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  • Poverty in India is on rise again

    In the absence of Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES) data, the Periodic Labour Force Survey shows a rise in the absolute number of the poor in India.

    About Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES)

    • A CES is conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSO) every five years.
    • But the CES of 2017-18 (already conducted a year late) was not made public by the Government of India.
    • Now, we hear that a new CES is likely to be conducted in 2021-22, the data from which will probably not be available before end-2022.
    • India has not released its CES data since 2011-12.

    Key highlights

    • Unemployment had reached a 45-year high in 2017-18, as revealed by NSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
    • While the PLFS’s questions on consumption expenditure are not as detailed as those of the CES, they are sufficient for us to estimate changes in consumption on a consistent basis across time.
    • It enables any careful researcher to estimate the incidence of poverty (i.e. the share in the total population of those below the poverty line), as well as the total number of persons below poverty.

    There is unemployment induced poverty

    • There is a clear trajectory of the incidence of poverty falling from 1973 to 2012.
    • In fact, since India began collecting data on poverty, the incidence of poverty has always fallen, consistently.
    • It was 54.9% in 1973-4; 44.5% in 1983-84; 36% in 1993-94 and 27.5% in 2004-05.
    • This was in accordance with the Lakdawala poverty line (which was lower than the Tendulkar poverty line), named after a distinguished economist, then a member of the Planning Commission.

    Methodology of Poverty Line

    • In 2011, it was decided in the Planning Commission, that the national poverty line will be raised in accordance with the recommendations of an expert group chaired by the late Suresh Tendulkar.
    • That is the poverty line we use in estimating poverty in the table.
    • As it happens, this poverty line was comparable at the time to the international poverty line (estimated by the World Bank), of $1.09 (now raised to $1.90 to account for inflation) person per day.
    • The PLFS also estimates the incidence of poverty. It also collects the household monthly per capita consumption expenditure data based on the Mixed Recall Period methodology.

    Stunning rise in Poverty

    • It is stunning fact that for the first time in India’s history of estimating poverty, there is a rise in the incidence of poverty since 2011-12.
    • The important point is that this is consistent with the NSO’s CES data for 2017-18 that was leaked data.
    • The leaked data showed that rural consumption between 2012 and 2018 had fallen by 8%, while urban consumption had risen by barely 2%.
    • Since the majority of India’s population (certainly over 65%) is rural, poverty in India is also predominantly rural.
    • Remarkably, by 2019-20, poverty had increased significantly in both the rural and urban areas, but much more so in rural areas (from 25% to 30%).

    Why is it intriguing?

    • It is important here to recall two facts: between 1973 and 1993, the absolute number of poor had remained constant (at about 320 million poor), despite a significant increase in India’s total population.
    • Between 1993 and 2004, the absolute number of poor fell by a marginal number (18 million) from 320 million to 302 million, during a period when the GDP growth rate had picked up after the economic reforms.
    • It is for the first time in India’s history since the CES began that we have seen an increase in the absolute numbers of the poor, between 2012-13 and 2019-20.
    • The second fact is that for the first time ever, between 2004-05 and 2011-12, the number of the poor fell, and that too by a staggering 133 million, or by over 19 million per year.

    Fuss over GDP growth

    • This was accounted for by what has come to be called India’s ‘dream run’ of growth: over 2004 and 2014, the GDP growth rate had averaged 8% per annum — a 10-year run that was not sustained thereafter.
    • By contrast, not only has the incidence of poverty increased since then, but the absolute increase in poverty is totally unprecedented.

    Reasons behind this Pauperization

    The reasons for increased poverty since 2013 are not far to seek:

    • GST: While the economy maintained some growth momentum till 2015, the monumental blunder of demonetization was followed by a poorly planned and hurriedly introduced GST.
    • Fall in investments: None of the engines of growth was firing after that. Private investment fell from 31% inherited by the new government, to 28% of GDP by 2019-20.
    • Fall in exports: Exports, which had never fallen in absolute dollar terms for a quarter-century since 1991, actually fell below the 2013-14 level ($315 billion) for five years.
    • Unemployment: Joblessness increased to a 45-year high by 2017-18 (by the usual status), and youth (15-29 years of age) saw unemployment triple from 6% to 18% between 2012 and 2018.
    • Fall in wages: Real wages did not increase for casual or regular workers over the same period, hardly surprising when job seekers were increasing but jobs were not at anywhere close to that rate.
    • Pandemic: Poverty is expected to rise further during the COVID-19 pandemic after the economy has contracted.

