10.

Governance
Good Governance

Consumer protection act, 2019

1. The act aims to address consumer vulnerabilities to new forms of unfair

trade and unethical business practices in the fast-changing new age
economy.
2. Key features of the act
1. A consumer is defined as a person who buys any good or avails a
service. It covers transactions through all modes including offline,
and online, teleshopping, etc.
2. Act defines various “consumer rights” like protection against the
marketing of goods, products or services which are hazardous to
the life, the right to consumer awareness, right to to be informed
about the quality of goods/services.
3. Central Consumer Protection Authority will be set up to promote,
protect and enforce consumer rights.
4. Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions will be set up at the
District, State and National levels for adjudicating consumer
complaints. District: Up to Rs one crore; State: Between Rs one
crore and up to Rs 10 crore; National: above Rs 10 crore.
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5. Product liability means the liability of a product manufacturer,

service provider or seller to compensate a consumer for any harm
or injury caused by a defective good or deficient service.
6. The Act recognizes and addresses the menace of unilateral and
unfair contracts.
3. Issues

1.
4. The Act is a much-needed step to overhaul the archaic consumer
protection law that was increasingly becoming redundant in protecting
the interests of Indian consumers in this age of digitization.

Digital connectivity

1. According to the Internet Trends 2017 report, only 27 percent of India’s

population (355 million users) uses the internet.
2. Current situation
1. The Digital India scheme launched in 2015 brought the topic of
digitization to the forefront of public discourse.
2. In 2011, the scheme for the creation of a National Optical Fibre
Network (NOFN) was initiated to connect all the GPs of the

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country with high speed internet. The last mile connectivity is to

be provided at all GPs in the country, funded by the Universal
Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
3. The National Information Infrastructure (NII) will ensure the
integration of the networks and cloud infrastructure to provide
high speed connectivity to various government departments up to
the panchayat level. The components of NII include networks
such as the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), National
Knowledge Network (NKN), BharatNet, Government User
Network (GUN) and the MeghRaj Cloud.
4. The government also launched the Public Internet Access
Programme to make 2,50,000 common service centres (CSCs)
operational at the gram panchayat level to deliver government
services online.
3. National e-Governance plan
1. The objective of the plan is to make all Government services
accessible to the common man in his locality through common
service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and
reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic
needs of the common man. The plan consists of 27 Mission Mode
Projects (MMPs).
4. Challenges facing MMPs
1. Lack of dedicated teams, inadequate engagement with the key
stakeholders and issues in project management due to the sheer
scale and diversity of very large projects.
2. Lack of inter-departmental coordination, duplication of
infrastructure, inadequate business process reengineering (BPR),
delays in obtaining necessary approvals, and exit management for
PPP projects.
3. Some MMPs pointed out that recognition of electronic records is
still an issue despite the legal mandate provided by the IT Act for
the same. In some cases, BPR needed legal enactments to be
implemented.
4. Delays in release of funds to the states and their utilisation is a
major challenge in making projects go live in those states.
5. There is general lack of awareness regarding benefits of e-
governance as well as the process involved in implementing
successful G-C, G-G and G-B projects.

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6. There is also lack of trust form the side of people on e-governance

platforms.
7. The services are also not provided in the local language, which
keeps many illeterates away from such services.
8. Lack of penetration of internet in many areas also leads to
problems. Inequality between people in the social system in
having access to and use of e-government services.
5. Solutions
1. The MMPs should redefine their service delivery strategy with a
renewed focus on outcome orientation rather than the inputs used.
2. There is tremendous scope for exploiting the new and innovative
technologies such as cloud computing and mobile platform for
making rollout of services faster and more resource efficient.
3. Use of local languages in applications can facilitate easy access to
them for the people.
4. Ensuring inter-departmental coordination and coordination among
the central ministries and state government departments are sine-
qua-non for the success of any project. They are also vital in
avoiding unnecessary duplication of efforts.
5. The importance of dedicated project teams cannot be over
emphasised. Disseminating proper information and empowering
the key stakeholders can go a long way in ensuring the success
and sustainability of the projects.
6. Utility to Panchayat
1. Gram sabha meetings, village land records, updating of citizen
databases, effective performance monitoring of Panchayats.
2. Intra village, intra-district sharing of practices and resources
communication with block and district.
3. Sharing of agricultural practices, productivity techniques, small
enterprises, vocational learning.
4. Delivery of services including health, education and finance, etc.
A single point of Government to citizen interaction for centrally
sponsored schemes and Grievance redressal.
5. Developmental planning of road, transportation and power
connectivity. Knowledge connectivity in the form of good
educational and training institutions. Provision of drinking water
and upgradation of existing health facilities. Market connectivity
to enable farmers to get the best prices for their produce.

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7. Mobile governance
1. M-Governance allows for the use of mobile wireless
communication technology within the government administration
and tool for delivery of information and services to citizens and
business.
2. In India, M-governance can help enhance accountability and
transparency as the penetration rate is ever increasing. Mobile
phones can reach areas where no other ICT infrastructure can
reach. Also, it has become an integral part of people’s lives and
therefore adoption is easier and facilitates real time interaction.
8. Uses of Mobile governance
1. Agriculture: Farmers may receive alerts and advices through
SMS based applications. These applications also help them learn
about marketing prices without having to physically visit the
markets. For instance, mobile devices are used to disseminate
IMD’s weather information, Kisan call centre’s agriculture related
queries.
2. Health care: SMS based applications for information data
sharing, expert advice, registration for public health service,
appointment alerts and notifications can be done.
3. Financial services: Mobile banking, financial transactions
information retrieval etc may be done through mobile governance.
All the public and private sector banks in India are providing
different services through mobile phones.
4. Transportation: Applications for updates, m-ticketing, etc.
5. Other Services: Indian post status tracking for instance is an app
that may be used for tracking post status.
9. Challenges
1. Cost: M-governance is likely to be an additional channel for
service delivery which will create additional costs.
2. Low levels of literacy: Most mobile phones and applications have
text driven interface making it near impossible for users to obtain,
read and get any information provided by the Government.
3. Lack of knowledge of English: As most mobile device
applications are developed using English language, it tends to act
as a hindrance in usage.
4. Security: If m-Governance is to include m-payment system or
other transactional public services then it must have good security

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and must be trusted.

5. Data overload: Mobile devices increase the pressures of a world
in which users are permanently connected. These connections
increase the number of messages circulating and can cause a
blizzard of communications by spam, junk and unwanted
messages.
10. E-governance in India is focussed on ‘e’
1. National judicial data grid (NJDG) was started to give litigants
and others the consolidated figures of pending cases in the
country’s district Judiciary. But it has not led to reduction in
pendency of cases.
2. e-NAM was launched by government. eNAM is an online inter-
connectivity of mandis to enable farmers to get better price of
their produce. Situation at the grass root level is different. Inter
connectivity will be possible when the transport and storage
system will be efficient.
3. RTI can be accessed online, but understaff manpower leads to
delays.
4. National land record modernisation programme has not resulted in
reduction in land disputes due to absence of land title law.
5. Depot online system of state run FCI has been launched to bring
transparency and minimize storage losses of food grains but these
changes requires strong ground level efforts not superficially.
6. We need to understand that technology can only help in providing
faster access but is not panacea to structural problems. For
example, in the absence of judicial reforms, periodic updation of
citizen charter, administrative reforms in terms of business
process restructuring, the e-governance will merely remain e
without governance.
7. It has been found that wherever enabling infrastructure has been
provided e-governance has shown good results. For example,
Telangana government right to clearance act, Shram Suvidha
portal (labour reforms), PRAGATI platform (cooperative
federalism), etc.
8. Efforts for digital literacy, bridging digital divide need to be
undertaken actively so that e-governance is more inclusive and
participative. By plugging in the loopholes with approach to bring
in change in lives of people, e- governance assures us a promising

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future.
11. IT-BPS
1. Government’s rapid adoption of technologies as a platform to
delivery of G-G and G-C services is a tremendous push factor for
the domestic IT-BPM market.
2. The Government of India is also taking a lead in adopting digital
technologies and is one of the most proactive users of social
media as a means to communicate with the public.
3. It has developed its own cloud platform, MeghRaj. The focus of
this initiative is to accelerate delivery of e-services while
optimising ICT spending of the Government. It also intends to
make India a hub for cyber security solutions for the world.
4. Through long-term initiatives like Digital India, Make in India,
Smart Cities, e-Governance, push for digital talent through Skill
India, drive towards a cashless economy, efforts to kindle
innovation through Start-up India, etc., uptake of technology is
expected to grow substantially in the future.
12. Some of the government initiatives to promote digital literacy
1. National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) has been initiated with
the vision to empower at least one person per household with
crucial digital literacy skills by 2020.
2. The Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan
(PMGDISHA) being initiated under Digital India Programme
would cover 6 crore households in rural areas to make them
digitally literate.
3. Vittiya Sakshartha Abhiyan (VISAKA), the purpose of which is to
actively engage the students of Higher Education Institutions to
encourage and motivate all payers and payees to use a digitally
enabled cashless economic system for transfer of funds.
13. As print medium begins to die out, the ability to comprehend
information found online becomes more and more important especially
in the financial domain. India being a major economy must reap
benefits of digital age for which digital literacy is inevitable.

