Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Slum-free India
Slum-free India
Available evidences indicate that the number of slums and the slum
population in India have been growing. Estimates show that nearly 28
million people lived in the slums in 1981, accounting for 17.5 percent
of the urban population. In 1991, the number of slum dwellers rose to
45.7 million, accounting for 21.5 percent of the total population in
urban areas. According to the estimate made by the Committee on Slum
Statistics/Census the slum population constituted 75.26 million (26.31
percent) out of the 286 million urban population of the country in
2001. As per the estimates, the slum population of India is estimated to
have reached 93.06 million in 2011. Slums are found to exist in almost
all the cities and towns throughout the country. The goal of making
Indian cities slum-free is a stupendous task unparalleled in history.
For instance after taking into account various facets of the task of
upgrading the life and living conditions of the slum dwellers around the
world, the United Nations Millennium Submit (in 2000) decided to take
up the task of improving of the living condition and living environment
of only 100 million slum dwellers around the world over a period of 20
years from 2000. Therefore, the task of lifting nearly 93 million urban
slum dwellers out of poverty and squalor and thereby vanish the slums
from Indian cities/towns is really ambitious. Finding resources for the
scheme may not be an easy task.
Apart from the difficulty in raising the enormous funds required to
meet the expenditure for implementing the scheme, there is serious
difficulty in implementing such a gigantic scheme due to the weak,
inefficient and corrupt administrative machinery. As the plan to make
Indian cities slum free entails huge expenditure to the tune of lakhs of
crores of rupees, unless suitable measures are undertaken to curb delay
in the execution of the projects and to trim down corruption, the
success of this scheme seems to be uncertain. The recent revelation of
large-scale corruption, embezzlement by bureaucrats, politicians,
private contractors and others in the execution of works related to
Commonwealth Games and other large projects is an eye opener.
The mission to eradicate slums over a short period is a gigantic task.
Of course it is a laudable and a daring attempt, but an amazing venture.
All-out efforts will have to be put forth, both by the central/state
governments, municipal administrations and NGOs to realise the goal.
Unless solid steps are taken to prevent the sprouting of new slums,
besides resettling and rehabilitating the existing slum dwellers, the
praiseworthy goal of slum-free cities might turn out to be a Sisyphus
Challenge for India.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
RBI imposes Rs 5.62-lakh penalty on SBI
Of late SBI is known for various kinds of deficiencies and lapses . Some of its officers are corrupt and they indulge in harassment of distressed borrowers even by engaging goondas. In 2010 SBI introduced a novel exit scheme for distressed SME borrowers, namely SBI OTS-SME 2010 Scheme. It involved writing off lakhs of rupees in principal and interest . So certain officers connected with the implementation of the scheme conspired to collect huge amount as bribe. So they deliberately misinterpreted the beneficial provisions of the scheme.When the realized that there was wanton misinterpretation of the provisions of SBI OTS-SME 2010 Scheme by SARC/SAMB, Chennai-8 by certain officers, they complained to the higher authorities specifically against three officers of SARC/SAMB, Chennai, The said three officers by misusing authority and abusing power, have harassed many innocent distressed SME borrowers and collected huge amount as commission (bribe). But so far no action has been taken against the said corrupt officers.The Hindu Business Line, August 7, 2013
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One of the reasons for the fall in the net financial savings of households from 10.9 per cent in years prior to 2011-12 to a mere 8 per cent in 2012-13 is an outcome of the deployment of financial savings into investment in gold. This reduces the domestic financial resources available for supporting capital formation at home, while at the same time increasing the merchandise trade and current account deficits.