    Hence, consumer expenditure fell, and poverty increased.

    Back2Basics:

    Poverty Lines in India: Estimations and Committees

  • What is National Security Council (NSC)?

    The budgetary allocation for the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) increased 10 times from ₹33.17 crores in 2016-17 to ₹333.58 crores in 2017-18.

    National Security Council (NSC)

    • The NSC is an executive government agency tasked with advising the Prime Minister’s Office on matters of national security and strategic interest.
    • It was established by the former PM of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 19 November 1998, with Brajesh Mishra as the first National Security Advisor.
    • Prior to the formation of the NSC, these activities were overseen by the Principal Secretary to the preceding Prime Minister.

    Members

    • Besides the NSA the Deputy National Security Advisors, the Ministers of Defence, External Affairs, Home, Finance of the Government of India, and the Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog are members of the National Security Council.
    • PM can chair the meeting of NSC (for eg – PM chaired the meeting of NSC Post Pulwama to discuss heightened tension with Pakistan).
    • Other members may be invited to attend its monthly meetings, as and when is required.

    Organizational structure

    • The NSC is the apex body of the three-tiered structure of the national security management system in India.
    • The three tiers are the Strategic Policy Group, the National Security Advisory Board, and a secretariat from the Joint Intelligence Committee.

  • [pib] Periodic Labour Force Survey (2019 –2020)

    The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Annual Report for July, 2019 to June 2020 was recently released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

    Periodic Labour Force Survey

    • Considering the importance of the availability of labor force data at more frequent time intervals, National Statistical Office (NSO) launched PLFS in April 2017.
    • The objective of PLFS is primarily twofold:
    1. to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Worker Population Ratio, Labour Force Participation Rate, Unemployment Rate) in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
    2. to estimate employment and unemployment indicators in both ‘Usual Status’ and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

    Various dimensions of the survey

    The PLFS gives estimates of Key employment and unemployment Indicators:

    • Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in the labor force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population.
    • Worker Population Ratio (WPR): WPR is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.
    • Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labor force.
    • Activity Status- Usual Status: When the activity status is determined on the basis of the reference period of the last 365 days preceding the date of the survey, it is known as the usual activity status of the person.
    • Activity Status- Current Weekly Status (CWS): The activity status determined on the basis of a reference period of the last 7 days preceding the date of the survey is known as the CWS of the person.

    Highlights of the third report

    • The Labour force participation ratio has increased to 40.1% in 2019-20 from 37.5% and 36.9%, respectively, in the last two years.
    • Worker population rate improved to 38.2% in 2019-20 compared with 35.3% in 2018-19 and 34.7% in 2017-18.
    • The unemployment rate fell to 4.8% in 2019-20. In 2018-19, it stood at 5.8% and 6.1% in 2017-18.

  • [pib] United District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20

    The Union Education Minister has released the Report on United Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20 for School Education in India.

    What is UDISE+?

    • UDISE+ is one of the largest Management Information Systems on school education.
    • It covers more than 1.5 million schools, 8.5 million teachers and 250 million children.
    • Launched in 2018-2019, UDISE+ was introduced to speed up data entry, reduce errors, improve data quality and ease its verification.
    • It is an updated and improved version of UDISE, which was initiated in 2012-13 by the Ministry of Education under the UPA govt by integrating DISE for elementary education and SEMIS for secondary education.

    Why is it important?

    • As per the UDISE+ website, “Timely and accurate data is the basis of sound and effective planning and decision-making.
    • Towards this end, the establishment of a well-functioning and Sustainable Educational Management Information System is of utmost importance today.”
    • In short, the UDISE+ helps measure the education parameters from classes 1 to 12 in government and private schools across India.

    What does the 2019-20 report say?

    • The total enrolment in 2019-20 from primary to higher secondary levels of school education was a little over 25.09 crore.
    • Enrolment for boys was 13.01 crore and that of the girls was 12.08 crore.
    • This was an increase by more than 26 lakh over the previous year 2018-19.

