two years (seven installments are released of the scheme) but facing several crises.  The scheme is a useful vehicle to provide support to farmers and it was included in the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package during lockdown but, was this a useful way of relieving distress during the lockdown?  A survey by NCAER National Data Innovation Centre in June 2020 provides some useful insights in this regard:

Findings of the survey:

• Lower level of economic distress among farmers than among other groups.
• While farmers faced some logistical challenges in transporting and selling their produce, 97 per cent of them continued to harvest Rabi crops and prepared for the Kharif season.
• Nearly 75 per cent of the cultivators who usually hire labourers for agricultural activities continued to do so.
• The farmers were relatively immune to the economic impact of the lockdown as nearly 32 per cent of them experienced a large income loss which is much lower compared to the proportion among casual wage workers and business households.
• The proportion of households that had to borrow to meet their day-to-day consumption needs during the lockdown was relatively low for the farmers.
• While 7 per cent of farm households suffered from occasional unavailability of food during the lockdown, this figure was much higher for casual workers and business households.

Performance of PM-KISAN during the Pandemic:

• Only 21 per cent households received cash transfers through PM-KISAN.
• Around two-thirds reported receiving Rs. 2,000 and about a fourth received Rs. 4,000, possibly because family members engaged in agricultural activities may be co-residing within a household.
• About 35 per cent of rural PM-KISAN recipients suffered income losses to a large exendin comparison to more than half of the non-recipients.
• A little more than a third of PM-KISAN recipients borrowed money during this period as against 48 per cent of non-recipients.

Lack of Data Base:

• The scheme was hurriedly announced right ahead of the 2018 elections and then the government did not have proper database of farmers.
• There are nearly 14.5 crore families in India but govt did not has proper database of these families. Many states like West Bengal, have delayed or did not submit the data related to farmers.

Difficulty in Identifying Beneficiary Farmers:

• According to agricultural census of 2015-16, number of landholdings in the country was projected at Rs 14.65 crore. But land holding do not determine the number of farmer families present in the country as there are multiple owners for a single land. In such scenario, all the farmer families which own the land are eligible for the scheme.
• Number of landholdings in Punjab according to agricultural census were 10.39 lakh but number of beneficiaries’ farmers in PM-kisan data base list were 17.52 lakh till October 23, 2019.
• It may happen that a single farmer holds multiple lands. The agricultural census may record multiple land holdings which PM-Kisan scheme would otherwise recognize as single farmer.

Census Issue: 

• Other problem includes the agricultural census that counts the number of operational landholdings. Which is the piece of land being used for cultivation without considering the title of land. Whereas PM-kisan scheme considers the farmer families recognized as land holders under the state or union territory.
• Further, around 14.3 crore landless farmers (census 2011) will not be able to avail this scheme. Mainly due to the fact they are not the land holders and are contract farmers.
• However, the government is trying to release fund to farmers by linking their account to Aadhaar card. Government extended the date to seed the Aadhaar account to November 30 2019.

Others:

1. Intended Farm Households are not covered: PM-KISAN is not reaching all farmer households as intended as most of the farmers in UP, Haryana and Rajasthan own land and should be receiving benefits but only 21 per cent of the cultivators interviewed reported receiving the benefit.
2. Not a pro-poor scheme: it is not pro-poor since recipients of PM-KISAN seemed to be better off than the general rural population even before the lockdown.
3. Lack of digitized land records: In many States, land records are not updated regularly and therefore, there could be instances where the cultivating farmers would have partitioned their holdings from other family members, but would not have the records-of-right to claim the benefit instantly.
4. Overlapping of with other schemes: Various state governments have launched schemes with similar benefits such as Rythu Bandu (Telangana), Annadatha Sukhibhava (Andhra Pradesh), KALIA Scheme (Odisha) and Bhavantar Bhugtaan Yojana (Madhya Pradesh).

WHAT SHOULD BE THE WAY FORWARD?

Proactive role of Banks:

• There are reports that after the loan waiver in Maharashtra or transfer of first instalment to the Bank accounts of farmers under KALIA scheme in Odisha, concerned bank branches adjusted the deposit money against past liabilities of few farmers.
• This kind of scenarios may lead to subversion of the objectives of the income support scheme, which is clearly intended to assist the farmers with some disposable cash for purchase of inputs.
• Banks involved in primary sector lending or disbursement of crop loans, etc. need to be sensitized properly on their critical role in implementation of PM-KISAN.

Strengthening IT backbone:

• Needless to say that States with robust computerized land records data base and a good IT infrastructure will be in a better position to implement PM-KISAN.
• With ICT usage and direct transfer of money to farmers’ bank accounts, pilferage would also be less.
• Farmers not having bank accounts should be encouraged to open ‘no-frills’ accounts under the Jan-Dhan Yojana. Linking Aadhaar data base will further strengthen the system and analytics later on from this big-data eco-system could assist decision making empirically.

Targeting benefits and updation of land records:

• In many States, land records are not updated regularly and therefore, there could be instances where the cultivating farmers would have partitioned their holdings from other family members, but would not have the records-of-right to claim the benefit instantly.
• These kind of genuine cases need to be redressed by revenue authorities so that eligible cases are not deprived.
• Similarly, fraudulent claims should also be avoided. Involving the Gram Panchayats, wherever possible in targeting of beneficiaries may be explored.

LESSON FROM STATES POLICIES

• Odisha’s KALIA scheme offers some important lessons for the effective implementation of the scheme.
• Odisha used a three-step framework to identify beneficiaries. These are:
• Unification: The first step involved unifying state databases with “green forms” which were essentially applications from farmers who wanted to opt in.
• Verification: The second step involved verification of information through databases like the Socio-Economic Caste Census, National Food Security Act and other databases; de-duplication through Aadhaar; and bank account verification through bank databases.
• Exclusion: The third step involved excluding ineligible applicants like government employees, tax payers, large farmers, and those that voluntarily opted out.
• The use of technology and non-farm databases meant that KALIA could include sharecroppers, tenant and landless farmers as beneficiaries, which is a significant step towards inclusive agricultural policy-making.
• KALIA has now laid the foundation for a state-wide farmer database with 100 per cent Aadhaar, mobile number and financial address seeding. This database can be leveraged for targeted scheme delivery beyond DIS, issuing customized agree-advisories and improving financial access.

CONCLUSION: PM- KISAN is India’s first direct support scheme, which should be surely successful. But for this, govt of India should learn some important lessons from other sources like the KALIA scheme and for that technology can play a vital role. The potential of technology to transform social welfare delivery is exciting. An approach that leverages data to maximize citizen benefits, while ensuring privacy, security and access, must be the way forward if we are to truly realize the power of digital to serve every Indian.

JUST ADD TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE

THE MSP AS A PRICE SUPPORT MEASURE:

• WTO calls these subsidies as amber box subsidies that distorts trade. Such subsidies should be reduced as they may make a high cost producer a big produce and the country may export its produce.
• According to the WTO, a support (subsidy) by the government that influences production and price is trade distorting and it should be reduced.

PM-KISAN (DIRECT INCOME SUPPORT):

• In this case; the government will be giving direct payment to the farmers for their low income from farming.
• Under the WTO terminology, it is called Direct payments to farmers or Decoupled Income Support.
• Decoupled means such an income transfer to farmers will not influence production and price of the respective crops.
• Under Agreement on Agriculture (WTO), the direct payment to farmers comes under the Green Box.

THE CONTEXT: The Economic Survey rightly flagged the issue of a growing food subsidy bill, which, in the words of the government, “is becoming unmanageably large”.The reason is food subsidy, coupled with the drawal of food grains by States from the central pool under various schemes, has been on a perpetual growth trajectory. This article discusses the issues related to increasing food subsidies, the need to recast the system, and possible solutions.

PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

Basic information: 

PDS evolved as a system of management of scarcity through the distribution of foodgrains at affordable prices.

• The public distribution system (PDS) is an Indian food Security System established under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution.
• PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments:
• The Central Government, through the Food Corporation of India (FCI), has assumed the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation, and bulk allocation of food grains to the State Governments.
• The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State, identification of eligible families, Issue of Ration Cards, and supervision of the functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs), etc., rest with the State Governments.

