Cleaning Pune's voter role

The problem with Pune's voter rolls (and I guess Maharashtra's too)  is that it is made in such a way that the work of checking it cannot be delegated. Every voter has to check his name before every election.

For example in a building or society of say 200 voters, the Chairman or some enthusiastic volunteer can't check the voter roll as the voters are not registered under one building. As per Election Commission guidelines they are supposed to give a section number  to each building  and a Part number to the part of the constituency to which it belongs and register the voters under that Section no. This is not done.  I have seen that they register a voter under any section or sometimes in some other parts even if you write down the section and part number of your neighbour when you register. In Aundh Pune there is a building which is a bungalow plot conveted to a flat. It has 11flats and it has 1500 voters,

Our government servants are intelligent people.  The way the list is organized is worse than a 6 year old organizing his toys. This level of mistakes suggest that his design. If the section and part no were given correctly any citizen volunteer can scan the voter list and see where additional voters are not registered, locate those voters and make efforts to register them and make a perfect voter roll.

If it is done in the current way it is very difficult to do it,

For example, If I know the EPIC number of some one living in my building I should be able to reach that building's pdf files and check the names very easily if the database was right,

So given these problems how do we go about cleaning the voter roll ?

We should force the people making the roll to create a section for every building/ society. Then we should collect the EPIC  number of all the voters in that society and the Chairman should write a letter stating that there are errors in the roll and asking the EC to add his building into a separate section and add these voters into this Section and delete them from elsewhere. Once this is done for big buildings in each area, we can go on to the next level of buildings. In this manner the voter roll can be cleaned up.

If this is done politics in Maharashtra will change very quickly and Maharashtra will be on its way to becoming just  that - a Great State !

VSNL land : UPA leaves cash on the table for incoming government

The inefficiency of the outgoing government has created some opportunities for incoming Central government. One of them is the  excess land  which was part of VSNL at the time of the divestment by the government, At the time of the de-merged the land was to be returned by Tatas to the Government and the shareholders of VSNL by de-merging it into a separate company.

It was not visualized who will pay the stamp duty at the time of the de-merger. This issue was  not resolved and this land bank was lying idle, If the government can  resolve this issue and expedite the sale of the land/holding company it will be a source of funds.

The government could get funds to the tune of Rs 3000-5000 cr ( see here and here).

Oh these kids nowadays ...

Today's children have scant respect for elders, traditions and practices. From a traditional perspective It is really bad but there is a great blessing hidden in it. They take nothing at face value. They want an explanation. If you can find the explanation and give it to them they will become the greatest defenders of the same tradition. So the question we should ask ourselves is are we going to keep cribbing about the next gen or take up this as an opportunity and find out the scientific roots/ rationale of our culture and traditions and lay a very deep foundation for the future ?

Taking Indian Heritage to every corner of India

One of India’s unique advantages and great treasures is our cultural heritage consisting of music, dance and other art forms. Today this is not available to most of the youth in this country..

Many organizations like SPIC MACAY tried to do this by introducing the lecdem (lecturedemonstration) format to present Indian classical art forms in a comprehensive manner in front of today’s youth, who have little or no understanding of it. The meanings of the basic mudras and bhavas and the structure of the ragas had to be explained. This change in presentation has been instrumental in popularizing our art forms amongst the youth.

While  such organizations were successful in urban areas and towns, they have not been able to take our culture to every part of India – they have not been able to reach villages, smaller towns, and remote areas. A lot more that can be done to present this valuable national heritage to all citizens in every corner of India, if we can understand and overcome the contraints.

The constraints – The why?           

Our heritage is taken in the form of live performances by accomplished artistes. There are many constraints that prevent the scaling up of this activity.

·       The number of accomplished artistes is limited,

·       Many of them have hectic schedules and spend many months touring various parts of India and overeas.  Some of them live abroad for some part of the year.

·       Students don’t have the werewithal to pay for these live programs. Sponsorship is not easily available for this kind of activity.

·       Since the artistes also have to be economically sustained, the time they have available for giving programs for small honorariums is limited.

·       The population of India is increasing and we have great geographic spread.  Live performance limit performance to destinations with very good train or plane connectivity and good auditoriums – this immediately precludes most village schools.

