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GS Paper: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

  • Issues related to Urban local bodies

    The inability of ULBs’ to raise revenue

    • Although it is envisaged that municipal revenue should be 1% of GDP, between 2010 and 2018 revenues declined from 0.48% to 0.43%.
    • As against the municipal revenue of Rs 4,624 per capita, own-source revenue was only Rs 1,975 in 2018 (ICRIER, 2019).
    • This affects the low-levels of municipal services and translates into salary delays for employees.

    8-way strategy to increase the revenue of ULBs

    1) Increasing the property tax base

    • In India, property taxes only account for 0.15% of GDP, whereas in developing economies they account for 0.6% and the global average is 1.04%.
    • To double the property tax collection the property tax base needs to be expanded using GIS mapping, cross-checking with building licenses, ration cards, mutations, electricity/gas accounts, and review of exemptions.
    • This also needs to cover government properties as per GoI circular 2009 and the SC judgment in Rajkot Corporation vs Railways.
    • Similarly, rates need revision in the guiding value for rent or unit area; for instance, in Delhi, rates are fairly low.
    • The collection process needs to be automated too.
    • ABC (Always best Control) analysis should be done to target the top 10-20% properties, and measures such as attaching bank accounts must be implemented.

    2) Upward revision of various fees

    • The value capture taxes need to include upward revision of building license fee and new sources like impact fee, as imposed in Telangana, exactions, and betterment levy like the one imposed in Gujarat.

    3) Levy advertisement fee

    • An advertisement fee needs to be levied.
    • Thiruvananthapuram listed the sites and plugged leakages for 33,170 unauthorized boards to double its income from 2018 to 2019.
    • South Delhi MC has achieved a three-time increase with revision of rates in a ratio of 1:8 as per location and by dividing the city into clusters.

    4) Local fee

    • Local fee/charges also have immense potential such as (i) recovery on user charges (water, etc) which is only 20% (ii) right of way from gas/electricity and fiber optic lines, (ii) cell tower, (iii) leasing electricity poles, etc.

    5) Participatory funding

    • The potential of participatory funding (private sector, CSR, and local community) needs to be tapped.
    • This has been done by Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Mathura (Hybrid Annuity project), Indore, and Pune.

    6) Special attention for assigning and activating the fiscal instrument

    • Sixth, small and medium-sized municipal bodies need special attention for assigning and activating fiscal instruments.
    • Better mobilization of own sources may also lead to revenue account surplus.
    • This has been achieved in Ahmedabad, Pune, etc and it also enables access to the capital market.

    7) Revision of Article 243X

    • Article 243X needs suitable revision to allow larger inclusion of fiscal instruments above within the scope of a municipality’s own sources.

    8) Creating ULBs as per MoHUA’s advisory

    • Over 3,000 census towns not having city government need special attention to create ULBs in line with MoHUA’s advisory in 2016.
    • It will create an innovative and effective financing framework for sustainable urban development.

    Conclusion

    Financially strong local bodies hold the key to the development of the country. The steps mentioned here needs to be implemented effectively to make the ULBs financially strong.

    Source:-

    https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/bolster-ulbs-capacity-to-raise-revenue/2157171/

  • Establishing trust between government and citizens

    The article highlights the important role played by the intermediaries in connecting the citizens with the government.

    Addressing the connect between government and citizens

    • By exploring how digitally excluded communities engage with governance we understand that humans are significant in brokering trust between governments and citizens.
    • This is true even for the ‘Digital India’.
    • However, only a few States have built a cadre of individuals for last mile governance.
    • Andhra Pradesh, for instance, rolled out a ward secretariat programme with over 16,000 ward secretaries and volunteers for delivering government services at citizens’ doorstep.

    Understanding the role played by intermediaries

    • Intermediaries help citizens overcome barriers to awareness of availability of digital services and rights from the state and ability.
    •  Intermediaries support individuals by placing complaints, directing them to the right authorities, and following up.
    • Intermediaries are crucial offline architectures that enable the state to do its work better.
    • Community-based organisations and NGOs see their work as allied to their core work.

    Way forward

    • Various types and forms of intermediation emerge based on regional, social, cultural and economic contexts.
    • Equally, it is essential to pay attention to the varying incentives of intermediaries and not romanticise the benefits.
    • We need to see intermediaries as crucial to the realisation of governance outcomes.
    • India has formalised intermediation in traditional markets such as mutual funds from which we can learn.
    • In these areas, formal governance mechanisms, structured capacity building, widespread awareness campaigns, and process re-engineering enabled growth and usage.
    • At a broader level, increasing digitisation of governance across domains including healthcare, financial inclusion, justice and social services should be considered.

