This refers to your edit, ‘The other half’ (April 22). We have not tapped the potential of our tourism sector. The clothes, language, food, climate and architecture of buildings and temples in every State is different. On the contrary, you have monotonous cities everywhere in the US and much of the developed world. We need to invest a lot more in our tourism infrastructure and protect our monuments and provide complete tourism solutions to visitors. We should have millions more visiting us every year.

More than half our country’s GDP is from the services sector which means that the people working in this sector are protected from the vagaries of globalisation. We have the talent; let us open up our services so that our talent gets recognition abroad. Auditing and law are a couple of sectors where we can provide our professionals the market to operate abroad, but we need to change our policies.

CR Arun

Email

Vigilance is the key

Our Navy and Coast Guard have proved they are second to none by intercepting a Pakistani boat loaded with narcotics. The capture of the boat comes on the heels of a Pakistani boat going up in fire after it was apparently blown up by its crew when the Coast Guard intercepted it in the Arabian Sea. However, it is unfortunate that a second Pakistani boat managed to give the slip. A sharp vigil along the maritime border with Pakistan is the need of the hour.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bengaluru

Shameful behaviour

It is startling that over 50 per cent of IAS and other central service officers have never cared to declare their assets. What is surprising is how the government has failed to take note of this. In the case of government employees, if the assets and liabilities statement is not submitted in February/March, the salary is not paid. The law should be more rigorous in the case of IAS and other officers. Instead, the law is lenient to them. The government should ensure that civil servants fall in line with the rules.

KV Seetharamaiah

Hassan, Karnataka

Hardly taxing

The I-T department introduced a form for returns and hastily withdrew it. Unless babus are made to live all over India they will not create forms and rules which make sense to everybody. Rather than asking people to fill in all bank accounts, the I-T department should collate bank accounts by PAN numbers (which data banks and the government have). The bank details connected with the PAN number should be filled in, in the form. The moment a taxpayer sees this data in his assessment order, he will close all accounts where he is operating black money. Similarly, by eliciting information from the immigration department’s computer files, details of foreign travel can also be put into the assessment order. This too will put a check on black money abroad by cutting trips to bank abroad.

There is talk of widening the tax base. But there’s little scope for this, given the profile of the population. It is generally accepted that India is the only country in the world where the top 1 per cent own 99 per cent of the wealth. So rather than trying to widen the tax base by harassing the poor, the department should go after the richest.Also, rules like exempting the rich from taxes on profit on shares which has robbed the government of over ₹1,00,000 crore in taxes over the years should be revisited.

George King BG

Email

New political phase

Rahul Gandhi seems to have found his feet. His speeches in Parliament appear to have caught the imagination of the public. By siding with farmers and internet users, he cultivates the image of a leader fighting for the right causes. Now people have begun to ask why they should believe that the Modi government is not “anti-farmer” when it is adamant on passing a law to acquire their lands without their consent and social impact assessment.

The battle-lines drawn within Parliament and outside on crucial issues marks the beginning of a new phase in the colourful kaleidoscope of Indian politics.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

Bank consolidation

With reference to ‘Prepare small banks for merger with large PSBs: finance ministry panel’ by K Ram Kumar (April 21), consolidation in the PSB space has been extensively debated for a long time now but without any concrete steps being initiated. For a sound, strong and vibrant banking system, the country will need to have fewer, stronger banks instead of a large number of smaller banks that have the potential to cause systemic risks. A beginning can be made by identifying large, medium, and small banks from amongst the PSBs existing now and merging the identified small banks with their bigger cousins in such a manner that the merged entity gains geographical reach to acquire a pan-India presence and enjoy a host of other accompanying benefits.

For instance, a north-based bank forming an alliance with a south- or east-based one will be more meaningful not warranting much rationalisation of branch network, thereby minimising complexities. In contrast to the past, the consolidation exercise now need not necessarily be construed as a distressed merger. A market-driven merger would create a win-win situation for all concerned. Smaller banks have limited resources and a low risk-bearing appetite and will find it increasingly difficult to operate in the emerging scenario with greater uncertainties. Further, in light of the government’s not so comfortable fiscal situation and considering a whopping additional capital requirements for PSBs in the next four years period until 2019 (estimated to be of the order of ₹4.50 lakh crore) both to meet regulatory compliance and also for funding future business expansion programmes, consolidation would be a better proposition. The sooner this is done, the better for the renewed stability of the financial system.

Srinivasan Umashankar

Nagpur

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send your letters by email to bleditor@thehindu.co.in or by post to ‘Letters to the Editor’, The Hindu Business Line, Kasturi Buildings, 859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600002.

comment COMMENT NOW