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EDITORIAL Some interesting revelations have been made by Indian Academy of Accupressure Science regarding bagful of books carried by average school student. According to the survey carried out in Indore, on an average a student carries as much as 6000 kg load annually on his back. It comes to roughly 20 kg a diem for to and fro carriage of the heavy bag. Some weight can also be added because at school age children have the yearning to drift away from their incoming and outgoing journey to the school of learning. They play enroute and even engage in dog-fights after the dreary schedule that tax their mental faculties heavily. Study of the Accupressure Academy however concentrates more on physical burden and the consequences thereof which in turn also affect mental capabilities. The calculations are based on an average 'spinal piling' of 20 to 40 minutes. In reality however this time could be much more when the child carries full load depending how much far away is the school from his home and how many types of bottlenecks he encounters for his to and fro journey. According to the study 29.8% of those students surveyed complained of headaches, 6.49 of pain in neck, 8.6 shoulder pain and 9.7 percent pain in the back and hips. These type of pains are normally the preserves of the old and ageing or those under acute stress. School students should be enjoying blisses of natural health and environs for proper growth. The study also reveals that private schools outdo the Government schools in this exercise of turning children into mini-mules. In some cases it was found that a child weighing 30 kg carried the bags weighing 15 Kg! The study strongly opines that such bagfuls hamper their growth both physically and mentally.......more |
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Men,
Matters, Memories Growth of insurgency in Kashmir By M L Kotru Having made his peace with himself and with us, thanks to his "musings" from distant Kerala, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is off and away to Vietnam, Indonesia etc........more ACADEMIC
PULSE By Prof S K Bhalla The other day author-columnist Shoba De opined in the context of women "Education is the only vehicle to success. Instead of quota give them education first........more Tales
of Travesty By Dr. Jitendra Singh It is a pleasure to confront a woman who while being aware of her captivating charm pretends that she is not........more Horticulture
at a glance By Rakesh Abrol Horticulture has attained a great importance, both at national and international levels, over the past few .......more By Navin Chandra Joshi The Reserve Bank of India re-cently urged the Government to explore the feasibility of bringing the agricultural ......more |
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EDITORIAL Some interesting revelations have been made by Indian Academy of Accupressure Science regarding bagful of books carried by average school student. According to the survey carried out in Indore, on an average a student carries as much as 6000 kg load annually on his back. It comes to roughly 20 kg a diem for to and fro carriage of the heavy bag. Some weight can also be added because at school age children have the yearning to drift away from their incoming and outgoing journey to the school of learning. They play enroute and even engage in dog-fights after the dreary schedule that tax their mental faculties heavily. Study of the Accupressure Academy however concentrates more on physical burden and the consequences thereof which in turn also affect mental capabilities. The calculations are based on an average 'spinal piling' of 20 to 40 minutes. In reality however this time could be much more when the child carries full load depending how much far away is the school from his home and how many types of bottlenecks he encounters for his to and fro journey. According to the study 29.8% of those students surveyed complained of headaches, 6.49 of pain in neck, 8.6 shoulder pain and 9.7 percent pain in the back and hips. These type of pains are normally the preserves of the old and ageing or those under acute stress. School students should be enjoying blisses of natural health and environs for proper growth. The study also reveals that private schools outdo the Government schools in this exercise of turning children into mini-mules. In some cases it was found that a child weighing 30 kg carried the bags weighing 15 Kg! The study strongly opines that such bagfuls hamper their growth both physically and mentally. To be precise this study appears to be quite authentic. A couple of years back country's leading psychiatrists also expressed similar views. Taking cue from such findings, Courts had directed schools in Delhi not to admit any child below the age of 4 for that glorious pre-nursery, nursery, kindergarten and so-called prep treat. Maharashtra government has ordered schools to limit the number of note/exercise books to be carried each day to reduce the size of the bag. There were other directions with the sole object of reducing the weight carried by school children. But this practice which by any reckoning adds to the woes of the parents and children alike continues unabated. The million dollar question is does this extra load which is creation of the post-independence period make the students more competitive with all round development or not. At this stage one may refer to some modern schools that have come up recently even in Jammu. They term them as day-boarding schools. Students in these schols do not carry bags at all. Even home work is done in the school. It would be quite apt to compare the product of these day-boarding ones with those who make the students carry abnormal burden. Does it really improve quality of education thus imparted which may be beyond the grasp of average student. This comparison