·        Logistics and cost factors also severely limit the ability of any organization to take to the masses.

·       To have live performances at different places requires a large on-going organization at every location – a very difficult and costly affair.

·        In many of the cities, parents are working and with the weakening of the joint family concept, it is becoming difficult for children to attend these concerts and they hardly get to experience this national heritage. 

Due to these practical difficulties, India heritage and art form is not reaching areas beyond 300 towns – thus a large portion of India’s children are growing up without experiencing our rich heritage.  This is a very unfortunate situation and we as a society need to find a creative response to solve this problem and we need to universalize access to our Indian heritage and make it available to one and all. 

After much thinking, we believe there is a way out and perhaps it is the only way out–Technology.

The Concept – How?

Today’s communication technologies namely Radio, TV and internet offer an excellent opportunity to take this heritage to all corners of our country. We have done some blue sky thinking and believe that if we as a nation, use technology in the following manner – we can take the best of Indian heritage to each and corner of this country.

·       Create one National AM radio channel for Indian music and art forms:  This should be located centrally in a location like Nagpur with sufficient power to reach all parts of India. This will minimize management requirement of managing the channel.  It should be managed by All India Radio (AIR). This could be done simultaneous to the opening of national AM channels to other commercial broadcasters.

o   Why one channel? It will be very costly and difficult to have several channels across the country and manage them.

o   Why AM? AM channels are not favoured these days by commercial broadcasters as the music fidelity is low and most of demand is for FM channels which are used primarily for entertainment. Most of India’s AM bandwidth is unused and there is currently no opportunity cost of using AM channels.  This will also help in increasing penetration of AM across the nation.

o   Why AIR? AIR has adequate staff, studios, technology and infrastructure which could be used without any new expenditure or with marginal expenditures.  Protecting and spreading our national heritage is a national cause and the right and best entity to do it will be the National broadcaster.

o   Why simulaneous opening of commercial AM radio channels? Since infrastructure will need to be set, this will involve costs and fund outgo.   This tower infrastructure could be used to co-locate more AM channels and the tower costs could be shared by simutaneously auction of several national AM channels. The government has also set national goals for using ICT for education.  This will aid AIR economics and the running costs of this channel could come from the co-location costs and licence fees from the channels.

·        Create a TV Channel or Slot: A similar TV Channel or adequate slots on existing channels is also necessary because visual arts like Bharatnatyam, Kathak, and Kudiyattam among others require a visual medium. Since there may not be adequate content to fill the TV channels everyday, we could have a dedicated TV channel operating only a for limited hours or alternately we could take up time slots on existing TV channels. The TV channel should have very high reach thro terrestrial, cable and DTH platforms. This should be managed by Doordarshan as they can optimize on all resources such as studios, network and broadcast infrastructure.

·       Internet website: This could be used to reach areas which have signal problems or which have scheduling problems (different school schedules – dailiy timings and holidays, area with chronic power cuts).  Schools and colleges, parents could download this content and show them to their children.

Organization structure – How to do it?

In order to make it a success, this should be done is such a way that the entity which has experience take up the right task ie right man for the right task principle.  Thus the Government arms namely AIR and Doordarshan can fully manage the carriage and the network infrastructure for which they have the competence and the resources available readily.  

The government should outsource the task of creating content ( Like the program Satyameva Jayate ) to agencies  willing and able to take on the task of creating and providing the content for all the mediums. In today's age it is not enough to high quality content. Presentation has become very important especially for the youth. This is not the time to debate this issue. We have to accept it and use it constructively by creating world class presentation of these programmes.

These agencies will work closely with DD and AIR in the production of the content.  The management of the website could be given to a competent third party.

Benefits of this arrangement

Creation of national culture mission with low resources:   This will ensure that we have created a national culture mission at a very low cost without any duplication of effort or resources.  We will create a national culture mission without setting up any more studios, offices or hiring more management staff or creating more entities.

The assets created for National AM channel could be used for also increasing national AM penetration goals, raising revenues by auctioning more commercial AM channels which can be co-located on the infrastructure.  This move will bring in licence fees, auction fees, service taxes and will actually be revenue positive to the Government of India.

