PRADHAN MANTRI AAWAS YOJNA (PMAY)

PMAY Earlier known as “Housing for all”. It aimed at

providing housing to 20 million people. 00-01-02 is now 00-03-06 While families with an annual income of Rs.3

lakh can avail of economically weaker section (EWS) housing as compared with Rs.1 lakh earlier, the ceiling for low-income group (LIG) housing has been raised to Rs.3-6 lakh from Rs.1-2 lakh.

OBJECTIVE (i) Rehabilitation of slum dwellers with

participation of private developers using land as a resource;

(ii) promotion of affordable housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy;

(iii) affordable housing in partnership with public and private sectors;

(iv) subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction.

It will cover 4,041 statutory towns—places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee.

Initially focus on 500 class I cities (those with a population of more than 100,000).

Land as a resource: A win win situation for allTightly crowded dwellings, with

minimal access pathways and No common recreation space

If the space is not left, It would create more density and more families are worse off.

Weaker Section Subsidy: For loans up to Rs 6 lakh, PMAY offers a subsidy of 6.5% in the interest rate for a tenure of 15 years.

Why Subsidize from govt coffers? Use Cross Subsidy. The same locality can be priced differently.

Govt should spend more on transportation or peri urban areas.

Affordable Housing in Partnership: a subsidy of Rs 1.5 lakh per EWS house

35% of the houses must be of EWS category

Beneficiary-led Individual House Construction: It applies to individual houses,

Beneficiaries must first be part of their city’s Housing for All Plan of Action

Entitle only for owner with titles.

PMAY proposes to set up a technology sub-mission to look into technologies and materials for faster and better quality construction.

The focus on innovative technologies, green buildings and use of earthquake-resistant technologies.

NEED FOROpening up new peri-urban areas

to connect them by high-speed transit to the rest of the city.

New Low Cost Rental Housing Policy where tax benefits can be provided to low cost housing developers.

Need to revise the Floor Space Index on rational basis.

HYDROCARBONS EXPLORATION LICENSING POLICY (HELP)By: Harveer Singh

EARLIER New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP)

introduced in 1997-98. Aim was to provide an equal platform to

both Public and Private sector companies

Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) as a nodal agency for its implementation.

It had various rounds under which various blocks were auctioned off on the basis of Profit sharing model.

NELP LED TO

Administrative inconvenience

Gold Plating of the CostDisputesLow Production and Exploration

GOI Approved the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) in March 2016.

Four main facets of this policy are: Uniform license for exploration and production of

all forms of hydrocarbon, Open acreage policy, Easy to administer revenue sharing model and Marketing and pricing freedom for the crude oil

and natural gas produced.

POLICY HASRevenue Sharing MechanismThe uniform licence: explore

conventional as well as unconventional oil and gas resources including CBM, shale gas/oil, tight gas and gas hydrates under a single license. 

Open Acreage Policy 

POSSIBLE BENEFITSbring substantial investment Easy and TransparentEasy to AdministerWould lead to more exploration

lower royalty ratesroyalty rates decreases from shallow

water to deepwater and ultra-deep water.

cess and import duty will not be applicable

WTO NAIROBI

THE DOHA MANDATES Agriculture, Market access for industrial goods (called

“non-agricultural market access” or NAMA), Services, Rules in areas of anti-dumping, subsidies and

countervailing measures, regional trade agreements, environment, developmental issues,

Special incentives for the poorest countries. Outcomes in all these areas are premised on

a single undertaking implying that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

SINGAPORE “NEW” ISSUES (Investment, competition policy, government

procurement and trade facilitation). Trade Facilitation was dropped from the Doha

agenda at the fifth ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003.

Same trade facilitation was later put back on the agenda in July 2004 on the promise that the developing countries will be provided enhanced special and differential treatment flexibilities and would have to make less-than-full reciprocity commitments.

TFA became primus inter pares. (TFA) was concluded at the WTO’s ninth ministerial

conference in Bali, Indonesia (2013).

the Bali ministerial declaration mandated members to negotiate binding decisions on not only the nine best-endeavour outcomes but the remaining issues, including trade distorting domestic subsidies in agriculture, by the 10th ministerial conference.

NAIROBI MINISTERIAL DECLARATION (10TH MINISTERIAL) special safeguard mechanism (SSM) for

developing country members (for protection against sudden imports),

public stockholding programmes for food security, and export competition, and cotton in agriculture; preferential

rules of origin for least-developed countries (LDCs) and implementation of preferential treatment in favour of services

LDCparticipation in services trade.

THREE DECISIONS UNDER THE REGULAR WORK OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL

Work program on small economies,”

TRIPS [trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights] and situation complaints

Work program on electronic commerce.

