Financial Woes of Municipalities :: Solutions /Reforms :: Ideas for India !

Mudda kya hai ?

Delhi’s case of MCD safaai karamchari not getting wages due to paucity of funds has underscored the significance of reforms in financial management of municipalities. The 4,041 cities in India have a population of over 400 million but the revenues of their municipalities are far from adequate. Further, there is no assurance on whether these funds meet the desired outcomes. Therefore, states need to put in place a roadmap for financial self-sufficiency and financial accountability in municipalities.

What is the SOLUTION ? How could FINANCES could be raised for MUNICIPALITIES and how could they be properly MANAGED ?

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• Firstly, recognising the city as a distinct unit, and examining both its governance and economy accordingly..Today, credible data at a city-level is unavailable — be it on jobs, investments or tax collections. 

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• Secondly, municipalities have access to very few buoyant revenue streams. Where they do, as in the case of property tax, the municipalities have limited or no control over the rates. 

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• Thirdly, states need to devolve a reasonable percentage of stamp duties and registration charges on properties back to the cities since growth in the real estate sector is accompanied by service obligations on the part of municipalities. 

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• Fourthly, thinner revenue streams such as entertainment tax and profession tax need to be given to municipalities. The Union government, too, needs to chip in with measures like removing the cap on profession tax and making all municipal bond issuances tax exempt to make it attractive to the investors. 

 

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• Fifthly, government land within municipal limits is the single most valuable asset for a city. The Union and state governments as well as the municipalities will have to work together to make an inventory of such land, and draw up a strategy for land value capture that can benefit the municipal exchequer.

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• Sixthly, concurrent policy measures are required to ensure that a municipality’s medium-term financial position is sound. In municipalities, only short-term cash flows are measured and managed, and not balance sheets. A state legislation on fiscal responsibility and budget management in municipalities is, therefore, long overdue. Enacting this would protect the financial sustainability of municipalities.

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• Seventhly, mandate audit of annual accounts by empanelled chartered accountants, as is the case in banks and PSUs.

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• Lastly, there is an acute shortage of skilled staff in the finance and revenue departments of municipalities. This is a key reason for poor tax collections and weak financial management. A combination of solutions, including skill certifications and outsourcing of collections, etc, would be highly effective.

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All of the above need to be circumscribed by an effective policy on transparency, accountability and citizen participation. The public disclosure law under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission was a good beginning in this regard. But it needs to be strengthened further through the addition of built-in incentives and disincentives, as well as the incorporation of open data standards. Greater disclosures will nudge citizens to take ownership of their city.

The core objectives of Public Disclosure Law under JNNURM  are:  

• To provide appropriate financial and operational information on various municipal services to citizens and other stakeholders.
• To promote efficiency and consistency in the delivery of public goods and services by the municipality.
• To enable comparison over time (of a particular ULB) and space (between ULBs) by disseminating information in a structured, regular and standardized manner. 

They Remember MAQBOOL BHAT , we forgot RAVINDRA MHATRE :: Who were they ?

Recently all that deshdrohi things ....supporting ‘terrorists’ Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat ....we know lot about Afzal but many don't know about MAQBOOL BHAT ...letz see !

Who was Maqbool Bhat ?

• Maqbool Bhat a resident of Trehgam in Kupwara District of Kashmir was hanged to death in Tihar Jail on 11 February 1984 on charges of committing a double murder.

'TERRORIST'  MAQBOOL BUTT

Political career ?

• Bhat entered the political arena of Kashmir with an ideology of Jammu and Kashmir existing as an independent state. 
• To further his political agenda he founded the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) along with his friend, Hashim Qureshi and others.

Kaarnaame aur inki kahaani ?

• Being young and impressionable, he came under the devious spell of Pakistan. 
• He and his friends generated anti-India propaganda and committed a number of crimes, including hijacking and murder. 

• They were too young to realise that Pakistan had no love lost for Kashmir or its people; its objective was to use the state as a tool to disintegrate India and seize its rivers.

• As Maqbool Bhat spoke more and more about an independent Kashmir, free from both India and Pakistan, he became persona non grata for the Pakistani military establishment. 

• He publicly stated that the military rulers of Pakistan had never supported the peoples' armed struggle in Kashmir for which reason he and his comrades became the target of brutal torture and humiliation. 

• He was forced to flee from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) back to Jammu and Kashmir where he was arrested for his crimes, tried as per law and sentenced to death .

