DIGITISATION AND DEMONETISATION

" I am not an expert  of demonetisation, I have nothing to say, but the prospect of digitisation in the country will make India  reach in a place is always sought for" 

This is precise comment of Mr Bill Gates, the CEO of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation visited India very recently.But, in reality, there is a very big gap lying between the concept of digitisation and its optimum utilisation throughout the country as on date that I will try to analyse in this blog.

The use of digital platform in Government establishments and Financial companies, Banks etc is the basic of    e governance. To attain a totality in digitisation, the first step is to computerise all State and Government departments. There must be a data bank for each records in Government establishments easily available with a mouse click in case of need. The entire process is yet to be completed in many states and one will find staffs are seated behind bulk files of paper records piled on the table in most government departments.Visitors find tough  time to locate their necessary records and many are compelled to bribe some unscrupulous staffs to get their work done.Ministry of surface transport, Aviation etc are already digitised, but ironically again, common people are delayed to get there work done as data banks are not updated intentionally by a group of people in junior level to continue their dirty tricks of getting under the table. However, the HR department of almost all offices are digitised and salaries and other allowances are now directly credited to the account of concerned employee.This has minimised the manual workload substantially in both government offices as well as in banking arena where salaries to departments were paid manually in earlier days.This has plugged the avenue of some HR department employees who were used to ask bribe from their own colleagues for getting passed a home loan or a TA bill etc. Now let us note that what we have achieved till date :

a) Major Government departments are following digital platform.Data banks are created in most segments.

b) Payments are made through e-platform to suppliers and staffs.

c) 60% of population of the country are having a bank account and are issued an ATM come debit card. Rural and under privileged are brought under Government's Jana Dhan Yojana Scheme to open NO FRILLS ACCOUNT. They are simultaneously brought digital world through 'Ru Pay' gateway of digital payment.

d) All major Banks are functioning under Core Banking platform and customers are offered the facility of cashless transactions through RTGS, NEFT and internet Banking.

e) Government Subsidy on different scheme, Gas connection and payment under MGNREGA etc are made cashless  and directly routed through respective accounts of beneficiary and thus plugged the intervention of middlemen who used to take a portion of humble pie of actual beneficiary since many decades.

f) Land banks are digitised. 

In the field of public sector  the digitisation has soared up rapidly in metros and tier I cities. The organised sector working in metros and large cities are mostly covered under e -platform. The clientele covered in these cities are mostly of higher middle class and high income groups. Working class or businessmen both are literate and well aware of digital world. Most of the citizen in metros and tier I cities prefer to do cashless transactions, viz. they buy their groceries and essentials through debit/credit cards. They buy their clothes and other necessities from large malls and go for cashless transaction. They use the transportation facility of private high end operator like OLA, UBER etc who operates through cashless payment wallets. For other daily needs they use app based cashless wallets and take the service of bigbusket.com or amazon.in for fruits and vegetables, flip cart or snap deal for any other necessities. Other then these, there are many payment wallets like patm, jabong, food panda, book my show  etc are available options for them to service their every day needs fulfilled. . Banks are not far behind and largest Bank of the country SBI has come out with its own app based service like SBI Buddy, SBI Anywhere SBI m visa and so on.In a nutshell, citizens of metros and tier I cities are more or less digitised.Cashless life is a reality there. But,

The other part of the country on the contrary there is totally a different reality :

a) 40% of population is still un-banked and they never saw any thing other than currency notes.

b) Tier II and Tier III cities and smaller towns although large chunk of literate persons are staying there, but they find it comfortable to transact in cash.Retail business are preferable transact in cash and do not rely on POS terminals. Some of  large business establishments and small malls are accepting cashless transactions through debit/credit cards.

c) Small towns and rural areas the infrastructure is alarmingly worse.Although a percentage of rural population are having their individual debit cards but in most cases they have to travel at least minimum 5/6 km to get the ATM kiosk or a Bank branch to withdraw their hard earned money. 

d) Farmers are paid in cash by middlemen who buy their produce in the absence of any e-platform as a matter of practice since decades.

e) majority of people are still comfortable in handling their transaction needs in cash only. 

f) Whole seller are refusing to accept payment other than cash  from retail counterparts.

g) transportation other than aviation are generally done in cash payment only. 