Real-time Governance of AP

1. The main mission of Real-Time Governance (RTG) Centre is to

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handle all the important events and natural calamities on real-time

basis, leveraging e-governance technology and electronic
communication. Real-time Governance (RTG) Centre helps the
government monitor all the schemes, keep a vigilance on people and
demand accountability from officials.
2. The RTGS consists of a state centre and 13 district data centres. The
core team operates from RTG state centre with data input from people
hub - which hosts the data of all the households along with
government benefits they receive, which, in turn, is linked with
various government departments and call centre to serve as grievance
redressal platform and surveillance and communication wing.
3. Areas of operation in RTG
1. Grievance management (through a call centre called Parishakara
Vedika).
2. Beneficiary feedback (on service delivery of social welfare
benefits, pensions, etc).
3. Data mining and analytics (performance measurement system at
state level focusing on programme outcomes and dispensing
feedback to officials at multiple administrative levels).
4. Coordination and crowd sourcing (application of Big Data for
designing welfare projects in the state).

Panchayat extension act (PESA)

1. PESA act extended the provisions of Panchayats to the tribal areas of

nine states that have fifth schedule areas. It directs the state government
to endow powers and authority to make Gram sabha and panchayats
function as institutions of Local Governance.
2. Every legislation must be in conformity with the customary law, social
and religious practises and traditional management practices of the
community resources. PESA also gives various special powers to the
Gram sabhas in scheduled areas especially for the management of
natural resources.
3. Limitations
1. Limited applicability: It is applicable only to those areas which
are legally regarded as Scheduled Areas. A significant number of
tribals living outside the scheduled areas are not covered by this
legislation. Some State Governments upgrade rural panchayats in

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scheduled areas to urban panchayats to bypass village council’s

approval process.
2. Lack of coordination at centre: Two different ministries, the
Ministry of Panchayati Raj and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs,
have overlapping influence on the implementation of PESA and
they function almost without any coordination.
3. Awareness: Lower level of awareness and education among the
tribals also come on the way of raising assertive voices.
4. Tax autonomy: Panchayats have not been given adequate
responsibilities to levy and collect taxes, fees, duties or tolls. This
severely limits their financial and functional autonomy.
5. Bureaucratic mindset: The mindset of the government
functionaries who think tribal people as an inferior species who
need to be told what is good for them and the other is the existing
state government laws and provisions that negate the PESA act.
6. Governor’s apathy: Despite the fact that PESA Act gives them
limitless power to enforce the law and protect interests of the
marginalised tribals. Tribal activists informed that not even in a
single instance, have the Governors responded to their petitions
for interventions in threatening crisis.
7. Communities split: Companies split tribal communities by bribes
and coercion. Widespread transfer of tribal lands into non-tribal
hands through fraud and forcible occupation.
8. Maoist threat: The autonomous and non-violent resistance of
tribals to destructive mining has often been misrepresented as a
Maoist threat. This is used to crush spontaneous opposition of
tribals to be displaced leaving them displaced and left to the
mercy of fate.
4. What should be done
1. There are two different ministries, namely, the Ministry of
Panchayati Raj and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs that have
overlapping influence on PESA and they virtually function in
isolation. Merging of these two ministries should happen for
effective implementation of law.
2. The letter and spirit of the Samata Judgement should be enforced
in all acquisition of tribal land for private companies. ‘Land for
Land’ must be a fundamental requirement for acquisition of tribal
lands.

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3. Social audit rules on lines of AP state Govt for MGNREGA

should be issued for all government programs in Schedule 5 areas.
A national citizen’s panel for PESA should be constituted.
Eminent citizens should be empanelled for each of the PESA
districts.
4. There is a complete absence of functioning grievance redressal
mechanism to address a routine violation of rights of villagers
from the tribal community. This furthers the community’s sense of
alienation.
5. The full fledged implementation of PESA will give 50,000 crore
to tribal communities to develop themselves. It would deal a
bigger blow to the Maoists active in the PESA districts.
6. Civil society can play a major role in thwarting vested interests.
They can provide voice to the grievances of poor tribals and make
them aware of their rights.

Forest Rights act, 2006

1. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 is a result of long struggle by the tribal
communities to assert their rights over the forest land over which they
were traditionally dependent. This act provides for the restitution of
deprived forest rights across India, including both individual rights to
cultivated land in forest land and community rights over common
property resources.
2. Significance of the act
1. For the first time forest rights act recognises and secures
community rights over common property resources (CPR) of the
communities in addition to their individual rights.
2. They are granted ownership of minor forest produce (MFP).
3. It secures rights over disputed lands.
4. It secures right to intellectual property and traditional knowledge
related to biodiversity and cultural diversity.
5. It secures rights of displaced communities and for empowerment
of these communities, the FRA clarified that these communities
had the sole right to sell proceeds from forests.
6. Right to in-situ rehabilitation including alternative land in cases of
illegal displacement.

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3. Challenges in implementing FRA

1. Consent resolutions passed by Gram Sabhas are getting forged by
interested parties for land diversion. Lack of regular elections to
panchayats. In all most all the states, the Forest department has
acquired effective control over rights recognition process in FRA.
2. There are problems of coordination between forest, revenue and
tribal departments in areas of land rights, etc. Forest rights
committees (FRC) do not have desired infrastructure and technical
know-how to keep the records relating to land claims etc.
3. The main target group of this Act are mostly illiterate and
therefore filling and submission of forms regarding the claims
becomes very difficult. In this situation many middleman and
some bad elements starts operating with vested interest.
4. There is emphasis on recognising individual claims while ignoring
collective claims.
5. The concerned ministries look at FRA as a hurdle to development
and try to circumvent it rather than ensure its effective
implementation. FRA is often in conflict with other laws. Ex:
Rights in protected areas like wildlife sanctuaries, national parks
etc.
6. Saxena committee pointed out several problems in the
implementation of FRA. Wrongful rejections of claims happen
due to lack of proper enquiries made by the officials.
4. Recent supreme court order
1. The Supreme court has recently ordered the eviction of lakhs of
people whose claims as forest dwellers have been rejected under
the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
2. This order negates the claims of citizens under special protection
of the Constitution, viz. the Scheduled Tribes and other vulnerable
communities. According to Xaxa Committee on tribal welfare,
60% of the forest area in the country is in tribal areas — protected
by Article 19(5) and Schedules V and VI of the Constitution.
3. Xaxa Committee observed that claims are being rejected
without assigning reasons
1. Based on wrong interpretation of the Other Traditional
Forest Dwellers definition.
2. Simply for lack of evidence.
3. Absence of GPS survey.

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4. Because the land is wrongly considered as "not forest land",

or because only forest offence receipts are considered as
adequate evidence.
4. The rejections are also not being communicated to the claimants,
and their right to appeal is not being explained to them.
5. These observation proves that flaws exist in administrative
mechanism and the executives are solely responsible for it. But
the recent Supreme Court order tends to undermine the essence of
Checks and balances implied in the constitution of India.
6. Further the order violates, Article 19 (5) specifically enjoins the
state to make laws “for the protection of the interests of any
Scheduled Tribe”, is vital.

Sixth schedule

1. Article 244 of the Constitution envisages a special system of

administration for certain areas designated as ‘scheduled areas’ and
'tribal areas'. 6th schedule contains the special provisions for the
administration of tribal areas in the state of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura
and Mizoram. The tribes in these states have distinct ethnic-
anthropogenic and cultural identity not found in any other tribal areas of
the country. Similarly they are backward in the terms of socio-
economic development.
2. Considering this, constitution has provided them a special treatment by
providing autonomous district councils (ADC) in these tribal areas.
Major objective of the government is to provide them with considerable
amount of autonomy for promoting self rule under democratic
framework. The Autonomous district councils (ADCs) have not more
than 30 members, elected by adult suffrage and not more than 4
members in it are nominated by the governor.
3. Provisions of 6th schedule
1. Autonomous districts: The tribal areas in these states have been
constituted as autonomous districts, each of which has an
autonomous district council (ADC) and each autonomous region
has a separate regional council consisting of 30 members.
Currently, there are 10 such councils.
2. Legislative powers: The autonomous district councils have the
powers to make laws on land, forest use, aquatic body of the

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district or region, regulation of Jhum cultivation etc., within the

district.
3. Judicial powers: They may constitute courts for the trial of suits
and cases between the parties all of whom belong to Scheduled
Tribes within such areas or district.
4. Tax revenue: The district and regional councils are empowered to
assess and collect land revenue and to impose certain specified
taxes.
5. Other powers: The district council for an autonomous district
may establish, manage primary schools, dispensaries, markets,
cattle pounds, ferries, fisheries, roads, road transport and
waterways in the district with the previous approval of the
Governor.
6. State governors too were given a protective role, such that they
could make regulations about transfer of land from tribals to non-
tribals.
4. Positives
1. The funds allocated to the MPs and MLAs for local area
development purpose are successfully being executed through the
councils.
2. Decentralisation of administrative and legislative functions to the
grass root level following the principle of subsidiarity, have led to
empowerment of otherwise alienated sections of the society.
3. Many social service scheme implementations have shown positive
results under these councils.
4. For example, to motivate the jhum cultivating families, the
Council took up a step to develop the region by promoting
different schemes under horticulture, this rehabilitated 455
families and boosted agricultural and horticultural production in
the region.
5. Negatives
1. Financial crisis: These councils are facing financial crisis as they
are not covered by State finance commission (SFCs). Thus, PRIs
in non-6th schedule areas are liberally funded.
2. Functional overlap: Some sixth schedule protected areas have
graduated from districts into states, such as Mizoram and
Meghalaya. Here, the councils overlap the normal district
administration and PRIs.