How his IDEOLOGY and METHODOLOGIES were flawed ?

The ensuing events over the years have clearly established the errors in his ideology and the means adopted to fructify the same.

• His first mistake was to opt for the path of violence as an instrument to realise his political goals. 
• He also erred by not understanding the benefits that his people would accrue by aligning themselves with democratic tenets of the Indian nation. 
• The biggest mistake, however, was his reliance on Pakistan for support.

Realisation...BUT too late !

Towards the end of his life he realised his mistakes. Sadly, by that time, it was too late for him to make amends.

BUT his this APPROACH still MISGUIDES and INFLUENCES the techniques used by the Kashmiris !!

• Unfortunately, the approach adopted by Maqbool Bhat was wrong and he became instrumental in guiding his own family members and a host of young, impressionable and misinformed young boys towards a path which gave them nothing but hardship, disruption and finally death.

kya hai MAQBOOL ki family ka haal PoK me ?

• Maqbool Bhat's immediate family is fighting a hard battle for survival in POK. His son Showkat Maqbool Bhat is politically active. 

• The family floated a political party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF). Later on it was changed to Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Council. 

• The party holds regular demonstrations to highlight the glaring human rights violations being faced by the people of POK and Gilgit-Baltistan at the hands of the oppressive Pakistani regime, especially the Pakistan Army.

• Showkat has, on many occasions, been arrested in Muzaffarabad in POK for leading peace marches to the UN office to highlight the sad plight of the people of POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

• Showkat has also been speaking against the use of POK for infiltration of terrorists into Kashmir. He highlights the insecurity that the people of POK feel with the barbarian Jihadis roaming across their land as they await their turn for infiltration. 

• Also, the artillery shelling that is carried out to facilitate infiltration elicits a massive response from the Indian side which causes great damage and loss of life and property to the villagers who reside along the Line of Control.

What about his ASSOCIATES ?

• Maqbool Bhat's old associate, Hashim Qureshi, who hijacked an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship plane from Srinagar to Lahore in 1971, after 30 years in exile in Holland, returned to India and onwards to Kashmir in 2000 and entered the political arena. He has admitted that the hijacking of the aircraft Ganga was a mistake and has expressed his support for electoral politics with a clearly non-violent agenda.

• In his recent interviews Hashim Qureshi has lambasted the Government of Pakistan for its brutal practices in POK. "It is not shocking for me because I've been through the atrocities and the people are still going through them. Pakistan only talks about issues which are prevalent in Indian part of Kashmir. Pakistani security forces are no better than the British colonialists," said Qureshi in an interview. He also praised India for its efforts to obtain and retain Kashmir in a democratic way.

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Who was RAVINDRA MHATRE  ?

• Ravindra Hareshwar Mhatre was a 48 years old Indian diplomat in UK who was kidnapped and later murdered in Birmingham in 1984 by British Kashmiri terrorists. 

                                     

• When Mhatre stepped out of a bus, clutching a birthday cake for his daughter Asha, was bundled into a car and held captive for three days in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham, an area with an overwhelmingly Kashmir-British population. His body was found two days after he was kidnapped in a Birmingham suburb.

• The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Army claimed responsibility and within hours of the kidnapping, the abductors issued their list of demands, which included one million pounds in cash and the release of Maqbool Butt, the JKLF’s co-founder, who was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being sentenced to death for killing personnel of Indian security forces.

• There were hectic efforts to goad Mrs Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, into agreeing to negotiate a deal with Mhatre’s abductors. But Mrs Gandhi remained unmoved and her message was unambiguous: No talks, no deal.

On February 6, Mhatre’s body was found in a lane. He had been shot dead after the JKLF realised it was futile to expect a swap. A grim-faced Mrs Gandhi struck back.

• Maqbool Butt was executed five days later on February 11 after then President Zail Singh was told to spurn his mercy petition.

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About RAVINDRA MHATRE as a person !!

He was, as a friend recalls: "Simple, almost naive, sincere and honest, without any flare or flamboyance." His mother, a primary teacher at the Poddar School in Santa Cruz, had a great impact on her son as well as on her numerous students who hold her in great esteem.

Mhatre himself never smoke or drank. He was interested in a variety of subjects, from history to art and the sciences. While posted in Delhi he obtained diplomas in company law and taxation from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan. As a boy he was so immersed in books that he was sometime absent-minded about carrying out family chores.

