Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Payment Banks and Small Finance Bank
Mains level: Paper 3- Challenges in financial inclusion
The article highlights the important role Payment Banks could play in furthering the financial inclusion in India.
Financial inclusion and challenges
- Interventions, especially the JAM trinity—Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and Mobile phones—have accelerated digital and financial inclusion in India.
- Four of every five Indian adults have a registered bank account.
- Financial inclusion is not only about opening accounts, it encompasses access to credit, insurance and micro-investment products in a simple and safe way.
- This remains a challenge for ‘weaker sections and low-income groups’.
- For instance, only 16% of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have access to formal credit amid an estimated debt demand of ₹69.3 trillion.
High-technology, low-cost banking to accelerate financial inclusion
- In 2014, Nachiket Mor committee recommended setting up “high technology—low cost” banking models to accelerate financial inclusion to the last mile.
- Subsequently, the Reserve Bank of India licensed ‘vertically differentiated banking systems’, such as Payments Bank (PBs) and Small Finance Banks (SFBs).
- SFBs have grown profitably thanks to the yield spread between deposits and lending.
- Most of them started off as micro finance institutions with a ready asset base, and after converting into SFBs, they have got a better liability franchise but continue to operate in niche geographies.
- On the other hand, PBs have shown strong growth in revenues, while operating at a larger scale than SFBs.
- The high-tech PB model has shown more rigour than the cost-heavy branch-based SFB model in terms of its impact on inclusion.
Need for structural intervention
- If we intend to make a real move ahead on the inclusion front, PBs will have to play a larger role.
- However, to realize their full potential, they need certain structural interventions:
1) Liabilities
- PBs can take deposits only up to ₹1 lakh, which limits their ability to augment profit that can be further deployed to enhance efficiencies.
- For a few segments, such as self-help groups and MSMEs, the savings account limit blocks the adoption of highly-accessible bank accounts.
- Since the model has matured, it would be prudent to enhance the deposit limit to ₹5 lakh and benchmark it to Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation limits.
- Banking Correspondents (BCs) are a critical link in driving financial inclusion.
- PBs could offer low-value and simple fixed or recurring deposit products and sell to consumers through their BC distribution network, thus improving their viability.
2) Assets
- Currently, there is no national-level lender with the risk appetite for thin-credit consumers.
- PBs can evolve new micro-lending models through their BC networks and mobile apps and create an alternate credit score for these consumers.
- Allowing micro-lending by PBs could be a starting point. Thereafter, regulators may consider a transition path for them to become SFBs, or even Universal Banks.
3) Working together for collective impact
- PBs have an edge in technology and reach, while traditional players have a trust legacy.
- For collective impact on inclusion, two options can be evaluated with safeguards in place.
- One, PBs could co-originate loans with traditional institutions so that capital requirements are shared.
- Two, they can originate credit and allow it to mature, or securitize and turn it into a market-linked instrument.
- This could accelerate credit formalization.
Conclusion
We must remind ourselves that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to achieve complete financial inclusion for the diversified needs of our people. An enabling framework needs to be in place. Payments Banks, in particular, have the potential to bridge India’s financial inclusion gaps.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MSP, Public Procurement System
Mains level: Paper 3- Reasons for farmers concerns with MSP
The article explains the purpose of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and reasons for insecurity in farmers regarding its continuance.
Relation between MSP and time-bound procurement through PPS
- MSP, public procurement system (PPS) and a strict time-bound purchase of output brought to the PPS(through APMCs) form a package deal.
- Take out one aspect, the deal falls apart.
- For example, if you have MSP but not compulsory PPS, the support price becomes redundant.
- If you have MSP and PPS/APMC mandi but not strict time-bound purchase of the product brought to the PPS, the deal will fail.
Purpose of MSP
- At the launch of the Green Revolution, MSP and PPS were designed to assist the country in achieving its goal of food self-sufficiency, which was met by the early Seventies.
- The purpose of MSP and PPS/APMC is now two-fold.
- One, to maintain food self-sufficiency because crop diseases and weather conditions such as droughts.
- The second purpose is to ensure a reasonable, assured income to the farmers.
