first Rurban mission in uttarakhand (in dhanolity)

मुख्यमंत्री श्री Trivendra Singh Rawat एवं राज्य मंत्री जल संसाधन, नदी विकास एवं गंगा संरक्षण मंत्रालय, भारत सरकार Dr. Satyapal Singh ने ऋषिकुल आॅडिटोरियम, #Haridwar में 918.94 करोड़ रूपये की 34 योजनाओं का शिलान्यास एवं लोकार्पण किया। जिसमें 906.11 करोड़ की योजनाओं का शिलान्यास एवं 12.83 करोड़ के लागत की योजनाओं का लोकार्पण शामिल है।

मुख्यमंत्री श्री त्रिवेन्द्र सिंह रावत ने कहा कि गंगा की निर्मलता एवं अविरलता के लिए प्रधानमंत्री श्री Narendra Modi ने जो भगीरथ प्रयास किये हैं, उनके इन प्रयासों को सार्थक करने के लिए सबका सहयोग जरूरी है। उन्होंने कहा कि हमें प्रयास करने होंगे कि हिमालय से निकलने वाले 26 हजार जल स्रोतों की निर्मलता बनी रहे। उन्होंने कहा औद्योगिक संस्थानों, गंगा के तट पर बसे गांवों के कूड़े-कचरे, कृषि में प्रयुक्त हो रहे केमिकल्स एवं कपड़ों के प्रयोग से #Ganga अधिक प्रदूषित हो रही है। मुख्यमंत्री श्री त्रिवेन्द्र ने कहा कि गोमुख से गंगा सागर तक गंगा के 2500 किमी के प्रवाह को अविरल एवं निर्मल बनाये रखने के लिए समाज के प्रत्येक वर्ग को आगे आना होगा और नमामि गंगे योजना को सफल बनाने में अपना महत्वपूर्ण योगदान देना होगा। उन्होंने कहा कि गंगा की स्वच्छता के लिए चिन्तन करने की जरूरत है, विचारधारा को परिवर्तित करने की जरूरत है। मुख्यमंत्री श्री त्रिवेन्द्र ने कहा कि गंगा की निर्मलता के लिए देश में #NamamiGange के तहत अनेक सेमिनार एवं संगोष्ठियां आयोजित की गई, जिसमें लोगों के अनेक सुझाव प्राप्त हुए। सुझावों में अस्थि विसर्जन कर गंगा में प्रवाहित करने के बजाय अस्थियों को किसी एक स्थान पर स्थापित कर उसके ऊपर वृक्ष लगाकर उसमें गंगा का जल प्रवाहित करने जैसे महत्वपूर्ण सुझाव भी मिले। जो पौधा अपने पूर्वजों के नाम से रोपा जायेगा उनमें पूर्वजों की छाया देख सकते हैं। उन्होंने कहा कि नमामि गंगे योजना शत प्रतिशत केन्द्र पोषित योजना है। यदि समाज का प्रत्येक व्यक्ति गंगा की स्वच्छता में अपना योगदान दे तो गंगा जल्द ही अपने पुराने अविरल एवं निर्मल स्वरूप में आ जायेगी।

राज्य मंत्री जल संसाधन, नदी विकास एवं गंगा संरक्षण मंत्रालय, भारत सरकार डाॅ० सत्यपाल सिंह ने कहा कि प्रधानमंत्री श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी ने शपथ लेते ही गंगा के संरक्षण एवं संवर्द्धन के लिए नवीन गंगा मंत्रालय की घोषणा की। उन्होंने कहा कि गंगा ने अनेक सभ्यताओं एवं संस्कृतियों को जन्म दिया। गंगा की स्वच्छता एवं निर्मलता बनाए रखने के लिए केन्द्र सरकार से धन की कभी कोई कमी नहीं होने दी जायेगी। गंगोत्री से गंगा सागर तक गंगा को पवित्र बनाने के लिए सबको संकल्प लेना होगा। डाॅ० सत्यपाल ने कहा कि गंगा की स्वच्छता के अभियान में सभी को जोड़ना जरूरी है। गंगा स्वच्छता अभियान के लिए एक-एक दिन, एक-एक घण्टा जरूरी है। उन्होंने कहा कि सम्पूर्ण देश में नमामि गंगे के लिए सबसे पहले #Uttarakhand को चुना गया है, जहां सर्वाधिक परियोजनाएं शुरू की गई हैं। उत्तराखण्ड की ये परियोजनाएं सम्पूर्ण भारत को बड़ा संदेश देगी। उन्होंने कहा कि नमामि गंगे के कार्यों की पेयजल मंत्री के स्तर पर प्रत्येक सप्ताह एवं अधिकारियों के स्तर पर प्रत्येक दिन की समीक्षा करना जरूरी है।