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3. Lack of skilled professionals: Almost all Councils do not have

access to planning professionals which results in ad-hoc
conceiving of development projects without proper technical and
financial consideration.
4. Lack of codification of customary law: Customary laws need to
be codified and brought into practical use to ensure protection of
tribal cultural identity.
5. Decentralization of powers has not taken place in many 6th
schedule areas. For example, in the Bodo Territorial Area districts,
there is only district council which elects few people who enjoy
unbridled power. The members of the councils need to be trained
and participation and involvement of the people needs to be
enhanced too.
6. Some members of autonomous council are helping in siphoning of
money to the extremist group factions. For example, north cachar
autonomous council is under scrutiny of NIA and CBI.
7. The laws made by the councils require the assent of governor.
This process has no time limits, thus legislations get delayed for
years. There are differing views over the discretionary power of
governors.
8. Because of presence of more than one autonomous council, there
are allegations of one being treated less favourably than other. For
example, in Assam, there is a perceived preferential treatment to
Bodoland Territorial Council (BDC) in matters of budget
allocations.
6. Remedies to 6th schedule problems
1. There is a need that Sixth Schedule is amended and Autonomous
Councils are made to benefit from the recommendations of the
SFCs.
2. State governments and the Autonomous Councils should identify
powers under the Sixth Schedule that Governors may exercise at
their discretion without having to act on the aid and advice of the
Council of Ministers.
3. The administration of the district autonomous councils should be
periodically reviewed by a commission under Union Government.
4. Creation of elected village councils in all areas and ensure
accountability of village councils to the Gram Sabha.
5. Inclusion of women leaders in the elected council.

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6. Tribal Panchsheel of Nehru. Tribal sub-plan, which earmarks

budgets to specific plans.

Governance

1. Constraints in delivery of public services

1. There is extreme fragmentation in the policy making structure. For
example, formulation of policy in one area, for instance health,
fails to take into account its effect on other social sectors like
education, housing, employment etc.
2. With the result there is non-alignment of the policies across all the
common issues. This is responsible for poor results in governance
and delivery of services.
3. There is an excessive overlap between policy making, programme
formulation and implementation which creates a tendency to focus
on operational convenience rather than on public needs and
expectations.
4. There are inadequate non-governmental inputs and informed
debate in the policy making processes.
2. Social audit is legally mandated process where beneficiaries evaluate
the implementation of a programme by comparing official records with
ground realities.

3.

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4. Need for social audit

1. Reduces corruption: SA uncovers irregularities and malpractices
in the public sector and maintains oversight on government
functioning, thus reducing leakages and corruption.
2. Monitoring and feedback: It monitors social and ethical impact
of an organisation’s performance and provides feedback on the
work.
3. Accountability and transparency: SA ensures accountability and
transparency in working of local government bodies and reduces
trust gap between people and local governments.
4. Participative and democratic: SA promotes participation of
people in implementation of programmes and makes people more
forthcoming for social development activities.
5. Strengthens the Gram Sabha: SA gives voice and influencing
power to the Gram Sabha, the lynchpin of rural governance
structure.
6. Generates demand: Serves as the basis for framing the
management’s policies by raising demands in a socially
responsible and accountable manner by highlighting the real
problems.
7. Improves professionalism: SA boosts professionalism in public
bodies by forcing Panchayats to keep proper records and accounts
of the spending made against the grants received from the

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government and other sources.

8. Collective platform: SA provides a collective platform for people
to express their common needs, resulting into social cohesion.
5. Shortcomings in Social audits
1. Rules not followed: In many states, Social Audit Units (SAUs)
don’t seek record from Gram Panchayats regarding execution of
works and expenditure (CAG report), social audit reports are
either not prepared or not made available to gram sabha in local
languages.
2. SAUs lack independence: Several SAUs do not have adequate
staff to cover all the panchayats even once a year.
3. No incentive to participate: Lack of interest in people about the
village activities due to their livelihood reasons.
4. Not institutionalised: Government has not mandated
institutionalisation of SA thus making auditors vulnerable to
implementing agencies, who face resistance and intimidation and
find it difficult to even access primary records for
verification.There is lack of administrative and political will in
institutionalising social audit to deter corruption.
5. The scope of social audits covers only selected aspects out of a
wide range of audit concerns in the financial, compliance and
performance audits.
6. The impact of audit on programme outcomes such as employment
generation, targeting of the SC/ST population is often absent.
7. The audits did not result in effective redressal due to lack of
follow up and enforcement of punishments. There is absence of
vigilance cells in most of the cases. Lack of focused media
attention and scrutiny to social audits.
8. There is clear lack of awareness among people. Inadequate access
to data and lack of expertise are other obstacles.
9. The involvement of local representatives in malpractices has
sometimes resulted in resistance to social audits.
6. Suggestions to improve social audits
1. Making people aware of their rights, entitlements and obligations
under the scheme.
2. Ensure institutionalisation of social audits across all states making
it enforceable and credible contract allocating responsibilities,
defining timelines and ensuring prompt penalty to the guilty.

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3. Making sure that all the forms and documents are in simple, easily
understandable language and structure and available in local
languages.
4. Findings of the social audit process need to be acted upon as they
become available and that apart from addressing the specific
issues, systemic changes are also brought about.
5. Learning from the progress made by the civil society groups and
Gram Sabhas in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan in setting up
separate directorates for social audit, other states can also
introduce such measures.
6. NGOs can help in strengthening social audits such as MKSS in
Rajasthan.

Various qualifications for Panchayats

1. Recently SC has upheld the amendments to the Haryana Panchayati Raj

Act, 1994. Amendments introduce certain disqualifications for
contesting panchayat elections, like lack of formal education, lack of
sanitation and indebtedness. The amendment was challenged for
violating right to equality.
2. Judgement
1. The court observed that the illiteracy, lack of sanitation etc., are
due to lack of requisite will, rather than only due to poverty.
2. The court also tried to link education with competence to
effectively discharge duties of the Panchayats.
3. The court further justified the logic of debt based disqualification
by stating that election is an expensive affair, and that a debt
ridden person would not, in any case, be eligible to contest.
4. Therefore, it upheld the amendments to promote social good in the
society.
3. Pros
1. This ensures that the proxy candidates are not fighting elections
which come from local families who are traditionally in politics in
villages. Family tries to wrest power at as many points they can by
projecting all their candidates and hence excluding new comers in
politics.
2. So this type of act will help new generation to join local politics as

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many traditional local Sarpanch will be forced to retire after this

new law.
3. This act will motivate masses to study at the time when primary
education is fundamental right.
4. Local Government is the first point of interaction between public
and state. So the need to provide quality services and for this they
need to be literate.
5. The apex court held that the classification of persons with two or
less children was not arbitrary and the disqualification seeks to
promote a national programme by creating disincentives.
6. The court also looked into the functions given to Panchayats and
noted that family welfare was an important function assigned to
Panchayats and the legislation to disqualify therefore served one
of the important objectives. So, similarly this also is necessary.
4. Cons
1. It can lead to a race to procure bogus certificates of educational
qualification.
2. It violates Article 14 that is of right to equality. Old people who
had no means to study in their times will be excluded, without any
fault on their part.
3. Only local elections can accommodate downtrodden people who
have limited means to fight elections. The most affected due to
this is are women, people from backward classes especially SCs
and STs because of their historical disadvantage of not having
access to education.
4. It would strengthen the domination of upper castes. There is a
chance of increasing violence against backward classes and
women which was checked till now by political participation of
these classes.
5. Formal education cannot suggest that a person is desirable for a
constitutional post or not. If we go by this ordinance then tall
figures like Guru Rabindranath Tagore and Kamraj will stand
disqualified.
6. It looks weird that a person who is not qualified to be elected as
Sarpanch, is eligible to be elected as Member of Parliament (or
even Prime Minister). This should have been done on the basis of
empirical data, deliberation and consultation with various stake
holders.

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Cooperative sector

1. Yuva Sahakar has been launched by NCDC to attract youth in

cooperative business ventures. It would encourage cooperatives to
venture into new and innovative areas.
2. Constitutional and statutory provisions
1. Directive Principle: Article 43, enjoins the State Government to
promote cottage industry on an individual or cooperative basis in
rural areas.
2. It is a state subject under entry no.32 of the State List of the
Constitution of India.
3. Right to form cooperatives is a Fundamental Right under Article
19.
4. Statutory provisions: NCDC is the statutory organisation (under
Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare) functioning as an
apex financial and developmental institution exclusively devoted
to cooperative sector.
3. Limitations of cooperative sector
1. There is a complex hierarchy of bureaucratic power in regulating
cooperative sector. Ex: Registrar of cooperative societies. It has
gone against the very logic of the cooperative movement.
2. There is politicisation of cooperative leadership. The boards of a
majority of cooperative bodies are dominated by politicians.
Politicians introduces decay in the system.
3. Self-help has been envisaged as a basic tenet of cooperatives. But
governments have provided financial and other support to
cooperatives which increased dependency of cooperatives. A
cooperative endeavour should necessarily depend on its own
resources.Its growth and expansion should be evolutionary.
4. The vital link in cooperative finance system i.e. cooperative banks
itself remains very poor. They are too small to operate properly
and some of them are existing only on the paper. The NPAs are
also higher.
5. The other important missing value is the member centrality.
Cooperatives are meant to serve the member community unlike
outward looking organisations such as the corporates. The focus
of the activities of a cooperative organisation needs to be on its

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members.
6. Inability to ensure active membership, speedy exit of non-user
members, lack of member communication and awareness building
measures.
4. Cooperatives have immense potential to deliver goods and services in
areas where both the state and the private sector have failed. Agriculture
and its allied activities are areas which have benefitted due to greater
role of cooperative movements.

