Letters to the editor dated Feb 11, 2020

This refers to the editorial ‘Good but not enough’ (February 11). As failure of state-owned banks is only a remote possibility, the need for insurance coverage for the deposits of these banks as well as of the regional rural banks must be reviewed. The cost of insurance is a futile expenditure for public sector banks and RRBs.

The possibility of failure of private and co-operative banks is much greater and, therefore, insurance coverage is crucial to protect the depositors of these banks. The crisis facing public sector banks is mainly due to non-performing assets and loan-related frauds. Radical reforms are essential to drastically improve governance in the area of credit creation, its delivery and liquidation. The fraud-prone areas of banking need more focussed oversight of the banking regulator and, accordingly, more radical measures to plug the loopholes in the system and methods. The recovery and resolution of bad loans are still sluggish. These issues are more important than hiking the insurance cover to sustain the confidence of depositors.

Kottayam

The Delhi poll results prove that Prime Minister Modi is fast losing his grip on the pulse of people. The lacklustre Union Budget, which failed to address the serious economic slowdown, was another lost opportunity for the government at the Centre, which seems to be blind to the economic hardships facing all sections of society.

PM Modi, in the interests of the nation, should induct experts in his team who can help remedy the ills facing our economy, trigger growth, provide jobs, and set the base for making India a $5 trillion economy. “It’s the economy, stupid”, the mantra (emphasising economic performance as the single most important issue to voters) adopted by Bill Clinton to win the 1992 US presidential election, should be the one guiding Modi if he wishes to score a hat-trick by winning the next Lok Sabha elections.

Bengaluru

The Delhi electorate evaluated the performance of the State government in the last two Assembly elections on the criterion of how far the government adopted measures to lessen the day-to-day burden of the common man. Delhi has once again demonstrated that electoral mandate is the domain of the common man, and not the rich and the super rich. Though the Kejriwal government’s policies to minimise or take away certain financial burdens of the society without a matching augmentation of the State’s resources are debatable, what voters expect from a government is very clear. Another deciding factor in the mandate, which can’t be overlooked, is the absence of corruption allegations against the government.

Thiruvananthapuram

It is now commonplace for politicians across the country to offer free/subsidised power to households. Some offer up to 200/400 units of free/subsidised power. A middle-class home consumes 80-100 units a month. This subsidy amounts to taking away poor taxpayers’ money (yes, even the poor pay GST, an indirect tax) and giving it the rich who use air-conditioners. This is unfair.

Pune

This refers to reports about the Madhya Pradesh government raising RTI fees from ₹10 to ₹100 and also hiking the fees for filing first appeals and second appeals to ₹500 and ₹1,000, respectively.

But RTI fees cannot be more than ₹50, according to a court verdict. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) should notify that RTI fees and the payment mode should be uniform for all States and competent authorities. Earlier, several States had fixed RTI fees at as high as ₹500, as per the power given to them under the RTI Act. But negligible RTI fees of ₹10, fixed way back in 2005, has lost relevance and is seen as one of the reasons for misuse of the RTI Act.

Uniform RTI fees of ₹50 inclusive of copying charges for the first 20 copied pages should be standardised for all States.

Delhi

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