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  • Fear of shift to cash due to merchant fee on UPI ‘100% misplaced’: Govt sources

    Why in the News

    A merchant discount rate of 0.4 per cent will apply to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments made to merchants above Rs 2,000 from 15 October, under a decision of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The government has called fears of a public shift back to cash “100% misplaced”, noting that a merchant fee already applies to credit and debit cards other than RuPay debit cards and that those cards continue to be used. A Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 18 per cent applies on the fee itself. The contested point is whether a charge levied on the seller stays with the seller, or reaches the buyer as a higher price.

    What is the merchant discount rate now applying to UPI?

    1. What the charge is: A merchant discount rate (MDR) is a fee paid by the seller on a payment accepted electronically. On UPI it has been set at 0.4 per cent of the transaction value.
    2. Where it applies: It applies to person to merchant UPI transactions of more than Rs 2,000, and takes effect on 15 October.
    3. Who receives it: The fee is split between the payments industry players that run the rail, which includes banks, payment gateways, UPI apps and other service providers.

    How narrow is the fee’s incidence?

    1. Share of transactions: Only 4 per cent of person to merchant UPI transactions are for more than Rs 2,000 and will attract the fee.
    2. Share of value: That small group of payments accounts for two thirds of person to merchant UPI payments measured by value.
    3. Merchants untouched: Around three fourths of India’s merchants accepting digital payments have never recorded a UPI transaction above the threshold, so they stay outside the fee altogether.
    4. Transfers stay free: All person to person UPI payments remain without any MDR.
    5. RuPay debit exempt: Payments made by RuPay debit card attract no MDR even above the threshold.

    Why does the government reject the fear of a shift back to cash?

    1. Card fees already exist: An MDR already applies to credit and debit cards other than RuPay debit cards, and users have not given those cards up.
    2. Merchants already absorb it: Merchants have always absorbed the MDR on credit cards while continuing to accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
    3. The comparison on rates: The merchant fee on debit and credit cards runs broadly in the range of 1 per cent to 3 per cent, significantly higher than the rate set for UPI.

    What is the stated purpose of charging for UPI?

    1. Cost of a free service: The stated ground is that a payment service cannot be supplied free indefinitely without exhausting the business that funds it.
    2. Reinvestment rather than full recovery: NPCI’s managing director and chief executive officer said the objective is not to recover the full cost of running UPI, but to generate enough revenue for banks and payment companies to keep investing in the ecosystem.

    What else decides how much of the fee reaches the buyer?

    1. The pass through concern: Shopkeepers may stop accepting UPI, and consumers expect sellers to pass the fee on by raising prices.
    2. A monitoring mechanism: The government is willing to talk to the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to set up a mechanism for monitoring whether shopkeepers pass the MDR to buyers.
    3. Talks with traders: The government will also speak to traders, including the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), about the issue.
    4. Tax on the fee: GST of 18 per cent applies on the MDR on person to merchant UPI payments, which lifts the seller’s cost above the notified rate.
    5. The stated hope on the tax: The position taken is that the GST Council will take a favourable view and be reasonable on the rate.
    6. The Council’s agenda: The GST Council meets on 7 October and is not expected to discuss the indirect tax rate on the MDR.

    Challenges to the UPI merchant discount rate

    1. Pass through is hard to police: A monitoring arrangement cannot observe a shopkeeper who quotes one price for cash and a higher one for UPI. Eg. Surcharging on card payments continues at small outlets even though the card rules bar it.
      The Fix: Require the acquiring bank to certify surcharge free acceptance as a condition of the merchant’s UPI acceptance agreement.
    2. A value threshold invites splitting: A fee that triggers above a transaction value gives the seller a reason to break one payment into two below the line. Eg. The fee applies only above Rs 2,000, so a bill just over that figure can be collected as two smaller payments.
      The Fix: Levy the fee on a merchant’s aggregate monthly person to merchant value rather than on the size of each transaction.
    3. The revenue split leaves acquirers last: The fee is divided among banks, gateways and app providers, so the share reaching the party that actually onboards a small shop may not cover that cost. Eg. Person to merchant acceptance among small merchants was built on zero MDR and on government incentive payouts to banks.
      The Fix: Fix a minimum acquirer share of the fee in the settlement rules so merchant onboarding stays funded.
    4. A priced rail can be repriced: A charge introduced administratively can be raised the same way, and the rail loses its universality if some sellers refuse the instrument above the threshold. Eg. The European Union caps interchange at 0.2 per cent on debit cards and 0.3 per cent on credit cards precisely to keep acceptance universal.
      The Fix: Notify a statutory ceiling on the person to merchant fee so the rate cannot be revised upward by the operator alone.

    Conclusion

    The charge is small and narrowly aimed, and it still changes what UPI is: a rail built on being free to use now carries a price for sellers above a value threshold. Whether that price stays with the seller is not settled by the fee’s design but by enforcement the government has yet to build. Two things are worth watching. The first is whether a monitoring arrangement with the banks is in place before the fee takes effect, and the second is whether the tax levied on the fee is revisited once the Council turns to it.

    Back2Basics: National Payments Corporation of India

    1. What it is: An umbrella organisation for retail payments and settlement systems in India, incorporated in 2008 as a not for profit company.
    2. Promoters and statutory basis: It was promoted by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks’ Association under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
    3. Systems it operates: UPI, RuPay, the Immediate Payment Service, the National Automated Clearing House, the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System and FASTag.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026] Which one of the following statements about Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Central Bank Digital Currency (Digital Rupee) is NOT correct? (a) UPI is a real-time payment system but Digital Rupee is akin to sovereign paper currency (b) In case of UPI, settlement for end users happens instantly; in case of Digital Rupee, wallet balance gets transferred to another wallet (no traditional settlement) (c) UPI transactions are recorded by banks and reflected in bank statements; in case of Digital Rupee, no data is captured in bank statements (d) In both the cases (UPI and Digital Rupee), the liability lies with the users and their respective banks Answer: (d)”

  • Irdai proposes specific caps on insurance commission

    Why in the News

    The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has proposed specific caps on insurance commissions, in place of the single overall expense ceiling that governs distribution cost today. A consultation paper also proposes significantly lower overall expense limits for insurers, with a glide path for bringing down commissions and management expenses. The proposal reverses the approach of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Payment of Commission) Regulations, 2023, which withdrew product specific commission caps and left commission to be paid under a board approved policy within an insurer’s overall expense ceiling. The contested point is whether distribution cost is better disciplined by one aggregate ceiling the insurer manages, or by product level caps the regulator sets.

    What is the expense of management limit?

    1. What the limit covers: Expenses of management are the commission and operating expenses an insurer charges against its business. The limit is expressed as a share of premium.
    2. Why the ceiling exists: Every rupee of distribution and administration cost is a rupee not available for policyholder benefits, so a ceiling protects the return the buyer gets.
    3. The 2023 shift: Product specific commission caps were withdrawn and each insurer was left to fix commission through a board approved policy, inside the aggregate ceiling.
    4. What an aggregate ceiling cannot do: A single ceiling says nothing about how the expense is distributed across products and channels. An insurer can load cost onto one product and still stay within the limit.

    What do the proposed commission caps do?

    1. The basis of the cap: Caps are proposed by segment, line of business, distribution channel, product complexity, and the effort involved in selling and servicing the product.
    2. Agents on shorter tenure individual plans: For individual non linked plans, participating or non participating, and unit linked plans with a policy term of up to five years, first year commission for an agent is capped at 6.25 per cent.
    3. Other distribution entities: The same plans carry a 5 per cent cap on first year commission for other distribution entities, including corporate agents, brokers and composite brokers.
    4. The channel split: The same product therefore carries a different permitted acquisition cost depending on who sells it.

    What changes on the overall expense limits?

    1. Lower ceilings: The paper proposes a significant reduction in the overall expense of management limits that insurers work within.
    2. A phased reduction: The cut in commissions and management expenses is to come through a glide path rather than at once.
    3. Why phasing matters: An immediate cut would strand distribution agreements and agent payouts already written on current terms.

    Why is distribution cost a regulatory question at all?

