14% of children studying in government schools in villages, and 20% of those in government schools in urban areas, were deprived of midday meals during the pandemic period.
The number of Covid-19 cases in India has dropped to less than 30,000 per day. If certain states are taken out of the mix, the figures are even lower. Does this mean that a third wave can be averted?
Experts are not certain at the moment. Right now, it is difficult to decide how much, and in what way, the pandemic has affected the socio economic situation of people in India.
The Many “Sumitras” of India
Sumitra, for instance, was a labourer in a drought-hit district of Uttar Pradesh before the pandemic. Before the pandemic hit, she found herself thinking about whether her children would end up as daily wage workers like herself.
She discussed this with her husband and both of them decided that they would move to Delhi/National Capital Region. They believed that they would get more work and increase their wages, and their children would get a better education.
A month later, the couple took a small loan and left for Noida. After a lot of hard work, they gained a foothold there. They started getting more work, and their children began going to school.
Then, the lockdown was announced.
Two months passed without them getting any work. They went back home empty-handed. Six months later, driven to desperation, they returned to Noida where both of them found work again.
But this time, with schools closed, their children were not able to attend classes. They are not alone.
Millions of children are out of school.
A team of eminent economists, Jean Dreze and Ritika Khera, and research scholar Vipul Paikra, while surveying 15 states and Union Territories, found that the pandemic has put an entire generation of children — mostly poor and vulnerable — at risk with school closures.
According to the survey:-
- only 8% of rural children were able to attend online classes regularly, while 37% did not attend any classes. Will this gap in education ever be filled?
- The survey stated that children who were in class 3 before the Covid-19 have technically reached class 5, but their ability has remained on par with children in class 1.
- Five per cent of the children in this survey come from Dalit and tribal communities. This implies that the next generation of these already marginalised communities will face even more inequality.
- On the instructions of the central government, all state governments had given orders to conduct online classes, but total compliance with this order is impossible.
- This problem was that in almost all remote villages, 4G services are rare.
- In India, 77% of urban areas have access to smartphones, while in rural areas, this figure is 51%.
- In the absence of a smartphone and bandwidth, participation in a virtual classroom is impossible. But did people with smartphones really benefit from them?
- While the consumption of online content such as audio, music, news, and sports increased, online education remained stagnant and limited.
- In rural areas, there are very few households capable of providing smartphones to children.
- The first right on such a phone, if there is one, belongs to the head of the family. Not only this, 14% of children studying in government schools in villages, and 20% of those in government schools in urban areas, were deprived of midday meals during this period.
- Researchers believe that many of them will no longer be able to return to school.
- Experts also believe that the economic inequality gap in the country will widen if the damage done to children is not set right.
- This fear becomes stronger when we look at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data. RBI’s analysis of more than 2,500 companies listed on the stock exchange found that their profits have tripled in the first quarter of this financial year as compared to the same period last year.
- It means that while companies have become rich, people have been left less empowered economically. Not surprisingly, in July, a huge jump of 77% was seen in the number of people seeking loans by pledging gold.
- According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), 1.5 million people lost their jobs in August 2021 alone. Of these, 1.3 million are from rural areas.
If we juxtapose these figures with the students who have been left out of school, we get a very disturbing picture.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed more than 10 million Indians. At that time, growth had slumped to -10.5%, and inflation had skyrocketed. The people who suffered the most were from the lower rungs of society.
A British report published in 1919 analysed the death toll in Bombay (now, Mumbai), on the basis of social classification. It was found out that more than 61% of those who died were from low-income groups and lower social classes.
Epidemics adversely affect the weaker sections more. History is now repeating itself.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.