Mhatre brought to his job a rare personal touch. A sobbing woman mourner at Vikhroli recalled how when she was feeling homesick and pregnant in strife-torn Teheran, Mhatre tried to cheer her up by secretly arranging a quiet ceremony to celebrate her seventh month of pregnancy, a custom among Maharashtrians. He had even written to his wife to send a green sari for the function.

Another friend remembers how when he wrote to Mhatre to find out, if possible, about a Dr Tilak from the National Chemical Laboratory who was ill and in hospital in Teheran, Mhatre went from hospital to hospital to locate the man and when he found him, insisted on bringing him to his house.

He continuously showed a rare initiative and concern about Indians abroad. When he recognised the famous classical singer Prabha Atre in Teheran, he persuaded her to give a concert as he did with Aran Datte, the Marathi singer. Hundreds of Indian students are indebted to him for the interest he took in advising them about universities abroad.

Every city in which he was posted, Mhatre got to know intimately. Said a friend: "He could always tell you the restaurant where you got the best kulfi or the shop which had the right goods from India. I remember when he was posted in Dhaka, he found a tailor who stitched a suit for Rs 10. He got one made and wore it proudly."

Ironically, on August 15, 1982, when he was transferred to Birmingham, the family was thrilled because it represented the first safe post after years in trouble-spots. 

• He was in Dhaka in undivided Pakistan at the time of the Indo-Pakistan war in the mid-'60s and was, like other Indians, placed under house arrest.

• He was in Iran during the thick of the riots when the Shah was removed and Ayatullah Khomeini took over. 

As a result he was often separated from his family, since Mhatre and his wife Shobha were keen that the education of their only child Asha, now 14, should not suffer. Asha, a bright student, had earlier stayed on in Bombay with her mother to study at St Columba School.

In Birmingham, however, the family was finally together and Asha studied at a local school. Tragically Asha's birthday fell a day after her father was kidnapped. From phone messages to the family in Bombay, it seems the teenager is trying bravely to cope with the situation. She begged her concerned relatives not to phone at odd hours as it disturbed her mother who was not at all well.

One of Mhatre's leisure activities was "bhendia" a Marathi game of reciting couplets with the ending word of a previous poem and very often he composed the poems and sang them.

A colleague recalls that a few years back when he visited the Qutub Minar in Delhi, he was so inspired that in Marathi he composed a couplet remarking that as the "Qutub soars loftily into the blue skies, so should a man soar high in his career and attainments". But before he could fulfil those ambitions for himself and his family, Mhatre was cruelly struck down.

yeh LIGO LIGO kya hai..yeh Gravitational waves kya hai ... jaan le in Simple words !

LIGO project and Gravitational waves are in news .......there are a lot of technical terms involved ...which make it difficult for people from non SCIENCE background to understand it....so herez an ARTICLE which I am making to make THINGS easy !

First of all what are gravitational waves?

• Ripples in spacetime, a bit like ripples on a pond, that propagate out at the speed of light. 

• Throw something really big into the stillness of space – like two black holes colliding, or two pulsars merging – and gravitational waves created by the event should spread not just across the galaxy, but ultimately through all of spacetime.

Two Black holes ek dusre ko takraate hai ...aur ripple waves dete hai jise hum gravitational waves kehte hai 

nahi samja ? ..thik hai phir samajte hai !

• A gravitational wave is a ripple in space-time. 
• By this we mean that when a gravitational wave passes by us, all the distances appear to oscillate. 
• If it passes between me and you, the distance between us would grow, then shrink again, and so on, oscillating until the wave had passed. 
• We never see this because the gravitational waves that reach earth are so tiny. 
• But if we did have a strong gravitational wave pass through us we would really see this oscillating distance, and it would look really weird!

avhi nahi samje toh yeh video dekho !

Ok, incase u dont know what Black holes are ?

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.

Ok, why are Gravitational waves in news ?

• At a press conference on Thursday, physicists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) revealed that they had detected gravitational waves.

Why did we think they exist?

• Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, 100 years ago. 
• Almost everything the theory predicted has been confirmed by observation or experiment, except gravitational waves.

toh usase kya hua ? Gravitational waves detect huye toh ? 

• Everything we currently know about astrophysics and cosmology arose from observations of electromagnetic waves. 
• Gravitational waves give us a new and entirely different source of information. 
• perhaps the main reason the discovery is important is that it opens a new window onto the stars. 
• Gravitational wave detectors are a new kind of telescope that will allow us to learn a great deal more about the universe than we ever could otherwise.

accha phir ye LIGO project walon ne kaise detect kiya ?