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,first Rurban mission in uttarakhand (in dhanolity)

धनोल्टी के 10 ग्राम पंचायतों के 13 गांवों के क्लस्टर का खासतौर पर विकास किया जायेगा। सभी गांवों में बुनियादी सुविधाओं के साथ थीम के आधार पर (गांव की विशेष पहचान) विकास किया जायेगा। पर्यटन के लिहाज से ये गांव माॅडल बनेंगे। मुख्य सचिव श्री Utpal Kumar Singh सचिवालय में नेशनल ररबन मिशन के बैठक की अध्यक्षता कर रहे थे। कहा कि क्लस्टर का विकास इस अनूठे ढंग से किया जाय कि पर्यटक आकर्षित हों। गांव के लोगों की आमदनी बढ़े।

बैठक में बताया गया कि इन गांवों में कौशल विकास, सड़क, सम्पर्क मार्ग, गैस कनेक्शन, साॅलिड वेस्ट मैनेजमेंट, स्वास्थ्य सुविधा, स्कूलों का अपग्रेडेशन, स्वच्छता, कृषि, प्रसंस्करण सहित अन्य बुनियादी सुविधाएं मुहैया कराई जायेंगी। एग्रो टूरिज्म के रूप में इन गांवों का विकास किया जायेगा। इसके लिए गांवों का डोर टू डोर सर्वेक्षण कर लिया गया है। योजना के अनुसार गांव के लोगों को हाॅस्पिटलिटी, योगा, पंचकर्मा की ट्रेनिंग दी जायेगी। स्थानीय संस्कृति, संगीत, व्यंजन, वेशभूषा के अनुरूप होम स्टे विकसित किया जायेगा। सभी गांवों में वाईफाई होगा। गांव वालों को डिजिटल लिटरेट किया जायेगा। गांवों की थीम संगीत, वाद्य यंत्र, एग्रो टूरिज्म, योग, एंडवेचर, आभूषण एवं कला, हिमालयी पक्षी, जड़ी-बूटी, मसाले, फल और फल पट्टी, फूल, पशु आदि पर होगी। बताया गया कि नेशनल ररबन मिशन के तहत भारत सरकार 90:10 के अनुपात में क्रिटिकल गैप फंडिंग करेगा। इसके लिए 66 करोड़ रूपये की योजना बनाई गई है।

UKPCS Pre exam मे कितने मार्क्स चाहिए SELECTION के लिए

UKPCS Pre exam मे कितने मार्क्स चाहिए SELECTION के लिए
BY SAMVEG IAS

https://youtu.be/qKAOlmaEc00

A new LIGO gravitational wave detector to be built in India by 2025

A new LIGO gravitational wave detector to be built in India by 2025
This will be the world's third LIGO detector.
A new gravitational wave detector to measure ripples in the fabric of space and time is set to be built in India by 2025, in collaboration with universities from across the globe.

The new Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector will add to the two already operational in the US. The LIGO detectors discovered the first gravitational waves produced by two giant merging blackholes last year. The research won a Nobel Prize in Physics this year.

The location for the new detector in India has been selected, and the acquisition has started, said Somak Raychaudhury, Director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune. However, the site has not been revealed yet.

“When the detector building is completed in 2025, IUCAA will run it,” Raychaudhury told PTI. The LIGO India partnership is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) through its Newton-Bhabha project on LIGO. The Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore and Institute for Plasma Research in Ahmedabad are in charge of building various parts of the system, said Raychaudhury. The mirrors and detectors required to build the system will be sent from the LIGO collaborators in the US.

A third LIGO detector will help pinpoint the origin of the gravitational waves that are detected in future. The existence of these waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory of relativity.

Massive accelerating objects - such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other - would disrupt space-time in such a way that ‘waves’ of distorted space would radiate from the source. These ripples travel at the speed of light through the universe, carrying with them information about their origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity itself.

An agreement was officially signed at the British Council offices in New Delhi between a consortium of universities in India, led by the IUCAA and a consortium of UK universities, led by the University of Glasgow. This collaborative programme will enable Indian scientists to work with UK institutes for extended periods of time, with reciprocal visits to the India labs to develop infrastructure and provide onsite training, essential to build the capability to deliver a LIGO-India detector.