Meeting larger national goals and better use of resources: Currently AM is a vastly under-used medium and it is the only medium that reaches interior parts of the country. The citizens in leading towns and cities have access to numerous FM channels but those in interior areas have limited choice. If we set up a national AM channel under AIR, the network infrastructure set up can be easily used to also open up and auction more AM Channels and for Educational ICT goals.  This will also ensure that we as a nation have greater AM penetration – one of the goals of the Five year plans.

Better use of AIR and DD resources: The Government has adequate staff and technology and infrastructure which could be used more productively.  AIR and DD are also the right entity to manage the carriage infrastructure and all other managerial matters. With provision of news and entertainment by private entities, many issues are raised about rationale for a Public broadcaster. This move will create a clear rationale for a public broadcaster.

Outsourcing of expertise in managing content: In this day of outsourcing, where Government is  reaping the benefits of outsourcing through higher efficiency, effectiveness and lower cost ( Example: tasks such as PAN CARD processing (very senstitive),  Credit history maintenance, production of armanents of high national and strategic import   are being outsourced),  this partnership will ensure that this program can effectively run at a very small cost.This will be a highly productive and cost effective solution for the Government.  

Last but not the least: Almost 75% of India is Hindu. So the budget for this should be allocated based on the ratio of population of India belonging to each religion as per the last census. This is not to exclude anyone - the content of each community is available to all but merely to avoid certain sections of society from politicizing this  issue in terms of "communalism" and "secularism." 

insurance policy for democracy

This is my second post on the postal department (See link). The postal department has a deficit of Rs 6000 crores per annum. Yes it is bad but instead of focussing on the negativity in the situation there are a few things we can do which can reap huge returns from even this department.

When we buy an insurance policy we get nothing tangibly in return for that expense. We can convert the postal department as an insurance policy against undemocratic practices by cunning politicians which weaken democracy and causes losses to exchequer running in to lakhs of crores. How ?

The postal department can be made in charge of voter registration

The bed rock of democracy is one citizen one vote. All citizens above minimum age gets to vote. In our country this exists only on paper. Various clever ways have been found to abrogade this right. This document written in 2009 highlights the methods use to make democracy weak by rigging the voter rolls.

The voter rolls are rigged so scientifically.  Till these last few elections it was difficult to find out but now with searchable online databases and pdf files. The agency in the country which has some touch with every citizen is the postal department. Letters from children to Presidents  and Prime Ministers have found their way to the Presidents table despite having hardly any address where many other parts of the government cant even locate a citizen standing in front of him. Also the post office has an establishment in each PIN CODE of the country. So it makes sense to give this work to the postal department.

Globally many countries have used postal department to maintain the voter rolls. So this can be easily studied and a top class system instituted.

There should be a proper information technology back end for this. This should combine with the inque identity database (whether it is Aadhar or called by any other name).

Good governance will save lakhs of crores and the postal department loss will pale into comparison in relation to this savings. An accurate database of  residents will also have many other uses.

So even the so called loss making department can be a source of great change in India.

A deeper look at todays' problems

Todays problems in our countries are quite solvable if a person takes the whole picture. Let me give a few examples.

Problem 1

We have problems of soil poisoned with excess nitrogen, shortage of carbon in the soil,  very high fertilizer subsidy due to indiscriminate use, low yield due to wrong use of fertilizer and also problem of disposal of urban waste, health and sanitation issues in cities, loss making Doordarshan (Public service broadcaster)

Essentially these appears as very difficult and different problems across geographies, ministries and agencies affecting a cross section of people. But essentially it is one problem. The answers to all these problems are in testing the soil and making farmers understand their soil and what needs to be done. This will lead to lesser application of chemical fertilizers and more application of bio-fertilizers - which in turn will increase the demand for bio-waste and making conversion of city bio-waste into fertilizer which can increase the carbon content in the soil.  This will reduce the problems related to fertilizer subsidy This knowledge needs to be disseminated to the farmers - no private channel is going to do this as it is unlikely to be profitable and it will fall squarely in the domain of the public broadcaster.

