Cash –based transfers based on the JAM number trinity– Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile- Offer exciting possibilities to effectively target public resources to those who need it most.
Today there are about 5 million Jan Dhan bank accounts 17, 757 million Aadhaar numbers, and approximately 904 million mobile phones. It is possible to envisage that when the JAM trinity becomes linked, the goal of periodic and seamless financial transfers to bank accounts after identification through the Aadhaar number can be implemented with immeasurable benefits to helping the lives of the poor.
The profits generated by freight services have cross-subsidised passengers services and Indian freight rates (PPP adjusted) remain among the highest in the world.
Discussions of banking in India have recently focused on the problem of stressed and restructured assets, the challenges in acquiring the resources to meet the looming Basel III requirements on capital adequacy, including the respective contributions of the government and markets, and the need for governance reform reflected in the 2013 Nayak Committee Report.
Later this year, Heads of States from around the world will meet in Paris to conclude negotiations on a new agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by December 2015.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its recent report – the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), published in 2014 — has observed that, there has been an increasing trend in the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) since the advent of the industrial revolution, with about half of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during this period occurring in the last 40 years.
The period 1983-2012 is likely to have been the warmest 30 year period of the last 1400 years. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed a major portion of total GHG emissions during the period 1970 – 2010.
In addition India has increased the coal cess from Rs. 50 per ton to Rs.100 per ton, which is equivalent to a carbon tax of about US$ 1 per ton. The health cost of coal for power generation in India is estimated to range from US$ 3.41 per ton to US$ 51.11 per ton depending on the value of statistical life. The average number is US$ 27.26 per ton.
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission launched in January 2010 seeks to establish India as a global leader in solar energy by creating policy conditions for its diffusion across the country.
The Twelfth Plan financial outlay for this scheme is 8795 crore. The Solar Mission is now being scaled up five-fold from 20,000 megawatts to 100,000 megawatts. This in effect requires an additional investment of 100 billion US dollars. The aim of this initiative is primarily to provide energy access to nearly 300 million households. The collateral benefit would be lower annual emissions of CO2 by about 165 million tonnes.
On January 22nd, 2015, the Prime Minister launched the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign from Panipat in Haryana. The campaign is aimed at increasing the very low value that Indian society puts on a girl child.
And yet, according to the UNDP’s latest Human Development Report (2014),India ranks 135 out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) and 127 out of 152 countries on the Gender Inequality Index (GII).
The GII is a composite measure reflecting inequality in achievement between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labor market.
This puts India in the bottom 25 % of all countries on the HDI and even lower—in the bottom 20 % on the GII.
Furthermore, the child sex ratio—the number of girls to boys at birth—is relatively low in the world, and moreover declined from 927 girls per 1000 boys in 2001 to 918 girls for every 1000 boys in 2011. China is one of the few countries with a more adverse child sex ratio.
The third round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3, 2005-06) reports that even in developed states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra female sterilisation accounts for 90 % and 76 % of all contraceptive use, respectively; the median age at sterilisation for women was reported at 24.9 years in both Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Of the total sterilisation operations performed in 2012-13, tubectomy/laproscopic sterilizations account for 97.4 %, while male vasectomy operations, considered less complicated risky, account for only 2.5 %.
Government expenditures are also skewed toward female sterilization. Out of the budget of Rs 397 crores for family planning for 2013-14, 85 % (338 crore) is spent on female sterilization. By contrast 1.5 % of the total budget is spent on spacing methods and 13 % on infrastructure and communications.
The Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) has recently submitted its recommendations for devolution of taxes and other transfers from the center to the states, and between the states, for the period 2015-16 to 2020-21.
The FFC has radically enhanced the share of the states in the central divisible pool of taxes from the current 32% to 42 % which is the biggest ever increase in vertical tax devolution.
The last two Finance Commissions viz. Twelfth (2005- 10) and Thirteenth (2010-15) had recommended a state share of 30.5 % (increase of 1 %) and 32% (increase of 1.5 %), respectively in the central divisible pool.
The FFC has also proposed a new horizontal formula for the distribution of the divisible pool among the States. There are changes both in the variables included/excluded as well as the weights assigned to them.
Relative to the Thirteenth Finance Commission, the FFC has incorporated two new variables: 2011 population and forest cover; and excluded the variable relating to fiscal discipline.
“Debt-dynamic wedge”, defined as the difference between the real rate of economic growth (g) on the one hand, and the real cost of borrowing (r, which is itself the difference between the interest on government securities and inflation as per the GDP deflator) and the primary deficit (pd) on the other.
India’s FRBM Act as well as the Kelkar Committee (2012) established the principle of aiming to bring the centre’s fiscal deficit down to 3 % of GDP.
The estimated direct fiscal cost of this illustrative subset of subsidies is about 378,000 crore or about 4.24 % of GDP.
Price subsidies are often regressive: By regressive, we mean that a rich household benefits more from the subsidy than a poor household.
Fuel subsidies can be similarly regressive.
The poorest 50% of households consume only 25 % of LPG. Only 46 % of total consumption of subsidised kerosene is by households with a Below Poverty Line (BPL) or Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) card, and only 49 % is consumed by households in the bottom 3 deciles of the expenditure distribution.
PDS leakages are defined as the difference between total allocation of PDS kerosene and actual household consumption.