In this mixed effort of digitisation of economy by the Government the hammering of demonetisation has been an unexpected blow to the common men.  Aftermath of the declaration of demonetisation of high denomination currency  by the government the effect  on people other than large cities and metros are huge. 

a ) Prices of perishables are down dramatically. Farmers are stuck with produce in hand and no money to invest for the new harvesting season.Although Government came out with some punitive measures for farmers recently for buying of seeds.

b)  Consumption is at an all time low. This will effect revenue collection for the governments and states.

c) In tier II and III cities the neighbourhood stores are losing out massively to the big baskets and the big bazaars. This deep freeze in trading will hurt small businesses the most.

d) People in rural and small town are perennially standing in serpentine queue to get their own hard earned valid money.

e) In high tech cities like Pune and Bangalore people are least effected by this declaration. They are as usual using their e-wallets for their A to Z need. Even Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation ( BMTC) has declared introducing prepaid  smart card for commuter from January 2017 to boost cashless payment. but, 

Actually grey area of monetary system (the so called black money) has not seen much light till date. Barring a few small raid and minimum disclosure have not contributed much towards the main purpose of demonetisation. Instead, this cash sucked out of the system has taken the economy into a deep freeze. Government has approximately demonetised 14 lac crores and haven't injected even 1 lac crores back in the system. Our capacity to inject is also in doubt. While Government has scrapped 1,658 Cr notes of Rs 500 and 668 Cr notes of Rs 1000 our Printing capacity is just 100 Cr notes per month of Rs 500 and 133 Cr notes per month of Rs 2000. If RBI transfers the unaccounted notes as reserves to government, the trust in our currency will be hit.

This is looking grim.GDP of the country is effected. From an inflation led economy, we may be fighting to stop stagflation and wade of deflation. I just hope this  will end soon."

A HERO OF TIME

Narendra Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State(present-day Gujarat). He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and Hiraben Modi. Modi's family belonged to the Modh-Ghanchi-Teli (oil-presser) community, which is categorised as an Other Backward Class by the Indian government.

As a child, Modi helped his father sell tea at the Vadnagar railway station, and later ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus. Modi completed his higher secondary education in Vadnagar in 1967, where a teacher described him as an average student and a keen debater, with an interest in theatre. Modi had an early gift for rhetoric in debates, and this was noted by his teachers and students. Modi preferred playing larger-than-life characters in theatrical productions, which has influenced his political image.

At age eight, Modi discovered the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and began attending its local shakhas (training sessions). There, Modi met Lakshmanrao Inamdar, popularly known as Vakil Saheb, who inducted him as a balswayamsevak(junior cadet) for RSS and became his political mentor. While Modi was training with the RSS, he also met Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, Bharatiya Jana Sangh leaders who were founding members of the BJP's Gujarat unit in 1980.

Engaged while still a child to a local girl, Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modi, Modi rejected the arranged marriage at the same time he graduated from high school. The resulting familial tensions contributed to his decision to leave home in 1967.

Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister of India on 26 May 2014 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He became the first Prime Minister born after India's independence from the United Kingdom He was the first to invite all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation leaders to attend his swearing-in ceremony. His first cabinet consisted of 45 ministers, 25 fewer than the previous UPA government. His first cabinet decision was to set up an SIT to address the issue of illegal money. He started a monthly radio program titled "Mann ki Baat" on 3 October 2014. He repealed 1,159 obsolete laws in first two years as compared to 1,301 such laws repealed by his preceding governments over a span of 64 years. As of May 2016, more than 1.04 crore people have been trained under Skill India Mission launched by him in 2015.