“We need hundreds of young people who will not only be involved in building the detector, but also running it after 2025,” said Raychaudhury.

IndIGO, the Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations, is an initiative to set up advanced experimental facilities, for a multi-institutional Indian national project in gravitational-wave astronomy. The IndIGO Consortium includes Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and Delhi University, among others. Since 2009, the IndIGO Consortium has been involved in constructing the Indian road-map for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and a strategy towards Indian participation in realising the crucial gravitational-wave observatory in the Asia-Pacific region.

Reconsider the Rules: on 2017 Wetland Rules

Reconsider the Rules: on 2017 Wetland Rules
The 2017 Wetland Rules limit monitoring and omit important wetland types
Earlier this year, a judgment by the Uttarakhand High Court, stating that Ganga and Yamuna rivers are “living entities”, captured the national imagination. It is worth noting that wetlands, the other major water-based ecosystem apart from rivers, are at a moment of policy transition in the country. This year, a new legal framework for wetlands was passed, the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, replacing the earlier Rules of 2010. Also this year, the Supreme Court passed an order directing States to identify wetlands in the country within a stipulated timeframe.

Going forward
The 2017 Wetland Rules have been criticised for doing away with strong wetland monitoring systems and omitting important wetland types. At the same time, the Supreme Court order directs States to come forward and notify wetlands. What then could be the way forward?

The 2010 and 2017 Rules for wetlands both emphasise that the ecological character of wetlands ought to be maintained for their conservation. ‘Ecological character’ refers to processes and components which make the wetland a particular, and sometimes unique, ecosystem. For example, as lagoons like Chilika (Odisha) and Pulicat (Tamil Nadu/Andhra Pradesh) are characterised by a mix of saline and fresh water, the flows of each type need to be maintained; river flood plains contain wetlands that require conservation so they can re-fuel the river with fish and other aquatic life during flooding.

ALSO READ

Wetland rules: govt. has to respond fast

In the 2010 Rules, some related criteria were made explicit, such as natural beauty, ecological sensitivity, genetic diversity, historical value, etc. These have been omitted in the 2017 Rules. There are a few reasons why this is problematic. First, there is multiple interest around wetlands. Multiple interests also have governance needs, and this makes it absolutely necessary to identify and map these multiple uses. Leading on from this, and second, it is crucial to identify ecological criteria so that the wetlands’ character can be maintained. The key to wetland conservation is not just understanding regimes of multiple use — but conserving or managing the integrity of the wetland ecosystem. Finally, restriction of activities on wetlands will be done as per the principle of ‘wise use’, determined by the State wetland authority. Whether wise use will include maintaining ecological character remains to be seen. Under the new Rules, no authority to issue directions, which are binding in nature to desist from any activity detrimental to wetland conservation, has been prescribed to State wetland authorities.

Salt pans are an example how one use (of making salt) has trumped the other (of environmental balance). Salt pans as ‘wetlands’ have been omitted from the new Rules. They were identified as wetlands in the 2010 Rules, as they are often important sites of migratory birds and other forms of biodiversity. The omission in the 2017 Rules suggests that while saltpans do exist as wetlands, they do not require any conservation or ecological balance. The inference can also be that it would be acceptable to tip the environmental balance or integrity of such a wetland, which could lead to damage and pollution.

The case of Deepor Beel
The issue of wetlands being multiple-use areas — and subsequently being abused due to clashes of interest — found centre-stage this year with the observations of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the case of Deepor Beel.

Deepor Beel is a Ramsar site and a part of it is also wildlife sanctuary in Guwahati, Assam. (‘Ramsar Sites are designated because they meet the criteria for identifying wetlands of international importance.’) This wetland harbours a wide variety of biodiversity, and also suffers from intense man-made pressure — the city’s municipal waste is dumped close to the Beel. Large, meat-eating storks (Greater adjutant storks) are ironically found eating from the mountains of garbage at the site. Potential impacts of contamination or poisoning from the garbage are still unknown. This January, 26 storks died. The fact that Deepor Beel (Beel means water body) exists as a wetland does not prevent garbage dumping; this is a fate faced by many wetlands. The NGT’s observations on Deepor Beel are interesting and symptomatic of what is happening in several wetlands. In an inspection done by the judicial member of the Tribunal, it was noted that waste was being dumped “not beyond the site but within it,” and “demarcations are made by drying out areas or cutting off water sources”. These are classic ways of killing a wetland and turning it from a wet to a dry ecosystem; or from a lake to a garbage dump or cesspool. The Tribunal has now asked for the “traditional” spread of the wetland.