    Conclusion

    By acknowledging the role of intermediaries and supporting them, we will be able to support the process of responsible, responsive and data-driven governance across domains.

  • Policy implementation in India : Issues

    Policy implementation matters as much as the policy itself. The article highlights the importance of monitoring system to track the implementation of the policies.

    Implementing policy

    • It is taken for granted that a government policy or social-development program, is meant to be perfectly executed.
    • Implementation is the key and ends up with sub-par results and uncompleted projects.
    • India has had mixed experiences post-Independence, the consolidated development chart will appear rather skewed.
    • Millions continue to live in abject poverty, deprived of basic amenities.

    Dealing with implementation deficit

    • India needs to work on the implementation and reforms processes in a wider manner, with the primary aim of attaining fast-paced development and effective delivery of the intended public benefits.
    • The first requirement would be a capable implementing machine — or what has been called the “perfect administration”, driven by passionate team leaders.
    • The guiding urge should be to complete the task before schedule.
    • Other critical determinants include:
    • Unambiguous demarcation of responsibilities.
    • Frequent brainstorming sessions to anticipate and take formal note of likely challenges and agreeing upon solutions.
    • Ensuring and authorizing a largely freehand with matching resources, and the ability to make on-the-spot decisions.
    • The evergreen strategy to make the implementation of a near-perfect process is to build in a vigilant monitoring and evaluation mechanism.
    • A dynamic monitoring mechanism makes use of technology, which today is being built into various flagship programs initiated by the present government.

    Achieving implementation

    • In the interest of achieving wholesome implementation, it would be desirable to set up an autonomous “Monitoring Trust”.
    • The trust will act as an integral part of all important public policies and programs.
    • The proposed Trust can comprise core technical, administrative, and legal members, along with stakeholders and social activists.
    • Engaging stakeholders and implementers, through various methodologies, is fast emerging as an effective strategy.
    • Sharing information and progress through dashboards and other technology tools, inviting suggestions through IT portals like MyGov democratize and enrich both policy formulation and execution.
    • The institutions and methodologies developed in Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana present an exemplary fusion between human ingenuity and the miracles of customized technology.

    Conclusion

    The political leadership both at the national and the state level is the most crucial force behind the success of the implementation machinery. An endeavor’s effective implementation alone can provide the converge with good governance, bold innovation, rewarding delivery, and the transformation of marginalized human lives.

  • Custodial torture in India

    Installation of cameras would help in curbing the custodial torture to some extent but ending the menace requires comprehensive reforms.

    Installation of CCTV cameras to curb custodial torture

    • The Supreme Court recently mandated that CCTV cameras be installed in police stations and offices of other investigative agencies.
    • However, previous decisions with similar recommendations have been poorly implemented.
    • The present decision shows a marked difference from the earlier ones in its approach.
    • It shows more care by listing out areas of police stations where cameras must be installed to ensure that there are no blind spots.
    • It asks for oversight committees to be set up to monitor the functioning of the cameras.
    • It also specifies that the cameras must be equipped with night vision and be able to record audio and visual footage.
    • The recordings will have to be preserved for at least 12 months.

    Issues with installing CCTV cameras

    • Alteration of a video to conceal an object, an event, or change the meaning conveyed by the video is a well-documented reality in the United States.
    • Indian courts have also expressed their apprehension of police tampering with CCTV footage.
    • The judgment does not assuage these concerns.
    •  Cameras in police stations will not foreclose the possibility of torture in other locations.
    • Multiple works on torture in India suggest that torture is often not inflicted in police stations, but in isolated areas or police vehicles.
    • Victims are illegally detained and tortured in undisclosed locations before officially arrested and brought to the police station.

    Challenges in fixing criminal responsibility

    • Since torture is not recognized as an offense per se under Indian law, the judgment refers to the use of force resulting in “serious injuries and/or custodial deaths” unwittingly creates a high threshold for what amounts to torture.
    • It fails to acknowledge the existence of forms of physical and psychological torture that leave behind no marks on the body.
    • Requiring prior sanction from the government operates as the foremost hurdle in initiating criminal complaints.
    • The absence of statutory guidelines mandating independent investigation results in police officers from the same police station investigating the crime and suppressing evidence.
    • Between 2005-2018, with respect to 1,200 deaths in police custody, 593 cases were registered, 186 police personnel were charge-sheeted, and only seven were convicted (National Crime Records Bureau).
    •  Evidentiary concerns frequently arise since often the only witnesses are the victims themselves.
    • The Supreme Court (1995) has noted that police officials remain silent to protect their colleagues as they are “bound by brotherhood” and held that courts should not insist on direct or ocular evidence in these cases.
    • This position is rarely applied and many cases result in acquittal for want of evidence.