Prison reforms

1. In an acknowledgment that the more than a century-old system of

prisons in India needs repair, the Supreme Court (SC) has formed a
committee on prison reforms.

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IPCse

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Witness protection scheme

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Whistle blower protection

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Micro-finance
1. Micro-finance presented a good alternative in rural areas where there is
lack of access to formal banking channels. It helps in financial inclusion of
the rural areas.
2. Advantages
1. There is personal contact between lender and borrower. So, easier to access
finance.
2. Usually no collateral is required for getting loans.
3. Adequate repayment methods are provided thus reducing burden on poor
borrowers.
4. It helped the poor to set up micro-industries, invest in agriculture, or meet
emergency need.
5. It was successful in women empowerment as women comprises more than
half of borrowers. The micro finance when combined with the SHGs gave an
effective development model.
6. It increased savings rate in the country by increasing saving habits among
poor.
3. Limitations
1. The volatile combination of profit-seeking companies, minimal
competition, and ill-educated borrowers has opened up dangerous potential
for exploiting the poor.
2. Due to high demand, interest rates have gone up.
3. They are not available in very remote and sparsely populated areas.

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4. Another problem with MFIs and SHGs particularly in rural areas is capture
of finance by dominant castes.
5. There are lack of capacities to screen and evaluate the business proposals
for which lending is done.
6. Multiple lending, over-borrowing and ghost borrowers reduce efficiency of
MFIs.
4. MFI is a potent tool to reduce poverty and increase economic development
of the country. It needs to be better regulated for continued success.

River cleaning
1. River cleaning has been an important priority for last few decades. But
despite such focus, rivers are yet not cleaned up completely. A government
report states that half of the rivers are polluted. NGT lamented the fact that
although Rs. 7000 crore has been spent on cleaning Ganga in last two years
without any further improvements.
2. Pollution abatement works so far
1. Interception and diversion works to capture the raw sewage flowing into
the river through open drains and divert them for treatment. Sewage
Treatment Plants (STP) for treating the diverted sewage.
2. Low cost sanitation works to prevent open defecation on river banks.
3. Electric crematoria to conserve the use of wood and help in ensuring proper
cremation of bodies brought to the burning ghats.
4. River front development works such as improvement of bathing ghats etc.
5. Other measures like plantation, public awareness, etc.
3. Reasons of failure
1. Government has so far adopted only engineering centric approach to solve
the problem with undue emphasis on creation of sewage treatment plants. It
should also approach it as a social engineering problem through which people
living on or around the banks of the rivers are involved.
2. Minimum water flow has not been maintained due to encroachments upon
and diverted for construction and development activities.
3. Sufficient budgetary allocations have not been made.
4. A town approach was adopted instead of a holistic river basin approach
before constitution of the National Ganga River Basin authority.
5. Delays in completion of schemes due to lack of inter-agency coordination
at field level, delays in acquisition of land for STPs and pumping stations,
contractual problems, court cases, etc., leading to cost overruns.
6. Shortage of skilled manpower and regular staff and inadequate provision of
funds by the states and ULBs for sewage treatment infrastructure.

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7. Non-availability of power supply for operation of assets, under utilisation

of STPs due to non-conveyance of sewage generated in the absence of
upstream systems such as branch sewers and house connections.
8. Lack of involvement of civil society.
4. Measures by Govt to clean rivers
1. Ganga action plan and Yamuna action plan to clean Ganga and Yamuna.
2. Namami Gange project to overhaul river cleaning methods.
3. Under Swachh Bharat mission (SBM) a massive cleanliness drive at the
banks of various rivers is done.
4. Concern for sewage treatment and giving clearances to new sewage
treatment plants.
5. Measures for improved outcomes
1. Projects should be based on comprehensive approach. That is river basin
approach should be followed rather than town centric approach.
2. PPP models proposed in states for better implementation.
3. Project appraisal by reputed institutions. Water quality monitoring by
reputed institutions like IITs.
4. Empowered state river conservation authorities to increase the capacity of
the state governments to oversee the cleaning process.
5. Community mobilisation by taking help of NGOs.
6. Online data transmission, public access to Water Quality Management data,
and bio-indicators needs to be included. Research Advisory Committee set up
to encourage innovative technologies.
6. How Namami Gange is different
1. Focus: Earlier plans had a town centric approach which focused mostly
upon famous towns but Namami Ganga will look at the entire basin while
planning. Namami Gange also includes tributaries of Ganga which was
neglected by GA.
2. Urban sewage: Namami Gange wants to rope in corporates to create and
maintain STP. They are incentivised by guaranteed payments and they can
also sell treated water.
3. Rural sewage: Rural sewage was never a major focus because of which
almost all of it goes untreated. Namami Gange wants to adopt the Seechewal
model used in a Punjab village which developed community ownership.
4. Industrial effluents: Though there were regulations to industries to create
Common Effluent Treatment Plants, ensuring zero liquid discharge etc., they
were not enforced. It ensures time bound implementation of these or else
industries will be shut down.
5. Surface treatment: Trash skimmers are being imported to clean the

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surface.
6. Dead bodies: Ganga action plan had provisions for electric crematoriums
but Namami Ganga must see that it is implemented.

Inter-state river water disputes

1. India has about 20 major river basins running through the nation and
many of these traverse more than one state. This leads to conflicts
regarding the use and distribution of water posing a serious threat to
India’s federal polity such as Cauvery Water dispute, Mahanadi Water
dispute etc.
2. Constitutional provisions for River Water Dispute
1. Water is in the State List. It is Entry 17 of the list and hence, states
can legislate with respect to rivers.
2. Entry 56 of the Union List, however, gives the Central
government the power to regulate and develop inter-state rivers
and river valleys.
3. Article 262 also states that the Parliament may provide for the
adjudication of any dispute with respect to the use, distribution or
control of the waters of, or in, any inter-State river or river valley.
4. As per Article 262, the Parliament has enacted the following River
Board Act, 1956 and Inter-State Water Dispute Act, 1956.
3. Reasons for inter-state river water disputes
1. Limited water supply: With most of the rainfall concentrated in
few months, India experience a drought like situation in pre-
monsoon season giving rise to river disputes.
2. Inefficient water usage: Growing water intensive crops in dry
areas, reduced use of traditional water harvesting mechanisms,
free power and enhanced impetus on flood irrigation have created
deficiency of water in most areas.
3. Overlapping of subjects: Under Schedule VII, states have power
with respect to use of water, however, in case of inter-state rivers,
power lies with the Centre which seldom uses it, giving space for
conflicts between states.
4. Political opportunism: These disputes are a perfect rallying point
for political parties to secure votes and giving fuel to regionalism
as in case of Cauvery dispute.

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5.Lack of concrete dispute resolution: Under Article 262, Courts

have been denied the jurisdiction over river waters, and the
tribunals constituted for it have proved inefficient.
4. Why river water disputes linger
1. Extraordinary delays in constituting the tribunal: A lengthy
and time consuming process, where states are asked for mutual
negotiations first and then the establishment of Water Disputes
tribunal if negotiations fail. Ex: Godavari water dispute, Cauvery
Water Dispute.
2. Due to delay in constituting the tribunal, state governments
continued to invest resources in the construction and modification
of dams, thus strengthening their claims
3. Delay in reports and decisions given by the Tribunal. For instance,
Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal.
4. Lack of availability of the data also causes a delay due to the
survey and collection of data each time the dispute arises.
5. Appointment of the members of the Tribunal. The composition of
the tribunal is not multidisciplinary and it consists of persons only
from the judiciary.
6. Sub-judice Matters: Either States approach Supreme Court under
Article 136 (Special Leave Petition) or private persons approach
Supreme Court under Article 32 linking issue with the violation of
Article 21 (Right to Life).Ex: Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal,
Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.
7. Differences arose over compensation and rehabilitation due to the
construction of canal and power projects also causes the delay.
8. There has been politicisation of the dispute based on regional
feeling and for vote bank politics.Ex: Dispute between Tamilians
and Kannadigas for Cauvery river water.
5. Measures to address
1. Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017 which
has provision of Single Tribunal, timely resolution, data collection
and maintenance of a data bank needs to be implemented to
overcome lacunas of Inter State River Water Dispute Act, 1956.
2. Bringing water into concurrent list as recommended by Mihir shah
report where central water authority can be constituted to manage
rivers.

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3. There is a need for the basin states to reduce the demand for water
by adopting cropping patterns which require less water and drip
irrigation and other water-saving techniques.
4. Make rainwater harvesting mandatory, use of check dams to
increase ground water, creation of additional reservoir to store
overflows from a healthy monsoon year to drought year.
5. Since urbanisation has altered both quantity and quality of our
water resources, it is important that proper urban and water
planning are taken into consideration.
6. The parliament needs to exercise its powers under Entry 56 of
Union List effectively. According to National Water Policy, this
can be done by setting up of river boards.
7. It is not necessary to exclude Inter-State Water Disputes from the
original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under article 131 of the
Constitution and that such disputes should also be made to fall
within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, especially
in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision to adjudicate on
award given by Cauvery Tribunal.
8. Water disputes need to be depoliticized and not be made into
emotional issues linked with regional pride.
9. Inter-State Council (ISC), GST council etc. can play a useful role
in facilitating dialogue and discussion towards resolving conflicts.
10. One model to follow is France’s system of “water parliaments,”
which are responsible for managing the country’s rivers, and
which reserve a number of seats for non-governmental and
environmental organizations.
6. What are the problems in 1956 bill
1. Under the present Act, a separate Tribunal has to be established
for each dispute. There are eight inter-state water dispute
tribunals, but only three of the eight tribunals have actually given
awards accepted by the states.
2. There was no time limit for adjudication or publication of reports.
Tribunals like those on the Cauvery and Ravi Beas have been in
existence for over 26 years and 30 years respectively without any
award.
3. The Tribunal can only give an award but cannot enforce its
implementation. It has not been clothed with powers of

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punishment for contempt.