Evolution of the system:

• Before 1960-PDS was introduced during the time of World War II. It was before the year 1960 that the distribution through PDS was dependent on imports of food grains.
• 1960s-The Public Distribution System was then expanded in the 1960s to handle food shortages and take care of distribution.
• The Food Corporation of India and the Commission of Agricultural Costs and Prices were also set up by the government of India to improve domestic procurement and storage of food grains.
• 1970s – It was during the 1970s when PDS evolved as a universal scheme for the distribution of food.
• 1992- The Revamped Public Distribution System (RPDS) was launched in 1992 with a view to strengthen and streamline the PDS as well as to improve its reach in the far-flung, hilly, remote, and inaccessible areas.
• 1997- the Government of India launched the Targeted Public distribution system (TPDS) with a focus on the poor.
• Beneficiaries under TPDS Divided into 2 categories – Households Below Poverty Line and Households Above Poverty Line.
• 2000- Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)launched in December 2000 was a step in the direction of making TPDS aim at reducing hunger among the poorest segments of the BPL population.

Functions:

• The center procures food grains from farmers at a minimum support price (MSP) and sells them to states at central issue prices. It is responsible for transporting the grains to godowns in each state.
• States bear the responsibility of transporting food grains from these godowns to each fair price shop (ration shop), where the beneficiary buys the food grains at the lower central issue price.
• Many states further subsidize the price of food grains before selling them to beneficiaries.

FOOD SECURITY AND PDS SYSTEM

• With a network of more than 400,000 Fair Price Shops (FPS), the public distribution system (PDS) in India is perhaps the largest distribution machinery of its type in the world.
• PDS is said to distribute each year commodities worth more than Rs15,000 crore to about 16 crore families.
• This huge network can play a more meaningful role if only the system is able to translate into micro-level macro-level self-sufficiency by ensuring the availability of food grains for poor households.
• Food Security of beneficiaries is ensured by distributing food grains at subsidized prices through the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). It protects them from price volatility due to inflation.
• Over the years, while the spending on food subsidies has increased, the ratio of people below the poverty line has decreased.

THE ISSUE

• During 2016-17 to 2019-20, the subsidy amount clubbed with loans taken by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) under the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) towards food subsidy, was in the range of ₹1.65-lakh crore to ₹2.2-lakh crore. In the future, the annual subsidy bill of the Centre is expected to be about ₹2.5-lakh crore.
• As the National Food Security Act (NFSA), which came into force in July 2013, enhanced entitlements (covering two-thirds of the country’s population), this naturally pushed up the States’ drawal.

(Based on an improved version of the targeted public distribution system (PDS), the law requires the authorities to provide to each beneficiary 5 kg of rice or wheat per month.)

• For this financial year (2020-21) which is an extraordinary year on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, the revised estimate of the subsidy has been put at about ₹4.23-lakh crore, excluding the extra-budgetary resource allocation of ₹84,636 crores.

OTHER CHALLENGES RELATED TO THE FOOD SUBSIDY

• While MSP is declared for 23 crops, the biggest financial burden comes from wheat and rice.
• Overall procurement of rice and wheat has gone up to 52 million tonnes and 39 million tonnes, respectively. The requirement of PDS and welfare schemes is about 60 million tonnes.
• This leaves a surplus of about 30 million tonnes, in addition to the carry-over stock of about 42 million tonnes (current)—far above the buffer and strategic reserve norms.
• The cost of holding this stock works out to Rs 29,000 crore per year.

WILL INCREASING CIP REVAMP THE SYSTEM?

Foodgrains via ration shops are supplied at highly subsidized rates of ₹3 per kg for rice, ₹2 per kg for wheat, and ₹1 per kg for coarse grains through the Public Distribution System (PDS) as per the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

• The Economic Survey has hinted at an increase in the Central Issue Price (CIP), which has remained at ₹2 per kg for wheat and ₹3 per kg for rice for years, though the NFSA, even in 2013, envisaged a price revision after three years.
• One should ponder over the advisability of keeping so low the retail prices of food grains at fair price shops, even after the passage of nearly 50 years and achieving substantial poverty reduction in the country. As per the Rangarajan group’s estimate in 2014, the share of people living below the poverty line (BPL) in the 2011 population was 29.5% (about 36 crores).
• The Centre, by stating through the Survey that it is difficult to reduce “the economic cost of food management in view of rising commitment” towards food security, does not want the NFSA norms to be disturbed.

Political compulsions are perceived to be coming in the way of the Centre and the States increasing the prices.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Decreasing the quantum of coverage:

• It is time the Centre had a relook at the overall food subsidy system including the pricing mechanism. It should revisit NFSA norms and coverage.
• An official committee in January 2015 called for decreasing the quantum of coverage under the law, from the present 67% to around 40%.

“Give-up” option:

• For all ration cardholders drawing food grains, a “give-up” option, as done in the case of cooking gas cylinders, can be made available.
• Even though States have been allowed to frame criteria for the identification of PHH cardholders, the Centre can nudge them into pruning the number of such beneficiaries.

Slab system:

• As for the prices, the existing arrangement of flat rates should be replaced with a slab system. Barring the needy, other beneficiaries can be made to pay a little more for a higher quantum of food grains.
• The rates at which these beneficiaries have to be charged can be arrived at by the Centre and the States through consultations. These measures, if properly implemented, can have a salutary effect on retail prices in the open market.

CONCLUSION

• There are no two opinions about reforms implemented in the PDS through various steps, including end-to-end computerization of operations, digitization of data of ration cardholders, seeding of Aadhaar, and automation of fair price shops.
• Yet, diversion of food grains and other chronic problems do exist. It is nobody’s case that the PDS should be dismantled or the in-kind provision of food subsidy be discontinued.
• After all, the Centre itself did not see any great virtue in the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode at the time of giving additional food grains free of cost to the States during April-November last year (as part of relief measures during the pandemic).
• A revamped, need-based PDS is required not just for cutting down the subsidy bill but also for reducing the scope for leakages. Political will should not be found wanting.

THE CONTEXT: In a stunning development for Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs), the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification on March 4 dramatically altering the compact between OCIs and the Indian state. It is saying that the notification is the end of India’s experiment with dual citizenship. The development has started a new debate. In this article, we will analyze the issue in detail.

NOTIFICATION BY THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS

The new notification was issued under section 7(B) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Under this notification, the rules and regulations for the OCIs have been rescheduled. This notification supersedes three earlier notifications that were issued in 2005, 2007, and 2009.

The OCI cardholder shall be required to obtain a special authorization/permit to visit India from the competent authority or the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (hereinafter referred to as “FRRO”) or the Foreigners Registration Officer (hereinafter referred as to “FRO”) if the Indian mission visit is for following purposes:

• To undertake research;
• To undertake any Missionary or Tabligh or Mountaineering
• or Journalistic activities;
• To undertake an internship in any foreign Diplomatic Missions or foreign Government organizations in India or to take up employment in any foreign Diplomatic Missions in India;
• To visit any place which falls within the Protected or Restricted or prohibited areas as notified by the Central Government or competent authority.

For any time period to stay in India and the exemption from registration with the FRRO or FRO, the OCI cardholders can also claim exemption from registration with the FRRO or FRO. Necessary to mention the OCI cardholders who are ordinarily resident in India shall intimate the FRRO or the FRO through email every time there is a change in permanent residential address and their occupation.

Parity with Indian nationals in the matter of

• Tariffs in airfares in domestic sectors in India; and
• Entry fees are to be charged for visiting national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, national monuments, historical sites, and museums in India.

Parity with non-resident Indians in the matter of

• Inter-country adoption of Indian children subject to the compliance of the procedure as laid down by the competent authority for such adoption;
• Appearing for the all-India entrance tests.
• Provided that the OCI cardholder shall not be eligible for admission against any seat reserved exclusively for Indian citizens;
• Purchase or sale of immovable properties other than agricultural land or farmhouse or plantation property
• Pursuing the following professions in India as per the provisions contained in the applicable relevant statutes or Acts as the case may be, namely:-

(a)      Doctors, dentists, nurses, and pharmacists

(b)      Advocates

(c)       Architects

(d)      Chartered accountants.

Who are OCI citizens?

OCI citizens are of Indian origin; however, they are foreign passport holders and are not citizens of India. India does not allow dual citizenship but provides certain benefits under Section 7B (I) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 to the OCIs.

The ministry of home affairs defines a person as a oversees citizen of India who:

• Was a citizen of India on or After 26^th Jan 1950
• Was eligible to become a citizen of India on 26^th Jan 1950
• Is a child or grandchild of such a person

But a person is not eligible for OCI; if his parents or grandparents have ever been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh. This category was introduced by the government in 2005. The government of India via Citizenship (amendment) 2015 merged the person of Indian origin (PIO) category with the OCI category.

