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Secure e-payment portal in the offing
- Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will on Monday inaugurate a fully secure government e-payment system
- The Government e-Payment Gateway (GePG) will use digitally signed electronic advice (e-advice).
- Developed by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) the GePG is a portal which enables successful delivery of payment services from Pay & Accounts Offices (PAOs) for online payment into beneficiaries' accounts in a seamless manner under a secure environment.
- The GePG, according to an official release here, serves as middleware between ‘COMPACT' (computerised payment and accounts) application at PAOs and the core banking solution (CBS) of the agency banks/Reserve Bank of India, to facilitate paperless transaction, thus reducing the overall transaction cost and promoting green banking.
- The system will usher in transparency and expedite direct payments from Central paying units with respect to subsidies to users and consumers of fertiliser, kerosene and cooking gas
- Under the traditional system of government transactions, payments to employees and vendors are made through cheque, cash and demand draft or by Electronic Clearing Service (ECS) in a few Ministries.
Economic growth fails to reduce unemployment
- The emerging market economies, which tried to follow the footsteps of the market-led economies, are in a more vulnerable situation.
- Greed and fear lead the markets.
- Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London, the present agitations against the irresponsible capitalism, are the anger of the people who were suffering because of the greed of markets.
- We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of non-violence to maximise the safety of all participants
- India almost engulfed into the same market-led economic philosophy.
“India's integration into the global economy has been accompanied by impressive economic growth that has brought significant economic and social benefits to the country. - Nevertheless, disparities in income and human development are on the rise.
A large section of the population — especially the poor, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes, minorities and women — lack access to the resources and opportunities needed to reap the benefits of economic growth - The unemployment rate in India was last reported at 9.4 per cent in fiscal year 2009-10. From 1983 until 2000, the unemployment rate averaged 7.20 per cent reaching the historical high of 8.30 per cent in December 1983 and a record low of 5.99 per cent in December 1994.
- Meanwhile, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth in India increased to 7.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2011 over the previous quarter. Historically, from 2000 until 2011, India's average quarterly GDP growth was 7.45 per cent.
It reached a historical high of 11.80 per cent in December 2003 and a record low of 1.60 per cent in December 2002. - Based on the new official poverty lines, 42 per cent of people in rural areas and 26 per cent of people in urban areas lived below the poverty line in 2004-05.
- Resources generated from the recent growth are now being invested in a set of ambitious programmes to deliver services to the poor. These include programmes to provide elementary education, basic healthcare, health insurance, rural roads and rural connectivity, and other services to the poor.
- The World Bank has pointed out that with India's low taxation base — only some 15-16 per cent of GDP is collected as taxes in India compared to 25-40 per cent in developed countries
- This also means that the government is yet to tax the big corporates enough, who get lot of incentives from the government.
- Here comes the overshooting of government borrowing which would push the inflationary pressures. If the government is able to tap funds from the corporates either by increasing taxes or by asking them to purchase high interest government bonds, it will be able to tighten money supply in the system and reduce fiscal deficit.
- Financial inclusion will be possible only by implementing financial justice.
Industry Ministry for Sovereign Wealth Fund to finance infra
- The Industry Ministry on Friday pitched for setting up of Sovereign Wealth Fund for infrastructure financing, which requires an estimated Rs.45 lakh crore ($1 trillion) in the next five years.
- the government should use part of its foreign exchange reserves to set up the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) as had been done by countries such as China, Korea and Singapore.
- India has foreign exchange reserves of about $318 billion.
- Besides setting up SWF, the Ministry has made a case for development of the domestic bond market, the currency market and debt funds for financing infrastructure projects, seen as a major bottleneck in achieving double-digit economic growth.
CITU opposes new Manufacturing Policy
- The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has opposed the new National Manufacturing Policy approved by the Union Cabinet recently and termed it as an attempt by the government to give back door entry to the so-called labour reform of ‘hire and fire' being pressed by the business houses.
- It pointed out that the new policy would also be discriminatory against those industries which do not operate from these special zones.