    1. The cost is recovered from premium: Commission and management expense come out of what the policyholder pays, so a higher distribution cost lowers the return on the policy.
    2. Front loaded payouts reward the sale: A high first year commission pays for the act of selling rather than for servicing the policy over its term, which is the incentive structure behind mis selling and policy churning.
    3. Lapses destroy both sides of the contract: A policy sold to earn a first year commission lapses more often, and a lapsed policy leaves the buyer without protection and the insurer without a book.
    4. Trust decides market width: Insurance penetration in India remains low, so the terms on which a product is sold decide whether the market deepens or the buyer withdraws.

    Challenges to capping insurance commissions

    1. A cap moves the cost rather than removing it: Where the commission head is capped, the same payment can reappear as rewards, incentives, reimbursements or marketing support. Eg. Payments to a bank distributor can be routed under heads such as marketing or infrastructure support rather than as commission.
      The Fix: Bring every payment to a distributor, under whatever head, into a single reported remuneration figure disclosed product by product.
    2. Differentiated caps steer sales toward the better paying product: A cap that varies by segment and complexity gives a distributor a reason to recommend the product that pays more rather than the one that fits. Eg. Two products sold to the same customer can carry different payouts under the proposed structure.
      The Fix: Require a suitability record for every sale, stating why the recommended product matches the buyer’s stated need.
    3. Bank led distribution sells to a captive customer: A bank selling insurance to its own depositor faces little competitive check on what it recommends, whatever the commission rate is. Eg. Mis selling of unit linked and single premium policies at bank counters is a standing grievance before the insurance ombudsman.
      The Fix: Publish channel wise complaint and persistency data for every insurer, so the distribution channel carrying the problem is identifiable.
    4. A percentage cap bites hardest where the ticket size is small: The agent servicing low premium rural policies earns least from a cap expressed in percentage terms, so the least profitable business is served last. Eg. The individual agent remains the primary life insurance channel outside metropolitan markets.
      The Fix: Allow a higher cap for policies below a stated premium threshold, so low value business remains viable to sell and service.

    Conclusion

    The regulator is moving back from an aggregate ceiling the insurer manages to caps it sets itself, because an aggregate limit never governed where the money went inside it. Whether the buyer is better off depends on which heads a payout can be shifted into once the commission head is capped. The proposal is at the consultation stage, so the next step is the comment period. The final regulations are where it will become clear how long insurers get to reach the lower limits, and whether the disclosure obligation on distributor payments is tightened alongside the caps.

    Back2Basics: Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India

    1. Governing Act: IRDAI is a statutory body established under the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999.
    2. Headquarters: It has been headquartered at Hyderabad since 2001.
    3. Composition: It is headed by a chairperson, with whole time members and part time members appointed by the central government.
    4. Mandate: It regulates the insurance and reinsurance business, licenses insurers and intermediaries, and protects the interests of policyholders.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2013, GS2, 10 marks] The product diversification of financial institutions and insurance companies, resulting in overlapping of products and services strengthens the case for the merger of the two regulatory agencies, namely SEBI and IRDA. Justify.”

  • Chief Election Commissioner is not the Election Commission of India

    Why in the News

    Decisions issued in the name of the Election Commission of India (ECI) without being placed before two of its three Commissioners are prima facie ultra vires, meaning taken beyond the authority the statute confers. The position answers an investigation reporting that two Election Commissioners recorded objections at least 14 times in 10 months to decisions and orders taken without their knowledge. Those objections covered the registration and deletion of voters, the restoration of names, Form 6, appeals in electoral roll cases, and control over the digital architecture of the rolls. Two of three members are a majority of the Commission, so they were not outvoted. The contested point is no longer whether the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was wise or fair, but whether the decisions taken in the Commission’s name were decisions of the Commission at all.

    How does the Election Commission of India take a decision?

    1. Constitutional vesting: Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission of India. The power is conferred on the body, not on its chairman.
    2. Unanimity as the statutory norm: Section 18(2) of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 requires all business of the Commission to be transacted unanimously as far as possible.
    3. The fallback rule: Where the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners differ, the matter “shall be decided according to the opinion of the majority”.
    4. Allocation of business: Section 18(1) allows the procedure for the transaction and allocation of business to be regulated only by a unanimous decision. A unilaterally settled allocation cannot supply authority for a unilateral decision.

    Why would a bypassed decision be legally vulnerable?

    1. The nature of the defect: A substantive decision the law vests in “the Election Commission”, taken in its name without being placed before the Commission, is void for want of authority.
    2. No cover from an allocation: Such a decision also lacks cover where no lawfully adopted allocation of business authorised a single member to take it. A letterhead does not supply authority the statute withholds.
    3. The governing precedent: T N Seshan vs Union of India (1995) held that the Constitution entrusts elections to the Election Commission and not to an individual. The Court warned that “It would be wrong to project the individual and eclipse the Election Commission.”
    4. A majority is not a dissent: The objections did not come from one Commissioner differing with two colleagues. They came from two of three members, which is the number the statute makes decisive.

    Which specific decisions are in question?

    1. Form 6 alteration: An Election Commissioner recorded in May that Form 6, prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, could not be altered by an SIR direction without amending the Rules. The second Commissioner concurred, and the altered form appeared on ECINet regardless.
    2. A recorded majority against the change: In August one of them called the change “unauthorised/illegal” and sought its immediate removal. There was not merely an absence of consensus, but a recorded majority view against the change.
    3. Centralisation of the roll database: Both Commissioners warned that access to the electoral roll database was being centralised in Delhi. Both sought safeguards, including an independent technical audit.
    4. Restoration blocked in Goa: Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), the statutory authorities for additions, deletions and corrections, found 97 people eligible after they produced documents, and the software did not permit their restoration. A computer programme cannot overrule a statutory officer.
    5. The West Bengal appeals: Of 38.31 lakh appeals filed before tribunals, 22.21 lakh came from deleted voters seeking restoration. Another 16.10 lakh were reportedly filed by the Commission itself, seeking deletion of voters.
    6. Authority for that litigation: An Election Commissioner asked who had authorised appeals “on behalf of ECI”, recording that neither he nor his colleague had been informed.

    What would an institutional response require?

    1. Disclosure of the decision record: The Commission, meeting as a Commission, should disclose which major SIR decisions were approved unanimously, which were decided by majority, and under what valid allocation any others were issued.
    2. Review of the challenged decisions: Every decision the two Commissioners have challenged as lacking approval should be reviewed, and any found to have been taken without lawful authority should be withdrawn.
    3. Form 6 restored to the Rules: The form should be brought back into conformity with the statutory Rules that prescribe it.
    4. An independent audit of the platform: ECINet should be subjected to an independent technical and legal audit.
    5. Restoring the statutory officer’s powers: EROs should be able to exercise the powers Parliament gave them, without a software permission standing between the decision and the roll.
    6. Disclosure of litigation authority: The authority under which appeals were filed in the Commission’s name should be placed on record.
    7. The forum if the Commission does not act: Where the Commission will not act on its own, the Supreme Court is the only remaining route.

    Challenges to collective decision making in the Election Commission

    1. The allocation of business is not published: A reader cannot tell from an order whether it was collective, because the allocation under which a member may act alone is not in the public domain. Eg. The disclosure now sought is of which SIR decisions were unanimous, which were by majority, and under what allocation the rest were issued.
      The Fix: Publish the allocation of business and record every substantive decision against it, so authority is visible on the face of the order.
    2. No quorum or meeting rule: The statute fixes unanimity and a majority fallback, and prescribes no quorum, no meeting calendar and no record of how a file is circulated. Eg. The objections were written on file across ten months rather than resolved at a sitting of the full Commission.
      The Fix: Frame regulations under Section 18(1) fixing a minimum meeting frequency and requiring each substantive decision to carry the members’ recorded assent.
    3. No internal remedy against an invalid decision: A member who holds a decision to be unauthorised has no forum inside the Commission to set it aside, so the dispute leaves the institution. Eg. The two Commissioners approached the Cabinet Secretary when they believed institutional processes had been breached.
      The Fix: Provide that a contested instruction is placed before the full Commission before it takes effect.
    4. Asymmetric removal protection: The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the manner of a judge of the Supreme Court, while an Election Commissioner can be removed on the Chief Election Commissioner’s recommendation. Eg. The Tarkunde Committee of 1975 and the Goswami Committee of 1990 both recommended the same protection for every member.
      The Fix: Extend the Chief Election Commissioner’s removal protection to all members through an amendment to Article 324(5).
    5. Executive weight in appointments: The 2023 Act placed a Union Cabinet Minister on the three member selection panel in place of the Chief Justice of India, giving the Union two of three votes. Eg. Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) had set an interim panel of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
      The Fix: Restore a selector drawn from outside the executive, so the panel cannot be carried by the government of the day alone.