HOW NEW RULING IMPACTS THE OCIs CARDHOLDERS?

• Prohibits them from undertaking certain activities without prior permission of the Foreigners Regional Registration Officers (FRRO).
• Parity with Indian citizens in the matters of tariffs in airfares in domestic sectors in India and entry fees to be charged for visiting national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, the national monuments, historical sites, and museums in India.
• Special permission to undertake research work or take up employment in any foreign diplomatic missions in India will need permission.
• Prior permission will be needed if wants to visit any place that falls within the protected restricted or prohibited areas.
• This regulation will impact the government’s 2018 decision that made an OCI eligible for appointment as permanent teaching faculty in a premier educational institution. Such recruitments are governed by Section 7B 2(I) of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
• It restored the lifelong visa to OCIs that was temporarily suspended in March 2020 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• An OCI cardholder to intimate the FRRO by email whenever there is a change in permanent residential address and in their occupation.
• Eligible for appearing in all-India entrance tests. This will only be against any NRI seat and shall not be eligible for admission against any seat reserved exclusively for Indian citizens.
• In a related case pending before the Karnataka High Court, the Centre had in March 2019 maintained the same stand. However, on 15 December 2020, the HC directed that students under the OCI category are to be considered citizens of India for admission to professional courses and not restrict their admissions only under the NRI quota.

OCI HOLDERS AT PAR WITH NRIS?

• The new notification is making OCI cardholders par with Non-Resident Indians in the matter of inter-country adoption of Indian children.
• Appearing in the all India entrance tests and purchase or sale of immovable properties other than agricultural land or farmhouse or plantation property.
• They can pursue the professions in India as per the provisions contained in the applicable relevant statutes which include doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists, advocates, architects, chartered accountants.

Under the Foreigners (Restricted Areas) Order, 1963, the following areas have been declared as `Restricted’ Areas – Andaman & Nicobar Islands – Entire Union Territory and Sikkim – Part of the State.

• The whole of Arunachal Pradesh
• Parts of Himachal Pradesh
• Parts of Jammu & Kashmir
• Whole of Manipur
• Whole of Mizoram
• Whole of Nagaland
• Parts of Uttarakhand

IS THE NEW NOTIFICATION AN END TO INDIA’S EXPERIMENT WITH DUAL CITIZENSHIP?

In 2006, in order to meet calls for dual citizenship, India introduced the OCI card for foreign nationals of Indian descent. The OCI card allows foreign citizens of Indian origin to visit, live and work in India as citizens would. But there were many key restrictions:

• OCI cardholders could not vote or participate in Indian politics
• Can’t occupy any positions in public service
• Can’t invest in agricultural land holdings

Moreover, it was hoped that in future India will provide dual citizens to OCIs cardholders and for that Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor introduced a bill in Parliament to amend the Indian Constitution and allow dual citizenship for Indians. But, the new notifications are being seen as a step backward from granting dual citizenship to people of Indian origin who are citizens of foreign countries.

WHAT IS DUAL CITIZENSHIP AND WHY DOES INDIA NEED IT?

Introducing dual citizenship means that foreign citizens would be allowed to hold Indian passports and exercise all rights of an Indian citizen including participating in politics, policy, and governance.

Why does India need Dual citizenship?

FOR INDIAN DIASPORA

• It would open the floodgates for a diversely skilled group of professionals to come back home, infusing India’s somewhat insular and protectionist policymaking apparatus with much-needed international expertise.
• Dual citizens will bring Indian policymaking the benefits of global perspectives and lessons from global best practices.
• The return of a diaspora with wide-ranging international experiences will go a long way in changing that; if dual citizens were to return to the government, they will help inform the domestic political discourse on the consequences that Indian businesses, students, and professionals face abroad – and, by extension, those that their families face back home. Dual citizens will further spread public awareness of international events.

TO EXPAND FOREIGN POLICY

For years, Indian foreign policy discourse has suffered from introversion and fence-sitting on matters of international politics and security. A large part of the domestic debate on foreign policy is restricted to the immediate neighborhood – and often just one country out of them all: Pakistan.

GLOBAL INFLUENCE

They will also be more invested in steering Indian foreign policy discourse towards a discussion on increasing India’s global influence, rather than on less meaningful populist chest-thumping: After all, many of them changed their passports in large part because of the consequences of India’s underwhelming global influence (the Indian passport is currently ranked 86 out of 109 positions on travel freedom – below Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone).

EASY CITIZENSHIP BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES FOR DEVELOPMENT

• Many Indians abroad change their passports for very practical reasons seeking access to a higher quality of life, high-paying jobs in multilateral organizations where Indian citizens are over-represented, or merely for mobility and travel freedom.
• Between 2014 and 2017, 4.5 lakh Indians opted for citizenship in another country. As foreign countries offer easy citizenship in exchange for cash and investments, the trend is only set to grow.
• Despite their change in citizenship, India’s diaspora has remained strongly committed to Indian interests overseas and the spread of India’s global influence worldwide. Dual citizenship will more fully leverage the political influence of Indians abroad by giving them a more direct stake in India’s development – and more meaningful roles by which to contribute to it. If Indian dual citizens return home to be in politics or government, they are more likely to do so in order to fix many of the developmental challenges that forced their migration, rather than to serve any ‘grand designs’ of foreign sabotage in India.

OTHER COUNTRIES ARE OFFERING DUAL CITIZENSHIP

Eighty-five countries in the world offer dual citizenship. India needs to join this long list to avoid embarrassments such as an Indian winning the Nobel Prize but not being an Indian citizen.

But the new notification of the government of India is against the demand of modern times that makes OCIs cardholder as par Indian Citizens in some cases but restricted in some other cases and make them as par the NRIs. Although there are some criticisms of dual citizenship like:

• the threat of having foreign citizens in positions of policymaking and power.
• How can Indians trust folks who owe allegiance to a foreign power?

But the problem with these arguments is that this approach totally misunderstands the Indian diaspora spectacularly. Unlike several foreign citizens of Chinese or Russian descent, Indian-origin citizens in the West did not flee from their home country out of spite or suppression.

What are the options for India? Case studies from other countries

Many countries have found a way around the technical and security issues involved.

• Bangladesh requires its citizens to obtain a “dual nationality certificate” so that it can control who gets to take dual citizenship and under what circumstances.
• Brazilians can acquire another country’s passport but they must enter and exit Brazil only on the Brazilian passport.
• Canada actually encourages dual citizenship; the US discourages but allows it.
• If the concern is security, one can look at Pakistan, which allows its citizens to hold dual citizenship of only 16 other countries, doesn’t let dual citizens run for public office or join the military. Signing dual citizenship agreements with other countries helps prevent its misuse.

CONCLUSION: The introduction of dual citizenship is a great opportunity for India to expand its global influence and attract the world’s talent to aid its domestic growth. More importantly, it will reinstate India’s legacy as a civilization that is open rather than insular, global rather than protectionist, and confident rather than insecure. For India’s aspirations to be a global power, there are few attributes more pertinent than those.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OCI CARD HOLDER, PIO, AND NRI

OVERSEAS CITIZEN OF INDIA: OCI is an immigration status given to a foreign citizen of Indian origin as an alternative for dual citizenship which is not allowed by the Indian Constitution.

NON-RESIDENTIAL INDIA: NRI is a residential status given to a citizen of India with an Indian Passport who resides in a foreign country for the purpose of work/business, or education.

PERSON OF INDIAN ORIGIN: PIO is an identification status given to whom or whose any of the ancestors was a permanent Indian resident/citizen and who is currently holding valid citizenship and passport of another country.

THE CONTEXT: The fifth annual democracy report by Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, titled ‘Autocratisation goes viral’, has downgraded India from “the world’s largest democracy” to an “electoral autocracy”.V-Dem’s findings are consistent with other contemporary international inferences on the quality of democracy prevailing in India: Freedom House designated India to be “partly free” recently; India was described as a “flawed democracy” in the latest Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

INDIA: A CAPTURED DEMOCRACY

The current crisis of Indian democracy should be seen as the outcome of a “democracy capture”.  In democratic societies, the common good should prevail over individual interests. The state’s role is to design and implement public policies that enhance and improve the rights of its citizens. If the opposite is the case, the state is said to have been ‘captured’. A state that grants privileges to a few over the majority of the population is one in which public policies reduce or limit the rights of its citizens.

