Author: B2B

Public-Private Partnership Model

Definitions:

A PPP Project means a project based on a contract or concession agreement, between a Government or statutory entity on the one side and a private sector company on the other side, for delivering a service on payment of user charges. The rights and obligations of all stakeholders including the government, users and the concessionaire flow primarily out of the respective PPP contracts.

Unlike private projects where prices are generally determined competitively and Government resources are not involved, PPP projects typically involve transfer of public assets, delegation of governmental authority for recovery of user charges, private control of monopolistic services and sharing of risks and contingent liabilities by the Government.

The justification for promoting PPP lies in its potential to improve the quality of service at lower costs, besides attracting private capital to fund public projects. For creating a transparent, fair and competitive environment, the Government of India has been relying increasingly on standardising the documents and processes for award and implementation of PPP projects.

A poorly structured PPP contract can easily compromise user interests by recovery of higher charges and provision of low quality services.

It can also compromise the public exchequer in the form of costlier or uncompetitive bids as well as subsequent claims for additional payments or compensation.

The process of structuring PPPs is complex and it is, therefore, necessary to rely on experienced consultants for procuring financial, legal and technical advice in formulating project proposals and bid documents for award and implementation of PPP projects in an efficient, transparent and fair manner.

Model Concession Agreement (MCA) forms the core of public private partnership (PPP) projects in India. The MCA spells out the policy and regulatory framework for implementation of a PPP project. It addresses a gamut of critical issues pertaining to a PPP framework like mitigation and unbundling of risks; allocation of risks and returns; symmetry of obligations between the principal parties; precision and predictability of costs & obligations; reduction of transaction costs and termination. The MCA allocates risk to parties best suited to manage them.

Planning Commission developed the first version of the Model Concession Agreement (MCA). This was done considering the need to standardize documents and processes for the PPP framework in the country for ensuring uniformity, transparency and quality in development of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Subsequently, the Planning Commission had developed various other versions of the MCA considering the different PPP modes like Built Operate Transfer (BOT) (Toll), BOT (Annuity), Design, Build, Operate and Transfer (DBOT) and Operate Maintain and Transfer (OMT) addressing to a significant extent, the changing needs of the sector.

Why Governments Prefers PPP?

Advantage of PPP: Graphical Analysis

Prerequisites of PPP Models

Investment Models

Public Sector Led Investment Model

Advantages of Public Investment Model

Private Investment Model

The Supply Side:

The Demand Side:

Land Reforms in India

Definition

Land Reforms usually refers to redistribution of Land from rich to poor. Land reforms include;

• Regulation of Ownership
• Operation, Leasing, sale
• Inheritance of Land

In an agrarian economy like India with massive inequalities of wealth and income, great scarcity and an unequal distribution of land, coupled with a large mass of people living below the poverty line, there are strong economic and political arguments for land reforms.

Due to all these compelling reasons, Land reforms had received top priority by the governments at the time of independence. The Constitution of India left the adoption and implementation of the land reforms to the state governments. This has led to a lot of variations in the implementation of land reforms across states.

Economic Arguments in Favour of Land Reforms

Given these observations, one could make an argument in favour of land reform based not only on equity considerations but also on efficiency considerations. For example, the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity suggests that land reform could raise productivity by breaking (less productive) large farms into several (more productive) small farms. Also, lower productivity under sharecropping suggests that land reform could raise productivity by converting sharecroppers into owner-cultivators.

The Objectives of Land Reforms in India were:

After Independence, attempts had been made to alter the pattern of distribution of land holdings on the basis of four types of experiments, namely;

The Government over the years defined the aim of land reforms to cover the following:

The land reforms legislations passed/undertaken by all the state governments mainly covers and converges to the common themes/measures of the following:

Abolishment of Intermediaries

1. It was widely recognised that the main cause of stagnation in the agriculture economy was to a large extent due to exploitative agrarian relations.
2. The Chief instrument of the exploitation were the intermediaries like Zamindars, patronised and promoted by the British government.
3. About 60% of the area under cultivation was under the Zamindari system on the eve of the Independence. The States took the task of abolishing the intermediaries like Zamindars by passing the legislations.
4. The government estimates state that in total during first four Five years Plan, 173 million acres of land was acquired from the intermediaries and two crores tenants were given land to cultivate.
5. Abolition of intermediaries is generally agreed to be one component of land reforms that have been relatively successful. The record in terms of the other components is mixed and varies across states and over time. Landowners naturally resisted the implementation of these reforms by directly using their political clout and also by using various methods of evasion and coercion, which included registering their own land under names of different relatives to bypass the ceiling, and shuffling tenants around different plots of land, so that they would not acquire incumbency rights as stipulated in the tenancy law.
6. The success of land reform has been driven by the political will of specific state administrations, the notable achievers being the left-wing administrations in Kerala and West Bengal.

