In one year of its Government at the Centre, the BJP has faced a lot of allegations and counter allegations. The main slogan of the Modi Government before they won the elections screamed out good governance. However, it is important to understand that good governance is not just confined to a better allocation of resources and promptness of work with immediate effect. It is also an indication of taking care of the marginalised sections of society, who may sometimes not constitute a majority of voters. It also entails making the system free from corruption. However, it is not an easy task to make the country corruption-free, especially when the Government is not very experienced and when the judiciary is independent and strong but not incorruptible. Corruption is so deep-rooted in the country that many people working in the various ministries vowed not to vote for Modi in Delhi, because as a PM he would no longer give them freedom of being laidback at work.
However, good governance does not always call for overzealous steps. Even small steps, sometimes without any cost, can provide respite to the masses from the unnecessary hardships. There are some of the best steps taken by the Government, which, in my opinion, could not gather much attention from the media. This may have happened as these matters rarely bother the media which only cater to elitism. There are a lot of big schemes like Jan Dhan Yojana to make the banking system inclusive through providing cheap credit to the poor, moving towards transparency through DBT (direct benefit transfer) or auctioning of coal block, social security for all in the form of insurance schemes at a negligible premium, strengthening federal structure by giving more funds to States, single window scheme for various clearances on steel, coal and power projects, etc. Apart from these ambitious schemes, there are numerous steps taken by the Government for the benefit of the masses, which of course do not require additional fund allocations but are very helpful as it saves them time and money.
Relief for the retired senior citizens by issuing digital life certificate (Jeevan Praman)
Pension is not only an essential source of income for the retired citizens, but also a source of providing a dignified and independent life to the retired citizen who are often ignored and left to fend for themselves. One of the main requisites for the pensioners in their post-retirement life is to provide life certificates to the authorised pension disbursing agencies like the bank, to get their pension credited to their accounts.
Before the BJP came to power, for obtaining a life certificate, a pensioner needed to present himself/herself before the Pension Disbursing Agency or had the life certificate issued by the authority where they served and had it delivered to the disbursing agency. This very requirement of personally being present in front of the disbursing agency or getting a life certificate often became a major hurdle in the process of seamless transfer of the pension to the pensioner. It caused a lot of hardships and unnecessary inconvenience to the aged and infirm pensioners who were unable to always be in a position to present themselves in front of the particular authority to secure their life certificate. In addition to this, a lot of Government employees chose to move to different locations for multiple reasons after their retirement. One of the most prevalent reasons was to live with their children who were working or settled at distant places, sometimes thousands of kilometres away from their last working place. In many cases, due to inability to move and in the absence of any external help, they were unable to access their pensions for months.
The initiative of the Digital life Certificate opened a new window of opportunity for the pensioners. The scheme of the Government of India known as Jeevan Pramaan, ease this very problem by digitalising the whole process of securing the life certificate. It aims to streamline the process of getting this certificate and making it hassle-free and much easier for the pensioners. With this initiative, the pensioners do not require to physically present himself/herself in front of the disbursing agency or the certification authority. They can go to any listed bank in the city of their present residence and can digitally send the life certificate to the concerning authority to credit the pension in their account. The website where the details of this scheme are available is a biometric-enabled digital service for pensioners. The pensioners of the Central Government, State Government or any other Government organisation can take the benefit of this facility. The hardships of the senior citizens were overlooked by the previous Governments because the older citizens do not form a significant vote bank, the previous Government never cared for them.
Relief from attestations and affidavits
Obtaining either an attested copy or an affidavit has always been a very time-consuming and costly affair for mostly students and the unemployed youth of India, who are already overburdened by their future prospect. The requirement of attestations and affidavits not only cost money but is also wastage of time for the Government officials, citizens, job applicants and beneficiaries of various Government schemes, such as the ‘Post-Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child’. Attestation by gazetted officers is required at many places such as while applying for a Tatkal passport, admission in a Central or State university or for applying for a Government job. Apart from these, several different types of affidavits are required from the students taking admission at a university, for instance, affidavit of discipline, anti-ragging, affidavit from parents, etcetera. It means that if a student is taking admission in a college, he/she is required to have his/her parents along with them to sign an affidavit, which is a huge inconvenience not only for the student, but for the parents too. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission, in its report in 2009, recommended the adoption of the self-certification provision to simplify procedures. Despite the recommendation of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, the UPA Government didn’t pay heed to the recommendation.