The current crisis is different from the Emergency

• Emergency was an exception to a norm; what we now have is a different norm.
• Emergency needed a formal legal declaration. Capturing democracy does not.
• The Emergency had a beginning and was, at least on paper, required to have an end. Democracy capture has a beginning, but not necessarily an end.
• Beyond Kashmir, there has been no mass arrest of politicians, and many more state governments are run by political parties that do not rule in Delhi.

This is ‘democracy capture’ as democracy is both the object and the subject of this capture. The apparatus being seized is democracy. And the means being deployed for this capture are also democratic. The formal procedures of democracy have been used to subvert the substance of democracy. This democracy capture could not have happened without some structural weaknesses within the Indian democracy. Therefore, one must focus on the conditions that made this kind of capture possible.

GOVERNMENT TO BLAME

The rankings blame the government for the backsliding of democracy.  They say there has been increased pressure on human rights groups, intimidation of journalists and activists, and a spate of attacks, especially against Muslims under the present regime. This has led to a deterioration of political and civil liberties in the country.

• V-Dem said the “diminishing of freedom of expression, the media, and civil society have gone the furthest” and that far as censorship goes India was “as autocratic as Pakistan and worse than its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal”.
• Freedom House said civil liberties have been in decline since 2014, and that India’s “fall from the upper ranks of free nations” could have a more damaging effect on the world’s democratic standards.
• And The Democracy Index said the “democratic backsliding” by authorities and “crackdowns” on civil liberties had led to a decline in India’s rankings. It said government policies had “fomented anti-Muslim feeling and religious strife and damaged the political fabric of the country”.

THE WORLD MOVES TOWARDS AUTOCRATISATION

Going by rankings, democracy, despite its enduring appeal, appears to be in trouble all over the world. The erosion of freedoms in India seems to be consistent with the retreat of liberal democracies around the world. According to V-Dem, electoral autocracies are now present in 87 states that are home to 68% of the global population.

• In the 2020 Democracy Index, only 75 of the 167 countries and territories covered by the model – or 44.9% – are considered to be democracies.
• Freedom House estimates less than 20% of the world’s population now lives in a free country, the smallest proportion since 1995.
• According to V-Dem Liberal democracies are diminishing, and are home to only 14% of the people.
• In 2020, two-thirds of countries imposed restrictions on the media and a third of countries have emergency measures without an expiry date.

But the breakdown of democracy in established cases is concerning. India is the latest example of this following Hungary and Turkey. The Indian case stands out given the size of its population and past record as a successful model of multi-ethnic democracy

Third-wave

• Unlike previous waves, the present wave mainly affects democracies.
• Traditional methods of dramatic and blatant military coups (1^st wave) and election fraud (2^nd wave) have been replaced with legal, informal and discrete power transfers (3^rd wave).

Like for authoritarianism

• Surveys have reported that Indians have demonstrated both majoritarian and authoritarian impulses for some years now and younger people do not have particularly more progressive beliefs.
• In the latest round (2010-2014) of the World Values Survey, India along with Pakistan and Russia featured below the global average on the importance accorded to democracy.
• The latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey, conducted in early 2018, found that a majority of Indians were satisfied with the way democracy was working.

INDIA’S AUTOCATISATION PROCESS

Autocratisation typically follows a similar pattern across very different contexts. It begins with ruling governments attacking the media and civil society, followed by polarisation of the society by disrespecting opponents and spreading false information and culminates in elections and other formal institutions being undermined. Leaders in some constitutional democracies have used use constitutionalism and democracy to destroy both. Electoral mandates plus constitutional and legal changes are used for this. They support elections and use their electoral victories to legitimize their legal reforms. They use constitutional change for achieving the unified domination of all of the institutions of the state. India follows the pattern observed in other cases of recent democratic breakdown, the typical pattern for countries in the ‘Third Wave’. India is among the countries leading the ‘third wave of automatisation,

EVIDENCE FROM THE REPORTS

INDIA IS NOW ‘PARTLY FREE’ IN FREEDOM HOUSE’SREPORT

Freedom in the World report has downgraded India’s status from a ‘Free’ country to a ‘Partly Free’ country. The report noted a “multiyear pattern” as it attributed the downgrade — from a score of 71 in 2019 and 75 in 2018 to 67 in 2020. It said criminal charges were filed against journalists, students, and others under “colonial-era sedition laws” and the Information Technology (IT) Act in response to “speech perceived as critical of the government, notably including expressions of opposition to the new citizenship legislation and discussion of the official response to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Discrimination’ against Muslims

• A number of Hindu nationalist organizations and some media outlets promote anti-Muslim views, which the government has been accused of encouraging.
• The implementation of the CAA and the government’s intention for an NRC threatened to disenfranchise Muslim voters.
• The report also mentioned cow vigilantism.

Lack of freedom’ in institutions

• Freedoms of various institutions such as the Election Commission of India and the Supreme Court have been called into question.
• The amendment of the Right to Information Act potentially exposed the commissioners to political pressure.

Freedom of media and expression

• The report said the authorities have used security, defamation, sedition, and hate speech laws, as well as contempt of court charges, to quiet critical voices in the media which has exacerbated self-censorship.
• It also claimed that academic freedom has declined and that academics, professors and students are intimidated.

How reliable are these rankings?

Global exercises.

• Freedom House’s latest global report on political rights and civil liberties covers developments in 195 countries and 15 territories.
• V-Dem claims to produce the largest global dataset on democracy involving 202 countries from 1789 to 2020.
• The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index gives a snapshot on the health of democracy in 165 countries and two territories.

Rules and parameters

• V-Dem says it measures “hundreds of different attributes of democracy” with almost 30 million data points, involving more than 3,500 scholars and country experts.
• The Economist’s Democracy Index is based on measuring electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties”.
• And Freedom House says it uses a two-tiered system consisting of scores and status – a country is awarded points for each of its political rights and civil liberties indicators.

Subjectivity

• Such rankings, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania, are the result of quantitative assessments – like the distribution of seats in the national legislature among political parties – and qualitative judgements, like evaluating whether safeguards against corruption are effective.
• Aggregating these indicators into an index is a subjective exercise, depending on the judgements of experts to identify metrics to include and how to weigh each appropriately.
• Most rankings do not impose a single definition of democracy – experts agree that an “electoral democracy” is really the bare minimum.

INDIA IS NOW AN ‘ELECTORAL AUTOCRACY’ IN V-DEM’S REPORT

India registered a 23-percentage point drop on its 0-to-1 Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) scale, which aims to capture electoral and liberal aspects of democracy.

With this slide, India has moved from the top 50% of the 180 countries analyzed by V Dem to the bottom 50%. In last year’s report, India was last among the 90 countries in the top 50%. This year, it is ranked 97th, falling into the bottom 50%.

Elections

• The autonomy of the ECI saw a severe depreciation since around 2013 and signals the decline in the quality of critical formal institutions.
• The overall freedom and fairness of elections also were hard hit, with the 2019 elections, hastening a downgrading to an electoral autocracy.

Freedom of expression

• By 2020, censorship efforts are becoming routine and no longer even restricted to sensitive (to the government) issues. India is, in this aspect, now as autocratic as is Pakistan, and worse than both its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal.
• In general, the government has used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics. For example, over 7,000 people have been charged with sedition after 2014 and most of the accused are critics of the ruling party.
• The law on defamation has been used frequently to silence journalists and news outlets that take exception to policies of the government.

Civil Society

• Constraints have been also placed on civil society. The UAPA, 1967, amended in August 2019, is being used to harass and imprison political opponents, as well as people mobilizing to protest government policies and to silence dissent in academia.
• The government has increasingly used the FCRA to restrict the entry, exit, and functioning of Civil Society Organisations.

INDIA’S SLIDE IN OTHER INDICES WHICH MONITOR DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS

India’s slide in these reports only mirrors its decline in indices compiled by independent bodies which monitor democratic freedoms over the past few years.

• In March 2020, Reports Without Borders (RSF) placed India alongside China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in a list of press freedom’s “worst digital predators”. The list flags countries where companies and government agencies use “digital technology to spy on and harass journalists”.
• In April 2020, the US government’s Religious Freedom Monitor recommended that the country’s state department should include India in the list of “countries of special concern”. It noted that religious freedom had improved globally but singled out India for seeing a “sharp downward turn”.
• Again in April, India was ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s Press Freedom Index, sliding two ranks down. It criticized the ‘longest electronic curfew’ in history in Kashmir and highlighted that ‘state troll armies’ in the country use the ‘weapon of disinformation on social media.
• The country also fell 26 places to rank 105th among 162 countries and territories on a global economic freedom index released by the Fraser Institute in Canada in September 2020.
• Finally, in December 2020, India was ranked 111th out of 162 countries in the Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index 2020. Between the 2019 and 2020 indices, the country plummeted 17 spots.