- The recommendation to dismantle FCI public procurement, made by the Shanta Kumar Committee in its 2015 report, displayed a lack of recognition of the importance of these two purposes.
Issues with the Farm bills
- The government’s assurance that MSP/APMC can co-exist with the big agro-business-controlled private markets is not tenable.
- A farmer who has reached a contract will not be legally allowed to take the product to APMC if the APMC mandi offered him/her a better price.
- The agro-business entity will take the non-compliant farmer to court, where the dispute resolution mechanism is stacked against the farmer due to the structural inequities of legal resources and social-cultural capital.
- The proposed dispute resolution mechanism increases the choice of the trader to trade and not of the farmer to sell.
- The central law will prevail in the private markets, while state laws will prevail in the APMC mandis.
- Two markets with two regulatory frameworks will create conditions for perpetual Centre-state conflicts.
- MSPs are announced for 23 crops but compulsory and timely public procurement, are provided mainly for two crops, wheat and rice, the support price does not work for the remaining 21 crops.
Challenge in defining MSP
- Farmers’ organisations are insisting on the Swaminathan Committee formula of C2+50 per cent.
- The MSP announced by the government is based on the A2+Fl+50 per cent formula.
- Unlike the C2+50 per cent formula, A2+Fl+50 formula does not cover all the costs of farming.
Conclusion
Agrarian reforms that recognise the importance of ecologically and economically sustainable agriculture are an absolute necessity. Such reforms would require more than merely changing the trade emphasis of existing laws. They will involve the creation of inclusive, transparent and well-informed laws compatible with these reforms.
Back2Basics: Understanding the cost formula
- M S Swaminathan committee recommended minimum support prices (MSP) for crops at levels “at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production”.
- The National Commission on Farmers did not elaborate on what really constituted “weighted average cost of production” in its report submitted in October 2006.
- The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), on the other hand, gives three definitions of production costs: A2, A2+FL and C2.
- A2 costs basically cover all paid-out expenses, both in cash and in kind, incurred by farmers on seeds, fertilisers, chemicals, hired labour, fuel, irrigation, etc.
- A2+FL cover actual paid-out costs plus an imputed value of unpaid family labour.
- C2 costs are more comprehensive, accounting for the rentals and interest forgone on owned land and fixed capital assets respectively, on top of A2+FL.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Digital Services Tax, Equalization Levy
Mains level: Digital taxes and related issues
Digital services taxes adopted by India, Italy and Turkey discriminate against U.S. companies and are inconsistent with international tax principles, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office has said.
Do you remember?
GAFA tax—named after Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon—is a proposed digital tax to be levied on large technology and internet companies.
Fact of the matter: Equalization Levy
- India has earlier expanded the scope of the Equalization Levy, or digital tax, to the sale of goods and services in the country by overseas e-commerce firms.
- The Equalization Levy was introduced for the first time in 2016 as 6 per cent tax on revenues earned by non-residents from online advertising and related services.
- The burden of this tax eventually fell on local firms advertising on these platforms.
Contention for E-Commerce
- In March 2020, the government expanded the scope of this levy to include the sale of goods and services in the country by overseas e-commerce operators.
- The transactions were to be taxed at 2 per cent if businesses earned more than Rs 2 crore.
- Globally, the rate of digital tax varies from 1.5 per cent (in Poland and Kenya) to 15 per cent (Paraguay). In Europe, the tax rate varies from 3 per cent (France, UK, Spain) to 7.5 per cent (Hungary).
Digital Services Taxes
- The “digital services tax” (DST) is a levy on the overall revenues earned by the supplier of specific digital services.
- The DST should not be confused with the so-called “Netflix tax,” which one may find in some western countries.
- The Netflix tax is essentially a “value-added tax” on digital services where the consumer bears the entire tax burden on the value of the final product.
The US Question
- The need to tax digital companies – the likes of Amazon, Google and Netflix – arises because these companies collect digital revenues from countries where they do not have a significant business presence.
- These are new-age companies, which can use virtual infrastructure to operate in another country.
- Countries across the globe have felt the need to tax revenues generated by such companies in a particular jurisdiction.