A vegetarian, Modi has a frugal lifestyle and is a workaholic and introvert. Adept at using social media, he has been since September 2014 the second-most-followed leader in the world (with over 17.9 million followers on Twitter as of February 2016), behind only Barack Obama. Modi's 31 August 2012 post on Google Hangouts made him the first Indian politician to interact with netizens on live chat.

Modi has also been called a fashion-icon with his signature, crisply ironed, half-sleeved tunic-shirt (dubbed the "Modi kurta"), brand-name accessories, and a suit with his name embroidered repeatedly in the pinstripes that he wore during a state visit by US President Barack Obama, drawing particular public and media attention, and sometimes criticism.

Although he is considered a controversial, polarising and divisive figure, British economist Jim O'Neill blogged that Modi is "good on economics" – one of the things "India desperately needs in a leader" In August 2013, financial analyst Chris Wood of CLSA wrote in his weekly "Greed & fear" report: "The Indian stock market's greatest hope is the emergence of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate"

As prime minister, Modi has received consistently high approval ratings; at the end of his first year in office, he received an overall approval rating of 87% in a Pew Research poll, with 68% of people rating him "very favourably" and 93% approving of his government His approval rating remained largely consistent at around 74% through his second year in office, according to a nationwide poll conducted by insta Vaani. At the end of his second year in office, an updated Pew Research poll showed Modi continued to receive high overall approval ratings of 81%, with 57% of those polled rating him "very favourably."
He is instrumental for  demonetising high value existing currency notes to bring back transperency in economic system of the republic. 

AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN GIANT

A man who could write a speak better English probably then an Englishman (is acknowledged by many in contemporary world also) started his early education at his home.His father had him educated at home by private governesses and tutors. Under the influence of a tutor, Ferdinand T. Brooks, he became interested in science and theosophy. He was subsequently initiated into the Theosophical Society at age thirteen by family friend Annie Besant. However, his interest in theosophy did not prove to be enduring and he left the society shortly after Brooks departed as his tutor. He wrote: "for nearly three years [Brooks] was with me and in many ways he influenced me greatly"

His theosophical interests had induced him to the study of the Buddhist and Hindu Scriptures.According to B.R. Nanda , these scriptures were his "first introduction to the religious and cultural heritage of India....they provided him the initial impulse for his long intellectual quest which culminated...in his famous book. Later when he had begun his institutional schooling in 1905 at Harrow, a leading school in England, he was greatly influenced by G M . Trevalyan's  Garibaldi books, which he had received as prizes for academic merit. He viewed Garibaldi as a revolutionary hero.

After completing his schooling from Harrows, England,he went to e,Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1907 and graduated with an honours degree in natural science in 1910.During this period, he also studied politics, economics, history and literature desultorily. Writings of Bernard Shaw, H.G.Wells, J.M.Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Lowes Dickinson and Meredith Townsend moulded much of his political and economic thinking.  

After completing his degree in 1910, he went to London and stayed there for two years for law studies at the Inns of Court School of Law (Inner Temple). During this time, he continued to study the scholars of the Fabian Society including Beatrice Webb. He passed his bar examinations in 1912 and was admitted to the English bar.

All along his life he loved children very much.He was a prolific writer in English and wrote a number of books, such as Discovery of India ,Glimpse of World History, and his autobiography, Towards Freedom. He had written 30 letters to his daughter Indira Gandhi, when she was 10 years old and was in a boarding school in Mussoorie teaching about natural history and the story of civilisations. The collection of these letters was later published as a book Letter from a father to his daughter.

The man was born in 1889 of Motilal Nehru a nationalist leader and Swarooprani of his two other siblings elder sister Vijaylakhsmi FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT OF UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY and younger sister Krishna Hutheesing was an eminent author of many books.

His name and work is gradually fading away from the citizen of country due to vehement force of artificial 'Hinduttva' imposed by a group of people and new generation will never know of a man who had a larger than life image minus his political mistakes.