A fresh vision needed

Almost all the propositions in the article, ‘Panagariya recommends aggressive privatisation of public sector undertakings’ (May 22), be it the privatisation of the PSUs, public funds to boost private investment, cleaning up of bad debts, laws for land reform or sunset clause on central sector schemes, had for long been the subjects for skull sessions and application. However, caught between the demands of the underprivileged and the ambitions of the corporate world, successive governments had struggled to put the reform process at full throttle and to achieve fiscal consolidation.

In the recent past, the privatisation of Air India had been a hotly pursued divestment option. After the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines and more recently Jet Airways, and with almost all airlines making losses, this option seemed to have lost steam. Haircuts and hefty write-offs to clean up non-performing assets are easy ways to shore up public sector banks. Empirical data suggest such measures has only encouraged defaults.

Again, most of the free gas connections given to the poor households under the Ujjwala Yojana remain unused, as the cost of refills is prohibitive for them. Similarly, the toilets constructed in many rural areas in the northern belt are not in use for want of supporting facilities. A reoriented mission with a fresh vision is the need of the hour now, as the beaten modes of reforms and policies do not seem effective in engineering the socio-economic uplift to the expected level.

Kozhikode

This is with reference to ‘Opposition ups the ante on tallying EVMs, VVPAT slips' (May 22). Twenty-two opposition parties have demanded 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips of all polling stations of a particular voting constituency in case of any mismatch between the figures of electronic voting machines and those of voter-verified paper audit trail.

Their demand for 100 per cent verification of VVPAT slips was summarily rejected by the apex court earlier on Tuesday itself. However, the poll panel, was ‘non-committal’ on any of the opposition parties’ demands despite the delegates having shown the videos of EVMs being taken to counting centres and strongrooms without police escort.

In any case, it appears to be a campaign targeting various transparency-related aspects of the state-of-the-art EVMs. But does the opposition actually enjoy the people’s mandate to self-servingly join hands in their quest to somehow ‘dethrone’ Narendra Modi?

Bengaluru

This refers to ‘India on road to ‘car registration portability’’ (May 22). It is indeed a welcome move by the Centre and States. There is need for reform in several areas related to motor vehicle ownership and operation.

Transfer of ownership from a deceased person should be possible with nomination done at first registration stage or later. Various high value financial assets are transferred on the basis of such nomination. Why not motor vehicles? Disposal of old vehicles should also be made easier by simply handing them over with documents to authorised recyclers, who can certify and get them de-registered.

Today people just abandon old vehicles on roadsides as the procedure is cumbersome. The process of vehicle registration could also be outsourced to private players.

Pune

The article ‘The way ahead for dealing with NPAs’ (May 22) revives the concept of ‘bad bank’ in the garb of ARC in the public sector, which is supposed to take over the NPAs of commercial banks at a discount in order to enable them to kick-start fresh lending. The ARC will be funded by the excess capital held by the RBI. However, it seems that use of excess capital held by RBI for such unproductive purpose will vitiate the credit culture of the banking system, as the wilful defaulters will go scot-free and may retain the ownership of the defaulting units.

Kolkata

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