- Talks began in 2018 under the aegis of the OECD to formalize a framework on what and how to tax revenues earned by such companies in a country in which they have no physical or significant presence.
- But an abrupt US decision to pull out of the negotiations, involving 137 countries and threats of retaliatory action against those levying digital taxes have hit the 2020 deadline.
India’s response
- USTR has concluded the digital taxes imposed by France, India, Italy and Turkey discriminate against big U.S. tech firms, such as Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon.com
- For India, it created enormous uncertainty, since the country has always been at the forefront of adopting the concept of taxing foreign digital companies.
- It is now subject to a probe initiated by the US called the ‘Section 301’ investigations into the digital taxes.
A populist fuss by the US
- The US is a bit confused and so is the exiting President. They are not able to decide what they want to do.
- It is being argued that it could lead to tariffs before Donald leaves office or early in the administration of President-elect Biden.
- This arguably another populist measure that Trump administration wants to leave behind.
Conclusion
- Given that a global consensus at the OECD or even the UN level may take several more months, countries including India are likely to continue with their unilateral DSTs.
- At this juncture, when economies are reeling under the ill-effects of the pandemic, no country would want to give up its share of revenue and wait for a global consensus to emerge.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Ozone Hole
Mains level: Climate change impact
The Antarctic ozone hole — one of the deepest, largest gap in the ozone layer in the last 40 years — has closed, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
Chlorofluorocarbons, known as ozone-depleting substances are used:
- In the production of plastic foams
- In the production of tubeless tyres
- In cleaning certain electronic components
- As pressurizing agents in aerosol cans
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1, 2 and 3 only
(b) 4 only
(c) 1, 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Antarctic Ozone Hole
- The Antarctic “ozone hole” was discovered by British Antarctic Survey scientists Farman, Gardiner and Shanklin in 1985.
- It came as a shock to the scientific community because the observed decline in polar ozone was far larger than anyone had anticipated.
- It was caused by the chemical reactions on polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) in the cold Antarctic stratosphere caused a massive.
- Though localized and seasonal, an increase in the amount of chlorine present in active, ozone-destroying forms.
Role of PSCs
- The polar stratospheric clouds in Antarctica are only formed when there are very low temperatures, as low as −80 °C, and early spring conditions.
- In such conditions, the ice crystals of the cloud provide a suitable surface for the conversion of unreactive chlorine compounds into reactive chlorine compounds, which can deplete ozone easily.
An annual process
- An ozone hole is the thinning of the ozone layer boosted in size by colder temperatures.
- The formation of the ozone hole in the Antarctic has been an annual occurrence and has been recorded for the last 40 years.
- Human-made chemicals migrate into the stratosphere and accumulate inside the polar vortex. It begins to shrink in size as warmer temperatures dominate.
- As the temperatures high up in the stratosphere start to rise, ozone depletion slows, the polar vortex weakens and breaks down.
- By the end of December, ozone levels return to normal.
The hole closes after achieving peak
- The annually occurring ozone hole over the Antarctic had rapidly grown from mid-August and peaked at around 24 million square kilometres — one of the largest so far — in early October 2020.
- The expansion of the hole was driven by a strong, stable and cold polar vortex and very cold temperatures in the stratosphere.
- The same meteorological factors also contributed to the record 2020 Arctic ozone hole, which has also closed.
Note: A polar vortex is a wide expanse of swirling cold air, a low-pressure area, in Polar Regions. During winters, the polar vortex at the North Pole expands, sending cold air southward.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: FAO Food Price Index
Mains level: Poverty and Hunger
World food prices rose for a seventh consecutive month in December 2020, with all the major categories, barring sugar, said the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO).
Try this PYQ:
Q.Which one of the following is not a sub-index of the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business Index’? (CSP 2019)
(a) Maintenance of law and order
(b) Paying taxes
(c) Registering property
(d) Dealing with construction permits
World Food Price Index
- The FAO Food Price Index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities.
- It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices [cereal, vegetable, dairy, meat and sugar], weighted with the average export shares.
- The index has become a critical and timely monthly indicator of the state of international food markets, gauging the change in food commodity prices over time in nominal and real terms.