4. Many parties take the matter to supreme court on legal issues and
thus it drags the dispute process.
5. The issues relating to the water disputes involves special
technicalities but entrusting the adjudicatory power to the tribunal
leads to undermining the status of the federal government. This
may lead to creating of more obstacles rather finding a solution.
6. The provision under Article 262 seems to be insufficient. It would
have been better if a machinery had been written into the
constitution itself. Then it would not be left to the Parliament to
provide a machinery.
7. Provisions of the new bill
1. The bill proposes a single standing tribunal with multiple benches
instead of multiple tribunals that exist at present.
2. It proposes to introduce Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) to
resolve disputes amicably by negotiations before a dispute is
referred to the tribunal. mechanisms.
3. The total time period for adjudication of dispute has been fixed at
maximum of 4.5 years.
4. The decision of the Tribunal shall be final and binding with no
requirement of publication in the official gazette.
5. It limits the tenure of the chairperson to five years or till they
attain the age of 70, whichever is earlier.
6. It also provides for a transparent data collection system at the
national level for each river basin. It calls for the appointment of
assessors to provide technical support to the tribunal.
8. Advantages
1. Ready availability of relevant and updated data collected by the
proposed agency at all the times would expedite the adjudication
process.
2. Proposed amendment puts a time frame of three years for
permanent tribunal to give its verdict.
3. States in disputes have tendency to question data provided by the
other side which will be minimised by availability of data by
specialized agency.
4. A Disputes Redressal Committee comprising experts is also
proposed to be set up which is expected to solve most of the
disputes before they are referred to permanent tribunal.

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5. Awards given by the PT would be notified immediately unlike

earlier when Centre notified the awards causing delay in
implementation.
9. Problems withstanding
1. As the award given by tribunal can be challenged in SC it might
lead to extended litigation and delays.
2. The effectiveness of legal adjudication is defeated by the very
nature of disputes being nexus between water politics and
democratic politics.
3. Though DRC is a means of mediation, challenge is to design
proactive and innovative institutional practices and processes.
4. Just as they have done earlier, it is not clear about what will
happen if disputing parties don’t comply with the award given by
the tribunal.

Right to Information

1. RTI is master key to good governance. Right to Information Act 2005

mandates timely response to citizen requests for government
information by various Public Authorities. RTI not only empowers the
people but it promotes a culture of transparency in the Government.
While the Indian law is among the best five in terms of its provisions,
India is ranked number 66 on performance.
2. Need for RTI
1. To empower the citizens.
2. To promote transparency and accountability in the working of
Government.
3. Check corruption.
4. Make our democracy work for the people in real sense.
3. Shortcomings in RTI
1. There is huge pendency of cases. This is due to slow appointment
of PIOs and laxity played by public authorities is an issue. The
Central and State Information Commissions have been
functioning with less than their prescribed maximum strength of
eleven because governments have dragged their feet on appointing
commissioners.
2. Section 4 of the RTI Act requires suo motu disclosure of a lot of

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information by each public authority. However, such disclosures

have remained less than satisfactory.
3. The act did not give adequate authority to the Information
Commissions to enforce their decisions. Besides awarding
compensation to an applicant for any loss suffered, the
commissions can direct public authorities to take the steps
necessary to comply with the Act, but are helpless if such
directions are ignored. Penalties are rarely imposed and even that
is too minimal. Having no incentive on the officials to provide
information.
4. Large number of frivolous RTI applications are being filed
affecting efficiency of governance. Some use the Act to blackmail
people. This category largely targets illegal buildings, mining, or
some other activity that runs foul of the law.
5. Officials have misused provisions related to secrecy and national
security to deny information under RTI. Many times partial
information is provided to deliberately harass the information
seeker.
6. State governments such as Karnataka have come up with orders
reducing the word limit, making formats for question and in some
cases prohibited questions in regional languages.
7. Data in government departments is not kept properly, not
organised and this makes getting information difficult.
8. Political parties have still not replied to the CIC orders. More so,
they have not even initiated a legal response to the orders. This
shows utmost disregard.
4. Provisions in RTI to stop its misuse
1. Section 8 of the RTI act contains details regarding information
which is exempted from RTI’s purview. It generally contains
information, release of which could jeopardise national security,
communal harmony or foreign relations.
2. The armed forces and some other institutions mentioned in second
schedule of the constitution have been exempted from RTI
purview so to not hamper their working and also to safeguard
security concerns.
3. But if any question arises of corruption and human rights violation
there is enough safeguard in the act to call from information from
any institution.

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4. Misuse of section 6(3) of the act by which public officers divert

their responsibility to other departments is effectively checked by
the regulatory mechanism.
5. RTI impact
1. Several scandals such as 2G, CWG etc., have come up due to RTI.
2. NGOs and think tanks use this information to come up with
reports on Governments functioning, greatly influencing public
opinion.
3. Media has played a proactive role and more than the penalty their
pressure has forced officials to provide information.
4. In a case CIC held that political parties are public institutions as
they use public resources in the form of free air time on national
television and offices. On this ground CIC demanded their fund
collection details.
5. The answer keys of civil service examination and IIT-JEE are now
available on the websites of the UPSC and IIT-JEE respectively,
helping students to find out their scores even before the official
announcement.
6. Assets and wealth declarations of all public servants such as PM
and his entire council of ministers, civil servants are now in the
public domain.
6. Official secrets act vs RTI
1. Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923 was enacted during the colonial
era keeping in view of the national security and sovereignty of the
British empire. It made an act to obtain, collect, record or publish
a secret document being certified as confidential, secret, or top
secret as a criminal offence. However, it was so vast in its scope
that it is prone to misuse by the executive.
2. Queries under the RTI act often blocked citing secret clause.
Firstly, the problem of classification of information as the word
secret is nowhere defined in the act and Government has a wide
discretion to classify any information as secret.
3. 2nd ARC recommended that the Official Secrets Act, 1923 should
be repealed. But the government rejected the recommendation,
saying that the OSA is the only law to deal with cases of
espionage, wrongful possession and communication of sensitive
information detrimental to the security of the State.
4. The ARC also recommended that only such information should be

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given a security classification which would qualify for exemption

from disclosure under the RTI Act.
7. RTI amendments
1. Removal of fixed term: As per the act, the CIC and ICs will hold
office for a term of five years. The Amendment removes this
provision and states that the central government will notify the
term of officefor the CIC and the ICs.
2. Determination of Salary: As per the act, the salary of the CIC
and ICs will be equivalent to the salary paid to the CEC and
EC. The Amendment empowers the Central Government to
determine the salaries, allowances, and other terms and conditions
of service of the central and state CIC and ICs.
8. Rationale behind the amendments
1. Whereas the ECI is a constitutional body, but the CIC and SIC are
statutory bodies. So, equating their salaries and allowances and
other conditions of service is not correct.
2. As the CEC and EC are equal to a Judge of the Supreme Court in
terms of their salaries and allowances, therefore, the CIC, IC and
the State CIC becomes equivalent to a Judge of the Supreme
Court. The decisions of ICs are challenged in high courts,
therefore their status being equivalent to SC judges was causing
legal hindrances. Hence, their status and service conditions need
to be rationalised accordingly.
3. The purpose of the amendments proposed is to provide for
enabling provision under the RTI Act to frame rules regarding
salaries, allowances and conditions of service for CIC, IC and
SIC. Presently, there are no such provisions available under the
RTI Act 2005.
9. Arguments against the Amendments
1. Incorrect Rational given: The decisions of all authorities
including those of the President and prime minister are challenged
before high courts.
2. Dilutes the independence of CICs and ICs: As the Central
government may determine the term and salaries of CICs and
ICs. Uncertain term and salary changeable by executive
notification reduces CIC to an obedient subordinate.
3. Dilutes the status of CICs: CIC and CEC were kept at the same
footing, as according to the Supreme Court, RTI and Right to vote

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are equally important fundamental rights. However, the

amendments tend to change this scenario.
4. Encroaches upon the state jurisdiction: As the Central
government will prescribe the term, status and salary of SIC.
5. Lack of consultation: With the civil society and the state
Governments, which amounts to undemocratic imposition.
10. As per legal experts, rather than downgrading the status, the
Information Commission should be given a constitutional status.