    (1) Pupil-teacher ratio improves

    • The Pupil-Teacher Ratio — the average number of pupils (at a specific level of education) per teacher (teaching at that level of education) in a given school year — showed an improvement all levels of school education in 2019-2020 over 2012-2013.

    (2) GER improves

    • The gross enrolment ratio (GER), which compares the enrolment in a specific level of education to the population of the age group which is age-appropriate for that level of education has improved at all levels in 2019-2020 compared to 2018-2019.
    • The GER increased to 89.7 percent (from 87.7 percent) at Upper Primary level, 97.8 percent (from 96.1 percent) at Elementary Level, 77.9 percent (from 76.9 percent) at Secondary Level and 51.4 percent (from 50.1 percent) at Higher Secondary Level in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19.
    • GER for girls at secondary level has gone up by 9.6 percent to reach 77.8 percent in 2019-20 compared to 68.2 percent in 2012-13.

    (3) Phyical infrastructure improves, but computers and internet access remain lacking

    • The report stated that just 38.5 percent of schools across the country had computers, while only 22.3 percent had an internet connection in 2019-20.
    • This is an improvement over 2018-2019 when 34.5 percent of schools had computers and a mere 18.7 percent of schools had internet access.

    Key takeaways

    • While physical infrastructure is steadily improving, the digital infrastructure for schools has a long way to go.
    • With the overwhelming majority of schools have neither computers (61 percent) nor internet access (78 percent), achieving the Centre’s ‘Digital India’ vision when it comes to online education is still some ways off.
    • The vast increase in hand wash facilities is a big step towards the fulfilment of the Modi government’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ push.
    • The Gross Enrolment Ratio improving at all levels of school education in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19 is a plus.
    • While 93 lakh more boys enrolled in education than girls, when it comes to GER, the girls pulled ahead.

  • NITI Aayog releases study on ‘Not-for-Profit’ hospital model

    NITI Aayog has released a comprehensive study on the not-for-profit hospital model in the country, in a step towards closing the information gap on such institutions and facilitating robust policymaking in this area.

    ‘Not-for-Profit’ hospitals

    • The “Not-for-Profit” Hospital Sector has the reputation of providing affordable and accessible healthcare for many years.
    • This sector provides not only curative healthcare, but also preventive healthcare, and links healthcare with social reform, community engagement, and education.
    • They utilize the resources and grants provided to them by the Government to provide cost-effective healthcare to the population without being overly concerned about profits.
    • However, this sector remains largely understudied, with a lack of awareness about its services in the public domain.

    Significance for India

    • As per the NITI Aayog’s report, the not-for-profit hospitals account for only 1.1% of treated ailments as of June 2018.
    • The report further revealed that for-profit hospitals account for 55.3% of in-patients, while not-for-profit hospitals account for only 2.7% of in-patients in the country.
    • The cumulative cost of care at not-for-profit hospitals is lesser than for-profit hospitals by about one-fourth in the in-patient department.
    • This is reckoned by the package component of cost, which is approximately 20% lower, the doctor’s or surgeon’s charges, which are approximately 36% lower and the major aspect being the bed charges, which are approximately 44% lower than the for-profit hospitals.

    NITI Aayog’s approach

    • Categorization of the prominent not-for-profit hospitals based on the premise of services and their ownership
    • Understanding the business model of the hospitals i.e. the financial viability, and their dependence on donations and grants
    • Understanding the challenges faced by these hospitals
    • Formulation of recommendations for policy interventions to promote the sector

    Categories of such hospitals

    Using the above-mentioned approach and secondary research, the following four categories were defined for the not-for-profit hospitals:

    1. Faith-based Hospitals
    2. Community-based Hospitals
    3. Cooperative Hospitals
    4. Private Trust Hospitals

    Why need such hospitals?

    • There has been relatively low investment in the expansion of the health sector in the private domain.
    • The not-for-profit hospital sector provides not only curative but also preventive healthcare.
    • It links healthcare with social reform, community engagement, and education.
    • It uses government resources and grants to provide cost-effective healthcare to people without being concerned about profits.

  • National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA)

    The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) has directed GST officials across the country to ensure that the tax rate cuts notified on some COVID-19-related essentials are passed on to consumers.

    What is National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA)?