is only between private schools of two types. One need not take notice of what happens in government schools at least in this State. That is anybody's business and nobody's business. By any reckoning or yardstick better environs enhances IQ of the child. With heavy physical and mental burden, the child invites pre-mature diseases which also affects his IQ. It has to be competition for all round improvement of the child and not book-worms alone. More note books in no way improve academic standards. The students also face stress conditions if one or the other note-book gets misplaced or lost or just forgotten to force it in the bag. The bags with so much burden also gets torn. Those imparting this type of education perhaps should imparting this type of education perhaps should recollect their good old days and compare whether the education then received by them in Government schools was more sold and impactful than what is being arranged or taught by them now. Should there be Court intervention or some legislative measure to make mandatory for all schools not to burden the children with such heavy bags or should the Private Schools Associations evolve certain norms to produce children with all-round development and without spinal disorders and pains associated with it? Let there be a debate. |
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Men,
Matters, Memories By M L Kotru Having made his peace with himself and with us, thanks to his "musings" from distant Kerala, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is off and away to Vietnam, Indonesia etc., due to return home for a final round of talks with the Chinese No. 2, former Prime Minister Li Peng. The Ayodhya controversy, so far as he is concerned, now lies buried - for the present at least - somewhere in the debris of the "disputed" structure once known as the Babri Masjid. A brand new Ram Temple at the site of the demolished mosque perhaps continues to represent "national sentiment" but we have the Prime Minister's word for it when he says that his original statement on the issue had been misunderstood. Or, that he did not say what he was generally perceived to have said. The musings had many other hopeful elements - not the least of these being his offer to have direct contact with Pakistan at any level. Of course he did cast on the military Government of the country the responsibility for creating a ground situation conducive to the dialogue being purposeful. This may not sound as demanding as the previous insistence on stopping the flow of terrorists from that country into Jammu and Kashmir but in essence it amounts to that. For, talks and terrorism do not make a good mix. The heightened terrorist activity in the State, with suicide attacks very much the done thing, does indeed cast a shadow even as crisis resolution appears to be the flavour of the month. Yet, the Vajpayee musings on Indo-Pak relations do open up new prospects. To go by the Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar's response to the Vajpayee overture, things do indeed look hopeful, at least for now. Which, again, is not saying much given the turns and twists of the Indo-Pak relationship. For one thing Gen. Musharraf, back home from yet another of his foreign jaunts, is yet to tell us what exactly he proposes to do with menace of the numerous fundamentalist outfits operating out of Pakistan. It's not just what they do on the Pakistani soil (which by itself may not be in the long term interests of that ocuntry) but the recklessness they display when it comes to giving vent to their feelings on Kashmir or, for that matter, their intemperate attacks on india. It's not with a view to scoring a debating point that I mention India's willingness to allow some or even all Hurriyat leaders to make the much "desired" (by them and the Pakistanis) pilgrimage to Pakistan as a concessison. It may even prove to be a positive move, considering that Pakistan appears to have put most of its eggs in the Hurriyat basket. There are some eggs within the basket, though, which may not hatch exactly as Islamabad would wish them to. One is not thinking in terms of some outsider causing discord among the Hurriyat ranks. It's already there. The majority in the Hurriyat, would not want Kashmir to be brought under the Pakistani military heel as much as they would want the Indian heel to be lifted. That, though, is a matter that should unfold itself in the coming weeks, if the peace wagon gets rolling at all. Nevertheless, if by enabling the Hurriyat to make the journey to Pakistan, India is seen to have made a positive gesture, New Delhi would be well within its rights to expect Pakistan to act in a substantive manner in respect of the inflow of jehadis into the State from that side of the border. Frankly, if the leaders of India and Pakistan do finally decide to enter into a direct dialogue on Kashmir and other outstanding problems, I see the insistence on Hurriyat participation as an exercise in irrelevancy. Vajpayee's vision of a South Asia at peace with itself, as outlined in his musings, has in it the seeds of an altogether new era of peaceful co-existence in the entire region. If pursued sincerely by both sides it might even infuse some fresh life in the generally moribund South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation aka SAARC. It's upto the leadership of the two countries to see whether this dream is ever fulfilled. I do believe New Delhi and Islamabad hold the key to it. India, or its part, has more than expressed its inclination to go ahead with its peace initiative; it's now for Musharraf to convince Pakistani people that peace is attainable and that to achieve it there will have to be a good deal of give and take. Should the Vajpayee musings on Pakistan lead to such a development one could well hope for a better deal for the people's of the region. Vajpayee, in