Article 1 of the UN Convention to combat desertification defines land degradation as a “reduction or loss in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of rain-fed cropland, irrigated cropland, or range, pasture, forest and woodlands resulting from land uses or from a process or combination of processes, including processes arising from human activities and habitation patterns, such as: (i) soil erosion caused by wind and / or water; (ii) deterioration of the physical, chemical, and biological and economic properties of soil; and (iii) long-term loss of natural vegetation” (Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI, 2014).
Land can be said to be degraded when the soil suffers from decline or loss in its quality or productive capacity, whose causes can be natural or anthropic. When soil is degraded, it exhibits certain physical properties due to decline in soil structure such as erosion, desertification, anaerobism, compaction, crusting, and contamination due to pollutants.
Degraded soil also exhibits chemical properties such as fertility decline, salinization, acidification, leaching and decline in water retention. Degraded soil also has biological aspects and some of them include lessening of land biodiversity and decline in biomass carbon.
Land degradation occurs due to degradation processes that can be triggered by natural factors, which can be intrinsic such as climate, topography, vegetation and biological interactions or due to anthropic, or man-made causes. Anthropic causes for land degradation can be biophysical or socio-economic.
The biophysical causes include land use and management methods, which can range from agricultural practices such as use of pesticides to deforestation. The socioeconomic causes include issues related to the eocio-economic infrastructure directly and indirectly affecting soil quality, such as land tenure, health concerns and institutional support. Land degradation usually involves a combination these processes working in tandem.
Depending on the intrinsic properties of soil and other natural determinants such as climate and topography, soil can be highly resistant, stable, vulnerable or highly sensitive to degradation. It is estimated that one-sixth of the world’s soils have already been degraded by water and wind erosion.
This has two important consequences: a) the reduced ability of society to produce sufficient food due to loss of quality and depth of soils, and b) pollution associated with erosion.
Siltation of dams, pollution of water courses by agricultural chemicals and damage to property by soil laden runoff reduces the productive capacity of land.
The Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI (2014) lists intensive agriculture, changes in land use, deforestation, encroachment and over-utilization of natural resources as the chief causes of land degradation.
These require sustainable land and ecosystem management. Although different methods of estimating total area of degraded land in India can lead to diverse results, the figures from different agencies have ranged between from between 55 to 188 million ha.
On June 17, 2016, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) released the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of the entire country using Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) data in a Geographical Information System (GIS) environment.
The survey returned the result that out of a total of 96.40 Mha of land under desertification / land degradation in India in 2011-13, Rajasthan (21.53 Mha) had the highest portion of area with desertification / land degradation in 2011-13 while Sikkim (0.08 Mha) had the lowest.
The cumulative increase in desertification / land degradation between 2003-05 to 2011-13 in India was 1.87 Mha, or an increase by 0.57 per cent. The area of land converted from Degraded in 2003-05 to No Apparent Degradation in 2011-13 was 1.95 Mha.
The most startling statistic is the fact that 28.76 per cent of total land area in 2003-05 and 29.32 per cent of total land area in 2011-13 in India is land under desertification / degradation (ISRO, 2016), which is more than a quarter of the total land area in India.
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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.