Warrier's blog

Economic Times, May 30, 2013 'Total overhaul of existing financial system needed' By PTI | 29 May, 2013, 01.58PM IST 2 comments   | Post a Comment India needs a drastic and complete overhaul of the existing financial regulatory structure if it wants to achieve $30-40 trillion economy by 2025. ET SPECIAL: NEW DELHI : India needs a drastic and complete overhaul of the existing financial regulatory structure if it wants to achieve $30-40 trillion   economy   by 2025, Chairman of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) and former Supreme Court judge B N Srikrishna today said. "By the year 2020-25, we hope to achieve $30-40 trillion economy. Ambition can not be achieved unless there are steps taken towards it. Therefore, you need something that is drastic, something that is total overhaul of the existing financial system," Srikrishna said while addressing an event organised here.   There is urgent need of merging oversight functio

AFTER DESTABILISING PENSION SCHEME, EUTHANASIA FOR CONTRIBUTORY PROVIDENT FUND? My view: The position “Government officials, however, countered the industry argument on the new compensation definition, saying EPFO membership was mandatory only for employees earning Rs 6,500 a month. Anyone beyond that level could opt out.” briefly shows how casually the present government looks at a well-intentioned social security scheme. GOI should review all retirement benefit schemes for employees across public and private sectors to ensure the adequacy of employers’ contribution and employees’ savings (subscription) to provide for a comfortable post-retirement life. The cut-off at Rs6500 is too low.   M G Warrier Read on text of ET report: Economic Times, May 29, 2013 PF set to cover all pay, not just basic pay By   Sidhartha , TNN | 28 May, 2013, 10.19AM IST The Employees Provident Fund Organisation(EPFO) is getting ready to re-notify a new definition of "compensation

Economic Times, May 29, 2013 Increase retirement age of government employees to 62 Bibek Debroy     Wednesday May 29, 2013, 02:45 PM   On 21st March 2013, there was an unstarred question in Rajya Sabha, about whether there was a proposal to increase the retirement age of Central government employees. The relevant MOS answered there was no such proposal. That’s not quite true, because there is such a proposal floating around and it went to Cabinet sub-committee and an in principle decision to implement was taken by Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT). One should not mix up existence of a proposal with a decision about implementing it. Evidently, a decision has now been taken to increase the age from 60 to 62 years, the last time such an increase took place was in 1998, when there was an increase from 58 to 60 years. Whenever such a decision is taken, debates centre on the big picture. What are arguments for? First, life expectancies are increasing. There is a shortag

Imperious ways | Business Line Online comments: M G WARRIER There can be as many views as the number of individuals who closely watched the goings on, about the way in which Vinod Rai took the office of the CAG through the last five years. But there will be near consensus about the immense possibilities before an individual to change the course of events or plainly to act as a ‘change agent’, if one is inclined to use the potential capabilities of the positions he is destined to hold. V V Giri, Indira Gandhi, T N Seshan, E M S Nambudiripad, Kalam, Dr Manmohan Singh and several others have done this in recent Indian history. It is easy to pinpoint their under-achievements in their pursuits. But many of them have taken risks and met the challenges head-on when they had to act in situations which had no precedents to look back. About the new CAG, S K Sharma may also grow tall enough to become equal to the tasks in hand quickly. It is difficult to demolish the image of an institution

Appointing regulators | Business Standard Online comment posted on May 27, 2013: M G WARRIER Beyond the suggestion to involve the Opposition as a matter of course while appointing regulators, the edit can reasonably be expected to open a debate on all appointments to top positions and perhaps succession plans in general in the fast changing Indian growth scenario. Conventions, tradition and even the ‘legal positions’ should not come in the way of changing systems and procedures to accommodate the compulsions of changing times. The absence of succession plans in place has damaged financial institutions like UTI. May be, casual appointments at the top would make ‘management’ of organisations easier for political leadership. When something goes wrong, the blame can easily be thrown at the ‘inefficiency’ of the public sector, creating further ground for privatisation. The government’s casual approach to succession plans for top crucial positions has started affecting even the day-to-d