his musings notes at one place that "in our search for a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem, both in its external and internal dimensions, we shall not traverse solely on the beaten track internally in Kashmir, Vajpayee could have gone one better and admitted all the mistakes which successive Governments in New Delhi have made in Kashmir over the past half century. Yasesen Malik of the JKLF, one of the Hurriyat constituents, made a passing, through telling, reference to it in on of his recent statements. New Delhi never really allowed democracy to strike roots in the State, he said. Fraudulent elections to sustain chosen ones in office has been the lodestar of the democratic experiment in the State. Chief Ministers considered inconvenient were removed in coups stagemanaged in New Delhi's ministerial boardrooms. If a Sheikh Abdullah became inconvenient in 1953 he was quietly dismissed and jailed, followers some years later by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad's ouster in equally odious circumstances. Even the current Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was shown the door in 1983, replaced briefly by his brother-in-law G.M. Shah. And if you study the growth of insurgency in the State you have to only recalled the elections to the State Assembly held in 1986. Many of the top secessionist leaders, leaders, including the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen, now known as Sallahuddin, were contenders for Assembly seats then; the Jamaat-e-Islami headed by Syed Geelani, had been an active participant in successive polls. But blinded by their own self-interest, the leaders in New Delhi and Srinagar ensured that the elections were rigged causing most of today's secessionists to turn their backs on India. The musings fall short of expectations when Vajpayee fails to own up the failures of the previous governments and his own inability to set the house in order. Vajpayee, one hopes, may even so have finally decided to move off the beaten track. And whether you like it or not. Yaseen Malik has served a reminder about where we went wrong initially. Let's hope Vajpayee's new vision provides for a freer and more democratic hand to the people of Jammu and Kashmir in choosing their own leaders, the assumption being that India and Pakistan agree not to disturb the existing boundaries, call it the line of control, if you will. At the end of it all, after having dished out kudos to Vajpayee for his Kashmir musings and even after making a note of the positive noises emanating from the Pakistani establishment, I cannot help being sceptical about the whole thing. My scepticism owes its origin to the usual Pakistani double-think, double-speak on all matters, Kashmir above all, concering that country's relations with ours. For them Kashmir remains part of the unfinished business of partition. That nearly 14 crore Muslims continue to live in India after the creation of Pakistan does not makes sense to the bigots in the Pakistani ruling class; it never has. Add to this the very conscious efforts made by the fundamentalists in that country to revive pan-Islamism in the sub-continent. Their bigotry can only be matched by the kind displayed by our own Bajrang Dals and Vishwa Hindu Parishads not to forget the jingoistic rantings of the RSS chief, K Sudershan. Even more worrisome is the absence of a cohesive Indian Kashmir policy. Of knee-jerk actions and reactions we have had a plenty over the years. The Hurriyat melodrama is only a minor symptom of the problems whic New Delhi is capable of creating for itself. In the Hurriyat case, New Delhi appears to have marginalised all pro-Indian forces in the State of Jammu and Kashmir thus willy nilly conferring on the disparate secessionist grouping some form of representative character. While the Vajpayee musings, and what they bring in their train on the Kashmir Front, have some positive undertones, New Delhi will have to tread the path of negotiations very cautiously. As it is, Islamabad has so far shown no interest in bringing down the level of violence in the Valley. Its jehadis have on the contrary only stepped up their depredations in the wake of the Vajpayee initiatives. This is a development which even the bunch of do-gooders about to leave for Pakistan to try their hand at track-II initiatives yet again cannot afford to overlook or ignore. They must read these ground realities in the context of the hysterical war cries of the jehadi organisations based in Pakistan. |
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Tales of Travesty By Dr. Jitendra Singh It is a pleasure to confront a woman who while being aware of her captivating charm pretends that she is not the least conscious of the spell cast by her; who while being aware of the inquisitive glances received by her pretends that she is aloof and unaffected. That the social achievements of a rich and pretty woman are, a La Rekha, not confined to mere leaving behind a trail of former husbands, half of them dead and half alive, or that the sole gratifiction of a resourceful woman is not limited to the mere award of a ministerial berth is however evident only once a while. It is delightful that precisely when the capital's politial circle were abuzz with the news about the elder sister-in-law Sonia Gandhi joining hands with Mamta Banerjee to demand dismissal of the Communist Government in West Bengal, the younger sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi decided to throw the gauntlet at Mamta Banerjee by taking up cudgels against what she describes as illegal transport of cattle and smuggling of cows in trains which fall directly under the juristiction of Mamta Banerjee's Ministry. Even as the Railway Ministry officials are at pains to explain that it is only the legitimate activity of milching for which the cows are transported in the trains, Maneka