    • The NAA has been constituted under Section 171 of the Central GST Act, 2017 to ensure that the reduction in the rate of tax or the benefit of the input tax credit is passed on to the recipient by way of commensurate reduction in prices.
    • The decision about the formation of the NAA came in the background of a rate reduction of a large number of items by the GST Council in its 22ndmeeting at Guwahati.
    • At the meeting, the Council reduced rates of more than 200 items including goods and services.
    • This has made a tremendous price reduction effect and the consumers will be benefited only if the traders are making the quick reduction of the prices of respective items.
    • There was a concern that traders are reluctant to make price cuts so that they can make a profit.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q. Consider the following items:

    1. Cereal grains hulled
    2. Chicken eggs cooked
    3. Fish processed and canned
    4. Newspapers containing advertising material

    Which of the above items is/are exempt under GST (Goods and Services Tax)?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 4 only

    (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

    What is profiteering?

    • Profiteering means unfair profit realized by traders by manipulating prices, tax rate adjustment etc.
    • In the context of the newly launched GST, profiteering means that traders are not reducing the prices of the commodities when the GST Council reduces the tax rates of commodities and services.
    • Conventionally, several traders will have a strong tendency to quickly increase the price of a commodity whose tax rate has been increased.
    • But on the opposite side, they may delay the price reduction of a commodity whose tax rate has been cut by the government.
    • A delayed or postponed price reduction helps business firms to make a higher profits. The losers here are the consumers.

    Functioning of NAA

    • The Authority’s main function is to ensure that traders are not realizing unfair profit by charging high prices from the consumers in the name of GST.
    • Traders may charge high prices from the consumers by naming the GST factor.
    • Similarly, they may not make quick and corresponding price reductions when the GST Council makes a tax cut. All these constitute profiteering.
    • The responsibility of the NAA is to examine and check such profiteering activities and recommend punitive actions including the cancellation of licenses.

    Steps were taken by the NAA to ensure that customers get the full benefit of tax cuts:

    • Holding regular meetings with the Zonal Screening Committees and the Chief Commissioners of Central Tax to stress upon consumer awareness programs;
    • Launching a helpline to resolve the queries of citizens regarding registration of complaints against profiteering.
    • Receiving complaints through email and the NAA portal.
    • Working with consumer welfare organizations in order to facilitate outreach activities.

  • ECI releases an Atlas on General Elections 2019

    The Election Commission of India has released ‘General Elections 2019 – An Atlas’.

    Atlas on General Elections

    • The Atlas encompasses all the data and statistical figures of this monumental event. It shares interesting facts, anecdotes and legal provisions related to the Indian elections.
    • It brings out salient features such as data of the 23 States and Uts where women voting percentage was more than the male voting percentage.
    • It has information about the largest & smallest parliamentary constituency in terms of electors, candidates and performance of political parties amongst other parameters.
    • The Atlas depicts the elector’s data in different categories and through various comparison charts like Elector Gender Ratio and electors in different age categories.
    • This Atlas serves as an informative and illustrative document that brings to light the nuances of the Indian electoral process and empowers readers to analyze trends and changes.

    Data on 2019 Elections

    • The 2019 General Elections witnessed the lowest gender gap in the history of Indian elections.
    • The Elector Gender Ratio which has shown a positive trend since 1971 was 926 in the 2019 General Elections.
    • The Atlas also compares the average number of electors per polling station in different states during the 2014 & 2019 General Elections.
    • The Election Commission of India set up over 10 lakh polling stations in General Elections 2019 with the lowest number of electors per polling station (365) in Arunachal Pradesh.

    Why was such Atlas needed?

    • Since the first General Elections in 1951-52, the Commission has been publishing a compilation of electoral data in the form of narrative and statistical books.
    • 17th General Elections conducted in 2019 were the largest democratic exercise in human history which witnessed the participation of 61.468 crore voters at 10.378 lakh polling stations spread over 32 lakh sq km.

  • Annual Review of State Laws Report, 2020

    The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown had a huge impact on the working of the state legislatures in India.  The PRS Legislative Research’s “Annual review of state laws 2020” shows that the productivity and efficacy of State legislatures are poor.