Given all the modern uses of wetlands, or the use of the wetland only for its land, looking at traditional cartography may be one way to understand catchments of wetlands. It may also be a way of restoring some modicum of ecological character, identity or ‘rights’ to wetlands, as the river judgment suggested. There are challenges ahead in identifying wetlands – multiple and competing use is just one of them. Understanding the historic spread and ecological character will be an important bulwark for the way forward. Setting clear governance systems would be the next. Without either, we are looking at a complete dilution of wetlands in the country.

india cannot take shortcuts to development

india cannot take shortcuts to development
The private sector cannot replace the state when it comes to human development, which boosts growth and prosperity
There are no shortcuts to development. Nevertheless, Indian policymakers may now be tempted to attempt two more, the first two having landed the economy in swamps from which further progress was difficult.

The first shortcut, along which policies began to move in the 1990s, was to shoot for GDP (gross domestic product) growth before making progress in human development through public health and primary education. The argument of GDP cheerleaders was that the state needs resources to invest in human development. Therefore, the growth of the economy must precede improvements in human development. Amartya Sen and other economists who pointed out that it must be the other way around, and indeed has been the other way around for the Asian miracle economies and China too, were dismissed as socialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-growth by those on the GDP bandwagon. Now, the hurdles for productivity of enterprises, and for GDP growth, owing to poor levels of education and skills in the country have become evident. Moreover, since the purpose of development must be to enable people to live longer and better lives, India’s lack of attention to public healthcare is anti-development.

The second shortcut emerged accidentally. The Y2K crisis at the turn of the century fuelled a surge in demand in the West for low-cost engineers who could write computer code. Indian information technology (IT) companies, with the large pool of engineers they could tap into in India, thanks to the Nehruvian thrust to build high-class engineering institutions in the country, and thanks to the English language, were the only ones able to respond. India’s IT sector grew remarkably. Many speculated that India had found a shortcut to development and growth, avoiding the traditional route via high-employment manufacturing that the Asian miracle economies had followed.

The need to create jobs, to prevent India’s demographic dividend from turning any further to a demographic disaster, signs of which are now unmistakable, has panicked the government into undertaking a rash of schemes to revive manufacturing and create jobs, especially at the bottom of the pyramid. Having missed the opportunity to create more jobs in manufacturing while China was becoming the factory of the world, lifting millions of poor Chinese into the middle class, India wants to catch up now. Make in India, Stand-Up India, Start-Up India, etc. hope to create more jobs and enterprises for India’s burgeoning youth population. The problem is that the rapid advance of automation is expected to reduce jobs in manufacturing and even services.

The threat of job losses to automation is tempting Indian policy-makers into the third shortcut, to prepare for ‘Industry 4.0’. Consultants in the ‘future of work’ and manufacturers of robots and automation equipment are busy organizing seminars in India and advising India’s policymakers on how to prepare for a future of automated work. However, the World Bank’s recent report, Trouble In The Making? The Future Of Manufacturing-Led Development, estimates that up to only 8% of present jobs will be eliminated by automation in the next few years. The problem of jobless growth that India is suffering from now is in the present configuration of the economy, caused by shortcuts India has tried to take in the past. It has little to do with Industry 4.0, which is yet to spread.

Economies industrialize and grow when enterprises in the economy, and people within them, learn to do what they could not do before, thus advancing up an escalator of capabilities. Escalators that can lift large numbers of people out of poverty must reach down to the present levels of knowledge and skills of people, and to the present levels of competencies of potential entrepreneurs, and from there lift them. Most Industry 4.0 solutions that consultants are proposing are based on the situations of countries, the majorities of whose populations are on higher rungs of the development escalator. What is missing in India are steps at the lower rungs of the escalator. We must build these quickly to enable people to earn more income in enterprises and jobs that may not yet have taken the shape of the jobs of the future that Industry 4.0 consultants are forecasting. In enterprises at these lower rungs, people can also learn the soft skills of interacting with others, in addition to technical task skills, that employers say people need to become fully productive.