    Conclusion

    Monitoring the police through CCTVs is an important step towards combating torture but its effectiveness is contingent on broader reforms. The Supreme Court needs to ensure a robust implementation of its order and simultaneously plug the gaps so that incidents of torture are curtailed.

  • What are Municipal Bonds?

    Bonds issued by the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) got listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. It’s the ninth city in the country to raise capital through municipal bonds.

    Find out the rest eight cities issuing Municipal Bonds in India. Do let us know in the comment box.

    What are Municipal Bonds?

    • A municipal bond or muni bond is a debt instrument issued by municipal corporations or associated bodies.
    • These local governmental bodies utilise the funds raised through these bonds to finance projects for socio-economic development through building bridges, schools, hospitals, providing proper amenities to households, et al.
    • Such bonds come with a maturity period of three years, whereby municipal corporations provide returns on these bonds either from property and professional tax collected or from revenues generated from specific projects or both.
    • The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) revised the guidelines related to the issuance of municipal bonds in 2015 in an attempt to enable ULBs or local government bodies to raise finances from such sources.
    • Following this measure, different cities have capitalized on the new guidelines to fund initiatives such as Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urbanisation Transformation (AMRUT) and Smart Cities Mission.

    Their types

    There are primarily two types of municipal bonds in India, categorised as per their usage. These are –

    (1) General Obligation Bonds

    • These are issued to raise finances for general projects such as improving the infrastructure of a region.
    • Repayment of the bond, along with interest, is processed through revenue generated from different projects and taxes.

    (2) Revenue Bonds

    • These are issued to raise finance for specific projects, such as the construction of a particular building.
    • Repayment of such bonds (principal and accrued interest) shall be paid through revenues explicitly generated from the declared projects.

    Advantages of such Bonds

    There are multiple advantages of investing in municipal bonds which include –

    (1)Transparency

    Municipal bonds that are issued to the public are rated by renowned agencies such as CRISIL, which allows investors transparency regarding the credibility of the investment option.

    (2)Tax benefits

    In India, municipal bonds are exempted from taxation if the investor conforms to certain stipulated rules. In addition to such conformation, interest rates generated on such investment tools are also exempt from taxation policy.

    (3) Minimal risk

    Municipal bonds are issued by municipal authorities, implying involvement of minimal risk with these securities.

    Their limitations

    The disadvantages of municipal bonds are enumerated below –

    (1) Long maturity period

    • Municipal bonds come with a lock-in period of three years, imposing a burden on the liquidity requirements of investors.

    (2) Low-interest rates

    • Even though interest rates on municipal bonds, in some cases, are higher than other debt instruments, these rates are considerably low when compared to returns from market-linked financial instruments such as equity shares.

  • What is J&K Roshni Act?

    The J&K High Court has declared Roshni Act “illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable” and a CBI probe has been ordered into the allotment of land under this law.

    Must read:

    [Burning Issue] One Year since the Repeal of Art. 370

    What is the Roshni Act?

    • The J&K State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 is popularly known as the Roshni Act.
    • It envisaged the transfer of ownership rights of state land to its occupants, subject to the payment of a cost, as determined by the government.
    • It set 1990 as the cutoff for encroachment on state land.
    • The government’s target was to earn Rs 25,000 crore by transferring 20 lakh kanals (one-eighth of an acre) of state land to existing occupants against payment at market rates.
    • The government said the revenue generated would be spent on commissioning hydroelectric power projects, hence the name “Roshni”.

    What is the recent controversy?

    • In October this year, the High Court held the Roshni Act as ‘unconstitutional’.
    • The court also directed the UT government to make public names of those who grabbed the land under the scheme.
    • Last week, the UT government began publishing the names of beneficiaries on its websites.
    • The first set of names included prominent politicians and their relatives, hotels, and a trust connected each to the dominant parties of the Gupkar declaration.

    A scam being busted

    • Investigations into the land transfers subsequently found that land in Gulmarg had been given over to ineligible beneficiaries.
    • However several government officials illegally possessed and vested ownership of state land to occupants who did not satisfy criteria under the Roshni Act.
    • A report by the CAG estimated that against the targeted Rs 25,000 crore, only Rs 76 crore had been realized from the transfer of land between 2007 and 2013, thus defeating the purpose.
    • The report blamed irregularities including arbitrary reduction in prices fixed by a standing committee, and said this was done to benefit politicians and affluent people.