With the Centre giving the nod to the new IT Rules, which give the government sweeping powers, future reports could see India’s media freedom being downgraded further.

INDIA IS A “FLAWED DEMOCRACY” IN EIU’S ‘DEMOCRACY IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH?’REPORT

India has fallen two places to 53rd in the 2020 Democracy Index report released by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The country was ranked 51st in 2019, with an overall score of 6.9 which has dropped down to 6.61. While India’s democratic credibility and scores suffered this year, regional neighbours, namely, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Pakistan saw marginal improvement.

Religious strife

• It cites the CAA, as the primary cause that fuelled protests in the country for months.
• The ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is the second significant event that the report cites to explain the fall in India’s position as a vibrant democracy

Lockdown

• The government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and a crackdown on voices that criticized its measures.
• According to media reports, 55 Indian journalists were threatened, arrested, and booked by the Centre and state governments for their reporting on COVID-19.

HOW HAS INDIA’S GOVERNMENT REACTED?

The flurry of downgrades has cast a shadow on the global image of India’s democracy. The government has said that the ‘Freedom in the World’ report is “misleading, incorrect and misplaced”. The government also issued a point-by-point rebuttal. In parliament, the chairman of the upper house, Venkaiah Naidu, did not allow an opposition MP to pose a question related to the V-Dem report.

WHAT COULD BE A PROBABLE IMPACT ON INDIA?

1. A) Foreign Policy

The biggest impact of these developments is, of course, internal. But the impact is also external. India has been accorded great respect in the world but the perceptions are now changing. Other countries’ view of India is influenced by calculations and hopes that it can help counter Chinese expansionism in Asia. India exercises lesser economic power internationally than China. Democracy was unquestionably one of India’s biggest international assets. The United States and its allies have courted India as a potential strategic partner and democratic counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific region. However, the Indian government’s departures from democratic norms could blur the values-based distinction between Beijing and New Delhi

1. B) Entrepreneurship

In India, due to the diversities of economic life, the evidence shows that economic growth is best achieved in times of civic and social freedom. In India’s economic growth-oriented phases where governments delivered steady growth rates, the state had a lighter footprint on civic life. The attempt to spur free private enterprise is bound to fail when the state apparatus is constricting civil and democratic rights. The common entrepreneur is a free thinker. But when the freedom to think is constricted, the robust energies of new entrepreneurs are in danger of being snuffed out.

WHAT ARE THE CRITICISMS OF THESE REPORTS?

But just as democracy is not about poll statistics, our democratic credentials can’t be crunched into a score either. The parameters in play are unquantifiable. The method used to condense the complexities of this vast country into a score that allows a rank ordering could be debated. Globally, ratings are being called into question. One prominent researcher concludes that the ratings may look scientific but they’re actually subjective.

General observation does confirm that India has not escaped global trends. Power appears more centralized than before and complaints have been aired of dissent losing space. What these ratings seem not to have taken into account are the popular voices of support for the constitutional values and democratic principles of equality, liberty and justice.

As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has argued, Indians are inherently argumentative, and our traditions of debate and discursive problem-solving go back millennia. The country’s response to the suspension of civil liberties during the Emergency testifies to that. It is hard to argue that Indians at large are not better informed and keener on empowerment now than they were then. Democracy is far more than the periodic ritual of exercising our franchise, yes, but it cannot be reduced to an index reading either.

Other organs of the state, Parliament and the Courts have enacted and reinforced progressive social legislation. Gay sex decriminalized, right to privacy fire-walled and women have been granted equal rights to pray in thus far male-only places of worship. Even when state governments have enacted legislation impinging upon the private lives of two consenting adults the courts have been quick to restrain police who filed cases under the laws.

A large number of nations where there is no separation of powers between the state and religion, which do not have a republican form of government, and where the concept of equality before the law does not exist, are way ahead of us. In fact, many countries in the top ten nations have different forms of Christianity as their state religion, whereas the secular ideal is embedded in the preamble of our Constitution.

These rankings are useful for research and identifying very broad trends that academics are interested in. This is an instance of academic discourse and concepts operating at a considerable distance from lived experience. The operational concepts across the two domains are very different.

Indeed, the methodology and ranking mechanisms adopted by organisations like Freedom House and projects like V-Dem can be critiqued. But Within their limitations, such assessments fulfil two purposes. They allow cross-national comparisons. One may have reservations about their criteria but being common for all countries, they give a reasonable idea of where a country stands vis-à-vis others. They also tell us how a given country has been performing over time.

WAY FORWARD

The signs of authoritarianism cannot be denied. Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by coups but by elected governments themselves. More prevalent now is what scholars are calling “democratic backsliding”, a new concept to depict democratic erosion led by elected politicians, often quite legally. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are legal in the sense that they are approved by the legislatures or accepted by the courts. There are examples from Latin America and Europe, and the US under Donald Trump. India’s democracy is backsliding because elected politicians are subverting democracy.

Democratic backsliding in India is especially concerning because India’s democracy was exceptional as democracy was not only established at low levels of income, but it even flourished. Other certificates from foreign monitors or watchdogs are welcomed and celebrated. This is true of the QS World University Rankings 2021, and World Bank’s annual report on ease of doing business 2020. These are applauded — as they should be. Yet, the bedrock beneath top-notch campuses and a vibrant market are the nation’s democratic credentials and the work of maintaining them is the most stellar achievement of all. They are what separates India from its neighbours in the region, and what distinguishes it from China. The combination of an open market and open democracy is what attracts private players and investors factor into their economic calculations. There must be no erosion or backsliding here — and in an increasingly interconnected world, perceptions of erosion and backsliding need to be addressed, not dismissed.

If democracy was just about free and fair elections, India would be the world’s greatest democracy. The apparatus needed for a healthy democracy goes beyond elections to unelected institutions: the judiciary, the press, the Reserve Bank of India, the Election Commission of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Lokpal, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the tax agencies, the police, and so on.

The more powerful a government, the more it pushes its way ahead of independent institutions. India will always have this problem of an executive seeking to ride roughshod over independent institutions through whatever means possible. Institutions that serve as the bulwark of democracy must regain their spirit and purpose for India to arrest its slide.

An awakening looks unlikely unless citizens themselves take up the cause of democracy. We had to pressure the government to have an independent system of appointing the Election Commissioners. Nobody wants to relinquish their powers. It is we the people who have to force the political class to have this conversation. Most of the Indian media has become a mouthpiece of the government. We need an equivalent of the First Amendment in the United States to ensure press freedom. It is civil society that will have to help create a consensus that we need to do something to ensure greater media independence.

CONCLUSION: Democracy means that the rulers represent the will of the people. It will never happen on its own. People must act to make it happen. And they need to do it as a matter of habit, daily and everywhere. That lever of control over the government – seeking accountability – must be used at every step. Reclaim democracy. It must be done daily. Seeking it once every five years will not do.

THE CONTEXT: The Covid-19 pandemic and its eventful aftermath has been inflicting unprecedented stress, on the already vulnerable Indian society. Most have seen their incomes fall, many have seen their families uprooted, some have even lost their lives. On moral grounds alone, there is a strong case for augmenting spending on social protection for the poor.

STATUS OF SOCIAL PROTECTION IN INDIA

• Prior to COVID-19, despite absolute poverty reduction in the past two decades, half of India’s population was vulnerable with consumption levels precariously close to the poverty line.
• Ninety percent of the Indian workforce is informal, without access to significant savings or work-place based social protection benefits such as paid sick leave or social insurance.
• The Periodic Labour Force Survey (2017-18) has found that only 47% of urban workers have regular, salaried jobs.
• Even among workers in formal employment, over 70% do not have contracts, 54% are not entitled to paid sick leave and 49% do not have any form of social security benefits. These workers, who may not be identified as ‘poor’ as per the consumption data but are at grave risk of falling into poverty due to wage and livelihood losses triggered by shrinking economic activity.
• In India, the pandemic has brought to the forefront the chronic poverty and inequality that already plague the nation, where more than 21.9% of the population lives below the poverty line. The implementation of nationwide lockdown measures has caused factories to shut down and interrupted supply chains, rendering migrants and non-migrant employees jobless.