The fourth, big shortcut that some economists and industrialists suggest India take is to cut the government out of the picture and leave growth to private enterprises. They say the Indian economy only grows at night when the government is asleep. They offer the example of the Indian software industry, which they say grew only because the government stayed out of its way. They conveniently brush aside the huge role that public investment in institutes of technology played in providing the industry with a huge pool of well-trained and low-cost workers that it could use in wage-arbitrage strategies from which it benefited enormously. Moreover, the government made a huge contribution with the tax concessions that the industry was given, and continues to enjoy. These concessions have deprived the state of resources to invest in human development, the tardy progress in which is now hurting all industries, including those that have so far enjoyed low taxes.

There can be no shortcut to improving the capacity of the state for building the steps at the bottom of the capabilities escalator. Nowhere in the world is primary education and public health privatized. Small enterprises must grow in both rural and urban India to support the large factories that will themselves become more automated and employ less people. Moreover, such small enterprises will provide the steps needed for people to earn and learn. India’s hundreds of millions aspiring citizens need world-class governance, not world-class tertiary hospitals and world-class automated factories.

For a wider food basket

For a wider food basket
While undernutrition remains high in India, over-nutrition too is becoming an emergency
In the last few decades, with strides in technology, irrigation practices, and extension services, and with progressive agricultural policies, India has seen improvement in food and nutrition security. Agriculture, food grain production, and agricutlural export have grown. This is good news.

However, despite hunger (as measured by undernutrition) decreasing, the level of undernutrition remains unacceptably high in the country. India ranks 114th out of 132 countries in stunting among children aged less than five and 120th out of 130 countries in under-5 wasting, as per the Global Nutrition Report, 2016. The burden of vitamin and mineral deficiencies (‘hidden hunger’) is also considerable.

This is because a vast majority of Indians eat cereal-based food, mainly wheat and rice. There is an insufficient intake of food such as milk, pulses, and fruits and vegetables, which are rich sources of micronutrients. Women and children are the most vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies. This has adverse affects on their health. Deficiency of iron in women not only reduces physical work capacity and causes fatigue, but could lead to depression and post-partum maternal haemorrhage. In children, it impairs growth and cognitive development.

What is ironic is that over-nutrition is emerging as an emergency in India. As per the recent findings of the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16), the Body Mass Index (BMI) of 15.5% of urban women was found to be less than 18.5 kg/m2, whereas 31.3% of urban women were in the category of overweight or obese (BMI of or more than 25.0 kg/m2). Around 15% of urban men were underweight, while 26.3% belonged to the category of overweight and obese. Dramatic changes in lifestyle and dietary patterns in recent decades have contributed to an increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases. If this double burden of undernutrition and growing percentage of obesity and associated non-communicable diseases is not controlled, it can have serious implications for the economy.

How has this happened? While the Green Revolution phase saw new, fast-growing varieties of staples, especially wheat and rice, the following decades saw a steady decline in the food basket diversity, especially of traditional grains such as bajra and millet, which have high nutritional value. The 1990s, though, saw a focus on the role of micronutrients. Deficiencies of micronutrients such as zinc, folic acid, magnesium, selenium and vitamin D started receiving more attention.

The Sustainable Development Goal-2, which aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”, is a priority area for India. To ensure food and nutrition security, there is a growing need for a multisectoral approach. The policies and programmes of various ministries should be converged for better results. This will not only transform India’s agricultural practices, but also spread awareness about nutritious food among key target groups, including tribals, women and children.

GST, a work in progress

GST, a work in progress
We need to immediately move towards three tax slabs, and eventually two
The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) raised much hope that it would herald the emergence of a ‘good and simple tax’ with ‘one nation, one market, one tax’. However, there has been considerable concern with the new tax, both in its structure and operational details, including the ease of paying the tax and filing returns. Trade and industry have been grappling with the problem of payment, filing the returns and claiming input tax credit, and exporters have been facing liquidity crises as the zero-rating of the tax has not worked and refunds have not been forthcoming, with difficulty in filing returns. Of course, the GST Council has been quite responsive to tweak the structure and operational details to make it simpler. Yet, considerable work needs to be done to ensure a smooth transition and to reap the revenue and productivity gains to the economy.

