Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 2nd April

Poorly performing public services

Results of IHDS survey:

Right to Education

• The implementation of the RTE should, in theory, lead to higher enrollment in government schools and better educational outcomes. Ironically we see the reverse. Private school enrollment increased from 28 to 35 per cent between 2005 and 2012 for children of 6-14 years.
• small decline in reading and writing skills among children of 8-11 years. The decline higher for government schools.

NRHM

• NRHM is supposed to strengthen preventive and curative care, particularly in rural areas and in States with poor health infrastructure. However, a very small proportion of the Indian population relies on public facilities. About 70 per cent of patients visit private providers — either as their first choice or once they are frustrated with public services. 
• Ironically the greatest increase in the use of private services is in high-focus large States like U.P., Bihar, Rajasthan, M.P. and Orissa. 

Confidence of parents and patients in private schools and facilities > Government schools and facilities.

But there is no reason to believe that private doctors and teachers are more qualified than government doctors and teachers.

Reasons for such a preference:

Parents and patients feel disrespected by government service providers and may find they get better service if they pay.

• 6 per cent of the patients see a government doctor or nurse in their private practice rather than in the government dispensary where the same services could be practically free. Government facilities are often irregular in their opening times and teacher and doctor absenteeism adds to the disenchantment.
• Only about 33 per cent parents of 8-11-year-olds in government schools claim that their children received any praise in the school in the prior month; this proportion is about 55 per cent for private schools.

Janani Suraksha Yojana

• years following the initiation of the JSY document a striking increase in hospital deliveries.
• This increase is greatest in large focus States. 
• Most of this improvement is in government hospitals — from 14 per cent to 40 per cent. 

This success may be due to the efforts made by medical personnel in response to cash incentives they receive, and the fact that hurdles to hospital delivery like transportation have received consideration in programme design. Although the quality of maternity care remains a concern

This suggests that focussing on smarter organisation of public services that aligns with provider incentives, and enhances efficiency, offers potential.

Reserve Bank steps in to shore up long-term liquidity

As widely expected, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Tuesday, kept the indicative policy rate (repo) unchanged at 8 per cent while taking measures to provide longer term liquidity in the system.

The RBI Governor said that real GDP (gross domestic product) growth was projected to pick up from a little below 5 per cent in 2013-14 to a range of 5-6 per cent in 2014-15, albeit with downside risks to the central estimate of 5.5 per cent.

However, he said that “there are also risks to our central forecast of 8 per cent CPI inflation by January 2015.” These include a less-than-normal monsoon due to possible El Nino effects; uncertainty on the setting of minimum support prices for agricultural commodities; and the setting of other administered prices, especially of fuel, fertilizer and electricity; the outlook for fiscal policy; geo-political developments; and their impact on international commodity prices. There would also be a downward statistical pull on CPI inflation later this year, due to base effects from high inflation during June-November 2013, he said.

RBI adopts new CPI as key measure of inflation

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Raghuram Rajan, on Tuesday, said that the central bank had adopted the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) (combined) as the key measure of inflation.

Earlier, RBI had given more weightage to Wholesale Price Index (WPI) than CPI as the key measure of inflation for all policy purposes.

Some recommendations of Urjit R. Patel Committee report have been implemented

• adoption of the new CPI (combined) as the key measure of inflation
• explicit recognition of the glide path for disinflation, 
• transition to a bi-monthly monetary policy cycle, 
• progressive reduction in access to overnight liquidity at the fixed repo rate, and
• a corresponding increase in access to liquidity through term repos, and
• introduction of longer-tenor term repos as well as, going forward, term reverse repos.

Following on the recommendations of the high-level advisory committee chaired by Bimal Jalan, and after consulting the Election Commission, the RBI will announce in-principle approval for new bank licences.

Supreme Court to find out how Jats were included in OBC list

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Centre to produce all records of its notification to include Jats in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list for seven States, in order to find out whether it had applied its mind before taking the decision.

writ petitions filed by the OBC Reservation Raksha Samiti, Ram Singh and two others, who sought a direction to quash the March 4 notification, pointing out that the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) had rejected inclusion of Jats in the OBC list.

according to the Indra Sawney judgment (Mandal case), the recommendations of the commission were binding on the government. If the government wanted to take a different view, it should give special reasons

Stop the offer, DGCA tells airline

Terming the SpiceJet offer of rupee one fare across its domestic network as ‘predatory’ and a ‘malpractice’, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on Tuesday, came down heavily on the no-frill carrier, and asked it to stop such pricing immediately.

Such pricing was ‘not only predatory’, but it amounted to ‘malpractice’ under Rule 135 of the Aircraft Rules relating to air tariff, official sources said. The fact that only one or two seats were being offered on each flight at the rate of one rupee amounted to ‘deceiving the travelling public’, they said, adding that the airline was making such an offer for 91 sectors across the country.

Rule 135 says: “When the DGCA is satisfied that any air transport undertaking has established excessive or predatory tariff...or has indulged in oligopolistic practice, he may, by order, issue directions to such air transport undertaking.”

Gyaan

Directorate General of Civil Aviation (India)

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is the Indian governmental regulatory body for civil aviation under the Ministry of Civil Aviation. This directorate investigates aviation accidents and incidents. 

The Government of India is planning to replace the organisation with a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), modelled on the lines of the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).[3]