Why it matters?
- High food prices have contributed to a surge in inflation
- There are social and economic advantages from high food prices for example higher prices are an opportunity to improve farmers’ incomes and to stimulate investments in farming.
- For developing countries that are major exporters of food, the rise in world prices helped to bring about an improvement in the terms of trade and a strong balance of payments.
Concerns raised
- That said higher food prices for domestic consumers created fresh problems of poverty and hunger.
- Lower-income families spend a higher proportion of their budgets on food.
- Higher prices hit them hardest causing a fall in real living standards.
- This means that food price inflation can act as a tax on the poor and have a regressive effect on the distribution of income.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Magnetotelluric Study
Mains level: Earthquakes
In the backdrop of multiple quakes of low intensity in the Delhi-NCR region, the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) is conducting a unique geophysical Magnetotelluric-MT survey to accurately assess potential seismic hazards.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- The Earth’s magnetic field has reversed every few hundred thousand years.
- When the Earth was created more than 4000 million years ago, there was 54% oxygen and no carbon dioxide.
- When living organisms originated, they modified the early atmosphere of the Earth.
Which of the statements given above is/ are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
What is Magneto-Telluric Survey?
- MT is a geophysical method which uses natural time variation of the earth’s magnetic and electric fields to understand the geological (underground) structure and processes.
- It is an increasingly popular technique widely used to image the electrical resistivity distribution inside the Earth in various application fields ranging in scale from the shallow crust to the lithosphere.
- In the MT method, the earth’s natural electromagnetic field is used as a source field.
- The receivers record the electric and magnetic fields on the surface of the Earth.
- The variations in amplitude and phase of the received signals can be interpreted in terms of the resistivity structure of the subsurface using the magnetotelluric impedance.
Where would the MT survey be undertaken?
- The survey is conducted across three major seismic sources, namely Mahendragarh-Dehradun Fault (MDF), Sohna Fault (SF) and Mathura Fault (MF).
- It will ascertain the presence of fluids, which generally enhance the possibility of triggering earthquakes.
Benefits of the survey
- Its findings will help different user agencies for designing quake-resistant buildings, industrial units and structures such as hospitals and schools.
- In addition to MT, analysis and interpretation of satellite imageries and geological field investigations for locating the faults are also being carried out.
- Both these geophysical and geological surveys will help in taking multiple preventive measures in the quake-prone region.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) 2021
Mains level: Wetland conservation in India
The two-day Asian Waterbird Census-2020 was recently held in Andhra Pradesh.
Anyone can participate!
By using eBird and filling an additional site form, one can take part in this multi-country effort to document the state of our wetlands and waterbirds. To take part one simply visits a wetland and count the birds he/she see there.
Asian Waterbird Census
- The Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) takes place every January.
- The AWC was started in 1987, and many birders were initiated into bird counting and monitoring through this project.
- This citizen-science event is a part of the global International Waterbird Census (IWC) that supports the conservation and management of wetlands and waterbirds worldwide.
- The data collected each year is shared by Wetlands International with global conservation organisations such as IUCN and Ramsar Convention.
Why need such census?
- Waterbirds are one of the key indicators of wetlands health.
- Wetlands provide feeding, resting, roosting and foraging habitats for these charismatic species.
AWC in India
- In India, the AWC is annually coordinated by the Bombay Natural history Society (BNHS) and Wetlands International.
- BNHS is a non-government Organisation (NGO) founded in the year 1883.
- It engages itself in the conservation of nature and natural resources and also in the research and conservation of endangered species.
- Its mission is to conserve nature, primarily biological diversity through action based on research, education and public awareness.
Back2Basics: Waterbirds
- The term water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird is used to refer to birds that live on or around water.
- In some definitions, the term is especially applied to birds in freshwater habitats, though others make no distinction from birds that inhabit marine environments.
- Also, some water birds are more terrestrial or aquatic than others, and their adaptations will vary depending on their environment.
- These adaptations include webbed feet, bills, and legs adapted to feed in the water, and the ability to dive from the surface or the air to catch prey in water.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now