  • Personal Vehicle on a Public Road

    The Delhi government has told the Delhi High Court that a personal vehicle on a public road cannot be said to be a private zone — rather, it is a public space.

    Do you know?

    India sees the largest number of road fatalities in the world. More than 1.5 lakh people lost their lives in road crashes in the country in 2018, according to government data.

    Why such an argument?

    • The argument was given to defend its decision of making it compulsory for people to wear masks when they are travelling.

    Supreme Court’s definition of ‘public space’

    • The Supreme Court in one of its ruling has said defined a “public place” to mean any place to which the public has access, whether as a matter of right or not — and includes all places visited by the general public, and also includes any open space.
    • The keywords are “any place to which public have access”, which phrase is further qualified by the phrase “whether as a matter of right or not”, the court noted.
    • When a private vehicle is passing through a public road it cannot be accepted that the public has no access.
    • It is true that the public may not have access to a private vehicle as a matter of right but definitely, public has the opportunity to approach the private vehicle while it is on the public road, said the court.

  • Issues with the regulation of digital media by government

    The article deals with the recent decision of the government to regulate digital media through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and issues with it.

    Regulating the press

    • Recently, government put the online news and current affairs portals along with “films and audio-visual programmes made available by online content providers” under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
    • Through the move, government is clubbing the only sector of the media which has pre-censorship, namely films  with the news media which has so far, at least officially, not been subject to pre-censorship.
    • The move hijacks matters before the Supreme Court of India relating to freedom of the press and freedom of expression to arm the executive with control over the free press, thereby essentially making it unfree.
    • It also hijacks another public interest litigation in the Supreme Court relating to content on “Over The Top” (OTT) platforms not being subject to regulation or official oversight to bring that sector too under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
    • The move creates an artificial distinction between the new-age digital media which is the media of the future, the media of the millennial generation — and the older print and TV news media.

    Reasons given by the government and issues with it

    • The explanation given is that the print media have the oversight of the Press Council of India and the TV media of the News Broadcasters Association (NBA).
    • Therefore the digital media needed a regulatory framework — no less than that of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
    • However, there is no comparison between the Press Council of India and the NBA as professional bodies on the one hand and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the other.
    • The fate of the digital media under the control of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting leaves little scope for hope.

    Consider the question “Regulation of digital media while solving some chronic issues gives rise to concerns over the freedom of press and expression. In light of this, examine the need for regulation of digital media by government and issues in it.”

    Conclusion

    The government regulations would be counterproductive for both the media practitioner and the media entrepreneur and for the startups that have been the new vibrant face of contemporary journalism.

  • Issues with legal language in India

    Context

    •  Recently, a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court regarding the use of legal language.
    • Reacting to the plea, the Supreme Court has asked the Ministry of Law and Justice and Bar Council to respond.

    Wha the PIL is about?

    • The PIL (Subhash Vijayran vs Union of India) wants the legislature and executive to use plain English in drafting laws, the Bar Council to introduce plain English in law curricula and the Supreme Court to only allow concise and precise pleadings.
    • He begins the synopsis to the writ petition in the following way. “The writing of most lawyers is: (1) wordy, (2) unclear, (3) pompous and (4) dull.

    Way forward

    • When asking the Ministry of Law and Justice and Bar Council to respond, the Chief Justice of India referred to Anthony Burgess’s book (1964) Language Made Plain.
    • George Orwell set out six principles, which could be used while drafting.
    • Copy editors routinely use these principles, but not the judiciary.
    • The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy produced a manual on plain language drafting in 2017.

    Conclusion

    The Ministry of Law and Justice make use of the opportunity provided by the PIC to come up with the set of principles to make the legal language easier for all.

  • [pib] National Productivity Council (NPC)

    National Productivity Council (NPC) has been granted accreditation conforming to ISO 17020:2012 by National Accreditation Board for Certification Body (NABCB).

    National Productivity Council (NPC)

    • NPC is a national level organization to promote productivity culture in India.
    • The NPC comes under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
    • Established in 1958, it is an autonomous, multipartite, non-profit organization and has been registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
    • NPC is a constituent of the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an Inter-Governmental Body, of which the Government of India is a founder member.

    Why ISO status?

    • It has been granted accreditation for undertaking inspection and audit work in the area of Food Safety Audit and Scientific Storage of Agricultural Products.
    • NPC has been conducting inspections/audit for different statutory bodies such as Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA) and FSSAI and is already having high credentials in the area of inspections and audits.