MPLADS

1. MPLADS was introduced in 1993 with the objective to enable MPs to

suggest and get developmental works of locally felt needs executed
with emphasis on creation of durable assets. MPs are allotted Rs. 5
crore primarily to take up development projects.
2. The scheme seeks to build relationships between elected
representatives, stakeholders and ground level government institutions
and civil society. However, the scheme suffers from many inadequacies
and data suggest that it has been unable to achieve targets on many
fronts.
3. Challenges
1. The scheme costs the exchequer a staggering Rs 4,000 crore per
annum. Recent government data showed that only 5.4% of the
total fund has been utilised for the Financial Year 2014-15.
2. CAG of India found financial mismanagement of the scheme and
consequent inflated reporting of the amount spent. Insufficient
fund allocation leaves many of the works incomplete, though
often officially reported as complete, or completed by
compromising the quality of the asset.
3. Studies have also found that many MPs tended to select the same
district, not always for development reasons, and these districts
were not necessarily the least developed one. So, lopsided
development takes place.
4. The reports also found that some MPs have even created their own
assets with public money whereas the guidelines are strict on what
they can spend on.
5. The infrastructure created under the scheme generally caters to
short term populist agenda and thus is not in conformity with the

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objective of creating durable assets.

4. Reforms required
1. PRIs may be asked to provide a list of works to be recommended
to the MP annually. PRIs may be involved in execution as well as
in monitoring to a larger extent.
2. There is a need for greater coordination between the MPs of a
state to reduce duplication of efforts and to spread works all over
the district.
3. The government must allow social audits of the projects cleared
under the scheme as a means of keeping to keep an eye on MPs.
4. Mandatory inspection of schemes by state and centre level
officials must be adhered to.
5. Finally, the scheme should get subsumed in the district and state
plan after five years.
5. The scheme goes against the spirit of the 73rd and the 74th
Amendment, with MPs enjoying the privilege of an uninterrupted
yearly flow of funds to do the work which local bodies are better placed
to deliver. In light of these limitations and realities, the Second ARC
recommended abolition of scheme and empowering local bodies to
deliver civic services.

Higher education

1. No Indian university features in top 100 of QS world’s rankings shows

that Indian university education is stifled by various problems.
2. Parameters for world rankings
1. Teaching: It includes academic reputation and learning
environment of an institute.
2. Research: Volume of citations, research volume, etc.
3. International outlook: Number of overseas students and
international faculty ratio.
4. Infrastructure: Labs, lectures halls, other building and hostels.
3. Reasons for poor performance
1. Lack of corpus of research grants comparable to global standards
either form government or corporate sources. Unlike Europe or
America, India lacks voluminous research output from university
systems.

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2. Indian institutions are specialised in technology, management,

sciences or medicine. Ex: IITs in Engineering, IIMs in
management etc.
3. Lacunae in recruitment and retention of faculties from abroad.
4. The Indian Universities are younger as compared to the top
universities from the UK or USA.
4. NIRF
1. HRD ministry has launched national institutional ranking
framework (NIRF) for ranking educational institutions. This
framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the
country. Although the ranking frameworks are similar, the exact
methodologies are domain specific.
2. The framework follows an Indian approach which considers
parameters like diversity and inclusiveness apart from excellence
in teaching, learning and research.
5. The parameters for NIRF
1. Teaching: These lay emphasis on measuring numbers and quality
of faculty, library and lab resources and general facilities for
development of young persons.
2. Research: To measure the quantity and quality of research output
as seen through international databases, IPR generation and
interface with industry and fellow professionals.
3. Graduation outcomes: Measures the student graduation rate and
their success in finding appropriate placement in industry and
Government or taking up higher studies.
4. Inclusivity: Lays special emphasis on representation of women
and socially challenged persons in student and faculty
populations, and also on outreach activities of the institution.
6. Importance
1. It would enable parents, students, teachers, educational institutions
and other stakeholders to rank institutions on the basis of a set of
objective parameters and a transparent process.
2. To provide benchmarks to measure the productivity of Indian
universities and creating a sense of competition among them.
3. International rankings do not entirely suit Indian realities.
International ranking agencies does not consider inclusivity of our
institutions. It will also promote social inclusion in institutes.
4. The institutions which have been working in languages other than

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English and excelled relatively in the recent past will be greatly

benefited.
7. CBCS
1. The choice based credit system provides a cafeteria approach in
which the students can take courses of their choice, learn at their
own pace, undergo additional courses, and acquire more than the
required credits.
2. The new system proposes a common syllabus for all central
universities, a common entrance test, and faculty and credit
transfers.
8. Benefits of CBCS
1. CBCS is globally being used by all the top universities and Indian
institutes like IITs etc. This was quite successful in those
institutes.
2. Students can take the responsibility of their own education as they
can choose their courses as per their needs and aspirations. It also
facilitates transfer of credits earned in different departments,
universities or institutions of higher education in India and abroad.
3. CBCS brings uniform examination system throughout the country
and thus brings uniform standards in education.
4. Holistic education is encouraged as system has an inter-
disciplinary approach to learning.
9. Demerits of CBCS
1. CBCS does not recognise the radical differences between standard
in different colleges and universities. It aims at centralisation and
homogenisation, ignoring the specificities and uniqueness of each
university.
2. A common syllabus is neither desirable nor feasible as this will
diminish creativity and lower standards in order to conform to
common standards. Uniform structure of syllabi for all
universities hamper institute’s autonomy.
3. A uniform curriculum will ensure that research expertise of
institute’s teacher will be overlooked and system may lead to
uniform mediocrity.
4. It advocates transfer of faculty between universities. No where in
the world are transfers between institutions practised. There is no
academic logic here. Besides, transfers can be used to silence
dissent and independent voices.

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10. Recommendations on reforms in higher education sector

1. All universities must be teaching cum research universities.
Research bodies must connect with universities in their vicinity
and create teaching opportunities for their researchers.
2. Identifying and empowering 50 top universities in every possible
manner to seek global excellence as has been done by Russia.
3. There should be no discrimination between central and state
funded universities. All benefits extended to central universities
must also be extended by State Governments to the state
universities.
4. All private universities must submit to a national accreditation
system. They must be comprehensive universities covering the
arts and social and natural sciences too.
5. There must be tight regulation of private universities through
auditing of accounts, payment of minimum salaries to teachers,
certain percentage of seats reserved for meritorious students from
poor backgrounds, etc.
6. GIAN has been set up for our academics and students to learn best
practices from US based faculty.
11. Higher education financing agency (HEFA)
1. The Union Cabinet has approved the creation of the Higher
Education Financing Agency (HEFA) to give a major push for
creation of high quality infrastructure in premier educational
institutions. HEFA will be used to raise funds from the markets
for lending to educational institutions.
2. HEFA marks the beginning of a market linked education
financing structure in India and a departure from the traditional
grant based system of funding higher educational institutions.
3. The agency is expected to ease pressure on the government, which
currently is the sole funder of such institutions.
4. HEFA will instil accountability in higher educational institutions.
As the institutes need to pay back, a market force driven fee
structure is required.
5. It would provide the much needed funds to boost research oriented
infrastructure.
12. Need for new education policy
1. Globally average spending on education is 4.9% of GDP while in
the case of India it is just 3.6%.

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2. Dearth in the availability of good quality teachers.

3. Poor employability of graduates.
4. Political interference especially in the higher education.
5. Insufficient focus on teaching values and morality.
6. Despite having number of premier education institutes, none
features in the top 100 world universities.
13. Cons of NEP
1. Less emphasis is given on issues of social justice and democracy
and undue importance has been given to Knowledge Based
Economy and Society (KBES).
2. Lack of clarity regarding goals and objectives of this educational
policy. The priorities of this education policy is not clear, which
was not the case in previous education policies.
3. Implanting employable skills to students has been given immense
importance whereas the art of learning, reasoning and questioning
has been ignored.
4. The previous policies considered the art of questioning as an
important tool for the overall development of students.
14. Main recommendations of Subramaniam report
1. Total public spending on education must increase from current
3.6% to 6% of GDP with immediate effect.
2. Certification for government and private school teachers should be
made mandatory, with provision of renewal every 10 years based
on independent external testing. Teacher Entrance Tests (TET)
should be made compulsory for recruitment of all teachers.
3. School education for the age group of 4-5 years should be
declared as a right and should be followed by a programme of
implementation.
4. The NDP must be continued until class V when the child will be
11 years old.
5. The ambit of the Mid Day Meal scheme should be expanded to
cover students of secondary schools.
6. UGC Act must be allowed to lapse and a separate law should be
created for the management of higher education. UGC’s role and
responsibilities be reduced to disbursal of scholarships and
fellowships.
7. Top 200 foreign universities should be allowed to open campuses

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in India.
8. An Indian Education Service (IES) should be established as an all
India service under HRD ministry with officers being on
permanent settlement to the state governments.
15. Education must be practical, action oriented and geared towards social
welfare.

Budget 2019-20

RTE

1. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act,

2009 was enacted to implement provision under Article 21A.

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2. Main provisions
1. The Act provides for free and compulsory education to all
children of the age of six to fourteen years.
2. It specifies the duties and responsibilities of appropriate
governments, local authorities, parents, schools and teachers in
providing free and compulsory education.
3. It specifies the sharing of financial responsibilities between the
Central and State Governments.
4. It provides for maintaining specified pupil-teacher ratio,
development of a curriculum in consonance with the values
enshrined in the constitution.
5. It established National and State Commissions for Protection of
Child Rights, (NCPCR) which shall have the powers of a civil
court and provides for the establishment of a National Advisory
Council (NAC) to advise the respective governments on
implementation of the provisions of the Act in an effective
manner.
3.

4. Challenges in the RTE act

1. The act allows only children between the ages 6-14 to get the
privileges. It leaves out younger kids (0-6) and older one (14-18)
despite the fact that India has signed the U.N. charter which states
clearly that free education should be made compulsory to all

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children up to the age of 18 years.