Gandhi insists that the transportation is taking place with the clandestine objective of feeding the trade in cattle meat and leather. Now, this is not the first time that Maneka Gandhi has raked up a controversy over what she describes as the "animal rights". Earlier, she had opposed the use of pony for carrying pilgrims to the Vaishno Devi shrine without understanding that this was part of a natural activity undertaken by the pony. At the same time, Maneka has also all along vociferously denounced what she believes to be the "wasteful luxury of meat eating". Maneka may have shared her "pound of flesh" as a Minister, first with Chandra Shekhar and now with Atal Behari Vajpayee, but for the lesser mortals she comes out with frightening statistics against the consumption of animal flesh food. It is difficult to ascertain which of the Maneka's diverse attributes had endeared her to the Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's younger son Sanjay when the latter first met this charming young girl from a Delhi College who was, perhaps, known less for the qualities of head and more for her enthusiasm to participate in the college functions. A defiant effort to assert her priorities was, however, evident when within a few days of the tragic death of her husband she did not hesitate accepting an invitation to preside over a function organised to promote the cause of environment. Maneka claims to be inherently in love with the animals, with the greenery and with all that is good in the environment. She goes ahead zealously in her pursuit notwithstanding the allegation that she is only seeking to cultivate an exclusive constituency for herself. Incidentally, the allegation itself does not sound that unflattering. For, when human beings are no longer trustworthy either as political allies or as an electoral constituency, there seems adequate justification in wooing the animal species to promote one's political interests. What is more, Maneka's public image as an aggreived widow and wronged daughter-in-law gives her an added advantage thus reminding of Bernard Shaw's dictum that the easiest way to achieve fame without ability is through martyrdom. For a common man with all his susceptibilities, it should be borne in mind that when he follows a particular advice, the motivation is not always based on the merits of the advice as such but often on who tenders the advice. To use poet Ghalib's expression, "Hazrat-e-Naseh Gar Aaye, Deeda -O-Dil Chashme -Rah ---" Meanwhile, it will be interesting to watch how many of Maneka's gullible admirers including Umapathy will be willing to turn vegetarian simply because Maneka wants them to do so! |
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Horticulture at a glance By Rakesh Abrol Horticulture has attained a great importance, both at national and international levels, over the past few decades, owing to its potential to generate employment, earn foreign exchange and ensure nutritional security to the ever burgeoning population. This is evident from the increased budgetary support to this sector in past few five-year plans. Further, there is noteworthy increase in the infrastructure, manpower and institutions imparting education and training to spread horticulture in the country. Horticulture has become the ''subject of choice'' among the graduates in agricultural sciences for their Masters and Doctorate programmes. There has been a noteworthy escalation in the number of aspirants who wish to carve their career in the field of horticulture. Amidst the stiff competition, many aspire and only a few are able to secure admission in the institutions of repute and get fellowships and jobs in horticulture. Indian horticulture encompasses of fruits, vegetables, ornametals, spices, condiments, plantations, beverages, edible fungi, and medicinal and aromatic plants. This subject is very vast in its scope and limits. Accordingly, score of books and journals are required to have understanding of the subject. Keeping this problem in view, a pioneering attempt has been made by Dr Ajeet Singh Salaria, to present the matter on fruits and plantation crops in a single book entitled ''Horticulture at a Glance ''which is exclusively meant for the competitive examinations. A mere glance at the book ''Horticulture at a glance'', a publication of Jain Brothers. New Delhi displayed at the leading book house in the local market of Jammu prompted me to go through it and pen down a few lines about the publication. This is something remarkable from a young and budding author. Think of a query in horticulture you have a ready-made answer in this book. As entitled only a glance at the book gives an insight to the status of fruit and plantation crop industry of the country. This book is a planner for the beginner, refresher for the experts and guidebook for the aspirants of the competitive examinations. The major contents of the book include introduction, classification, production technology, crop improvement and queries on production, improvement and post harvest management. These contents are arranged in a sequence, which is worth adhering to extract maximum out of this book. The chapter on objective type questions that includes MCQs, match the following, fill in the blank, true and false is distinguishing feature of the book, which enhances the beauty, and utility of the book manifold. Question bank and model paper helps the reader to assess their level of understanding and grasping of the subject and derive them to search for the answers in the preceding text. Glossary explains the technical terms used in the text and hence makes it simpler to understand. This book becomes more relevant these days as it deals with the subject both in subjective and objective forms absolutely on the pattern of the most of the competitve examinations. Profile of the author his accomplishments and Alma mater