• First they built two detectors, one in Washington and one in Louisiana, and required that both detectors see the same signal at (almost) exactly the same time. 
• This greatly cuts down on the chance that the signal is just coming from random noise. 
• There are very few things besides a gravitational wave that are going to hit both detectors at basically the same time with the same signal. 

• They also work very hard to make sure that each detector has as little noise as possible, and that the level of the noise is well understood. 
• For example, the earth vibrates all the time at a small level and this is a noise source for LIGO so they use impressive mechanical systems, a bit like shock absorbers, to keep their mirrors from feeling these vibrations as much as possible. 
• Even the best laser is not perfect, and will have some noise in it. So they build two baselines in each detector to allow them to subtract off the laser noise that will be comment to both baselines. This is just a small fraction of the number of different noise sources they have considered, calculated carefully, and worked hard to understand and reduce as much as possible. 
• They also use blind analysis techniques to help them make sure that they are not fooling themselves and are estimating their uncertainties correctly. 
• And they spend a long time understanding their detector and the noise in it after they turn it on.

So basically scientists heard these GRAVITATIONAL waves?

A: Scientists mostly use the word "hear" when describing gravitational waves, and the data does, in fact, arrive in audio form. The researchers can don headphones and listen to the detectors' output if they want. On Thursday, to prove they found a gravitational wave, the researchers played a recording of what they called a chirp.

Ok ,  now thoda factual data about LIGO Project 

• The LIGO study of the gravitational waves is being done as part of a joint project which involves over a thousand scientists from the United States and 14 other countries, including Russia.

• The twin LIGO detectors are located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington.

• The LIGO observatories are funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and were conceived, built and are operated by Caltech and MIT.

What was role of Indian scientist in LIGO project ?

• Indian scientists have, over 30 years, contributed substantially to the gravitational wave discovery that was announced last week. C.V. Vishveshwara and Bala Iyer, formerly of the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, were among the first to solve Einstein’s equations to derive a mathematical model to explain how colliding blackholes would look and what tell-tale signals they emitted.

• In later years, Anand Sengupta of the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, developed methods to ensure that both the LIGO detectors — separated by 3,000 kilometres — have caught the same gravitational wave, and Sanjib Mitra of the IUCAA, has found ways to tell apart gravitational waves from various exotic stars.

(inke baare me mainstream MEDIA me gunn nahi gaaye jaate...bas deshdrohiyo ki vakalat hoti hai )

Ok, Indian government kuch kar raha hai ki nahi ?

INDIGO, or IndIGO (Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations) is a consortium of Indian gravitational-wave physicists. This is an initiative to set up advanced experimental facilities for a multi-institutional observatory project in gravitational-wave astronomy. Since 2009, the IndIGO Consortium has been involved in constructing the Indian roadmap for gravitational-wave astronomy and a phased strategy towards Indian participation in realizing a gravitational-wave observatory in the Asia-Pacific region. IndIGO is the Indian partner (along with the LIGO Laboratory in USA) in planning the proposed LIGO-India project.

• Days after the discovery of gravitational waves, the government today gave an "in-principle approval" for establishing a state-of-the-art LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) project in the country.

• The project will bring unprecedented opportunities for scientists and engineers to dig deeper into the realm of gravitational wave and take global leadership in this new astronomical frontier.

• The LIGO-India project will also bring considerable opportunities in cutting-edge technology for the Indian industry which will be engaged in the construction of the eight-km long beam tube at ultra-high vacuum on a levelled terrain. 

Moral of the Story !!

This is the opening of a new era in our ability to learn about the universe. People have always wondered what else is out there beyond our planet. We have learned a great deal from observing electromagnetic waves. Gravitational waves have the potential to reveal even more. Possibly, in the future, this could even include looking back to some of the earliest moments after the birth of the universe. 

National Capital Policy :: Not just a Visionary Roadmap but SOLUTION oriented guide !!

The government on Monday (15 Feb.)  unveiled the first-ever policy for the country's capital goods sector which envisages creation of 21 million additional jobs by 2025. The policy envisions increasing the share of capital goods in total manufacturing activity from 12 per cent at present to 20 percent by 2025.

OBJECTIVES ?

• The objectives of the National Capital Goods Policy are to create an ecosystem for a globally competitive capital goods sector to achieve total production in excess of Rs 7.5 lakh crore by 2025 from the current Rs 2.3 lakh crore.