2. Children with special needs (CWSN) left out of the RTE
bill. According to the 2014 National Survey of Out of School
Children Report, about 6 lakh (28%) special-needs children
between six and 13 years of age are out of school.
3. 25% Reservation of seats in unaided private schools is not being
enforced properly in many seats. The records of the 25% children
are not kept by the school.
4. No focus on Quality of learning; the RTE Act appears mostly
input oriented. The bill guarantees for the admission of the
children, but does not promise the quality of education.
5. Not Enough Trained Teachers.
6. School management commitee (SMCs) with 75% of its strength
from among parents or guardians of children are non-starters
because of lack of interest and time of parents. They also burden
poor parents.
7. The way the RTE Act is structured both the State and Central
governments are involved. This makes fixing accountability
difficult. Further, there are no prescribed penalties if the
government authorities fail in discharging their respective duties.
8. Minority Religious Schools are out of the purview of RTE. These
institutions only impart religious education and are mostly
attended by kids from the deprived sections – they are the ones
who need quality education the most.
5. Ways to strengthen the act
1. There is a need to create greater awareness at the community level
to implement various provisions of the RTE Act. When a
community is more aware of provisions, they will be able to claim
what is due to them.
2. Effective implementation of existing provisions of the RTE Act is
required and engagement of civil society may be further
strengthened to make it more effective.
3. Minimum pupil-teacher ratio should be maintained in each school
as per the provisions. This will be possible by recruiting more
qualified and trained teachers. Advocacy needs to be done by
which states should ensure all sanctioned posts of teachers are
filled up immediately to achieve targets.
4. Enough funds should be allocated to develop infrastructural

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facilities in schools. Minimum education spending of 6% need to

be ensured.
5. Though the RTE Act has a provision for including overage
children in its ambit, in reality this is not happening. Hence proper
groundwork needs to be initiated with the help of civil society to
meet targets.
6. RTE’s biggest drawback is its heavy focus on inputs while
effectively ignoring outputs. The RTE has a debilitating impact on
budget-private schools which catered to a large number of poor
students.
6. No detention policy (NDP)
1. The low standards of learning outcome have been a constant
feature of the ASER reports. In recent years, cities like Delhi,
Chandigarh and Nagpur have also witnessed a rise in number of
students failing in Class IX exams.
2. NDP was implemented with an idea to reduce the dropout rates,
especially of the vulnerable section.
7. Pros of NDP
1. The criticisms carry the assumption that students can only learn
under the threat of failure which is not always true.
2. Failure of children especially for children from low income
families implies dropping out. The no detention clause in the RTE
Act seeks to address that concern.
3. As per Geeta Bhukkal Committee, there is no research anywhere
in the world which establishes that repeating a year helps children
perform better.
4. Several researches have pointed out that repeating has adverse
academic and social effects on children.
5. Failures in implementation are being conflated with failure of
policy. The CCE has failed to take off in most schools, owing to
lack of basic capacity and awareness.
8. Criticism of NDP
1. NDP has been responsible for deterioration in learning standards.
As per the ASER report, in 2010, 53.7 percent of standard V
students in rural India could read standard II level text. By 2016,
this had fallen to 47.8 percent.
2. There being no risk of failing, students develop lackadaisical
attitude towards studying.

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3.It is said that this system does not distinguish between good
hardworking students and the others.
4. A survey in 2015 indicated that nearly 20% of all teachers had not
even heard of the CCE and where they had heard of evaluation
they did not receive adequate manuals or training.
5. Without adequate checks, assessments or measurements, teachers
were found to be slacking off. Overall, the no-detention policy has
caused a severe deterioration in learning outcomes.
9. Way forward
1. Attacking NDP for falling education standards conflates failure in
implementation with failure of policy. CCE has failed to take off
because of lack of awareness, capacity and overburdened
classrooms.
2. The poor learning outcomes of schools are caused by many factors
such as poor student teacher ratio, lack of training of teachers,
monitoring, availability of basic infrastructure, school and home
environment, etc. Government can’t implement only the no
detention in letter and spirit and not adhere to other parameters.
3. Bringing back the old pass-fail system without making proper
course correction in other areas will undermine the egalitarian
promise of the RTE.
4. At the same time, to give sufficient time to all the stakeholders to
understand the policy, the NDP should be implemented in a
phased manner so that all stakeholders understand what it entails
instead of interpreting it as zero assessment.
5. There can be many other coherent methods to increase the
enrolment rate and contract the drop-out rates. Scholarships, fiscal
incentives to the parent, awareness drives are some of the
plausible options that the state can choose.

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Health

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Government policy and intervention

1. POSHAN Abhiyaan.
2. The Global Nutrition Report 2017 calls for nutrition to be placed at the
heart of efforts to end poverty, fight disease, raise educational standards
and tackle climate change.
3. Expand the safety net through ICDS to cover all vulnerable groups
(children, adolescent girls, mothers, expectant women).
4. Fortify essential foods with appropriate nutrients (e.g., salt with iodine
and/or iron).
5. Weekly Iron & Folic Acid supplementation, 2015 and bi-annual
vitamin-A supplementation.
6. National Deworming Day, 2015.
7. Village health & nutrition days (at Anganwadi centers).
8. Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), under Ayushman
Bharat umbrella. Other element of Ayushman Bharat is Health and
Wellness Centres. The scheme guarantees eligible families are covered
for inpatient expenses of up to Rs 5 lakh per year.
9. There is a commitment in the National Health Policy (NHP), 2016 to
raise the percentage of GDP allocated to health from 1.2% today to
2.5% by 2022.

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Universal health coverage (UHC)

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1. Other Challenges in Ayushman Bharat

1. Funding allocated is just Rs. 2000 crore, which is grossly insuffici
ent.
2. Disease coverage is not comprehensive.
3. Over-invoicing challenges. Doctors following unnecessary
procedures. Conversion of an OPD patient into IPD in order to get
insurance benefit.
4. Price-capping. Either people will be under treated or private sector
will suffer losses.
5. Enrolment of fake beneficiaries and impersonation.
2. Shortcomings in RSBY
1. Inadequate: RSBY is unable to match the health expenditure
incurred on hospitalisation.
2. Corruption: There are concerns of systemic leakage of resources.
3. Narrow focus: A design drawback of the scheme is that it focuses
only on secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to address low
volume, high value financial transactions. It completely neglects
the out-patient care.
4. Poor targeting: Criteria for identification of beneficiaries (BPL)
is not sound has led to exclusion of desired people. Tribal blocks
which have the maximum number of poor BPL households have
the least enrolments and beneficiaries.
5. Slow processing of claims.
3. Need for Universal Health Coverage
1. Health is a human right, not a privilege. India is home to large
number of acute and chronic diseases that needs to be treated
soon. Universal health coverage leaves no one behind.
2. NSSO 2014 says that, in India, out of pocket health expenditure is
greater than 70%. No one should be pushed into poverty when

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they get sick.

3. More than 90% of the people are employed in unorganised
services who have no health care coverage and often have to bear
‘catastrophic health expenditure’.
4. Good health transforms societies. It allows India to reap the
human capital generated as an outcome greater proportion of (15-
60) age group.
5. Achieving UHC will accelerate efforts to end extreme poverty
and realize all the Sustainable Development Goals. Good health
and well being is SDG3.
4. Steps that can be taken by GOI
1. Increase budgetary allocation for public health sector to 2.5%
GDP to ensure medical infrastructure availability.
2. More stress on R&D to develop indigenous cheap medicines.
Increase the number of Jan Aaushadi stores to allow the people to
avail generic medicines at low cost.
3. Collaborating with other countries and other organisations
involved in healthcare sector in order to provide drugs at
affordable prices. Ex: CEPI, GAVI.
4. Widen the ambit of health insurance subsidy schemes to allow the
people to get benefits of insurance even in private hospitals.
5. Private medical institutions are seen flouting the norms and also
charge high fees. This makes them vulnerable to fall in the trap of
corruption. It should be made compulsory for private hospitals to
dedicate a part of their services to poor people as it was recently
done in Delhi.
6. Nine more AIIMS hospitals have been introduced in the country.
Increase in medical colleges to increase availability of doctors.
7. Community participation through social audits need to be there for
checking collusion between doctors and contractors who supply
faulty equipment.
8. India’s disease burden is not spread equally. 2/3rd of maternal,
infant and under-five mortality is concentrated in less than 200 of
the 670 districts. So, centre must decisively intervene with a
differentially funded strategy.
9. Tele-medicine can be a potent method to achieve health services
and expert assistance.
10. Delivering on swachh Bharat mission is critical for preventive

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health care in India. If it is done, there will be at least 20% less

infections, diseases and expenditure.
11. Licensing processes for hospitals, similar to the Certificate of need
process in the US, which can help a regionally equitable
distribution of hospitals by incentivising the setting up of facilities
in poorly served areas.
12. Bodies like the Medical Council of India (MCI) need to be
revamped to meet human resource challenges.
5. Challenges in UHC
1. Health spending in India has stagnated at 1.2% of the GDP. The
draft National Health Policy 2015 envisages a minimum of 2.5%
spending for adequate health services to be delivered.
2. There is a dearth of skilled doctors and nurses in the country. This
is a direct result of lack of quality medical education institutions.
According to Govt data, India has just one doctor for every 1,668
people. The WHO prescribes a doctor population ratio of 1:1000.
3. Private hospitals charge high prices for treatment. This lead to an
increase in out-of-pocket expenditure of public thereby pushing
many households into poverty.
4. There is no comprehensive program which provides for proper
targeting of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) which share a
major portion of disease burden in India.
5. MCI is plagued with corruption and as a decision making body
has turned out to be quite inefficient.
6. Nature of health spending in India
1. Less budgetary support for the prevention and control of non-
communicable diseases.
2. Focus on curative healthcare rather than preventive healthcare.
3. Inequality in health spending between states.
4. Less emphasis on infrastructure development in the health sector.
5. Out-of-pocket cost is around 70 percent, which is alarmingly high
when compared to other emerging nations.
6. Abysmal spending on health insurance.
7. National health policy 2017
1. NHP recognises the need for state intervention to control NCDs as
they are reason for more than 60% death in India. Thus policy
advocates pre-screening and sets the target to reduce premature

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mortality via NCDs by 25% by 2025.