Tenancy Reforms

Tenancy reforms included the following set of measures:

• Regulation of rent
• Security of tenure
• Ownership rights of tenants

Tenants in India are classified into

• Occupancy Tenants: They enjoy permanent right over land and cannot be evicted easily.
• Tenants at will: They do not enjoy any right over land and can be evicted by the landlords anytime.

Therefore, to protect the tenants at will and subtenants, the tenancy reforms are passed by the various state governments.

Regulation of Rents: Under the British Government, the rents charged was highly exploitative with no sound economics behind it. These highly exploitative rents spelt high misery on the tenants and trapped them into vicious circles of debt and poverty.

To provide relief to the tenants from exploitative rents, the Indian government after independence passed legislations to regulate the rents (maximum limits on rent was fixed) and to reduce the miseries of the tenants.

Security of Tenure: To protect the tenants from arbitrary evictions and to grant them permanent rights over land, legislations had been passed in most states.

Legislations passed by the States has three essential aims; Evictions must not take place except in accordance with the provisions of law; Land may be resumed by the owner, if at all, for the “Personal Cultivation” only; In the event of land taken by the owner, the tenant is assured of a prescribed minimum area.

However, the vague definitions of Tenants Personal Cultivation and landowner under the law made it difficult to implement the tenancy reforms. The rights of resumptions provided in the law combined with the flaws in the definitions of the personal cultivation rendered all tenancies insecure.

Ownership Rights of Tenants: It has been repeatedly emphasised by the government, that the ownership rights of the land should be conferred to the actual cultivator. Accordingly, most states have passed legislations to transfer ownership rights to the tenants.

However, the success of the states in conferring the rights to the tenants varied widely. Some states like West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka, has performed exceptionally well in this regard. In West Bengal due to the “Operation Barga” maximum sharecroppers were given ownership of land.

Land Ceilings

Land Ceiling on agriculture land means a statutory maximum limit on the quantity of land which an individual may hold. The imposition of the Land ceiling has two main aspects:

• Ceiling on future acquisitions.
• Ceilings on existing land holdings.

By 1961-62, ceiling legislation had been passed in all the States. The levels vary from State to State and are different for food and cash crops. In Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, for example, the ceiling on existing holding is 40 acres and 25 acres. In Punjab, it ranges from 27 acres to 100 acres, in Rajasthan 22 acres to 236 acres and in Madhya Pradesh 25 acres to 75 acres.

In order to bring about uniformity, a new policy was evolved in 1971. The main features were:

1. Lowering of ceiling to 28 acres of wetland and 54 acres of unirrigated land
2. Change over to the family rather than the individual as the unit for determining land holdings lowered ceiling for a family of five.
3. Fewer exemptions from ceilings.
4. Retrospective application of the law for declaring Benami transactions null and void,
5. No scope to move the court on the ground of infringement of fundamental rights.

Why was Land Ceiling needed?

The Argument against Land Ceiling

Land Consolidation

Land Consolidation means merging of multiple consolidated farms and giving it to each farmer. The measure is adopted to solve the problem of land fragmentation. The Land consolidation program required granting of one consolidated land to the farmer, which is equal to the total land holdings in different scatters under the farmer possession. It simply means instead of holding multiple small lands in different places; the farmer will be given a single big piece of land.

Why the Program Failed?

• The programme failed to achieve its desired objective because the farmers are reluctant to exchange their lands for the new one. The arguments given by the farmers is that there existing land is much more fertile and productive than the new land provided under land consolidation.
• The farmers also complained about nepotism and corruption in the process of consolidation. The farmers complained that the rich and influential often bribes and manage to get fertile and well-situated land, whereas the poor farmers get unfertile land.

Cooperative Farming

Cooperative farming is advocated to solve the problem of sub-divisions of land holdings. The idea was to make farming profitable for small and marginal farmers having small pieces of land.

Under Cooperative Farming setup farmers having very small holdings come together and join hands to pool their lands for the purpose of cultivation. Pooling of farms helps in increasing production, and the farmers can have more produce to sell in the markets after taking out their subsistence need.

Cooperative farming also helps in mechanisation of agriculture as the owner of the multiple small farms can pool their money to buy a mechanical tractor or other equipment’s which they could not afford otherwise.

