The British had left us a nation where the hearth in many homes was not always aflame. Farmers ploughed their lands as their grandfathers did, to survive, not to produce a national surplus.
The State did not know how to feed the hungry. When rainfall vanished for two years in the mid-1960s and India became a global feast for starvation photography, it had to beg a taunting America for shipments of wheat.
A mortified State clutched at Norman Borlaug’s high-yielding wheat varieties as a boon. Soon, it also found high-yielding varieties of rice. But a desperate State made an epochal error there.
It bet on Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh to produce wheat and rice for the nation. These states were relatively suitable for wheat, but not rice. The best states for rice were West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Assam.
However, the State, faced with the choice of a begging bowl or a boiling pot, would not care. The three northern states were fostered and pampered for growing rice along with wheat because they had good irrigation, unlike the eastern states that were largely rainfed.
As a consequence, rice has been corroding the Punjab-Haryana-western UP farms as rust does iron. Every sowing adds another coat of rust to the iron. The farms are rusting away. Both the State and the farmers have been making a wild noise over emaciation of farms, but neither of them have done anything transformatory.
Chemicals have swallowed the soil’s innate nutrients. A crippled soil has now become their slave. The water for irrigation is depleting.
About 3,500 litres of water is needed to produce one kg of rice, compared to 1,350 litres for wheat and 900 litres for maize.
To take Punjab’s example, the state extracts 28 billion cubic metres (bcm) of groundwater annually, while its annual recharge is 19 bcm, which is unsustainable. Tubewells have to dive deeper and deeper to find water.
Why are the green revolutionaries growing rice and wheat at such a rapid pace? Why are they digging their own graves?
The answer is: they earn the highest from the two crops. In 2018–19, a Punjab farmer earned ₹75,000 from rice, ₹26,000 from potato, ₹15,000 from maize and ₹9,000 from gram per hectare.
The State has built a robust public ecosystem that guarantees the green revolutionaries high returns from rice and wheat. There is no such ecosystem for other crops.
There lies the root of the ongoing conflict between the government and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). The State wants to liquidate the public ecosystem and raise a private ecosystem over its ruins. The SKM wants the State not only to retain the public ecosystem but also to expand it beyond rice and wheat to cover other crops.
The SKM’s position is more rational than the State’s. Most farmers in its movement come from Punjab, Haryana and western UP and can see their farms bleeding unstoppably from the rice-wheat cycle.
They want to diversify to other crops, but they do not want their income to fall in the process. That is why the SKM is demanding an ecosystem starting with a legally guaranteed MSP for all the 23 crops (seven cereals, five pulses, seven oilseeds, four commercial crops) the State fixes a base price for.
Without an ecosystem that brings them assured good returns from alternative crops, the farmers are not going to grow them in a part or whole of their land.
Both the Central and state governments have to work to build a robust ecosystem for them. Their approach to move farmers out of paddy in the past two decades has not been holistic. They have been trying to kill the tiger with a slingstone.
In 2013–14, the Central government started a crop diversification programme for the Green Revolution states. The programme is shackled by a miserly and myopic approach. It has demonstrated to several farmers how to grow alternative crops but failed to motivate them to actually grow these crops.
Last year, the Punjab government announced MSP for moong and also promised to procure all of it. The area for moong rose from 50,000 acres in 2021 to 1.25 lakh acres as a result. However, over 80% of the moong harvest arriving at the mandis was sold at below MSP rate, deluding the farmers.
In 2020, the Haryana government announced it would pay farmers ₹7000 per acre of diversified crop if they moved out of paddy. It has not motivated farmers, for a cash incentive—with a hundred bureaucratic tantrums—is not enough. They want a robust ecosystem for good returns.
The State motivated the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh to grow rice and wheat by not just fixing an MSP, but also investing in R&D to develop newer varieties to suit different climates and types of soil.
It sent its officials to villages to guide the farmers adopting the new varieties. It gave subsidies to farmers to buy farm equipment. It subsidised irrigation and power. It procured rice and wheat.
Agriculture in green revolution states cannot be saved unless a substantial part of rice cultivation is moved from there to eastern states. And that can be done only when the State builds robust ecosystems for alternative crops as it had done for rice and wheat.
The State need not procure the harvests of alternative crops. Once there is a legally guaranteed MSP, farmers can sell their harvests to private players. And that can lead to higher private investment in storage, processing, marketing, transportation and exports of alternative crops.
That can also prick a hole in the balloon of State expenditure on edible oils and pulses imports.
Credits : New Indian Express, Arun Sinha
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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.