    Conclusion

    For years the standing question about the Election Commission was whether it is independent of the executive. The question now is whether it is functioning as a Commission at all. A constitutional authority that demands strict compliance with electoral law from nearly a billion voters has to begin by complying with the law that governs itself. What is unresolved is that the only forum able to test a decision taken without the Commission sits outside it, so a defect in collective authority becomes litigation rather than correction.

    Schemes and Initiatives for Electoral Administration

    1. cVIGIL: A citizen reporting application for Model Code of Conduct violations, with a 100 minute turnaround mandated for the investigating officer.
    2. National Voters’ Services Portal: An online route through which an elector can register, modify and confirm their electoral details.
    3. Accessible voting measures: Braille enabled elector photo identity cards, free transport for persons with disabilities, and a vote from home facility for senior citizens.
    4. Delisting of unrecognised parties: Over 808 registered unrecognised political parties that failed to meet essential conditions were delisted by early 2026, curbing misuse of tax exemptions.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • ‘Still awaited… urgently required’: Goa staff sent 8 emails in 7 days, but EC shut out valid voters

    Why in the News

    Ninety seven electors in Goa whom the State’s own Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) heard, examined and found eligible were left off the final electoral roll, and all 97 are still missing from it. The EROs could not give effect to their own decision, because ECINet, the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) roll platform, carried no rollback option and the permission to enable one is controlled from Delhi. Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer wrote to the ECI eight times in seven days seeking that facility. No reply is on record and none of the requests was acted on. The exclusions follow a Supreme Court order directing that electors flagged for a “logical discrepancy” be listed publicly, given ten days to submit documents or objections, and heard. The contested point is whether an electoral roll remains the statutory authority’s document when the software that records it answers to a central information technology division.

    What is a “logical discrepancy”?

    1. Not a finding of ineligibility: A logical discrepancy is not a finding that someone is not a voter. It is a mismatch the Commission’s software throws up when it tries to link an elector to a parent or grandparent on the roll from the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
    2. What triggers the flag: The triggers include a parent’s name that does not match, an age gap between parent and child of under 15 or over 50 years, and an age that does not progress correctly between the old roll and the new.
    3. Documentary triggers: A case where the elector submitted no document, or only Aadhaar, is also flagged.
    4. Where the flag is recorded: The flagging decision is entered on ECINet, the platform on which every electoral roll in the country has sat since January.

    What did the Supreme Court order, and what did Goa do?

    1. The display direction: A Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India ordered on 29 January, in the SIR batch of petitions, that the names of those flagged for logical discrepancies be displayed publicly. The display was to carry “the brief reason of discrepancy”, at gram panchayat bhavans, public places, taluka and sub division offices and urban ward offices.
    2. The hearing direction: Those affected were to be allowed ten days to submit documents or objections and to be heard.
    3. Scope of the order: The order was about Tamil Nadu. The Court said it expected the Commission to ensure compliance with these procedural directions in every State where the SIR process was ongoing.
    4. Implementation in Goa: The Commission issued a letter on 31 January to implement the order, and Goa put up the lists.
    5. The hearings: 649 electors came forward with documents or objections. EROs and Assistant EROs examined them and concluded in 97 cases that the elector had “become eligible to be included in the final Electoral Roll”.

    Why could the ERO not give effect to its own decision?

    1. Where the law puts the power: The electoral roll of each Assembly constituency is prepared by its ERO, usually the sub divisional magistrate, who hears every claim and objection and decides every name.
    2. Where the software puts it: What an ERO can do on ECINet and its roll management module ERONet is decided by permissions set in the Commission’s information technology division in Delhi.
    3. The missing function: The decision to flag the 97 had already been entered on the system, and the system carried no rollback option that would let the EROs reverse it.
    4. How long the field had been asking: Requests for a rollback facility had been coming from the field since 22 January.
    5. The vendor was told too: Goa Electronics Limited, the State agency that supports the Chief Electoral Officer’s office on the software, wrote on 11 February to the Chief Electoral Officer and to Tata Consultancy Services, the Commission’s vendor. It recorded that the rollback and reversion functionality, including the document re-upload option, had still not been provided despite “multiple emails” from District Election Officers, EROs and Assistant EROs.

    What does the email trail record?

    1. The escalation: Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer forwarded that record to Delhi the same day, to the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Goa, with the Commission’s Director General of Information Technology copied.
    2. The repeated asks: Eight communications went from Goa to the Commission between 11 and 17 February. On 13 February the office recorded that a “response to any of the emails and letters sent from officer of the Chief Electoral Officer, Goa… is still awaited”, and on 15 February that “The Roll back option is urgently required”.
    3. The formal letter: On 14 February the Chief Electoral Officer wrote formally to the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Goa, recording that “no response has been received” to the emails of the previous two days.
    4. The list: On 17 February, four days before the final roll was due, the Chief Electoral Officer sent the list of the 97 cases in which the earlier decisions “have to be reversed”.
    5. The Commission’s own instruction: On 18 February the Deputy Election Commissioner holding the electoral roll charge in Delhi wrote to the Director General of Information Technology that EROs and Assistant EROs have powers under Sections 21 and 21A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 to take corrective action. He recorded that the “IT system cannot block necessary action as per the directions of SC”.
    6. The outcome: The final roll was published on 21 February without the 97. All 97 were still missing when the roll was checked on 20 September.

    What does being off the roll cost a voter in Goa?

    1. Where the 97 are: Sixty five of the 97 are from the Taleigao seat. The rest are from the St Cruz, Cumbarjua, Priol, Margao, Benaulim and Velim Assembly seats.
    2. The roll as an eligibility document: Several Goa State schemes use the electoral roll to establish eligibility, so being off it costs more than a vote.
    3. Health cover: The Goa Mediclaim Scheme funds super speciality treatment not available in government hospitals, covering dialysis, angioplasty, open heart surgery, transplants, chemotherapy and cochlear implants. It is open only to voters of the State.
    4. What the 97 were told: When the names did not go in, the electoral officers on the ground told these voters to apply afresh on Form 6, the form for new voters.

    How does the Goa case fit the two Election Commissioners’ recorded objections?

    1. The record: Two of the Election Commission of India’s three Election Commissioners objected on record at least 14 times in 10 months to decisions taken without their knowledge. Their notes run from November to August.
    2. Centralisation: One of them wrote in May of “the gradual centralisation” of the electoral roll database. Both recorded that centralised control of the software was taking the roll out of the EROs’ hands, where the law puts it.
    3. Access: An August note recorded that EROs, District Election Officers and Chief Electoral Officers “don’t have proper and complete access to the ERONet portal”.
    4. Authority: The same note recorded that the Director General of Information Technology “doesn’t have any legal authority to restrict proper and complete access and freedom to operate, as given by law, to the statutory authorities”.
    5. The unanswered question: A questionnaire sent to the head of the Commission’s information technology division, asking why the rollback facility was not enabled for Goa before the final roll, drew no response.