2. It intends on enhancing public spending to 2.5 percent. It tries to
mobilise resources through enhanced taxation on alcohol and
tobacco, extractive industries, medical tourism and a special
health cess, etc. Also, CSR can be used.
3. The policy aims to regulate the private sector which provide over
2/3rd services today. It provides Tribunals for redressal of
grievances and sets up National health care standards organisation
(NHCSO) to lay down standards and protocol.
4. NHP seeks to invest in preventive health care. It establishes early
screening and diagnosis centres. The policy advocates allocating
2/3rd of resources to primary care and assures comprehensive
primary health care through the health and wellness centers.
5. It adopts a inter-sectoral approach involving various ministries
such as MoEf, MoHWS, MoA, MoUD, MoHRD, MoWCD etc.
6. It aims at ensuring universal access to drugs and diagnostics. It
aims at providing every family with a health card and establishes
public health management cadre in all states. It also aims to
provide at the district level most of the secondary care which are
currently provided at a medical college hospital.
7. Establishment of National Digital Health Authority (NDHA) to
regulate, develop and deploy digital health across the continuum
of care.
8. It highlights AYUSH as a tool for effective prevention and
therapy that is safe and cost effective. It proposes introducing
Yoga in more schools and offices to promote good health.
8. Lacunae in national health policy
1. It leaves too much to the states on maintaining standards. Whether
health should continue to be in the state list, or in the Concurrent
List is not answered in the policy.
2. It does not speak about social determinants of health.
3. It does not talk of public health education (which is outside MCI
mandate). It just talks about medical education, paramedical
education etc.
4. Various progressive measures under Draft NHP 2015 such as
Right to Health, increasing public spending by 2020 and imposing
health cess have been ignored. Developing countries like Brazil
and Thailand have made significant progress towards universal

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health coverage by making health as a fundamental right.

5. Among the most glaring lacunae in the present context is the lack
of capacity to use higher levels of public funding for health.
6. Thus, to achieve SDG on health, i.e., health and well-being to all
by 2030, there would be need for greater and stronger centre-state
coordination and commitment for effective implementation.
9. Challenges in imposing the ban on smokeless tobacco
1. Every year 10 lakh people die from the tobacco related diseases.
Easy access and affordability especially for adolescents.
2. Lack of awareness of the hazards from the use of SLT especially
among rural population as they believe SLT have medicinal
values.
3. Funds for tobacco control are focused on cigarette or smoking
forms of tobacco with minimum attention to smokeless tobacco.
4. While the final product is banned, its ingredients are not per se.
This is exploited by manufacturers supplying ingredients in
different packets and mix them and get final product.
5. No national ban on SLT there by leading to smuggling of SLTs
between states.
6. There is a ban on advertisement, the amended rules have allowed
for the use of the brand name or the logo of the tobacco products
for marketing non-tobacco products.
10. Measures taken by Government
1. Statutory warning on chewing tobacco were made mandatory
under the prevention of food adulteration act, 1955.
2. Govt prohibited advertisements of cigarettes and other tobacco
products under cable television act, 2000.
3. The railway authorities banned the sale of gutka on railway
premises and in trains.
4. The cigarettes and other tobacco products (prohibition of
advertisement and regulation of trade and commerce, product
supply and distribution) act (COTPA) in 2003.
5. The packaging and labelling rules were introduced.

Black Money

1. Global Financial Integrity report puts the cumulative illicit money

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moving out of India at Rs. 28 lakh crore in 10 years.

2. Consequences
1. Investments that must have been made in the country giving the
necessary boost to economy are invested elsewhere. Huge loss of
taxes amounting to billions.
2. Black money leads to further corruption by creating a vicious
cycle.
3. Since, RBI cannot control the black money cash flow in economy,
it dilutes its policies targeting inflation.
4. High prices of real estate especially in big cities are due to deep
pockets filled with black money.
5. Forward trading of goods by cash rich speculators cause
fluctuation in prices due to hoarding.
6. National security is threatened because black money is used to
finance criminal activities. Black money generated from drugs and
smuggling is being used to operate terror networks.
3. Govt measures
1. Legislative framework: Prevention of Money Laundering Act,
2002, Benami Transactions Prohibition Act, 1988, undisclosed
foreign income and assets bill 2015, Prevention of corruption act,
etc.
2. Executive actions: De-monetisation of large notes, Linking
Aadhar with PAN, Cap on electoral funding through cash upto
Rs.2000, Voluntary disclosure norms, promoting cashless
transactions, etc.
3. Tax reforms: Bringing GST, POEM (Place of effective
management) and GAAR.
4. Regulators: SEBI tightened norms for issuing p-notes.
5. Bilateral agreements: FATCA (Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act) with USA to track and recover tax evasion by
Indian companies with foreign account in US. Similarly revised
DTAA with Mauritius and Singapore, INTERPOL-STAR
Initiative.
4. Failures
1. The present government however, reneged on its promise to reveal
publicly the names of the people holding illegal money in foreign
banks once the list had been submitted to the Supreme Court. It
disclosed only two names.

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2. Postponement of the enforcement of GAAR to 2017, and more

spectacularly, on the issue of participatory notes, or P-notes.
5. SIT recommendations
1. Setting up special courts to deal with tax disputes. Speedy dispute
resolution is essential but fast track courts in India have been
mired with same issues as mainstream courts and become slow.
Need to address this issue first.
2. Redraft taxation related agreements with other nations. This is
essential because these provisions have been misused. The best
example being the Vodafone case.
3. Senior government officials shall file affidavits that they do not
possess illegal money abroad. There are allegation that
government officials are the most corrupt. This provision partially
addresses this.
4. Sharing of information between departments. Just like our security
intelligence, our economic intelligence is fragmented.
5. All cash above 10 lakhs in possession shall be made illegal. This
provision is draconian and impracticable. Though proposed in
good spirit, in Indian circumstances it cannot be implemented.
6. Elections are one of the biggest channel to utilise the black
money. Reforms to reduce money power in elections.

Section-69A

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1. Justification for the move

1. In consonance with constitutional provisions: The premise for
interception power are exactly the same as defined in Article 19
(2) of the Constitution.
2. Review mechanism: The entire process is also subject to a robust
review mechanism as in case of Telegraph Act. Every individual
case will continue to require prior approval of the Home Ministry
(MHA).
3. Right to privacy is not absolute.
4. Protecting security of nation: Many online nefarious activities of
anti-national and terrorist organisations actually require a
readiness on the online surveillance aspect.
5. To overcome practical challenge: Internet companies like US
based Google and WhatsApp express reservation if requests for
information in individuals’ cases, routed to them through the IT
ministry, come from agencies not notified through law or a
government rule.
2. Way forward
1. The notification again raises the larger debate between privacy
and Surveillance. India urgently needs a Privacy Act, which will
specifically address this debate with objective guidelines and all
measures within such a framework must pass the test of

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proportionality.

North East

1. By 2022-23, the region should also be developed for enhanced trade,

particularly for the export of products made in the NER to the ASEAN.
2. Cottage industry
1. Cottage industry is a small scale industry which is primarily run
by the family. Use of power and machines is limited. Agro-based
cottage industries use agricultural products as raw materials. Ex:
Food processing, gur making, handicrafts etc.
3. Prospects of NE in cottage industry
1. Agrarian economy: Agriculture and forestry is a major
occupation of people. Existence of many agro-based industries
due to limited industrialisation. Many agricultural practices and
agro-based industries exclusive to the region are getting lost.
Promotion of industry will preserve them.
2. Labour intensive: Region has sufficient supply of labour. It also
reduces pressure on land.
3. Low capital: As capital is scarce in this region, it is a feasible
option.
4. Quick return: Less time gap between capital investment and
production of goods. Thus, brings quick return to people who have
limited income alternatives.
5. Entrepreneurial skill: Skill development of people including
entrepreneurial skill will help in identifying new areas of
investment and help in economic development of the region.
6. Look East and Act East: Has made NE important and strategic.
Opportunity to enter huge market in South East Asian countries.
4. Problems
1. Credit facility: Institutional credit is still a problem in the region.
Problem of collateral for taking loans to invest in business.
2. Transportation facility: Increase in transportation cost, damage
of goods during transportation, wastage and distress sale
contributing to low economic return.
3. Extremism: It hampers business by disrupting the supply chain
linkages.

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4. Obsolete machinery: Limited and poor quality production and

high maintenance expenses. They are unable to compete with
products of large-scale industries. Continuation with age old
designs. Products are unable to meet modern demand.
5. Marketing facilities: Have to depend on middlemen for selling
their products. In many cases market for their products remains
untapped.
6. Scattered plantation: Most important challenge which affects
marketing of product. Results in distress sale of surplus product in
local market as it could not attract big buyers from outside.

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