Problem 2

There is problem of  availability of high quality  education seats in Engineering, Management and Medicine. There is a shortage of doctors so much so that Homeopath Doctors are being used as Duty doctors at hospitals.  The shortage of good quality engineering colleges is definitely affecting our ability to produce output and also attract FDI.  In the mad rush to some how get into good colleges people spend very large sums of money on coaching for the entrance exams. This in turn affects the development of youth who turn into machines primed to crack exams rather than thinkers, doers and problem solvers. People who have resources and are willing to pay send their children abroad to study bleeding the country of forex and the education sector of its best possible customers. Many of these students do not return leading to brain drain and problems in such families.

The solution to this problem is to increase the capacity in high quality education by giving admission even to those with resources at a higher fee. More on this in my earlier blog here.  Also if we simply change the entrance exam from being simple multiple choice to some thing which requires aptitude ( it is possible even using multiple choices f a more complex variety), the same coaching sector which is helping students crack the exams will be forced to make them think and learn.

So we need to look at all our problems in a much deeper and wider way and it is my belief if we do so that a way can be found to solve these problems.

Creating a crore post offices at almost Zero Cost

Indian Post makes a loss of over Rs 6000 crores per year.

Their traditional sources of business have dried up and their new sources of business are not being developed fast enough. With the advent of email, mobile phones (SMS and  and Internet banking the use of post for sending letters has declined but the traffic for parcels has increased tremendously.

This situation was faced by developed nations too and they quickly created means to deepen the market for parcel post. This was done using software  called Endicia which makes every internet connected computer and printer into a post office. United States Postal Service has implemented Endicia's solutions.

What does Endicia do ?

It helps the Customer of the Postal Department weigh the parcel and print a poster label. This label is the equivalent of the postal stamp with details of sender and receiver and postal fees. The amount is debited from the Customer's account.

The postal department gets details of the package and these are in turn sent to the hand held device of  postman who icks up the package on his way to deliver the packages. This increases the postman's effectiveness by making his trips a two way exercise.

Essentially like every net banking user has become a bank teller, every person who opens an account becomes a new post office.

The Indian Government needs to do the same.   They could write this software themselves or buy it from established agencies such as Endicia. This is a make or buy decision that is best left to techno-commerical experts.

Indian Post covers all postal pin codes where private couriers cover only a fraction of the Pincodes. If these steps are taken in addition to cost management, modernization and widening and deepening of their existing services etc their losses will come down but more importantly they will provide a very good boost for the SME sector, artisans from interior areas.

This will help Indian post undercut couriers and become very competitive.

If this is implemented, far from being a fuddy duddy sector, Indian Post will start having hot growth prospects like Internet retailers like Flipkart or Jabong.

The path to being an Export Powerhouse

A lot of soul searching is going on on how to make India and export powerhouse. We do not have oil and yet we consume a lot of it. We need to export equivalent value of our imports to be a healthy economy and we are unable to do so.

In this blog, I shall explore some deeper reasons for our inability to mature to being an export powerhouse.

I am offering this blog as an example of how the following steps will make India an export power house

1. Improving domestic competition, lowering barriers to entry and removing barriers to trade inside the country

This will automatically increase exports. The alcohol industry is used as an example where the limits placed on the industry make it unfit for exports on large scale.

I am neither pro nor anti alcohol.  I take it as a reality that some people need alcohol so it is  better to accept it and make laws which suitably govern the production, distribution and consumption.

The alcohol industry has state-wise legislation of production, pricing, distribution and sales. Regulation varies from state to state with Tamilnadu being the most regulated where the state is now an integral part of the alcohol business and Goa where it is relatively free.

There is massive imports of alcohol due to overseas travel. The conventions on duty free allow each adult passengers to bring in two litres of alcohol. Funnily the internal laws do not allow the same.

As a result, our domestic alcohol industry suffers from poor quality lack of brands as there is no national market. It is not enough to make a good product and be able to market it well, You need to have politicians and government in your pocket and in many cases adopt them as your partner.

We have some of the best quality grains, fruits, flowers in the world and an unique culture of making alcohol without using grain products. Yet we have not international brand in alcohol. The reason is that our domestic market is constrained. Very little innovation is possible - racketeering is the order of the day.

Our nation has a very large population with very diverse tastes. This is a natural advantage if we allow creation of competitive national markets. Any good new product will find a large enough volume of takers which can give it volume and critical mass leading to profitability. This in turn will automatically lead to exports.