    Challenges to a centralised electoral roll platform

    1. Vendor dependence on a statutory system: Core roll functionality sits with an external software vendor, so a missing feature becomes a change request question rather than a legal one. Eg. The Commission’s roll platform is built and maintained under contract by an external information technology firm.
      The Fix: Publish a service level agreement for statutory functions on the platform, with a fixed turnaround for any change request that a court order requires.
    2. No independent audit trail of permissions: A roll database with centrally set permissions needs an external record of who changed what and when, or the system’s own logs become the only evidence of its own integrity. Eg. A proposal for an audit certifying that no one outside the statutory authorities can alter the database went unanswered.
      The Fix: Commission a third party security and access audit of the roll platform, with its findings placed before the full Commission.
    3. A revision calendar compresses the citizen’s remedy: A roll built on software generated flags puts the burden of establishing eligibility on the elector, inside a window set by the revision timetable rather than by the elector’s circumstances. Eg. An elector who misses a revision window must return to the roll through the new voter route, starting the process again.
      The Fix: Provide a standing, year round correction route that does not depend on a revision cycle being open.
    4. Roll membership is used far beyond voting: A welfare scheme that keys eligibility to the electoral roll converts a roll error into a loss of services, which electoral law never contemplated. Eg. Several State benefit schemes use voter identity or roll membership as a residence proxy.
      The Fix: Decouple welfare eligibility from the electoral roll by accepting alternative residence proof for scheme access.
    5. Deletion before verification inverts the burden: A design that removes a name first and then asks the elector to establish eligibility places the cost of the system’s own uncertainty on the citizen. Eg. Over nine in 10 appeals against deletion decided so far in West Bengal have restored the elector.
      The Fix: Hold a flagged name on the roll until the hearing concludes, so an elector’s status changes only after a decision is taken.

    Conclusion

    The Commission’s standing answer to any allegation about the roll is that no one person can touch it, because thousands of Electoral Registration Officers prepare it constituency by constituency. Goa is the case where that answer stops holding. The officer decided, and the decision never reached the roll. What is unresolved is who is accountable when a statutory decision fails at the system layer, since the law names the officer and the software answers elsewhere. The marker to watch is whether a rollback facility is enabled at the ERO level before the next revision, and whether the 97 are restored without being routed through the new voter form.

    Back2Basics: Special Intensive Revision

    1. What it is: A Special Intensive Revision is a house to house exercise in which the electoral roll is prepared afresh rather than amended, with electors asked to establish eligibility.
    2. Legal basis: The Election Commission may direct a special revision of the roll of any constituency at any time, under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
    3. How it differs from a summary revision: A summary revision updates the existing roll through additions, deletions and corrections. An intensive revision enumerates the electorate afresh.
    4. Procedure: A draft roll is published, claims and objections are invited and heard by the Electoral Registration Officer, and a final roll is then published.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • From a jan sunwai in Delhi, lessons for poll body

    Why in the News

    Residents of Mangolpuri in Delhi lined up at a jan sunwai, a public hearing, to file claims and objections against being wrongfully excluded from the draft Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter list. The hearing produced a documented record of wrongful deletion in every category the draft roll used. The draft roll had been published four days earlier, with over 47 lakh names in Delhi marked absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD). A further 11 lakh voters were dropped from the list altogether and 32 lakh were to receive notices, so one in two voters in Delhi was trying to get a name back on the roll. The Chief Election Commissioner has certified the process, on the claim that zero appeals have been filed against deletions in the 12 states where the revision is complete. A certification of no grievance and a public record of proven error cannot both describe the same exercise.

    How does the Special Intensive Revision work?

    1. About: The SIR is a house to house revision of the electoral roll in which every voter files a fresh enumeration form.
    2. Draft roll: The revision produces a draft list. Voters then file claims and objections against exclusion from it.
    3. Markings on exclusion: A name not carried forward is marked absent, permanently shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD). Other names are dropped from the list outright or issued notices.
    4. Logical discrepancies: Mismatches that the software throws up against older entries are recorded as “logical discrepancies”.

    What did the Mangolpuri public audit find?

    1. Wrongful deletion in every category: The audit showed wrongful deletions across all the ASDD categories.
    2. Spouses split: In 95 houses one spouse was marked as shifted. The other spouse remained on the SIR list.
    3. An elector marked dead: An elector named Kanta Prasad, recorded as dead, came to the microphone at the hearing and asked what he could do to come back to life.
    4. The basis for that entry: The Chief Electoral Officer’s press note said he was placed in the dead category on information furnished by a family member. That family member is his son.
    5. The son’s account: The son has recorded a statement that he was tricked into signing a blank sheet of paper, on the pretext that it would restore his father’s name.
    6. A resettlement colony: Mangolpuri is a resettlement colony. The scale of deletion there caused extreme insecurity among residents.

    What six lessons does the public audit yield for the poll body?

    1. Three mandated house visits: The booth level officer (BLO) cannot complete the mandated three visits to every house, whatever orders are passed. Many houses were not visited even once.
    2. Burden of registration: De novo filling of enumeration forms by all voters shifts the burden of voter registration from the Election Commission to the voter, and is bound to produce mass exclusions. In 2002 booth level officers instead used the previously frozen voter list to verify additions and deletions house to house.
    3. Lineage based proof of citizenship: Proving citizenship by mapping oneself or one’s direct lineage onto the 2002 voter list has proved a nightmare. It falls hardest on migrant workers and on women who have shifted after marriage.
    4. Amplified data entry errors: The logical discrepancies amplify wrong data entries made over the years. The burden of correcting data that the administration entered wrongly falls on the citizen.
    5. Grievance redress machinery: The appeal and grievance redress process lies with the same machinery that is implementing the exercise. The system is arbitrary by design and must go.
    6. Public hearing before deletion: The election manual already provides for a public hearing at the panchayat, ward or booth level before any name is deleted or added. Those provisions must be implemented in letter and spirit.

    What does the poll body’s response to the audit show?

    1. A press note in defence of the deletions: Two days after the hearing the Chief Electoral Officer’s office responded through a press note. It stood by its deletions in all six cases it addressed.
    2. Restoration treated as first time registration: A wrongly deleted voter is required to return to the roll by filling Form 6. That form makes the voter declare that they are “applying for inclusion in the electoral roll for the first time”, which is false in their case.
    3. Accountability not offered: No redress or accountability was offered for the incorrect deletions the audit established.

    Can a citizen led public audit become part of revising the roll?

    1. A demonstrated method: The audit did not merely prove incorrect exclusions. It also demonstrated an efficacious method to update and revise the electoral roll.
    2. Ignored by the Commission: The Election Commission has almost entirely ignored that method.
    3. Orders that cannot be executed: The Chief Electoral Officers of Karnataka, Telangana and Jharkhand have issued perfunctory orders for such hearings. One day has been allocated for the purpose, so the orders can never be carried out.

    Conclusion

    A revision that begins from a blank form makes the voter prove an entitlement the law already grants. The poll body’s own certification and the record produced at a public hearing cannot both be accurate. Nothing in the process decides between them, because the authority that deletes a name also hears the appeal against it. That is the question this exercise leaves open. What to watch is whether additions and deletions are put through an independent public audit before a roll is finalised, and Delhi is where that safeguard would be tested first.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”

  • Unprecedented rupture inside Election Commission: ECs call steps on new voters ‘unauthorised, illegal’

    Why in the News

    Two of the three Election Commissioners have objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued in the name of the Election Commission of India (ECI) without their knowledge. Four of those objections were recorded on a single day, and five of the 14 notes were copied to the Chief Election Commissioner. They call the changes made to the form a new voter fills “unauthorised” and “illegal”. They also warn that the electoral roll database is being centralised in Delhi, restricting the statutory officers on the ground. The objections run alongside the national rollout of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has struck more than 13 crore names off the draft rolls in 30 States and Union Territories. The law requires this three-member constitutional body to transact its business unanimously as far as possible, and the two members who form its majority say they were kept in the dark.

    What is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls?

    1. About: The SIR is a special revision of the electoral roll that the Commission may order under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
    2. A one-time exception: The provision was invoked as a one time measure and exception, not as the ordinary revision route.
    3. Non-statutory forms: The forms prescribed for the SIR are specific to that exercise and are non-statutory, meaning they are not part of the law.
    4. Rollout: The revision began in Bihar in June 2025. It was then extended state by state, and was under way in 12 States and Union Territories by January 2026.

    How is the Election Commission legally required to transact its business?

    1. Constitutional composition: The Commission is a constitutional body under Article 324. It is made up of the Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners who are equal in rank.
    2. No power to decide alone: The Chief Election Commissioner is first among equals. He does not have the power to decide by himself.
    3. Unanimity as the default: Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 requires all business of the Commission to be transacted unanimously as far as possible. Where the members differ on any matter, that matter is decided by the opinion of the majority.
    4. Procedure only by unanimity: The same section lets the Commission settle its own procedure and the division of its work only by unanimous decision.
    5. Communications without approval: In April one Commissioner told senior officers that many communications go out in the ECI’s name without the Commission’s approval. Eight days later the other recorded that several communications are disseminated without the requisite approval of the Commission.
    6. Appointment route: All three members were appointed under the 2023 Act by a selection panel of the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The Opposition member on the panel recorded a dissent over the appointment process on both occasions.

