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Combining property rights perception and land records: Implications for India’s land policy

The Fifth India Land and Development Conference (ILDC, 2021) will be organized during 21st – 25th November 2021. The theme for this year conference is ‘Land Security for Peace and Resilience’.

NCAER and Prindex are jointly resourcing a session titled, “Combining property rights perception and land records: Implications for India’s land policy” on November 23, 2021, Day 3 of the conference.

The session will host a presentation by Prerna Prabhakar, Associate Fellow, NCAER and Anna Locke, Principal Research Fellow, ODI. It will be followed by a panel discussion with Deepak Sanan, Retired IAS, Government of Himachal Pradesh S. Chokalingam, Land Settlement Commissioner, Government of Maharashtra Annindya Banerjee, National Legal Head, HDFC Limited. The panel discussion will be moderated by K P Krishnan, IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics, NCAER.

Agenda for day 3 of the Conference is available here: https://landtenurehub.org/ildc-23-nov-2021-day-3/

Get details of the conference here: https://landtenurehub.org/

‘Conversations with NCAER’ | Re-imagining Fiscal Federalism (Second webinar)

The webinar, the second of our monthly webinar series titled ‘Conversations with NCAER’, was held virtually on Friday, 12 November 2021, 1830 hrs IST, with Mr Palanivel Thiagarajan, Finance Minister, Tamil Nadu, Sushil Kumar Modi, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Thomas Isaac, Former Finance Minister, Kerala. The discussion was  chaired by Mr N.K. Singh, Chairman, 15th Finance Commission, and former Member, Rajya Sabha. Ms Mythili Bhusnurmath, Senior Advisor, NCAER issued the opening remarks.

Fiscal federalism is the key underpinning of our Republic. The extant model, as enshrined in the Constitution, has stood us in good stead for the first 75 years of our existence as an independent republic. But as the country moves from the low-income to middle-income category, with balanced regional development forming an integral part of this shift, it is, perhaps, time to re-think and re-imagine the form of fiscal federalism. A brief note on ‘Re-imagining Fiscal Federalism’  to get a better idea of India’s fiscal federal architecture, the Constitutional provisions on federalism, and the way forward for ensuring better financial coordination between the Centre and the States is available on this webpage.

Some of the important discussion points in this webinar were; What should the contours of the new fiscal federalism be? What are the learnings from how Finance Commissions have tackled vertical imbalance (arising from asymmetry in taxation powers and expenditure responsibilities) and horizontal imbalance (arising from the differential tax capacity of States vis-à-vis the shared responsibility to provide access to public goods of comparable quantity and quality to all regardless of residence)? How can we take care of the needs of the third tier of government? Is there a case for a re-look at the lists in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, especially the Concurrent List, a unique feature of the Indian federation? What has the GST experience taught us?

Palanivel Thiagarajan is the Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu. He began his career in 1990 as an independent consultant in Operations and Systems Improvement. He went on to work with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and then worked for Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore, in the Global Capital Markets division. He was elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 2016 and 2021 from the Madurai Central constituency. He has a PhD in Human Factors Engineering/Engineering Psychology and Masters in Operations Research from the University at Buffalo, and an MBA in Financial Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Sushil Kumar Modi is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from Bihar. He also served as Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar for about 11 years, and was the Finance Minister of the State from 2005 to 2020. He was appointed Chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers for the Implementation of Goods and Service Tax in July 2011. He graduated in Botany (Hons.) from the Patna Science College.

N.K. Singh is a prominent Indian economist, academician, and policymaker. He was Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, a body established under the Indian Constitution to oversee revenue sharing and other federal fiscal policy matters. Prior to this, he presided as Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Review Committee (FRBM).  He also served as a member of the Upper House of the Parliament, the Rajya Sabha (2008-2014). Mr Singh had a long and distinguished career as a member of the Indian Administrative Services before his entry into politics and fiscal policy leadership.

Thomas Isaac is an Indian politician and economist. He served as the Finance Minister of Kerala for two terms, from 2006 to 2011, and from 2016 to 2021. He represented the Alappuzha constituency in the Kerala Legislative Assembly. He was also a member of the Kerala State Planning Board. He has a PhD from the Centre for Development Studies.

Investor Education and Awareness for strengthening Financial Inclusion

Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav

Enabler of Developmental Goals in SDG 2030

The IEPF Research Chair Unit, NCAER, hosted this webinar  as part of the Government of India’s initiative, the “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”. The webinar focussed on ways to strengthen financial inclusion using investor awareness and education. Financial inclusion is a key enabler of the developmental goals envisaged under SDG 2030, its agenda for implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The session was held virtually.

The United Nations adopted SDG 2030 in September 2015 with the idea of “leaving no one behind”. The Agenda was envisaged as a policy initiative to address the major global challenges, namely, poverty, inequality, climate change, and need for peace and justice. The universal agenda is a comprehensive plan listing 17 SDGs and 169 targets that are integrated with the primary objective of economic, social, and environmental development across the globe.