SOCIAL SECURITY

• According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Social Security is a comprehensive approach designed to prevent deprivation, give assurance to the individual of a basic minimum income for himself and his dependents and protect the individual from any uncertainties.
• It is also comprised of two elements, namely:
  • Right to a Standard of Living is adequate for health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.
  • Right to Income Security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond any person’s control.
• In a report on the state of social protection globally, the UN’s International Labour Organization said that 4.1 billion people were living without any social safety net of any kind. Social protection includes access to health care and income security measures related especially to old age, unemployment, sickness, disability, work injury, maternity, or the loss of the main breadwinner in a family, as well as extra support for families with children.

CHALLENGES IN DELIVERING ENTITLEMENTS AT SCALE

• The limiting factors: Even before the pandemic, the effective and smooth distribution of social protection benefits has been hampered by barriers such as insufficient staffing, funding, and training of local-level government bodies and organizations (including SHGs and NGOs).
• Reaching the last mile: Common Service Centres (or CSCs) that are front-end channels for delivering services at the last mile have their fair share of problems, associated with weak connectivity, poor infrastructure, minimal incentives, and a lack of automated backend processes.
• Ever-increasing job loss: People cannot carry on with their usual jobs or occupations. The existing situation of unemployment worsens. Incomes fall or cease. Economically better-off people manage with varying degrees of difficulty, but people from the lower economic sections become almost destitute.
• Distribution struggles: Amidst free distribution of food and essential items to the needy and poor, people were seen fighting amongst themselves in the race to get there first and even to the extent of snatching it from others. Members of the NGOs and social organizations engaged in community service during these times were also hackled and abused.
• Targeting errors: While the JAM trinity and the increasing reliance on Direct Benefit Transfers have been a step towards automating the existing structure, the reform has its own shortcomings. For example, the Aadhaar-Based Biometric Authentication at Fair Price Shops often fails to read fingerprints of the elderly and those engaged in manual work as demonstrated in Karnataka, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. Targeting is a key issue to consider when designing inclusive social assistance programs in developing countries with large populations. In India, PDS beneficiaries are bracketed on the basis of a poverty line that may not reflect the accurate socio-economic status of a household.

GOI’S RESPONSE TOWARDS SOCIAL PROTECTION

• Introducing financial cushion: The Government of India and the World Bank today signed a $750 million of $1 billion proposed for Accelerating India’s COVID-19 Social Protection Response Programme to support India’s efforts at providing social assistance to the poor and vulnerable households, severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The first phase of the operation will be implemented countrywide through the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY). It will immediately help scale-up cash transfers and food benefits, using a core set of pre-existing national platforms and programs like the following:
  • Both anticipation of benefit payments and a top-up of INR2,000 to beneficiaries of PM-Kisan, a cash transfer scheme supplementing farmers’ income and supporting agriculture-related expenses
  • An increase of INR20 in the daily wages of workers registered under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the flagship public works program, representing up to INR2,000 per worker per year.
  • Expansion of the Public Distribution System (PDS) to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19, with beneficiaries of Antyodaya Anna Yojana, a program providing highly subsidized food grains, receiving free food, and additional food subsidies to mitigate food insecurity during the pandemic.
  • Government payment of three months’ worth of provident fund contributions for employees who earn less than INR15,000 per month and work in companies with less than 100 employees in which 90 percent of employees’ wages are below the INR15,000 threshold.
  • Financial support for 23 million construction workers from the Building and Construction Workers’ Fund managed by state governments, with a one-time cash benefit ranging between INR1,000 and INR5,000.
• Schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), public distribution system (PDS), and a modest universal income transfer can drive growth by boosting demand, correcting market failures, improving credit access, and providing the insurance needed for people to undertake risky investments to improve productivity. The GOI thus increased budget grants for these schemes. The sub-schemes like ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ further amplify the penetrative potential of schemes like PDS.

In the second phase, the program will deepen the social protection package, whereby additional cash and in-kind benefits based on local needs will be extended through state governments and portable social protection delivery systems.

Analysis by World Bank Group

Coverage and outreach of the first round of India’s social protection response have been impressive at scale, reaching a majority of households. Between May and August 2020, more than 87 percent of India’s poorest households reported receiving at least one benefit, food or cash, under the PMGKY. Across the country, nearly 74% of all households received food through PDS allocations, 40% of households received cash transfers.

IMPROVING TARGETING OF SOCIAL WELFARE: FILLING THE LOOPHOLES

Shifting priorities and erring on the side of being inclusive, i.e., recognizing the scale of the economic losses that the population faces and focusing on plugging exclusion errors that deny benefits to eligible beneficiaries.

• Moving towards self-targeting: Various stakeholders argued that there is a need to tailor the economic response to COVID-19 to the public health response. For instance, during intense lockdown periods where economic activity is severely curtailed, more universal and broad transfers are needed. Direct food assistance can be particularly useful in this scenario since they allow for self-targeting.
• Avoiding one-size-fits-all approach: While monitoring attendance using Aadhaar authentication has already been discontinued for central government employees for fear of virus transmission, this should be employed as a long-term solution for beneficiaries as well. Rather than relying entirely on ABBA (Aadhaar Based Biometric Authentication) transactions, recording transactions in offline mode where needed would prevent their exclusion.
• To mitigate the health risks of crowding in PDS centers, in-kind transfers can also be made through other means like door-step delivery through PDS trucks.
• Community model of social security: Organizations at the community level, like NGOs, CSOs, and Self Help Groups (SHGs) are also making efforts to reach beneficiaries, spread information, and mobilize relief measures. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, SHGs have worked to circulate relevant health information using WhatsApp groups.
  • A study conducted by Gram Vaani found that when community volunteers intervened in escalating complaints about public schemes, there was an improved turnover in response from administrators.
• Utilizing last-mile agents to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of social assistance programs can be considered as well. According to the Business Correspondents Federation of India, 80-85% of BCs were active as of June 2020. These agents have played a vital role in ensuring last-mile access to Direct Benefit Transfers under the PMGKY.
• Using technology augmentation: Existing government service delivery systems like HESPL’s Haqdarshak and DEF’s Mera App rely on an ‘agent + technology’ model to overcome the barriers of financial and digital illiteracy. While agent involvement has been critical for enabling cash withdrawal, the COVID-19 experience has highlighted how this model may benefit from the development of simplified applications that enable self-service.

Successful Social security models

In practice, by relaxing the criteria of having a specific type of bank account, targeting can be made more universal; Tamil Nadu has disbursed cash and ration-based commodities to ration card owners. The utilization of a job card (MNREGA) can also be considered to make targeting more inclusive.

THE WAY FORWARD

• While the government has responded to the challenges posed by COVID-19 through different interventions, the country could benefit from taking further steps to ensure universal social protection coverage, including the ‘missing middle.
• Potential policy strategies encompass the implementation of a universal child benefit, which would ensure that all households with children are able to meet their basic needs, and/or greater coverage and adequacy for India’s elderly population through an old-age pension scheme, including through the existing Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme.
• Existing social insurance schemes administered by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation should be supported and strengthened to provide social insurance to workers in times of need.
• Furthermore, to guarantee greater coverage for future shocks, flagship programs such as the PDS and MGNREGA could be expanded to provide security to all regions and to households in both urban and rural areas. Lastly, more needs to be done to reach and support internal migrant workers who are either temporarily or indefinitely living outside their home states and often lack access to social protection programs.
• The current ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of national programs which offer the same benefit levels and interventions across a variety of states needs reform. India can draw from the experience of other middle-income countries and allow greater funds and flexibility to sub-national governments to design localized approaches, while retaining a core set of national programs such as MGNREGS, NSAP, PMAY, PAHAL, PDS, and social insurance schemes to operate pan-nationally.

THE CONCLUSION: Debates around reducing the stringency of poverty tests, expanding social assistance programs to cover a wider range of citizens, and improving the ease of receiving benefits all point to the need of developing a more inclusive system of welfare support. To this end, the COVID-19 pandemic can act as an impetus to address the inadequacies of existing mechanisms and institutions and adapt them to not only suit the current situation but also prove resilient in the future.

As India designs its social protection response to the pandemic, the country stands poised for a fundamental transformation from a set of fragmented schemes to an integrated and decentralized system. A broader social protection framework for a more urban, middle-income, mobile, natural disaster-prone, diverse and decentralized India is urgently required.