    Why do two Commissioners call the change to the new voter form unauthorised and illegal?

    1. The change: From July the form every adult citizen fills to become a voter began asking whether the applicant, or a parent or grandparent, exists in the electoral roll of the last SIR. Applicants could not proceed without answering.
    2. Three options and no fourth: The applicant had to pick between their own name in the roll of the last SIR held in the early 2000s, a parent’s or grandparent’s name in that roll, or neither. The section was not marked mandatory, yet the form could not be submitted without an answer.
    3. A statutory form has a statutory route: Form 6 for new registration and Form 8 for corrections are prescribed statutorily. Neither can be altered without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
    4. The warning on file: One Commissioner recorded in May that a sentence in an SIR order or guideline cannot change a form fixed by law. His colleague concurred on file three days later.
    5. The advised course: The recorded advice was to send the proposal to the Government for changes to the rules. A draft of the changes to both forms was to be placed before the Commission.
    6. The precedent for the correct route: Parliament amended the Representation of the People Act, 1950 in 2021 to let the Commission collect Aadhaar numbers from voters. The Law Ministry’s Legislative Department, not the Commission, notified the consequent changes to the Rules and to Form 6 in June 2022.
    7. The objection on record: In August one Commissioner recorded that the change was “unauthorised and illegal” and “must be removed immediately so that young and would-be first time voters, who are otherwise eligible, can register themselves as voters as per law, without any harassment”.
    8. The change survived the objection: The question was still on the portal more than a month after that note.
    9. Why it matters for an 18 year old: The right to vote belongs to the individual, who qualifies by age, citizenship and residence. An applicant whose parents and grandparents did not figure in the last SIR roll could not truthfully choose either of the first two options, and the form did not explain the consequence of choosing the third.

    What does centralisation of the voter database do to the statutory officer on the ground?

    1. The decentralised design: The Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 assign the electoral roll to an Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), one for each Assembly seat, usually the sub-divisional magistrate. The ERO prepares the list, hears claims and objections, and decides which names stay.
    2. The Commission’s standing defence: For decades the ECI has answered allegations of mass manipulation of rolls by pointing to that design. No single person is supposed to control the voters’ list.
    3. The platform: ECINet, launched in January, brought more than 40 of the Commission’s apps and portals under one roof as the technology backbone for almost a billion voters. It subsumed ERONet, the earlier roll management system.
    4. Warnings before the launch: In November 2025 a Deputy Election Commissioner wrote, on a Commissioner’s directions, that the statutory functions of the ERO, the District Election Officer and the Chief Electoral Officer were “to be strictly exercised by them and no one else”.
    5. Warning on the new module: In January 2026 the same officer asked that the system not restrict the ERO’s discretion to act, as EROs were put on a new module for issuing notices and holding hearings. ECINet was launched twenty days later.
    6. Access withdrawn in practice: In August one Commissioner recorded that state level officials said they did not have “proper and complete access” to ERONet and so could not perform their statutory duties. Their powers had been “curtailed by centralised control of ERONet at DG(IT) level”, he wrote.
    7. Question of legal authority: The Commission’s Director General (Information Technology) has no legal authority to restrict the access and freedom to operate that the law gives the statutory authorities, that note recorded.
    8. Audit proposed: In May one Commissioner flagged the “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database”. He proposed an audit, with an outside expert from the Indian Institutes of Technology, to certify that only the concerned statutory authorities hold credentials to change the voter database.
    9. Two committees proposed: One committee was to review the systems periodically and certify who holds those credentials. A second was to check whether ECINet complies with the law and to bring policy changes before the Commission.
    10. Outcome of the proposal: The other Commissioner endorsed it in July. In August he recorded that any action taken on the two notes was not known to him.
    11. What is at stake: A voter can be eligible, prove it, be found eligible by the officer the law appoints, and still not appear on the roll. A team in Delhi that controls what the software permits can stall, override or cancel what ground level officials decide.

    How was the oversight layer over the IT division removed?

    1. The chain that existed: A Deputy Election Commissioner in New Delhi oversaw the IT division’s work and routed its files to the three-member Commission. The two Commissioners had used that chain to seek briefings and to propose the audit.
    2. The reallocation: In late July a Senior Deputy Election Commissioner was given additional charge of administration during the regular officer’s leave. Within hours he changed the work allocation without consulting the Commission, taking the Deputy Election Commissioner out of oversight of the IT division.
    3. Escalation outside the Commission: The two Commissioners each wrote separately to the Cabinet Secretary the next day. They called the order a clear violation of the law governing the Commission and sought appropriate action against the officer.
    4. The order set aside: A day later the two jointly set the order aside as “without any reason and justification”. They directed the previous work allocation to continue until the Commission reached a consensus.
    5. First full meeting in four months: The Chief Election Commissioner and the two Commissioners then met on 9 September. It was their first full meeting in four months.

    What did the West Bengal appeals and the Goa rejections expose?

    1. Scale of contestation in West Bengal: The SIR was most deeply contested in West Bengal. Of the 294 seats that went to polls, deletions exceeded the victory margin in 49, and those were shared almost evenly, with 26 won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 21 by the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
    2. The Court’s intervention: The manner in which names were struck off prompted the Supreme Court in February 2026 to take the last leg of the SIR out of the Commission’s hands. Judicial officers were directed to decide the cases of 60 lakh voters flagged for “logical discrepancies”.
    3. Deletions and appeals: The Commission subsequently deleted 27 lakh of those electors. Tribunals of retired High Court judges were ordered to hear appeals, and 38 lakh appeals are now pending before them.
    4. Appeals against restored voters: Of those pending appeals, 22.21 lakh were filed by deleted voters seeking restoration. The other 16.10 lakh were filed against voters whom the judicial officers had included, and the Commission did not say who filed them.
    5. The objection recorded: One Commissioner asked in August who was authorised to file appeals on the ECI’s behalf, and who actually filed them. Neither Commissioner nor the state’s Chief Electoral Officer had been informed of the basis or the process, he recorded.
    6. Goa, a decision the software could not hold: A “logical discrepancy” is a mismatch the software throws up when it tries to link a voter to a parent or relative on an older roll, such as a name that does not match or an age gap that does not add up. Goa’s EROs heard such cases on the documents produced and found 97 voters eligible for the final roll.
    7. Eight unanswered letters: Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer’s office wrote eight times in February to the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of the state, copying the Director General (Information Technology) each time. It asked for the rollback option that would let EROs reverse the earlier deletions, as the Supreme Court had directed in January.
    8. The outcome: The provision was not enabled before the deadline for publishing the final roll. The 97 were left off the final voters’ roll in Goa.

    How does this rupture differ from earlier dissent inside the Commission?

    1. The 2009 episode: In January 2009 the Chief Election Commissioner wrote to the President recommending that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla be removed for alleged partisan conduct. The Government rejected the recommendation in March 2009, and Chawla succeeded him as Chief Election Commissioner that April.
    2. The 2019 episode: In May 2019 Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner that he would stop attending meetings on Model Code of Conduct complaints until his minority decisions were recorded in the final orders. He had disagreed with the majority’s clean chits to the Prime Minister and to the then president of the BJP.
    3. How that ended: The full Commission decided, 2-1, that dissents would be recorded in the file but not in the orders. Lavasa left the Commission the following year, before his turn as Chief Election Commissioner.
    4. Dissent on an outcome, not on process: In both episodes an individual member dissented on a specific decision on which he had been overruled.
    5. This time the majority is in the dark: The two Commissioners who form the majority are recording that decisions were taken, orders issued and cases filed without their knowledge. That is a statement about how the Commission functions, not a disagreement over a result.
    6. No response: The Commission and both Commissioners did not respond to questionnaires, emails and follow up calls.