• It also aims to increase direct domestic employment from the current 1.4 million to at least 5 million and indirect employment from the current 7 million to 25 million by 2025, thus providing additional employment to over 21 million people.

• The policy envisages increasing the share of domestic production in India's capital goods demand from 60 percent to 80 percent by 2025 and in the process improve domestic capacity utilization to 80-90 percent.

• It  aims to facilitate improvement in technology depth across sub-sectors, increase skill availability, ensure mandatory standards and promote growth and capacity building of MSMEs.

• It also aims to significantly enhance availability of skilled manpower with higher productivity in the capital goods sector by training 50 lakh people by 2025, and create institutions to deliver the human resources with the skills, knowledge and capabilities to fuel growth and profitability.

• It sets the objective of increasing exports to 40 percent of total production (from Rs 61,000 crore to Rs 3,00,000 crore) by 2025, enabling India's share of global exports in capital goods to increase to 2.5 per cent and making the country a net exporter of capital goods.

Recommendations !

• To create an ecosystem for globally competitive capital goods sector, the policy recommends devising a long term, stable and rationalized tax and duty structure.

• It advocates adoption of a uniform Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime ensuring effective GST rate across all capital goods sub-sectors competitive with import duty after set-off with a view to ensure level playing field.

• The policy calls for ensuring parity of import duty structure with domestic duties, for example, equalise Countervailing Duty (CVD) and Excise duty; and Special Additional Duty (SAD) with Sales tax/ VAT or GST.

• It recommends correcting the existing inverted duty structure anomalies and considering a uniform customs duty on imports of all capital goods related products.

• Key policy recommendations include strengthening the existing scheme of the Department of Heavy Industry on enhancement of competitiveness of the capital goods sector by increasing budgetary allocation and increasing its scope to further boost global competitiveness.

• It entails stepping up exports of India-made capital goods through a 'Heavy Industry Export & Market Development Assistance Scheme (HIEMDA)', launch of Technology Development Fund, setting up new testing and certification facility and upgrading existing ones, making standards mandatory in order to reduce sub-standard machine imports, among others.

• The policy suggests allowing up to 50 per cent CENVAT credit to manufacturers using such products as raw material or intermediates for further processing or using such goods in the manufacturing of finished goods.

• The policy calls for regulating second hand imports by specifying terms and conditions like allowing imports through designated ports, insisting on actual user license, make of equipment and country of origin certification, ensuring no preferential treatment under FTA with partner countries, and excluding second hand capital goods from the purview of duty concession under project imports.

• It asks the government to consider "physical export" status for domestic manufacturers using such imports so that these manufacturers can avail duty drawback.

• It also recommends eliminating "zero duty" clause for capital goods under Project Imports in the taxation policy, except if the goods are not manufactured in India.

FOREIGN POLICY /IMPORTS  k sandarbh me CAPITAL GOODs ki kya baatein hai ?

• The policy says that machine tools should be excluded from trade agreements, specifically with strong countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and EU, and included in agreements with countries in South-East Asia, which do not have strong machine tools industries. This is a direct remedy to make imports expensive.

• Encouraging acquisitions of potential overseas companies in key technologically competitive countries such as European Union, with the intent of acquiring technology knowhow as well as manufacturing competencies.

• The other recommended policy measures include development of 'Technology Centres' in key markets of Thailand, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico,  greater incentives for promoting technology development by SMEs and encouraging them to avail 200 per cent weighted deduction on R&D initiatives, extending 'investment allowance' measure for a period of five years, as also reducing the permissible limit from Rs 100 crore to Rs 25 crore to enable reaping of benefits by SMEs. The section also talks about enhancing depreciation allowance to around 25 per cent for purchase of indigenous capital goods.

MORAL OF THE STORY !!

• The National Policy on Capital Goods is envisaged to unlock the potential of this promising sector and establish India as a global manufacturing powerhouse.

• It has, for the first time, taken a holistic look at the real problems impacting India's manufacturing sector. 

• It covers all the major sub-sectors, and suggests not just visionary roadmaps but practical solutions to improve productivity and demand in each of them. 

• And it is not limited to machine tools sector. It has specific chapters on textile machinery, earth moving and mining machinery, heavy electrical equipment, plastic machinery, process plant equipment, dyes, moulds and press tools, metallurgical machinery and food processing machinery.