This may sound inconvenient but only the sufferer understands the pain of this British legacy, the purpose of which was to make people dependent on the British and their appointed officers. The minimum cost for an attestation amounts to Rs100 in Bihar. In case of immediacy, an affidavit costs around Rs200 to Rs500. Unfortunately, both of these practices were not serving any purpose in India. It instead compelled the students to get illegal stamps and forge the signatures of the gazetted officer. It is an open secret that most of the outstation students taking admission at the University of Delhi forge their parents’ signatures themselves. In this manner, students were self-trained in forgery. The measure posed more difficulty for the students in rural areas scouting for a gazetted officer.
Taking a cue from this, in its nascent stage itself, the BJP Government abolished the requirement of attestation and affidavit for the students by allowing them self-attestation.
Promptness in lPG subsidy transfer
In September 2013, many slum-dwellers were paying approximately nine hundred rupees for their lPG gas cylinder while people living in the posh areas were paying only Rs390. The only reason for this difference was that the slum-dwellers linked their AADHAAR number and bank account with the lPG gas subsidy. This was a very surreal situation where the people who abided by the Government instruction of linking lPG with AADHAAR had to pay higher prices than the people who did not. Unfortunately, these slum-dwellers did not even have their subsidy amount credited for at least six months and were not even sure about it. This was one of the reasons that made this scheme unpopular among the poor.
But after the BJP took charge at the Centre, the same subsidy is being transferred into the accounts of common citizens within just seven days. This was the UPA Government scheme which could not be implemented properly and caused apprehension among the people. In an interview to journalist Karan Thapar on May 26, 2015, P Chidambaram, former Finance Minister, acknowledged that DBT of lPG scheme could not be properly implemented in the UPA rule due to pressures from the lPG agency dealers, who were the worst affected from the scheme as their primary income comes from illegal marketing of lPG cylinders. The same scheme which failed during the UPA regime is working very well now.
Unclaimed EPF (Employee Provident Fund) subscription of labourers
Manual labour is the backbone of our economy, but their hard-toiled savings in the Employee Provident Fund scheme was unclaimed. This happened because the deduction of EPF was necessary for all employees, but whenever the employees changed their job, the amount did not get transferred and they had to open a new account. This resulted in the loss of their EPF savings. About Rs22,636 crore lay untouched in the inoperative accounts of the EPF in 2011-12, which, of course, must have increased by 2013-14.
This was just an act of inefficiency of the previous UPA Government who could not establish any mechanism to transfer the EPF savings of poor laborers along with their transfer to the new job. In the very first year of BJP’s rule, EPF subscriptions have been made portable and all the laborers registered were given a unique account number of their individual EPF savings. The benefit of this unique number is that while changing their jobs the labourer is only required to mention this number and the EPF deduction in the new job will be deposited in the same account. Under the Employees Provident Fund Act, the statutory wage ceiling and the minimum pension have been enhanced to Rs15,000 and Rs1,000 respectively.
UTS (Unreserved Ticketing Services) for railway passengers and meals according to individual choice
Those who travel in the general compartment of trains understand the headache that accompanies when they have to book tickets at counters. The counters are always crowded and unfriendly and people have to stand in queue for hours. This may appear to be a very insignificant thing but is not so for senior citizens, pregnant women, mothers, differently-abled persons. The condition of food available in the railway station is also unhygienic. Unfortunately, the previous Government chose to overlook this matter.
In the very first Railway Budget, an introduction of UTS (Unreserved Ticketing Services) was made, which allowed users to book railway tickets and buy unreserved tickets online. The online application is available in both Windows and Android phones. It makes the booking of general coach tickets like second class and second-sitting coaches easier. There are about 90 per cent of commuters who travel in second class and general class coaches. Since almost everyone carries mobile phones these days, UTS is indeed a great service, as it saves time by freeing up people from the torture of standing in long queues at counters located at railway stations. Now one can literally buy railway ticket while multi-tasking.
The Government also proposed an e-catering to select meals from an array of choices. Under the scheme, ordering food through the IRCTC website at the time of booking tickets, integrating the best food chains into this project, setting up of Base Kitchens in specified divisions to be run by reputed agencies for serving quality food and expansion of water vending machines will be taken up.
In this way, we can notice how a lot of difference can be made in the quality of life that citizens lead and can provide respite to the people from unnecessary hardship, without any change in the allocation of funds. Without spending an extra penny and through a better management, the government can provide relief to its senior citizens, students, job applicants, laborers, unreserved class railway passengers and lPG consumers. Isn’t it an example of good governanceIJ As popularly said, “Winners never do different things; they do things differently”.
(Anish Gupta teaches Economics at University of Delhi. He can be reached at pioneer.article@gmail.com)