    Conclusion

    A constitutional body’s strongest answer to charges of roll manipulation has been that no single office controls the list. That answer now turns on who holds the credentials to the software. The two members who form the majority have put on record that they cannot verify the claim themselves, and the Commission has not answered the questions they raised. The markers to watch are whether the disputed declaration is taken off the new voter form, whether the proposed audit of database credentials is placed before the full Commission, and whether the Commission discloses who filed appeals in its name against voters that a court’s officers had restored.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS2, 10 marks] In the light of recent controversy regarding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), what are the challenges before the Election Commission of India to ensure the trustworthiness of elections in India?”

  • Smartphone screen protectors under BIS

    Why in the News

    The Centre has mandated compulsory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification for smartphone screen protectors. An entity must now secure regulatory approval before selling such products in India. The mandate takes effect from 1 April 2027. The move answers the circulation of low-quality screen protectors in a market estimated at 400 million tempered glass pieces in 2025. The stated aim is a quality floor for consumers and a level playing field for local manufacturers and global firms. The open question is enforcement, since a pre-market approval requirement has to reach every seller in a market of that size.

    What does the compulsory certification order require?

    1. Approval before sale: Certification is a pre-market requirement, so an entity must hold BIS approval before it sells a smartphone screen protector in India.
    2. Product scope: The mandate covers smartphone screen protectors as a product category, including the tempered glass segment that dominates the market.

    How large is the market the order applies to?

    1. Retail value of the segment: The local market for tempered glass screen protectors carried a retail value of Rs 20,000 crore in 2025.
    2. Prevalence of substandard stock: The order is expected to curb sales of low-quality smartphone screen protectors.

    Who does the order affect?

    1. Domestic manufacturers: The mandate is expected to help firms that have begun manufacturing in India. Eg. Optiemus Infracom has started production of screen protectors in India.
    2. Level playing field for all sellers: The requirement applies alike to local manufacturers and global firms, according to the mobile device makers’ body ICEA. The industry position is that a common certification floor removes the advantage of uncertified stock.
    3. Consumers: The stated consumer benefit is protection from substandard products.

    Challenges to mandatory certification for screen protectors

    1. Enforcement across a dispersed retail market: Certification binds the entity selling the product, and a market of hundreds of millions of pieces is spread across a very large number of sellers. Eg. The tempered glass segment ran to 400 million pieces in 2025.
      The Fix: Require every retail and marketplace listing to display the certification number, so enforcement operates at the point of sale rather than only at the factory.
    2. Compliance cost before the effective date: Approval must be secured before a product can be sold, so a seller carries testing and certification cost ahead of any revenue from the certified line. Eg. The mandate takes effect on 1 April 2027.
      The Fix: Publish the testing protocol and the list of recognised laboratories early, so the approval queue does not concentrate immediately before the deadline.
    3. Imports outside the certification net: The level playing field the order promises depends on uncertified consignments being stopped at the border rather than after they reach the market. Eg. The order’s stated purpose includes equal treatment of local manufacturers and global firms.
      The Fix: Tie customs clearance of screen protector consignments to a verified certification record for the importing entity.

    Conclusion

    Compulsory certification for this accessory category is settled in principle and open in execution. Its effect depends on how much of a very large and dispersed seller base is actually brought inside the certification net, rather than on the standard itself. The milestone to watch is the date the mandate takes effect, since uncertified stock may not lawfully be sold after it.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2017] Consider the following statements: 1. The Standard Mark of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is mandatory for automotive tyres and tubes. 2. AGMARK is a quality Certification Mark issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 (a)”

  • SSA 5000: Sustainability assurance redefines corporate trust, greenwashing’s new checkpoint

    Why in the News

    The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has issued the Standard on Sustainability Assurance (SSA) 5000, a framework for professionals who independently verify the sustainability information a company publishes. The standard is aligned with the International Standard on Sustainability Assurance (ISSA) 5000 and carries carve-outs tailored to the Indian context. It is effective from 1 April 2027. The standard answers a reporting environment in which sustainability information is collected using multiple methods with varying levels of verification. That inconsistency has raised concerns about limited comparability and the risk of greenwashing, meaning a firm presenting its environmental record more favourably than the evidence supports. The contested point is whether independent assurance can discipline claims that the reporting firm still generates, measures and selects on its own.

    What is the Standard on Sustainability Assurance (SSA) 5000?

    1. Independent verification of published claims: SSA 5000 outlines the broad contours of principles and procedures for professionals who independently verify a company’s sustainability information. It brings audit-like discipline to sustainability reporting.
    2. Procedure the practitioner follows: The framework sets out how an assurance practitioner examines sustainability disclosures, assesses risks, collects evidence, evaluates internal controls and issues an assurance conclusion.
    3. Coverage of the standard: It encompasses sustainability information across environmental, social and governance (ESG) parameters. These include greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, water usage, waste management, diversity, employee practices and governance indicators.
    4. Replacement of earlier standards: SSA 5000 replaces the ICAI’s earlier SSAE 3000 and SAE 3410. Those acted as the umbrella standard for sustainability assurance engagements and were applied alongside subject-specific standards such as those on greenhouse gas emissions.

    Why has sustainability reporting come to need an audit-like discipline?

    1. Shift in what a financial statement reports: Financial statements are moving beyond measuring what a firm earned to how the earnings came about. The analysis now covers growth sustainability, the management of environmental and social risks, and the alignment of governance practices with stakeholder expectations.
    2. Absence of a single verification process: Financial statements follow established accounting standards and audit processes. Sustainability information is collected using multiple methods with varying levels of verification instead.
    3. Proliferation of reporting frameworks: Firms now disclose under Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR), the Global Reporting Initiative, International Sustainability Standards Board standards and climate-related disclosure frameworks at the same time.
    4. ESG investing as the source of demand: The growth of ESG investing has raised demand for credible non-financial information. Investors rely on sustainability data to assess long-term risks from climate exposure and operational vulnerabilities.
    5. Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic: The pandemic strengthened the importance of ESG for investors. Investors increasingly hold that companies performing well on ESG are less risky and better prepared for uncertainty.

    How does SSA 5000 attack the specific forms of greenwashing?

    1. Self-prepared reports: A major reason for greenwashing is that firms themselves prepare sustainability reports and decide which achievements to highlight. SSA 5000 inserts an independent practitioner who evaluates whether the disclosures are supported by sufficient evidence.
    2. Selective disclosure: Cherry picking presents a favourable subset of performance as the whole. The standard requires the practitioner to examine whether the information provides a balanced picture, and whether the reporting scope excludes crucial operations or negative information that could influence stakeholder decisions.
    3. Value chain exclusion: Greenwashing occurs when a firm reports improvements in its own operations and ignores emissions or social issues in the wider value chain. SSA 5000 requires the practitioner to examine whether the reporting boundaries are right and whether significant activities have been excluded without justification.
    4. Management explanations are not enough: Assurance professionals cannot simply accept management explanations. They must question assumptions, weigh evidence and identify areas where sustainability claims may be overstated.
    5. Testing a carbon neutral claim: A claim of carbon neutral operations requires examination of how emissions are calculated, whether offsets are genuine and whether reductions are permanent.

    What does verification of sustainability data actually require?

    1. Material misstatement as the test: The practitioner evaluates whether there are material misstatements in the disclosures, whether caused by error or by misleading presentation.
    2. Evidence behind a reduction claim: Where an entity claims to have cut carbon emissions by a certain proportion, the practitioner examines the methodology used, the emission calculations, the energy consumption records and the supporting documentation. Reliance on management statements alone is not sufficient.
    3. Technical nature of the data: Sustainability data comprises measurements and estimates of carbon emissions, water use, waste generation and biodiversity impact. Each rests on technical calculation rather than a ledger entry.
    4. Data quality procedures: SSA 5000 requires assurance professionals to assess data quality, understand measurement processes and perform procedures to verify the information.
    5. Evidence-based disclosure: The focus shifts sustainability reporting from broad claims to evidence-based disclosures.

    What market does mandatory assurance create?