Arguments in favour of Cooperative Farming

Land Tenure System in Pre-Independent India

At the time of independence, there were three major types of land tenure systems prevailing in the country. The basic difference in these systems was regarding the mode of payment of land revenue.

Targeted PDS in India

PDS began as a Universal Programme in India due to food shortages of the mid 1960’s. But, since 1997 it has been exclusively targeted towards the poor, providing Wheat, Rice, Sugar and Kerosene at a highly subsidised to the below poverty line households.

The objective was to help very poor families buy food grains at a reasonably low cost to enable them to improve their nutrition standards and attain food security. The new system followed a two-tier subsidised pricing structure: one for BPL families, and another for Above the Poverty Line (APL) families.

How Cheap Food Grains ensure Nutritional Security?

In both the cases, whether Substitution dominates or the Income effect dominates, the end result will be an increase in calories intake by consumer’s and reduction in nutritional deficiencies.

Note for Students:

In order to make Targeted PDS more effective the Government had launched the Antyodaya Anna Yojana in December 2000.

Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY): The objective of the scheme was to identify the poorest households among the BPL category and to provide each of them with the following:

• Total 25 KG of food grains per month @ fixed price of RS 2 per KG for Wheat and RS 3 Per KG for Rice.

Individuals in the following priority groups are entitled to an AAY card, including:

1. landless agricultural labourers,
2. marginal farmers,
3. rural artisans/craftsmen such as potters and tanners,
4. slum dwellers,
5. persons earning their livelihood on a daily basis in the informal sector such as porters, rickshaw pullers, cobblers,
6. destitute,
7. households headed by widows or terminally ill persons, disabled persons, persons aged 60 years or more with no assured means of subsistence, and
8. all primitive tribal households.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is the nodal agency at the centre that is responsible for transporting food grains to the state godowns. Specifically, FCI is responsible for:

1. procuring grains at the MSP from farmers,
2. maintaining operational and buffer stocks of grains to ensure food security,
3. allocating grains to states,
4. distributing and transporting grains to the state depots,
5. selling the grains to states at the central issue price to be eventually passed on to the beneficiaries.

Important Prices Related to the PDS

How to Strengthen the Public Distribution System.

Aadhaar Based Enrolment.

The key problem in the efficient functioning of the PDS is the inclusion errors and the exclusion errors. Aadhaar cards could be used to identify the real poor households, thereby eliminating the inclusion errors. The use of Aadhar would also help in eliminating the duplicate and ghost beneficiaries.

Use of E-Technology and ICT.

Technology based reforms would help in reducing the leakages. The current system of manual recording the beneficiary is prone to corruption and tampering. The computerisation of records will resolve this problem. The end-to-end computerisation could curb large-scale diversion of grains to the open markets and help track the delivery of food grains from state depots to beneficiaries.

Technology based reforms undertaken by States:

Removing the Urban Bias.

It has been found that most of the Ration shops are situated in the urban areas of cities rather than the backward areas and slums, where most of the people poor live. The poor often have to travel miles to procure their quota of grains. The situation of Ration shops in the Urban centres also increase the risk of inclusion errors as urban middle class have a strong incentive to enrol themselves in the local Ration shops. If the ration shops are restricted to slums than the urban middle class will find it difficult to travel to slums to buy grains. Thereby eliminating the wrongful inclusions.

Choice of Commodities sold.

The PDS in India provides cereals like Wheat and Rice to the poor. However, various studies have found that the poor generally prefers coarse grains like ragi, maize, Jowar and Bajra. These cereals are not only rich in carbohydrates and protein but are also less consumed by the rich and urban middle class. If coarse cereals are sold in the PDS shops, then the rich will automatically stop using ration shops. Thereby eliminating the inclusion problem.

Decentralisation of the PDS.

The current system of centralised PDS where the centre procures the grain and then distribute it to each state is highly inefficient. The centralised PDS further adds to the unbearable administrative cost of transporting the grains from FCI to the state depots. It would be better if the states are given the power to procure and distribute grains on their own at the MSP and CIP decided by the centre.

Alternative to the PDS

Universal PDS:

Under the Universal PDS the grains are provided to every household of the state irrespective of the income level. The non-classification of the households eliminates the risk of inclusion and exclusion errors. It also reduced the cost of running the scheme as it reduced the administrative cost of identifying the poor and cost of monitoring the scheme.

Food Coupons:

Food Coupons are another alternative to PDS. Beneficiary are provided with food coupons which are equivalent to money. The food coupons are used to buy grains from local markets and grocery stores.

