Your editorial, ‘Leveraging land’ (June 28) rightly points out that pooling of excess land owned by PSUs is a good idea provided it is for a just cause, and not for merely raising government revenues. If it is used as a tool to generate revenue the Government would be stripped of its valuable property in no time. The Government should try to solve the problem of acute shortage of houses in urban and semi-urban areas by constructing housing units and leasing them out to persons in organised sectors. This would solve the urban housing problem and put a check on high rents.
K Ashok Kumar
PSUs are established in places earmarked as industrial areas. Developing an array of economic zones and housing projects in and around these industrial areas can revitalise infrastructure growth. Moreover, the revenue generated from auctioning can be utilised for the re-capitalisation of ailing PSUs. However, the independent functioning of PSUs must not be curtailed.
Gaurav Singhal
Rewari, Haryana
Whether it is about helping PSU companies or generating revenue to supplement disinvestment, what’s critical is valuation. Considering that the real estate market is in bad shape, the Government should not force PSUs to sell land unless it is absolutely necessary. The process needs to be totally transparent to fetch the maximum revenue.
Bal Govind
Noida, Uttar Pradesh
With reference to ‘Monsoon and the idea of India’ by Sunil Tambe (June 28), there is no mention of residuary Andhra Pradesh and its two rainfall regions Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra. The western parts of Rayalaseema fall under the hockey stick region of India, while southern coastal Andhra falls under the north-east (retreating) monsoon belt. Also, there is no word on Karnataka where too there is great monsoonal diversity in coastal Karnataka, Bayaluseeme region, Malenadu region, and old Mysuru region.
K Venkatesh
Hyderabad
Improve MGNREGS
This is with reference to the report, ‘Some States not updating rural job scheme data’ (June 28). The huge allocations for MGNREGS (₹36,000 crore in 2016-17) should come with strict accountability, given its potential to successfully mitigate drought. The chief objective of the mission should be the creation of productive village assets such as water harvesting, watershed development, irrigation facilities, afforestation, protection of catchment areas and boosting of dryland agriculture. This will ensure ecological restoration apart from food security and fodder availabilityso crucial to precluding droughts .
The scheme suffers from shortcomings such as tardy payment of wages, lack of decentralisation and myopic focus on employment generation data; these are aspects that must be eliminated. Besides, another serious drawback is that MGNREGS draws agricultural labour away from farm activities such as weeding, ploughing and harvesting, which a small farmer cannot do by himself. This is pushing up the labour costs for the latter. Hence these activities too must be included and subsidised under the scheme.
CV Krishna Manoj
Hyderabad
Clarification
With reference to the news item ‘Financial Commissioner of Railways resigns — Differences with top honchos may have triggered move, say officials’ (June 27), the Financial Commissioner has issued the following statement to clarify the position: “I have submitted a formal notice of voluntary retirement from Railway service w.e.f. 1st September, 2016, due to unavoidable family commitments. I find that some reports are appearing in the print and social media attributing unwarranted reasons of official nature pertaining to my request for voluntary retirement. These reports are baseless. I would like to clarify that my request for voluntary retirement is solely due to unavoidable family commitments and has got nothing to do with official matters.”
Anil Kumar Saxena
Addl Director General/PR Ministry of Railways