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Railways Fails to Stop Downslide on Uphill Route
- Published on 16 February 2020
(Image Courtesy: Indian Railways)
Indian Railways (IR) is unable to check its slide-back despite herculean efforts. There is nothing concrete available to show that merger of Railway Finances with General Finances (RF-GF) in 2017-18 has changed IR’s fortunes.
The merger drew curtains on tradition of presenting separate rail budget in Parliament. This has derailed exhaustive debate and analysis of railways’ health that always followed presentation of the Rail Budget.
RF-GF integration, of course, fits well into NDA Government’s bigger game-plan to disclose minimum on economy to avoid criticism. The decline in transparency in the performance review of Railways is, however, letting its problems fester and worsen.
IR’s finances have been mentioned in Union Budget in the same way as the references to other departmental undertakings. The ‘Railways Budget at a Glance’ (RBAG) that used to a separate document under the Rail Budget Set of papers appears on 260th page of Expenditure Budget 2020-21 Volume I.
RBAG shows IR’s net revenue at Rs 3811 crore under revised estimate (RE) for 2019-20, which is 57.81% lesser than Budget Estimate (BE) of Rs 9035 crore. RE is slightly higher than actual net revenue of Rs 3773.86 crore earned in preceding year.
India’s Tax Reforms Fall Short of Expectations
- Published on 09 February 2020
(Edited Image. Courtesy: incometaxindia.gov.in )
How to avoid messing up reforms & check slowing down of a booming economy? If an international study on this issue is written, Indian taxation reforms would figure in it prominently. And evidence on this count especially on the big-bang goods and service tax (GST) keeps piling up.
A case in point is Indian Railways, the largest departmental enterprise. It is now struggling to replace more than 410 existing contracts with new ones (novation) to achieve tax efficiency with help of its GST consultant. Corporates of all sizes from different sectors are grappling with one GST issue or the other.
Another case in point is cautionary insight on GST & other taxes reforms issued by 15th Finance Commission (FC). It is a constitutional body constituted every five years to recommend distribution of divisible taxes between the Central and State (provincial) governments. Factor in too the Central Government's Budget for financial year 2020-21 that has, among other thing, hinted at fresh tinkering with GST rates.
Before elaborating on GST flux & resulting uncertainty, consider the fact that the outcome of all taxation reforms since 1991 is nothing to crow about if the tax revenue is measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). FC has pointed out that combined tax revenue of central and state governments has largely stagnated at 17.5% of the GDP since the early 1990s. This level is “far below India's estimated tax capacity”, it says. “In contrast to India, tax revenue has been rising in other emerging markets”.
India Bears Colossal Fiscal Cost of Being a Soft State
- Published on 12 January 2020
(Image Courtesy: taxindiaonline.com)
India has paid & continues to pay huge price for being a soft State. We are a nation where good ideas take decades to take-off. We take decades to bite the bullet on strategic issues such as buying planes for Indian Air Force (IAF).
Delays in realm of policies & projects are legendary. Delays have become synonymous with Democracy in India. Delayed Justice is the unwritten rule of the law. Strict enforcement of rules always invites protests from activists & sound-byte hungry media. Many good intentions scripted in directive principles in the Constitution exist as such.
No wonder no one has quantified the fiscal and opportunity costs of delays since the Independence. Even a simple idea as Voter Identity Cards (VICs) has cost the country enormously due to 50-years span between enactment of amendment to a law in 1958 & its comprehensive execution (70% coverage) by 2007 across the country.
The cost of delay got compounded due to corrupt practices in issue of VICs. Illegal immigrants bought VICs with ease – a fact admitted time & again by Government in Parliament.
The right to vote is the last right conferred on aliens-turned citizens in certain democracies. In India, it is the first right sold for a song! Ditto was the case with generous recommendation from MLAs or MPs to issue ration card to illegal migrants in West Bengal – an issue raised by Mamata Banerjee and other MPs in Parliament during the eighties.
Row over Citizenship Should Pave Way for Demographic Code
- Published on 20 December 2019
(Image courtesy: censusindia.gov.in)
The Rhetoric over enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CCA, 2019) & ensuing riots call for a serious introspection. We should debate calmly as to why successive regimes & the Opposition have compromised national interest to play vote-bank politics.
Why no regime ever enacted a unified demographic code to govern citizenship, population control, emigration abroad and emigration within the country? Why illegal migrants continue to walk into India? Why infiltrators from countries adjoining both India & China don’t dare to enter the latter nation?
How infiltrators manage to get multiple identity cards including Aadhar and driving licence? This fact was recently admitted by Government in Parliament while answering question on Rohingyas, illegal migrants from Myanmar, staying in 12 States?
If they are being officially cared for as refugees, then why has the Government not enacted a refugee law as recommended by Group of Ministers (GoM) on Internal Security in 2001?
Should India be promoted as the Mecca for refugees in spite of it being on the verge of getting shameful label as the world’s most populous nation by 2027?