Retailers or grocery shop owners take these coupons to the local bank and are reimbursed with money. According to the Economic Survey 2009-10 reports, such a system will reduce administrative costs. Food coupons also decrease the scope for corruption since the store owner gets the same price from all buyers and has no incentive to turn the poor buyers away. Moreover, BPL customers have more choice; they can avoid stores that try to sell them poor-quality grain.

Direct Benefit Transfer:

DBT provides for cash transfers to the poor. Under DBT, beneficiaries will be given money by the government in their respective bank accounts which can be used to but grains from the open markets. Under the DBT system the government will provide money directly to the target group usually poor households. The identification of the poor households are much easier under the DBT system, since the bank accounts are linked with Aadhaar and can be easily monitored.

Some of the potential advantages of these programmes include: (i) reduced administrative costs, (ii) expanded choices for beneficiaries, and (iii) competitive pricing among grocery stores.

• In PDS leakage arises due to ghost ration cards. Under DBT “the identity of a person is known and ration cards will be Aadhaar-verified, due to which, only the right beneficiaries will get the subsidy.
• The savings from DBT on food subsidy is expected to be much larger than that for LPG. According to budget estimates, India’s food subsidies for the 2015-16 will be Rs.1.24 trillion. So, if government manages to save 40% of the subsidy, it will be around Rs.50,000 crore annually.
• The saved money could be invested by Government in Infrastructure, health or education where social returns would be much higher.
• Usually the PDS grains are of inferior quality. DBT would ensure that the poor families will buy good quality grain from the open market. This would certainly improve the nutritional outcome for the people and will be a step towards equality.
• Currently More than 40% of the foodgrains in PDS are diverted to open markets. High diversion of PDS items, pilferage, transport cost ,administration cost and graft issues would be avoided under DBT.
• Providing subsidies directly to the poor would both bypass brokers as well as reduce the waste and holding costs of storing grains in government silos.
• Cash transfers would help reduce fiscal deficit by curbing expenditures earmarked for the PDS that are siphoned off through corruption, as well as avoiding substantially higher costs of transferring food rather than cash.
• DBT system Respects the autonomy of beneficiaries and ensures that the person has choice in terms of spending the money in-accordance with his priorities and cultural preferences.
• DBT will ensure that Ensures that the inefficient and corruption-prone procurement regime of government is done away.

Some issues with the DBT:

• Cash transfers may expose recipients to price fluctuation, if they are not frequently adjusted for inflation.
• Additionally, since cash transfers include the transfer of money directly to the beneficiary, poor access to banks and post offices in some areas may reduce their effectiveness.
• It is also possible for people to spend cash transfers not on more nutritious food, as proponents suggest, but instead on non-food items, which would decrease the amount of household money left for buying food.

Advantages of PDS and DBT: A Comparison

Disadvantage of PDS and DBT: A Comparison

The National Food Security Act

The NFSA was passed in the Parliament in the year 2013, the NFSA seeks to provide the food to all individuals by making it a statutory right.

A comparison of existing TDPS and NFSA

Issues Related to Public Distribution System

What is PDS?

The PDS is a part of India’s Agriculture Price Policy. The Agriculture price policy in India has a twin objective of supporting farmers at the time of bumper harvest (when the price falls due to excess production) and supporting poor consumers from price rise by providing them cheap foodgrains through a network of fair price shops (Ration Shops) at a subsidised price.

The PDS makes available fixed quotas of foodgrains to poor households through ration shops at a subsidised ration price called “Issue Price”.

The original aim of the PDS was to stabilise prices and remove fluctuations from the foodgrains market. But, later on, PDS has assumed the role of an important and most significant anti-poverty programme of the government.

The Cost of Running PDS

The cost of operation of the PDS consists of two major components:

• Subsidy Cost: The subsidy cost occurs because the cost at which foodgrains are procured is higher than the price at which they are sold in the PDS.
• Administration Cost: Administration costs occurred due to storage, procurement operations and transportation of foodgrains from farmers to consumers. Theft, wastages and damages in storage and transit add to these costs.

Why PDS was Needed?

Why the Penetration of PDS is weak, and PDS has failed to Provide food security to Poor?

The Timeline of the PDS in India

The Working of the PDS

The existing structure of the PDS works in a Cooperative Federalist system in which both Centre and State shares the responsibility.

The Central Government is responsible for buying foodgrains from farmers at MSP. The Central Government than allocates the grains to each state on the basis of a pre-determined formula.

The State Government is responsible for identifying the poor and eligible households in the states.

The Centre transports the food grains to the Central depots (FCI) in each state. After that, the state government is responsible for delivering the food grains from the centre depots to the ration shops. The Ration shops are the ultimate end points from where the food grains are sold to PDS beneficiaries.