itself speak volumes about the usefulness of the content and text of the publication. At the top of it, a foreword by Dr Kirti Singh, who is an authority in horticulture, a former Chairman, ASRB; Secretary, NAAS and Vice Chancellor of three agricultural universities has highly appreciated the efforts of the author to bring out this publication. He writes, ''The book is first of its own kind exclusively meant for competitive examinations. The information documented in this book gives ample guidance to enable the candidates to take examinations like JRF, SRF, NET, ARS and entrance tests of various agricultural institutions in the country. Besides it will be an extremely useful document for the students, teachers and all those interested in the subject of horticulture. The author has lived up to the expectations of the readers and has surely done a good job to deliver the core of the subject in an encapsulated, concise and easy to assimilate form, which is specially designed to compete for screening and selection tests held across the country to secure jobs in horticulture. The book appeared in the market of Delhi in August 1999 and up till now about three thousand copies have been sold. This book seems to have attained the required acceptance and popularity amongst the persons related with the field. This book may also prove to be of great help to the aspirants for the post of Horticulture Development Officers whose interviews are going to be held shortly. |
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By Navin Chandra Joshi The Reserve Bank of India re-cently urged the Government to explore the feasibility of bringing the agricultural sector in the tax net in order to align the country's tax structure with the changing composition of income. An equitable harnessing of the revenue potential could be undertaken for developmental requirements of India's growing economy in the second phase of economic reforms, says the RBI Report on Currency and Finance (1998-99) released in December, 1999. It is now felt that the case for taxation of agriculture is on par with similar levels of incomes in urban areas though not so much on grounds of revenue as on considerations of equity and other economic effects. Economists feel that if the tax-GDP ratio is to be improved, agricultural income must be taxed. Gross farm income is put at twice that of the industrial sector and yet it remains untaxed even as some decades back the K N Raj committee had presented a fool-proof case for taxing agricultural income. While the equitableness of such a levy has never been questioned, it is the political implications which have always influenced the government's line of action. Some time back, the World Bank recommended agricultural taxation as an important source of resource mobilisation. ''Taxation of affluent farmers,'' says the Bank, ''offers possibilities in the long run despite the obvious political and administrative difficulties''. Only a small percentage of the peasantry will be affected by an agricultural income-tax. To say that such a levy will be detrimental to the interests of all farmers is to misinterpret the effects of the levy. The World Bank and the K N Raj Committee have not advocated taxation of the income of each and every farmer. They have had only the rich farmers in mind. As such, one fundamental task of our fiscal policy is to mobilise an economic surplus created by various sectors of the economy. Since agriculture happens to be the largest sector in India, a tax policy has to be tailored to tap the agricultural surplus to finance developmental investment projects. Capital formation in the present stage of our industrial development must come from agriculture. Indeed , agriculture, far from securing investment from industrial sector, has to shoulder the burden of industrialisation. To be able to do so, not only the available agricultural surpluses have to be collected but measures need to be devised to harness accruals to farmers' incomes. With such savings mobilised from the agricultural sector, the process of industrialisation has to be sustained. Actually our resource mobilisation efforts are limited to the urban sector. Direct taxation covers a few hundred thousand in the cities. The incidence of excise duties is much wider. Some contribution from them also trickles into the coffers of the State. As far as borrowings either by the government or industry go, they leave the rural areas almost untouched. In the combined actual tax revenue of the Union and State Governments, the contribution of the agricultural sector is hardly 1.6 per cent. Thus, 80 per cent of the population of the country makes a contribution of only one and a half per cent to the exchequer as against a contribution of 98.5 per cent made by the remaining 20 per cent of the population. It would thus be advisable to treat farm incomes like any other income in view of the constraints on resources. In the absence of a move in this direction, partcularly the whole of primary sector continues to be a virtual haven in India as far as direct taxation goes. It may, of course, be argued that the bulk of the rural population lives below the poverty line and as such, any attempt to tax them would lead to a further decline of their living standards and that in any case, the resources that may be available from this effort would be so meagre as to be hardly worth the labour spent collecting them. But this is taking a partial view of the situation as many farmers have been able to amass quite an amount of wealth, benefitting from the Green Revolution, as also due to improved productivity made possible by governmental to consider as to why we should not try to tap this source for augmenting our resources. This section of rural population, may be small in terms of percentage of the total rural population, but in terms of number they would not be quite