M G Warrier’s My Page A monthly bulletin from M G Warrier incorporating select published letters/links to articles (and some stray thoughts based on what he read/saw and wrote during the month). Mailed during the third week of every month. Please send your responses and views to mgwarrier@rediffmail.com Vol III, No 5, May 2013 M G Warrier, MLR-116-B, Mangalam Lane , SASTAMANGALAM-695010 (9349319479) Dear reader  My Page is also being posted on Warrier’s Blog at http://mgwarrier.blogspot.in/ Links to articles and important comments are posted at the blog as and when they are published. Those esteemed readers who have difficulty in accessing blog can contact mgwarrier@rediffmail.com Regards M G Warrier May 28, 2013 Articles The following articles were published during March-May, 2013 (Till May 15, 2013) 1.       Cobrapost exposure: What next? : May 2013, Moneylife.in 2.       What is RBI Reading? ‘End of Poverty’: Jeffrey D Sachs, RBI

Lettrs: Pay scale disparities | Business Standard

HC rules out pay parity between regular & contractual workers | Business Standard Online comments published on May 27, 2013: M G WARRIER We cannot expect a human approach from court whose core function is ensuring ‘rule of law’ and blame the bench of justices for interpreting ‘law’ and observing asunder: "There cannot be complete parity between contractual employees and those who undergo selection process and are appointed as regular employees. On the principle of 'same work same pay', if there is complete identity of work between contractual employees and regular employees a court can direct same basic salary and allowances to be paid. "But with reference to one set of persons not having undertaken the selection process and the second set having undertaken the selection process, the court could deny the benefit of increments." But those who are responsible for policy formulation should take note of the disparity in prices, wages and income which

Supreme Court verdict on CAG mandate: A step in the right direction - Moneylife This article was posted here earlier. Repeat posting in the context of retirement of Vinod Rai and Sharma's posting as new CAG. M G Warrier

http://mgwarrier.blogspot.in/ The Vinod Rai impact: unCAGed TK Arun     Tuesday May 21, 2013, 10:50 AM Was a tender issued to identify the builder who would offer the lowest cost? Before entrusting the construction to a bunch of monkeys, was an attempt made to verify simian competence to build a bridge, particularly one across the sea? Was the cost of potential environmental damage factored in? Ram was lucky he did not have to face an auditor on his return from Lanka.   But one expects auditors to raise such questions. Theirs not to see the context and the whole picture; theirs only to pick the nits. It is up to those who evaluate an audit report to build the context around it and reach sensible conclusions.   At times, the questions bring up valid points normally not noticed. More often, you down your cup of tea and move on. In the case of reports from the government's auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General   (CAG), the job of making sense of the audit repo

Give them food, not money - Business Line Online comment: M G WARRIER This is a timely suggestion, when government is managing to shirk social responsibility by converting all goods and services into IRDP (Itna Rupaya Dena Padega, meaning ‘this much money will have to be paid’). The concept of ‘kind component’ insisting disbursement of a portion of loans for agriculture in the form of inputs (quality seeds, manure etc) had worked successfully especially in cooperative sector during the initial days of financing agricultural production in India. This component was known as ‘B’ component of the agricultural loan and ‘A’ and ‘C’ components respectively represented main cash component for agricultural operations and a small amount to meet consumption needs of the farmer’s family. The centralised approach to resource mobilization and distribution of benefits via direct cash transfer makes government’s work easy and consolidated figures of expenditure impressive. ‘Cash’ loses its identi

Strengthen RBI's balance sheet - Moneylife PLEASE READ THIS IN THE CONTEXT OF MY EARLIER POST “RBI AUDIT” M G Warrier

Vinod Rai demits office: A CAG that India will miss - Moneylife Online comments: M G WARRIER Sandwiched between a hostile community of beneficiaries of largesse from government via different routes and a government benevolent in showering praises on CAG only when it has to defend itself from opposition attack, Vinod Rai had to assert his stance defending public interest in public on an ongoing basis, which is a tough task for any civil servant in India. If the institution of CAG and the individual have been able to carry on unperturbed, proactive support from media and organisations like Moneylife Foundation did help the process. The efforts taken by Vinod Rai and his predecessors to sharpen the available tools by infusing expertise into the organisation and by training and educating cadres down below have brought professionalism in the performance of audit function and improved the confidence level of staff. If similar initiatives had come from his counterparts heading several go