Let us  see what happened till two - wheelers and cars industry was licensed and controlled.  There was no innovation, no competition. There were imports and hardly any exports. Now we are exporting a lot of 2 wheelers and cars and are turning into worldwide production hubs for two-wheelers and cars.

2. Dismantle Licence Raj ...

A easy to attach national market creates a lot of innovation. A young Engineer or Designer straight out of college can launch a new product and challenge the status-quo and create a successful organization.
No one will come to work for you if you dont have good toilets. You dont need inspectors to check these things. We need to keep self regulation and punish violators like Union Carbide not waste time and police vibrant people who want to create new products and organizations.

There is a very large hungry base of young people.  Even if they do not find jobs, they will become entrepreneurs due to lack of choice but unless the eco-system is provided for these fledging businesses to thrive, they will all end in failure.


3. Government should tip the scales very subtly in favour of Indian companies

This is a lesson to be learnt from Unites States of America. Many new technologies are partially funded by the government so that the country gets an advantage.  The government also buys their own country's products so that these organizations gain vitality. Their is a lot of strategic intent in their buying behaviour.

Our country's government not only does not support firms which could create exports. It harasses and penalizes such companies so much so that they think that it is is mistake to be in a business where the government is a big buyer or has a big role ! Many examples abound: A company recently created capacity for Technical Ammonium Nitrate, an industrial explosive of high quality learning and absorbing new technologies in the process. Our government companies would rather import fertilizer grade explosive and use them rather than buying from this innovative company.

There is a company  called Encore Software Ltd which made a product which could have aided the armed forces during the terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008. Unfortunately this product is yet to see the light of day as the decision makers in government  do not support them and to add insult to injury expect to be support them. Any surprise we have no exports of arms from India  and are dependent on imports ?

Sell the Cigarette factory

Indian insurance companies and  Special Undertaking of UTI owns 32% of ITC Ltd.  (see shareholding pattern). In comparison the promoters of ITC Ltd namely Britich American Tobacco (BAT) owns about 30.4%.

It is quite contradiction of sorts that the Government which is making smoking more and more difficult is owning such a large chunk of a cigarette manufacturer. No doubt ITC does a few other things but almost all of its profits come from cigarettes.

Cigarette smoking has been shrinking in the US and most  of the  developed world for the last three decades. See the following graphs

There are no indicators to show that we wont be part of that trend soon. Current sales and volume growth shows slow down in cigarette consumption. If the government decides to be proactive, we could hasten these changes. This company trades at a lofty 32 times earnings.

As the following TABLE shows most of the profits are from Cigarettes.




The nation also needs money for various important needs such as recapitalizing banks, creating infrastructure etc.

It makes eminent business sense to sell ITC shares to BAT. This will gather about Rs 90000 crores in the coffers of LIC, GIC and subsidiaries and the Special undertaking of UTI which could be used more productively. The funds received by LIC could be used to buy shares of PSUs which could be off loaded by the Government to LIC making it a backdoor divestment.

And perhaps a portion of the proceeds could be used to fund campaigns on Television and Social media to reduce cigarette consumption too !

Undoing MNREGA elegantly

There is a lot of worry regarding the employment guarantee scheme among people concerned about the future of India. It is vitiating the work atmosphere and making prefer idleness to work. It is also spoiling the finances of the nation.

If we consider labour as a commodity, its rate goes down when there is dumping. Labour like airline seats is a perishable commodity and its price drops when there is no demand. There is dumping when there is no demand. There is usually no demand for labour only in select pockets of the country. These districts are prone to large migration.

A tightening of the disbursement and monitoring will definitely help reduce the cost of MNREGA but it will not reduce it fully.

If the Central Government can identify the districts with the poorest prospects of jobs and improve these districts on a war footing, then this would reduce migration. This could in turn drive rates of labour in other states much higher and make labour rates far above MNREGA rates. In short, it would have a very amplified impact on the labour markets. For example, improving electricity, law and order and creating of  Industrial estates in poorest districts of West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and UP will drive up wage rates all over the country especially in Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Punjab and Maharashtra.

This could reduce MNREGA substantial in an elegant manner at least in the richer states.