    1. Growth of sustainability consulting: The sustainability consulting market is growing fast, because companies need help preparing disclosures and making them assurance-ready. The growth followed the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introducing BRSR requirements for listed firms.
    2. Integrated sustainability management firms: A new category of firm could emerge by combining accounting, assurance, environmental expertise, technological capability and regulatory advisory. The successful firms are likely to be those achieving multidisciplinary integration.
    3. Profit as part of a wider picture: In a setting of climate risks, resource constraints and rising stakeholder expectations, profit is one part of corporate value creation rather than the whole of it.

    Challenges to SSA 5000

    1. Competence of assurance professionals: Sustainability assurance needs knowledge of accounting, auditing, environmental science and technology together, and that combination is in short supply. Eg. Verifying biodiversity impact or waste generation data calls for technical measurement skill rather than ledger review.
      The Fix: Certify assurance practitioners against a curriculum that pairs accounting and auditing with environmental measurement, before the standard takes effect.
    2. Measurement across complex supply chains: Measuring sustainability impacts across suppliers remains difficult, so the part of the footprint most likely to be excluded is also the part hardest to verify. Eg. A firm’s own operations are metered, and its suppliers’ emissions are not.
      The Fix: Phase supplier-level data collection by sector, starting with the highest-impact tiers, rather than demanding full value chain coverage in the first cycle.
    3. Absence of standardised data: Sustainability data lacks a standardised basis, so an assurance conclusion rests on inputs that are not comparable across firms. Eg. Water usage, waste management and diversity data are gathered by separate internal systems with different levels of verification.
      The Fix: Publish sector-specific measurement protocols alongside the standard, so each disclosed metric has one accepted method of computation.
    4. Forward-looking claims: Net-zero targets and climate commitments involve assumptions about future actions, which no record can verify at the time of assurance. Eg. A dated net-zero commitment depends on capital spending decisions not yet taken.
      The Fix: Assure the stated assumptions and the interim milestones rather than the end-state target.
    5. Compliance cost on smaller firms: Investment in data systems, technology and specialised personnel raises the cost of being assured, and the burden falls hardest on smaller firms. Eg. A small listed company must build a measurement system before it has a claim worth verifying.
      The Fix: Scale the assured metric set by firm size, so a smaller company’s first cycles cover a narrower set of disclosures.
    6. Dependence on firm transparency: The practitioner examines the information a firm supplies, so a firm withholding negative information limits what assurance can detect. Eg. Negative information excluded from the reporting scope is invisible unless the practitioner knows the operation exists.
      The Fix: Require an entity to publish its full list of operations and the reason any of them sits outside the assured boundary.

    Conclusion

    Sustainability assurance changes who certifies a claim, not who generates the data behind it. Its reach therefore depends on measurement capacity inside firms and on a supply of practitioners able to test that measurement. Both are thinner than the reporting obligation they will have to carry. The point to watch is whether that capacity is built before the standard takes effect, or whether the first assurance cycles produce conclusions as unverified as the claims they were meant to replace.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2013, GS3, 10 marks] With a consideration towards the strategy of inclusive growth, the new Companies Bill, 2013 has indirectly made CSR a mandatory obligation. Discuss the challenges expected in its implementation in right earnest. Also discuss other provisions in the Bill and their implications”

  • Why scientists are rethinking the chemical ‘arms race’ against fungi

    Why in the News

    A study in Nature Communications has characterised the Indian clinical isolates of Candida auris and traced how the pathogen defeats two of the three main antifungal classes. It was carried out by researchers at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru, with collaborators at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, using isolates from the repository of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh. Earlier work on resistance had been done largely in model systems, and this study established its findings in patient samples. The finding that matters clinically is that the resistance ceiling used to test one of those drugs sits far below the concentration the pathogen can already survive. What follows from it is a rejection of the chemical arms race approach itself, in favour of drugs that disarm a pathogen rather than trying to kill it outright.

    What is Candida auris?

    1. Type of organism: It is a yeast, meaning a single oval shaped fungal cell, as distinct from molds such as the dermatophytes that grow in long strands.
    2. Clinical course: It enters the bloodstream and causes severe infections, most of which are untreatable with the available antifungals.
    3. Severity: Those infected suffer a mortality rate of 30 to 40 per cent.
    4. Recency: It has become a menace only in the last two decades, with the first report in Japan in 2009, and it is now rapidly emerging as a multidrug resistant pathogen in intensive care units.

    Why are fungal infections rising at all?

    1. The temperature barrier: Fungi grow best in damp places below 30 degrees Celsius, so bloodstream infections in humans were rare because the pathogens could not survive the body’s 37 degrees Celsius.
    2. The warming hypothesis: Global warming places selective pressure on fungi so that only the more heat tolerant survive, and those survivors can also survive inside human bodies once they gain access, which is called the fungal infection mammalian selection hypothesis.
    3. Evidence from cold blooded hosts: Fungal infections are common in cold blooded animals with lower body temperatures, which is the comparison the hypothesis rests on.
    4. Scale in Indian hospitals: Roughly 20 per cent of infections reported in hospitals are fungal in nature, and most hospitals in India lack the capability and infrastructure to identify fungal pathogens.
    5. Why the repository exists: PGIMER began storing fungal pathogens some 25 years ago and now holds 15,000 clinical fungal isolates from across India, helping other centres identify and culture them free of cost.

    What did the study find about resistance in Indian isolates?

    1. Azole resistance is near universal: More than 90 per cent of clinical isolates of C. auris are resistant to common azole based antifungals such as fluconazole.
    2. Polyene resistance is substantial: About 30 per cent of the isolates are resistant to the polyene class, leaving the echinocandins as the class they mostly still respond to.
    3. What the drugs target: Azoles and polyenes target ergosterol, a fat enriched in the fungal cell membrane, while echinocandins target the cell wall outside it.
    4. Gene amplification defeats azoles: Grown in the presence of fluconazole, the pathogen makes extra copies of the Erg1 gene, which raises ergosterol production and cancels the drug’s effect, and the study located genome regions carrying those additional copies.
    5. Mutation defeats echinocandins: With echinocandin drugs such as caspofungin, the team found mutations in the Fks1 gene that allow the pathogen to resist the drug’s action, along with genetic changes promoting higher tolerance.

    Why do current susceptibility tests understate the problem?

    1. The survival ceiling is higher than the test: Fks1 mutations can enable C. auris to survive caspofungin doses up to 16 micrograms per millilitre, so a patient carrying such a pathogen needs a concentration above that.
    2. The test stops well short: Clinicians test the pathogen’s ability to survive only up to 2 micrograms per millilitre of caspofungin, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and followed globally.
    3. The clinician cannot see the resistance: A pathogen surviving eight times the tested concentration is reported as manageable, so the dose chosen is set by a number the organism has already passed.
    4. Why genotyping is not the practical answer: Looking for mutations such as those in Fks1 is the logical route, and the associated costs make raising the susceptibility test ceiling above 16 micrograms per millilitre the workable step.

    Why does a higher dose sometimes fail outright?

    1. The paradox: C. auris carrying no specific gene mutation or duplication still dies at lower concentrations of caspofungin and survives at exceptionally high ones.
    2. Compensatory pathways switch on: Caspofungin at high doses activates compensatory pathways in the fungus rather than killing it.
    3. Chitin rebuilds the wall: The fungus starts producing chitin, the raw material of the fungal cell wall, in large quantities, so damage the drug causes to the wall is compensated and the wall stays intact.
    4. The named phenomenon: Such cases of paradoxical growth are called the Eagle effect, after the U.S. pathologist Harry Eagle.

    Why are scientists rethinking the arms race approach?

    1. Evolution answers every lethal target: Targeting a molecule without which an organism cannot live guarantees that its population survives with a changed molecule, which is the mechanism the arms race keeps re running.
    2. Disarm rather than kill: The alternative is to target less critical molecular pathways whose inhibition lets the pathogen survive without causing disease, which removes the selective pressure driving resistance.
    3. Combination therapy in the interim: Combining therapies to target cellular compensatory pathways would keep the major antifungals effective against drug tolerant species.
    4. Testing has to change first: The findings make more nuanced susceptibility testing the precondition for setting any antifungal dose correctly.
    5. Two routes to protection, not one: Fungi are protected from antifungals by genetic mutations and by making more copies of protective genes, so a strategy built against mutation alone is incomplete.