THE CONTEXT: Niti Aayog in its report on multi-dimensional poverty in India attempted for the first time to look at the poverty issue through a holistic perspective rather than the sole prism of income. This article lets us understand the state of multi-dimensional poverty in India and how India can overcome it.

METHODOLOGY OF THE REPORT

DIMENSION: Health

WEIGHT: 1/3

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Nutrition (1/6)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is considered deprived if any child between the ages of 0 to 59 months, or woman between the ages of 15 to 49 years, or man between the ages of 15 to 54 years -for whom nutritional information is available- is found to be undernourished.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Child Adolescent Mortality (1/12)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if any child or adolescent under 18 years of age has died in the household in the five-year period preceding the survey.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Maternal Health (1/12)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if any woman in the household who has given birth in the 5 years preceding the survey has not received at least 4 antenatal care visits for the most recent birth or has not received assistance from trained skilled medical personnel during the most recent childbirth.

DIMENSION: Education

WEIGHT: 1/3

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Years of Schooling (1/6)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if not even one member of the household aged 10 years or older has completed six years of schooling.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): School Attendance (1/6)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if any school-aged child is not attending school up to the age at which he/she would complete class 8.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Cooking Fuel (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if the primary source of cooking fuel is dung, agricultural crops, shrubs, wood, charcoal or coal.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Sanitation (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: The household has unimproved or no sanitation facility or it is improved but shared with other households.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Drinking-Water (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if it does not have access to improved drinking water or safe drinking water is more than a 30-minute walk from home (as a round trip).

DIMENSION: Standard of Living

WEIGHT: 1/3

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Electricity (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if it has no electricity.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Housing (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: A household is deprived if it has inadequate housing: the floor is made of natural materials, or the roof or walls are made of rudimentary materials.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Ownership of Assets (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: The household is deprived if it does not own more than one of these assets: radio, Tv, telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorbike, or refrigerator; and does not own a car or truck.

INDICATOR (WEIGHT): Bank Account (1/21)

DEPRIVED OF: No household member has a bank account or a post office account.

FINDINGS OF THE REPORT

1. Poverty Levels: Bihar has the highest levels of poverty in the country followed by Jharkhand and UP. Kerala has the lowest level of poverty followed by Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Goa, and Sikkim.
2. Malnutrition: Bihar has the highest level of malnourished population followed by Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.

PROBLEMS WITH THE REPORT

1. Old Data: The report was created using the data of NFHS-4 which was conducted between 2015 and 2016 and thus doesn’t include the impact of recent government policies on poverty alleviation.
2. Focus on Subsistence: The indicators focus on minimum need and not a life that can uphold human dignity. For example, a household is deprived of electricity if it has no electricity. So, if the household gets electricity for just an hour then also it will not be counted as deprived.

USES OF THE REPORT

1. Sensitization of Agencies: The report will sensitize government, researchers, civil society, citizens, and other stakeholders on the need for and importance of MPI as a powerful policy instrument.
2. Policy Formulation: MPI can be used as a useful input for the design and development of policies schemes, budget allocations, and target setting. This can help India target SDG’s in a better manner.
3. District Levels: At the district levels, MPI could help decide the priority of execution and delivery.

 THE WAY FORWARD

1. Trend Analysis: Conducting NFHS every three years and then subsequent MPI revision will reduce the lag in the reflection of development outcomes and provide the required trend of poverty alleviations.
2. Reform Action Plans for the State/UTs: NITI Aayog has prepared a template for the reform action plan through consultations with central ministries, now the states need to modify it taking into account their realities, development challenges, and priorities.
3. Sharing of Good Practices: A dashboard needs to be created for sharing best practices between the states for overcoming poverty.

THE CONCLUSION: Poverty alleviation is the biggest goal of Indian governance and the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index by Niti Aayog is a step in the right direction for identifying the magnitude of the problem and for finding the key areas that require attention for poverty alleviation.

THE CONTEXT: The data of Phase II of NFHS 5 was recently released by the government. The data of Phase I was released last year in December 2020. This marks the completion of NFHS 5 and thus in this article, we will learn about the findings of the survey and what they mean for India’s development.

ABOUT THE SURVEY

1. Objective: The main objective of successive rounds of the NFHS is to provide reliable and comparable data relating to health and family welfare and other emerging issues.
2. Sample Size: The NFHS-5 survey work has been conducted in around 6.1 lakh sample households from 707 districts of the country; covering 724,115 women and 101,839 men to provide disaggregated estimates up to district level.
3. Indicators: It is based on 131 indicators with most of them being the same as that of NFHS 4.
4. New Areas: It includes some new areas such as death registration, pre-school education, expanded domains of child immunization, components of micro-nutrients to children, menstrual hygiene, frequency of alcohol and tobacco use, additional components of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), expanded age ranges for measuring hypertension and diabetes among all aged 15 years and above.

FINDINGS OF THE REPORT

1. POSITIVE FINDINGS:

• Parameter: TOTAL FERTILITY LEVELS (TFR)
• Finding: The Total Fertility Rates (TFR), the average number of children per woman has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level and all 14States/UT’s ranging from 1.4 in Chandigarh to 2.4 in Uttar Pradesh.
• Parameter: OVERALL CONTRACEPTIVE PREVALENCE RATE (CPR)
• Finding: Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54% to 67% at the all-India level.
• Parameter: SEX RATIO AT BIRTH
• Finding: For the first time in India, between 2019-21, there were 1,020 adult women per 1,000 men at birth.
• Parameter: UNMET NEEDS OF FAMILY PLANNING
• Finding: Unmet needs of family Planning have witnessed a significant decline from13 percent to 9 percent at the all-India level.
• Parameter: FULL IMMUNISATION DRIVE
• Finding: Full immunization drives among children aged 12-23 months has recorded a substantial improvement from 62 percent to 76 percent at the all-India level.
• Parameter: INSTITUTIONAL BIRTHS
• Finding: Institutional births have increased substantially from 79 percent to 89 percent at all-India levels.
• Parameter: CHILD NUTRITION
• Finding: Child Nutrition indicators show a slight improvement at the all-India level as Stunting has declined from 38 percent to 36 percent, wasting from 21 percent to 19 percent, and underweight from 36 percent to 32 percent at all India levels.
• Parameter: EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING
• Finding: Exclusive breastfeeding to children under age 6 months has shown an improvement in the all-India level from 55 percent in 2015-16 to 64 percent in 2019-21.
• Parameter: WOMEN OPERATING BANK ACCOUNTS
• Finding: Women operating bank accounts have improved from 53 percent to 79 percent at the all-India level.

2. NEGATIVE FINDINGS:

• Parameter: ANAEMIA AMONG CHILDREN AND WOMEN
• Finding: More than half of the children and women (including pregnant women) are anemic in all the phase-II States/UTs and all-India levels compared to NFHS4.
• Parameter: FAMILY PLANNING
• Finding: Female sterilization continues to dominate as the method of contraception in states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Bihar, and Maharashtra.

PROBLEMS WITH THE REPORT

1. Clarity of Terms: Various terms lacked clarity which create doubt over the meaning of the data. For example, improved drinking water sources failed to differentiate between piped water, public tap, dug well, rainwater, etc.
2. The anomaly with Phase 1: In Phase 1, several states showed a worsening in nutrition indicators while in Phase 2, no state showed worsening. Experts have questioned it alleging that the COVID-19 might have led to undercounting of incidences.
3. Blanket Approach: On the micronutrients aspect, the study uses a blanket approach despite dietary variation across the nation.

THE WAY FORWARD

1. Making Health Services Accessible and Equitable: The survey showcases the widespread inequity in the health services and thus policy intervention is required to make them accessible to the poor. Ayushman Bharat Scheme is a step in this direction but more needs to be done.
2. Gender Equity: The survey highlights the gender inequity in education and nutrition. These need to be corrected through affirmative action for women’s rights.
3. Education as change catalyst: Sex education and health education need to be taught at school especially with regards to women’s health issues and sexual health so as to create a behavior change in the family regarding the sexual rights of women.
4. Food Fortification: Food fortification needs to be encouraged so as to battle malnutrition in women and children.

THE CONCLUSION: A nation’s growth is determined by the health levels of its population. The NFHS data while showing good improvement on various issues also showcase the glaring inequity and disparities in Indian society. These need to be tackled with affirmative action by the state along with the support of the private sector.

THE CONTEXT: Introduced in 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) brought about fundamental reforms in the public distribution system (PDS) and most importantly, declared a legal ‘right to food’. The COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to the already vulnerable food security mechanism in India. This article would discuss the nature of issues in PDS/Food security, possible improvements in the delivery of food, and GOI’s steps towards ensuring food security in India, especially in the pandemic and further.

NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT (NFSA)

• Introduced in 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA), the largest food-based social safety-net program in the world, covers 800 million individuals (75% of the rural population, and 50% of the urban population) and costs Rs. 4,400 billion (as of 2017).
• Objective: To provide for food and nutritional security in the human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantities of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity.
• Coverage: 75% of the rural population and up to 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidized foodgrains under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
• The Public Distribution System (PDS) is the apparatus for implementing the NFSA through its nationwide network of fair-price shops (FPS), making highly subsidized foodgrains available to citizens.
• The NFSA categorized households into two groups: NFSA-priority households (NFSA-PHH) and AAY. The allowance of foodgrains was set at 5 kilograms (kg) per person for the PHH category, and 35 kg per household for AAY. Prices were fixed at Rs. 3, 2, and 1 per kg for rice, wheat, and coarse grains, respectively.
• Currently, about 23 crore ration cards have been issued to nearly 80 crore beneficiaries of NFSA in all states and UTs.

NEED FOR FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA

• The latest Global Hunger Index 2020 study does not make for cheery reading for India. The study has placed India 94th out of 107 countries in terms of hunger, locating it in the ‘severe’ hunger category. This puts India alongside the poorest African nations.
• Nearly 47 million or 4 out of 10 children in India do not meet their full human potential because of chronic undernutrition or stunting. India currently has the largest number of undernourished people in the world: around 195 million.
• According to FAO estimates in ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” report, about 8% of the population is undernourished in India.
• Agricultural productivity in India is sufficient but not on par with the global average: According to World Bank figures, cereal yield in India is estimated to be 2,992 kg per hectare as against 7,318.4 kg per hectare in North America.

FOOD SECURITY

•  Food availability: food must be available in sufficient quantities and on a consistent basis. It considers stock and production in a given area and the capacity to bring in food from elsewhere, through trade or aid.
• Food access: people must be able to regularly acquire adequate quantities of food, through purchase, home production, barter, gifts, borrowing, or food aid.
• Food utilization: Consumed food must have a positive nutritional impact on people. It entails cooking, storage and hygiene practices, individuals’ health, water and sanitation, feeding and sharing practices within the household.

REASONS FOR POOR FOOD SECURITY STATUS IN INDIA

Poor Maternal health:

• South Asian babies show very high levels of wasting very early in their lives, within the first six months. This reflects the poor state of maternal health.
• Almost 42% of adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 have a low body mass index (BMI), while 54% have anemia.
• Almost 27% of girls are married before they reach the legal age of 18 years, and 8% of adolescents have begun childbearing in their teens.
• Almost half of all women have no access to any sort of contraception.

Poor sanitation:

• Poor sanitation, leading to diarrhea, is another major cause of child wasting and stunting. At the time of the last NFHS, almost 40% of households were still practicing open defecation.

Poverty:

• International Food Policy Research Institute’s recent findings say that three out of four rural Indians cannot afford a balanced, nutritious diet.
• The emaciated rural livelihoods sector and lack of income opportunities other than the farm sector have contributed heavily to the growing joblessness in rural areas. (The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2017-18 revealed that rural unemployment stood at a concerning 6.1 percent, which was the highest since 1972-73.)
• The existing deprivation has been aggravated by the pandemic, with food inflation. This has adverse effects on their capacity to buy adequate food.

Dietary habits:

• Indian diets typically involve copious consumption of staples such as rice and wheat, with limited dietary diversification toward micronutrient-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, and animal products.
• “Hidden hunger,” or micronutrient deficiency, that inhibits proper growth and development of the human mind and body, affects a large section of the Indian population.

Policy failures:

• The national food security approach has been hung up in a ‘defeat the famine’ mode, which aims to provide gross calorie availability via the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
• The MGNREGS continue to be the lone rural job program that, too, had been weakened over the years through great delays in payments and non-payments, low wages, and reduced scope of employment.
• The public distribution system (PDS) fair price shops often fail to function due to supply delays.
• While this stable and subsidized policy has helped counter the problem of absolute hunger, it limits the food choices and does not provide the needed nutrients and micro-nutrients.

THE NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT (NFSA) & PDS DURING COVID-19

Providing food to all:

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, PDS was entrusted with meeting the food security needs, expanding its portfolio, and providing free grains.

Government support during Covid-19 pandemic

• In March 2020, the government announced free foodgrains and cash payments to women, senior citizens, and farmers as part of the PMGKY. According to various estimates, an overwhelming 98% did receive free foodgrains, that is, 5 kg rice or wheat and 1 kg pulses. However, in numerous cases, household members had been left unaccounted for in the PDS food relief, which is important when there is per capita allotment.
• On May 14th, 2020, Finance Minister stated that 100 percent of ration cardholders will be covered in the One Nation One Ration Card scheme by March 2021. In the present system, a ration cardholder can buy food grains only from a Fair Price Shops (FPS) that has been assigned to her in the locality in which she lives. However, under the ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ system, the beneficiary will be able to buy subsidized food grains from any FPS across the country.

CHALLENGES NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT (NFSA) & PDS

Limited access to ration cards:

• The delay in the rollout of NFSA cards was due to a delay in incorporating the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) for the selection of eligible households, exclusion errors, and widespread lack of awareness about NFSA provisions and eligibility requirements.
• Those in charge of this paperwork were under-informed and not capable of discharging these responsibilities efficiently. Moreover, with the transition to per-capita entitlements, regular, and reliable updating of ration cards became necessary and this proved cumbersome.

Quantity and price of foodgrains:

• With per-capita entitlement, bigger families gained in terms of the number of grains received while smaller families lost out. Even after 8 years since the introduction of the NFSA, many remain unaware of specific entitlements, both in terms of quantity and price (30% in Bihar, 22% in East UP, and 17% in Odisha).
• Unaware households are prone to entitlement snatching and lower fetching of entitlements. These beneficiaries report lower quantities or higher prices than mandated.

Gaps in food delivery:

• Over the years, the PDS delivery system has been known to be susceptible to leakages due to maladministration and, in some cases, outright theft.
• Pre-NFSA, beneficiaries stated that they had faced the problem of long waiting times at FPS, no electronic weighing machines (EWM), inferior grain quality, and delayed opening of FPS.

Recent issues:

Issues during Pandemic:

• One primary issue is that ON-ORC requires a complex technology backbone that brings over 750 million beneficiaries, 5,33,000 ration shops, and 54 million tonnes of food grain annually on a single platform.
• The government was also unable to honour the ‘pulse of choice’ pledge because of supply constraints.

Tweaking the NFSA:

• NITI Aayog, through a discussion paper, has recommended reducing the rural and urban coverage under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, to 60% and 40%, respectively.
• It has also proposed a revision of beneficiaries as per the latest population which is currently being done through Census- 2011. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be a double burden (Unemployment and Food insecurity issues) on the poor sections of the society.

NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT (NFSA) & PDS: THE WAY FORWARD

• Learning from other low-income societies with successful micro-nutrient-based interventions, we need to redefine the scope and mechanism of the PDS programs to extend beyond funneling cheap or free grains and generate higher fidelity using the vast local network.
• Promising lessons can be seen in Mexico’s distribution system of nutrition pouches and the SMS-based digital PDS in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh where the distribution involves pulses and millets in addition to rice and salt.
• Focusing on EUP, Bihar, and Odisha, we study PDS in the post-NFSA scenario. There is evidence of some positive movements like coverage of households, but there is considerable scope for improvement in other areas. There are areas beyond prices and quantities of grains that need to be addressed, such as the quality, variety of grains, and quality of services at FPS, that result in differential access even post-NFSA.
• The differential experiences with PDS are not accidental and are likely a result of poor design, and a lack of sensitivity to the demand side of the programs in keeping with community needs and preferences. Thus, more targeted and inclusive penetration is desired which can be achieved with the cooperative efforts of state governments and local NGOs.

THE CONCLUSION: During Covid-19, PDS seems to have delivered but issues with eligibility and lack of commodity choices remain even with the NFSA. One overlooked advantage of the PDS is how it helps shelter households from price risk when prices are high, the value of the in-kind transfer of rice is also higher. Thus, in the Indian case, the NFSA cannot be tweaked against the favour of vulnerable sections. NFSA combined with the PDS, end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), hence the effective implementation of these schemes becomes even more crucial in the COVID-19 aftermath.