CHALLENGES FOR WTO The organisation back into the

hegemonic grip of the trans-Atlantic powers

Significant issue in agriculture and Services not addressed.

Need to work on inclusionary issues: Agriculture, LDC, Market Access, Permanent solution on Food Stockholding etc.

World trade growth is sub 3% in last 5 years.

Balancing the worrying Rise of Protectionism and Overcapacity of some countries (China Steel Dumping).

Need to work on NEW Issues: Clean Energy and Green Life related Technology.

Trade Facilitation agreement in Services.

YUAN AS ELITE CURRENCY

SDR IMF’s elite reserve currency basket

that is Special Drawing Rights (SDR) includesUS Dollar Euro Japanese Yen British Pound

SDR is a part of Forex of countries to diversify the risk associated with one currency.

Yuan also known as the Chinese Renminbi (RMB).

IMF’ s executive board after a 5 yearly review concluded the high importance of Renmimbi in the global trading and financial systems.

It fits the Export Criterion and Freely Usable Currency Criteria.

IMPLICATIONS The inclusion of the RMB will enhance the

attractiveness of the SDR by diversifying the basket and making it more representative of the world’ s major currencies.

Big political victory for China as Yuan’ s desirability as a reserve currency for investors will increase.

It will also undermine the hegemony of the dollar as a global reserve currency .

Integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system.

ROAD RATIONING

Air pollution claims at least 10,000-30,000 lives a year in Delhi.

Air pollution is one of the top 10 killers in the world and the fifth leading cause of death in India.

2007 by Lucas Davis of the University of Michigan concluded: “Across pollutants and specifications there is no evidence that the program has improved air quality. The policy has caused a relative increase in air pollution during weekends and weekday hours when the restrictions are not in place, but there is no evidence of an absolute improvement in air quality during any period of the week for any pollutant.”

MEXICOCity residents began to buy extra cars with convenient number plates, mostly Old.

Shift from Cars to Taxis, not to Metros.

After 2 months of application, Petrol Sales went Up

THINK ABOUT Parking v/s Traffic Interstate Vehicle Transport/ Registration of

Cars elsewhere the frequency and network of Public

Transport pedestrian infrastructure Sideways, Crossings, Lighting , Safety etc

OXFAM REPORT

RIFTS OF THE WORLDInformed public and mass populations ( Edelman’s Trust Barometer)

Developing and Developed countries.

Poors and the RichShia and Sunni in Arab

62 people own same wealth as bottom half of the world.

Richest 1% own more than what other 99% own.

The Wealth of the richest 62 people risen by 44% in last five years since 2010.Means an increase if half a trillion

dollar

Wealth of bottom half fell by around Tn Dollars.

Average annual income of the poorest 10% had risen by just $3 each year for last 25 years of prosperity.

THE WEALTHY FEWYear No. of people

whose wealth is = bottom half

2010 3882011 1772012 1592013 922014 802015 62

WHAT LEADERS MUST DOPay workers living wage and close the gap with executive rewards.

Promote Women’s Economic Equality and Women rights

The system of Medicine pricing should be changed

Use Progressive public spending.

Develop a global approach to end the era of tax havens.

$7.6 Tn of Individual wealth is held offshore. (Global Spider Web of Tax protection)

SHYAMA PRASAD MUKHERJI RURBAN MISSION

Mission Aims at development of rural growth clusters which have latent potential for growth

to drive economic, social and infrastructure development in rural areas.

The clusters will be geographically contiguous Gram Panchayats with a population of about 25000 to 50000 in plain and coastal areas and a population of 5000 to 15000 in desert, hilly or tribal areas.

These clusters would be developed by provisioning of economic activities, developing skills & local entrepreneurship and providing infrastructure amenities, i.e. a cluster of Smart Villages.

The mission aims to create 300 such Rurban growth clusters by 2019-20, across the country.

The government allocated 5142.08 crores for this mission.

the demography, economy, tourism and pilgrimage significance and transportation corridor impact would be considered .

The funding for Rurban Clusters will be through various schemes of the Government converged into the cluster. The SPMRM will provide an additional funding support of upto 30 percent of the project cost per cluster as Critical Gap Funding (CGF) as Central Share to enable development of such Rurban clusters.

14 COMPONENTS Skill development training linked to economic

activities, Agro Processing/Agri Services/Storage and Warehousing, Digital Literacy, Sanitation, Provision of piped water supply, Solid and liquid waste management, Village streets and drains, Street lights, Fully equipped mobile health unit, Upgrading school /higher education facilities, Inter-village road connectivity, Citizen Service Centres- for electronic delivery of citizen centric services/e-gram connectivity, Public transport., LPG gas connections.