    Annual Review of State Laws

    • This report focuses on the legislative work performed by states in the calendar year 2020.
    • It is based on data compiled from state legislature websites and state gazettes.
    • It covers 19 state legislatures, including the union territory of Delhi, which together accounts for 90% of the population of the country.

    Highlights of the report

    (1) Sittings of states

    • Compared with its average number of sitting days of 32 from 2016 to 2019, the Karnataka legislature, which is bicameral, met on 31 days last year, the highest for any State in 2020.
    • The southern State was followed by Rajasthan (29 days) and Himachal Pradesh (25 days). For comparison, Parliament met for 33 days last year.
    • In 2020, the average number of sitting days for the 19 States was 18, which was 11 less than the four-year (2016-19) average of 29.
    • Kerala, which had the distinction of remaining at the top in the four years with an average of 53 days, had only 20 days of sittings of the legislature last year.

    (2) Number of bills

    • As for the number of Bills passed last year, Karnataka again topped the list with 61 Bills, followed by Tamil Nadu (42) and Uttar Pradesh (37). For this purpose, Appropriation Bills were excluded.
    • Among poor performers under this category, Delhi passed only one Bill; West Bengal passed two Bills and Kerala three Bills.

    (3) Time taken for passing bills

    • On the duration of time taken to pass Bills, the previous year saw 59% of the Bills being passed by the legislature of the States on the day of introduction.
    • A further 14% was adopted within a day of being introduced.
    • Only 9% of the Bills were passed more than five days after introduction, some of which were referred to committees for further examination.

  • [pib] All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20

    Union Education Minister has announced the release of the report of All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20.

    This newscard provides useful data about the state of higher education in India on various parameters. Such data should not be missed while substantiating any point in answer writing.

    About AISHE

    • AISHE was established by the Ministry of HRD for conducting an annual web-based survey, thereby portraying the status of higher education in the country.
    • The survey is conducted for all educational institutions in India on many categories like teachers, student enrolment, programs, examination results, education finance, and infrastructure.
    • This survey is used to make informed policy decisions and research for the development of the education sector.
    • This Report provides key performance indicators on the current status of Higher education in the country.

    Highlights of the 2019-20 Report

    (1) Total Enrolment

    (2) Gross Enrolment Ratio

    (3) Gender Parity Index (GPI)

    • GPI in Higher Education in 2019-20 is 1.01 against 1.00 in 2018-19 indicating an improvement in the relative access to higher education for females of eligible age group compared to males.

    (4) Pupil-Teacher Ratio

     

    • TPR in Higher Education in 2019-20 is 26. In 2019-20: Universities: 1,043(2%); Colleges: 42,343(77%) and stand-alone institutions: 11,779(21%).

    (5) Enrolment in higher education

    • 38 crore Students enrolled in programs at under-graduate and post-graduate levels.
    • Out of these, nearly 85% of the students (2.85 crore) were enrolled in the six major disciplines such as Humanities, Science, Commerce, Engineering & Technology, Medical Science and IT & Computer.

    (6) Doctorate pursuance

    • The number of students pursuing PhD in 2019-20 is 2.03 lakh against 1.17 lakh in 2014-15.

    (7) Total number of teachers

    • The Total Number of Teachers stands at 15,03,156 comprising of 57.5% male and 42.5% female.

  • Performance Grading Index 2020 by Education Ministry

    The Education Ministry’s Performance Grading Index for 2019-20 was recently released.

    Performance Grading Index

    • The PGI is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education in States and UTs including key levers that drive their performance and critical areas for improvement.
    • It monitors the progress that States and UTs have made in school education with regard to learning outcomes, access and equity, infrastructure and facilities, and governance and management processes.
    • Grading will allow all States and UTs to occupy the highest level i.e Grade I, at the same time which is a sign of a fully developed nation.

    Its methodology

    • This is the third edition of the index and uses 70 indicators to measure progress.
    • Of these, the 16 indicators related to learning outcomes remain unchanged through all three editions, as they are based on data from the 2017 National Achievement Survey, which tested students in Classes 3, 5, 8, and 10.

    Highlights of the 2019-20 Report

    • Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala have all scored higher than 90%.
    • Gujarat dropped from second to the eighth rank in the index, while MP and Chhattisgarh are the only States which have seen actual regression in scores over this period.