Financial inclusion is one of the prominent subjects under the SDGs, for enhancing economic growth, and thereby accelerating the achievement of other SDGs such as eradicating poverty, ending hunger, promoting health, achieving gender equality or reducing inequality overall. Low levels of financial inclusion are normally associated with poor financial literacy and financial awareness.

The IEPF Unit, NCAER, conducted a series of webinars between December 2020 and June 2021, focusing on the results envisioned in the National Strategy for Financial Education (NSFE) 2020-25. The webinar series was titled “Investing in Investor Education in India: Priorities for Action”. According to the National Financial Literacy and Inclusion Survey 2019, the figures for financial inclusion and the overall level of financial literacy in India are 15 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively. India’s 2014 Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana programme led to the creation of robust digital financial services, increasing the proportion of bank accounts for those above the age of 15 to nearly 80 per cent in 2017, as compared to a corresponding figure of just about 35 per cent in 2011. Digitisation has enabled banking to reach many more during the pandemic. It is thus important to use this growth in digital financial inclusion to ignite faster progress towards fulfilment of the SDGs, and create a long-lasting social and economic impact.

This webinar featured insights from experts. Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, gave the keynote address, highlighting the government’s perspective on financial inclusion. Shri Atul Bagai, Head, UNEP (India), offered an international perspective on the same while Smt Bindu Ananth, Chair and Managing Trustee, Dvara Holdings, and Shri Challa Setty, MD, State Bank of India, represented the views of the Indian financial sector. Shri Manoj Pandey, CEO, IEPFA, delivred the closing remarks.

Dr Poonam Gupta has been appointed to the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM)

Dr Poonam Gupta, Director General of NCAER, has been inducted into the seven-member Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. As per a notification from the Cabinet Secretariat, the Prime Minister approved the reconstitution of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM (EAC-PM) for a period of two years on September 27, 2021. The Council will be headed by noted economist and erstwhile Member of NITI Aayog, Mr Bibek Debroy.

The role of the EAC-PM is to analyse any issue, economic or otherwise, referred to it by the PM and advise him on those issues, besides addressing subjects of macroeconomic importance and presenting views to the PM, either suo moto or on reference from the PM or anyone else.

The faculty and staff of NCAER offer their heartiest congratulations and best wishes to Dr Gupta on her appointment.

Know Your Regulator Series | ‘Know your Regulator’: Ms Rita Teaotia, Chairperson of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

The IEPF Unit, NCAER in collaboration with The State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR), and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) organised this talk in the  Know Your Regulator Series. The talk featured Ms Rita Teaotia, Chairperson of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in conversation with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurty, Senior Fellow, CPR and Director of the State Capacity Initiative and Dr. Abha Yadav, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Director of the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) Centre at IICA. Dr KP Krishnan, IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics, NCAER delivered the introductory remarks.

About the Talk

Food is regulated through a variety of activities that include setting food safety standards, developing guidelines, mandating disclosure, devising certification standards, testing of products, monitoring and supervision, and the imposition of sanctions and penalties. It also includes public education about food safety amongst the general public and to people and enterprises in the business of producing and selling food. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 provides the legal framework for food regulation in India. Following this law, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) was established in 2008.Our Know Your Regulator (KYR) Briefing Note: FSSAI provides introductory information about the design and structure of food regulation in India.

About the ‘Know Your Regulator’ Series

This talk series is jointly organised by the State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA). In this series, we will talk to the people entrusted with the task of regulating Indian markets and various parts and aspects of the economy. These are the chairpersons and members of India’s regulatory agencies. In our conversations, we will seek to explore the public nature of regulatory activity. In other words, why should the work of regulatory agencies be of interest to people, as producers, consumers, professionals, service providers, and as citizens? What are the public goals of regulation? In what ways does the work of regulation involve having to make a balance, or to make trade-offs, or to amicably resolve competing or even conflicting claims of public and private interest?

Regulatory agencies are a relatively recent innovation of the Indian state, set up to address the evolving needs of the Indian economy in the decades since the 1990s (although with some notable older instances). We are interested in exploring the institutional form of the regulatory agencies, their features, norms and values, and their frameworks of decision-making and rationality. We are also interested in the functional domain and the everyday administration of the regulatory agencies, their staffing, procedures, information systems and operational modalities. Regulatory agencies are envisaged as a state agency that can respond to complex and changing situations, both at the level of policy recommendation and in case-specific ruling. In the conception of regulatory agencies, this was thought of as a challenge that would be addressed through specialisation, expertise and in the design of their power and functions. However, each regulatory agency is also unique, in terms of the way in which its regulatory mandate is designed and the nature of the challenges that it is set up to address. In this talk series, we will seek to explore the regulatory debates (both broad and sectoral) that animate the world of regulation, and how it relates to the rest of us.

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