inconsiderable. As is well-known, a variety of fairly sizeable subsidies has been flowing into agriculture. Subsidies for fertilisers, irrigation, livestock, rural development and rural electrification are of the order of around Rs 10,000 crore a year. Besides the Government has been pampering rich farmers by increasing the procurement price of agricultural products every year. While subsidies are backed by good intentions like boosting production, raising milk yields, creating assets for poor farms and so on it is an open secret that the target groups of population intended to be the beneficiaries have not been deriving the benefits. Further the better-off farmers have not put the resources to productive use in agriculture and most of the accruals in their income have been invested in real estates and shares in the urban sector. A recent survey, conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), has found that in agriculture the number of households in upper middle and high income groups is more than 4.2 million while only 1.5 million households are existing in the business class which pertain to such income groups. These households in agriculture constitutes 25 per cent of the total households in upper-middle and high income groups in the country and would contributes over Rs 9,000 crore if agricultural income is taxed. In these circumstances the premises and principles favouring taxation of farm incomes seem to be incontrovertible. Even as there is progressivity and vertical equity in our taxation structure, the exclusion of agricultural incomes from the tax net makes the whole gamut of taxation horizontal. Consequently people earning the same income but operating in two different sectors receive a different treatment. In fact, the discrimination against salaried employees is so manifest as not to go unnoticed. The rich segment in the farming community is as large as in industry. It is as prosperous have been spending a lot on fertilisers, water, power, etc, and supplying them at highly economic rates. This generosity has certainly helped the rich farming class in boosting their output. Therefore, our effort should not be limited to only taxing the rich farmers. They should be motivated to contribute a much larger amount by way of investing in bank deposits, life insurance, unit trust, government and other securities, etc. The total additional funds that might accrue from this section could be well over Rs 10,000 crore a year. Here it may be pointed out that the Tax Reforms Committee (set up by the Union Government in August 1991) under the chairmanship of Dr Raja J Chelliah had expressed the view that while agriculturists whose income consists of only agricultural income, say, below Rs 25,000 per annum and non-agricultural income below the income-tax exemption limit, may not be brought within the income-tax net. The agricultural income in excess of, say, Rs 25,000 accuring to the non-agriculturists should be brought under the tax net to promote equity and reduce scope for tax evasion. The Committee recommended that in the case of individuals or any other entities having income from non-agricultural sources and tax should be levied on the total of such aggregated income. Agricultural income, for this purpose, will not include income from plantations subject to taxation by the States. The Central Government needs to obtain the cooperation and consent of the State Government for enacting a provision which would enable it (the Central Government) to bring under the purview of the Central income-tax. The entire tax yield attributable to the agricultural component of income would be distributable among the States on the basis of origin. By virtue of the existing Constiutional provisions, agricultural income and wealth fall outside the purview of direct tax laws (except in a very limited extent) inspite of the fact that agriculture, by itself, is a major contributor to the total national income. Hence, if the contribution of direct taxes is seen in conjunction with the non-agricultural income alone, then much of the significance of distortions in our tax administration would become apparent. Since agriculture is a State subject, the Government of India does not have the authority to tax agricultural income or commodities. Article 270 of the Constitution lays down that tax on income, other than agricultural income, shall be levied and collected by the Union Government. However, Article 252 provides that State legislatures can pass resolution authorising parliament to pass an Act to regulate taxation of agricultural income and related matters. As such, it is within the powers of the State legislatures to empower the Centre to administer agricultural income-tax and also abolish the present segregation of income into agricultural and non-agricultural for treating incomes alike. States have, however, been following a dog-in-manger policy by neither enforcing their own agricultural income-tax nor introducing legislation authorising the Union Government to proceed with the rationalisation of taxation of income irrespective of whether these are from agriculture or any other activity. At the same time, the Centre has also not been enthusiastic about bringing farm income within its own tax net. The moral of the apathetic attitude is that no more can the gap in revenue be made good by additional deficit financing unless we reduce subsidies and explore all possible sources of tax revenue. Moreover, we need to plug the temendous leakage of funds wasted in the name of rural development. As suggested by the K N Raj Committee the demands of equity will be adequately met if agricultural income-tax is based on land holdings. It is now time that State resources are consolidated and the Centre muster its political will to remedy the situation of unabated fiscal deficit. PTI Feature |
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