    Challenges to controlling antifungal resistance in India

    1. The drug arsenal is narrow: Only three classes are in wide clinical use, so resistance in one class removes a third of the available treatment at once. Eg. Isolates resistant to azoles and polyenes leave the echinocandins as effectively the only remaining option.
      The Fix: Fund antifungal discovery through the push and pull incentive model used for new antibiotics, since the commercial return alone will not carry it.
    2. Agricultural fungicide use drives clinical resistance: Fungicides chemically related to clinical azoles are applied to crops, selecting for resistance in the environment before any patient is treated. Eg. Azole resistant Aspergillus fumigatus in Europe has been traced to agricultural azole fungicide use.
      The Fix: Adopt a One Health framework linking crop fungicide approvals to clinical resistance surveillance, so an agricultural licence accounts for its medical cost.
    3. Surveillance is built around bacteria: National antimicrobial resistance monitoring covers bacterial pathogens far more completely than fungal ones, so fungal resistance trends stay invisible to policy. Eg. India’s National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance and the surveillance networks under it report predominantly bacterial isolates.
      The Fix: Make a laboratory confirmed C. auris finding notifiable, with mandatory reporting into the national resistance surveillance network.
    4. The pathogen persists in hospital environments: C. auris survives on surfaces, bedding and medical devices and resists several routine disinfectants, so an intensive care unit reinfects itself. Eg. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies C. auris as an urgent threat requiring specific disinfection protocols.
      The Fix: Mandate contact precautions, dedicated decontamination protocols and patient cohorting in intensive care units wherever the pathogen is confirmed.

    Conclusion

    The study’s practical output is narrow and immediately actionable. Raising the caspofungin susceptibility ceiling used in Indian laboratories costs almost nothing and would stop clinicians prescribing against a number the pathogen has already outgrown. The larger claim is harder, because abandoning the arms race means accepting drugs that leave the pathogen alive and only stop it causing disease, which is a different standard of success from the one antimicrobial development has used so far. Whether Indian laboratories revise their testing ceilings is the near term marker of whether the finding changes practice.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2019] Which of the following are the reasons for the occurrence of multi-drug resistance in microbial pathogens in India? 1. Genetic predisposition of some people 2. Taking incorrect doses of antibiotics to cure diseases 3. Using antibiotics in livestock farming 4. Multiple chronic diseases in some people Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 and 2 (b) 2 and 3 only (c) e) 1, 3 and 4 (d) 2, 3 and 4 Answer: (b)”

  • New high-speed corridors to get one-metre high wall to prevent cattle menace

    Why in the News

    The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued its first standardised design and safety guidelines for access controlled high speed National Highways. They prescribe a one metre high wall along the outer edge of such corridors to prevent unauthorised access and the entry of stray cattle, and they bar openings in median walls. The guidelines arrive while the NHAI is asking the Supreme Court to modify a direction of November last year on stray animals, having told the Chief Justice of India that herding cattle off highways is not its responsibility and that compliance would cost around Rs 27,000 crore. The tension is that the authority is being asked to solve by construction a problem it says belongs to local authorities, and it is doing so only on corridors not yet built.

    What are the NHAI’s high speed corridor guidelines?

    1. Nature of the document: This is the first time the NHAI has prescribed standardised technical and safety provisions for high speed corridors, so design that was previously project specific is now uniform.
    2. Scope of application: The guidelines apply to all upcoming four to six lane greenfield and brownfield access controlled National Highways. A greenfield corridor is built on a new alignment, a brownfield one upgrades an existing road.
    3. The existing stock: The length of operational access controlled high speed corridors currently stands at 3,052 km, which the guidelines do not reach.

    What physical measures do the guidelines prescribe?

    1. Boundary wall: A one metre high wall runs along the outer edge of the corridor, stated as a measure against unauthorised access and the entry of stray cattle.
    2. Median openings barred: Openings in median walls on access controlled highways are prohibited, which removes the informal crossing points that produce head on collisions.
    3. Collapsible barriers: Collapsible barriers at a distance of 5 km are permitted so emergency and maintenance vehicles can cross where an opening is not available.
    4. Jersey barriers as an alternative: Modular concrete or plastic walls used to separate lanes of traffic and prevent head on crashes, known as jersey barriers, are allowed in place of a solid median wall.
    5. Structures get a stronger median: At bridges, tunnels and overpasses the guidelines require a median wall topped with metal crash barriers.

    Why is stray cattle a design problem rather than an enforcement one?

    1. The authority’s stated position: The NHAI has told the Chief Justice of India that it cannot herd stray cattle and animals off public thoroughfares or find them shelter homes, and that the responsibility lies with the respective local authorities.
    2. The cost of the alternative: The NHAI has put compliance with the court’s direction at around Rs 27,000 crore, which is the figure that makes a boundary wall on new corridors cheaper than a national removal and sheltering operation.
    3. The procedural move: The law officer for the NHAI has requested the Chief Justice to constitute a Bench so the authority can seek modification of the court’s direction of November last year.
    4. The Railways precedent: The Railways has fenced stretches against the same problem, including metal barrier fencing along the 623 km Mumbai Ahmedabad train route, which is the working model for treating animal intrusion as an exclusion engineering task.

    Challenges to the high speed corridor safety guidelines

    1. The existing network is untouched: The guidelines apply only to upcoming corridors, so the operational network keeps its current design. Eg. Stray cattle collisions occur on the 3,052 km of already built access controlled stretches, which the wall requirement does not reach.
      The Fix: Fix a retrofit schedule with annual targets for boundary walling the operational access controlled network, funded from the toll revenue of those same stretches.
    2. A wall displaces animal movement rather than ending it: Sealing a corridor severs the routes livestock and wildlife use to cross, which pushes the crossing to the nearest gap. Eg. Linear infrastructure across the Kanha Pench corridor required dedicated animal underpasses because fencing alone concentrated crossings.
      The Fix: Make an animal passage plan, with underpasses or overpasses at surveyed crossing points, a mandatory annexure to every corridor’s design approval.
    3. Jurisdiction over stray cattle remains unsettled: The duty is said to lie with local authorities, and those authorities have neither the shelter capacity nor a dedicated funding line for it. Eg. Municipal cattle pounds in most Indian cities hold a small fraction of the stray population in their jurisdiction.
      The Fix: Fix a single statutory owner for stray animal management on and around National Highways, with a dedicated head in the highway project cost rather than in municipal budgets.
    4. Barred median openings raise emergency response times: Removing crossings means a responder on the wrong carriageway must travel to the nearest collapsible barrier. Eg. The guidelines set those barriers 5 km apart.
      The Fix: Require a mapped and numbered barrier registry shared with State emergency services and ambulance dispatch systems, so the nearest crossing is known at the time of the call.
    5. Encroachment follows the wall rather than stopping at it: A boundary wall becomes the new edge against which informal settlement, parking and vending accumulate. Eg. Service road encroachment along existing National Highway stretches has repeatedly narrowed the usable carriageway.
      The Fix: Attach a demarcated and surveyed right of way strip outside the wall, with clearance responsibility written into the concession agreement of the corridor operator.
    6. Design standards without an audit do not become practice: A guideline binds only where a body checks that the built corridor matches it. Eg. Road safety audit provisions exist in Indian highway practice but are inconsistently applied at the construction stage.
      The Fix: Make an independent road safety audit sign off a precondition for the completion certificate and for the start of tolling on every new corridor.

    Conclusion

    The NHAI has answered a court direction about stray animals by writing a construction standard rather than by accepting an enforcement duty. The standard binds only corridors that do not yet exist, and the authority’s jurisdictional objection over the operational network remains live. The marker to watch is the Bench the NHAI has asked the Chief Justice to constitute, since its ruling decides whether the removal and sheltering obligation stands or is modified.

    Back2Basics: National Highways Authority of India

    1. Statutory basis: The NHAI was constituted under the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988, and became operational in 1995.
    2. Administrative control: It functions under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
    3. Mandate: It is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of National Highways entrusted to it.
    4. Delivery role: It is the implementing agency for the Centre’s large highway programmes, including Bharatmala Pariyojana.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2014, GS3, 12.5 marks] National Urban Transport Policy emphasises on ‘moving people’ instead of ‘moving vehicles. Discuss critically the success of the various strategies of the Government in this regard.”