History of GST
Introduction of the GST is an important reform and is a standard policy recommendation for every country going in for the structural adjustment programme of the International Monetary Fund. This has been a major money spinner and a source of productivity gain. According to Michael Keen, of over 165 countries which have adopted GST in one form or another, only five have repealed it (Belize, Ghana, Grenada, Malta and Vietnam), but have reintroduced the tax later. The GST has taken centre-stage in many countries and is considered important in view of the competitive reduction in corporation tax rates due to high mobility of capital. It is also true that there is no “one-size fits all” GST and each country has to adopt the structure depending on political bargains and operational feasibility. It is a major reform, and even as every country makes a lot of preparations before it is introduced, it takes time to smoothen the rough edges and settle contentious issues.

ALSO READ

All you need to know about GST

International experience shows that some features of the reform are inherently desirable. It is important not to have too low thresholds. In fact, reasonably high thresholds will reduce the compliance burden to a large number of small businesses without much impact on revenue. Richard Bird and Pierre-Pascal Gendron, after a detailed examination of a number of countries adopting GST, suggest that in developing countries, a threshold closer to $100,000 would eliminate 75% of the taxpayers with a revenue loss of less than 4%. (See Bird and Gendron, The VAT in Developing and Transitional Countries, Cambridge University Press, 2007). Another desirable feature of a successful GST is to have fewer rates. Multiple rates create classification problems, are harder to administer and would require the general rate of tax to be higher. It would also invite a lot of lobbying by special interest groups. Third, it is important to prepare well before the plunge. Most countries take at least two years to prepare for the introduction of reform to ensure a smooth transition. This is particularly necessary for developing and testing the technology platform, educating the tax collectors and tax payers and to avoid any anomalies in the structure of the tax.

The Indian version
In the Indian context, given that the reform had to be evolved by taking into account the views of 29 States, two Union Territories with legislatures and the Union government, compromises are inevitable and it is impossible to expect the structure of the tax to be ideal. As stated by Bird and Gendron, some bad initial features may be an essential compromise to get the tax accepted in the first place.

It would have been preferable to evolve the structure with two rates, one lower on items of common consumption and another general rate on consumer durables and luxuries. Notably, given that the VAT in the earlier regime had predominantly two rates, it should have been possible to convince the States of the need to fix the GST rates at two rather than four. In addition, the levy of three rates of cesses has further complicated the structure. Having four tax rates and three rates of cesses should have been avoided. As mentioned above, multiple rates create problems of classification, inverted duty structure and large-scale lobbying. It enormously complicates the technology platform to ensure input tax credit mechanism. It therefore appears desirable to move immediately towards three slabs with the final goal of reducing the slabs to two. It would also have been desirable for the “fitment committee” to evolve the rates by thinking afresh instead to merely adding up the excise and VAT rates to fit the item to the nearest rate decided. This is particularly relevant in the case of commodities which are predominantly inputs as in the earlier VAT regime they were placed in the lower rate category. Hopefully, the GST Council will act soon on this.

Raising the threshold
As mentioned above, expert opinion based on international experience shows that there is much to be gained by having the threshold at reasonably high levels. As mentioned above, international experience is that a threshold closer to $100,000 would eliminate 75% of the taxpayers and the sacrifice in terms of revenue would be less than 4%. Moreover, it is the small businesses which produce and trade in commodities and services which are predominantly consumed by low income groups and therefore, keeping the threshold high would be desirable from the viewpoint of equity as well. Considering this, going further, it may be desirable to fix the threshold at ₹50 lakh. The revenue loss will be minimal but ease of doing business will be high. The inclusion of petroleum products in the GST base will depend on mainly the revenue gains from the reform. Nevertheless, it is a desirable objective and the GST Council must act on it. International experience shows that including real estate may not be easy.

Steps ahead
There is some concern that the revenues from GST in the past few months are somewhat below expectations. Things could improve as the new changes bring in stability and technology platform stabilises. Hopefully the implementation of GST may help in augmenting income tax as well.

Strong political commitment, to implementing the reform, thorough advance preparation, adequate investment in tax administration and taxpayer services, extensive public education programme, support from business community and good timing of reform are the important pre-requisites for successful implementation of the GST. It is also important to note that problems of transition to a major tax reform are unavoidable and most countries go through this. In this regard, the approach of the GST Council must be commended for being receptive to the concerns of businesses and in dealing with the glitches in technology. Some of the noise heard is also due to the fact that all traders, in one way or the other, are brought into the formal sector. That hurts some. The GST Council has recognised that it needs to carefully calibrate the reform until the desired goal of a Good and Simple Tax is realised. Hopefully the GST Council will keep the goals clear and consider the reform effort as a work in progress.