Are the transfer policies of Bharatiya banks killing them slowly - An Ethmotican analysis

The nationalization of banks was a master stroke of a decision by the then Indira Gandhi government to gain a near-complete control of the Bharatiya economy.  However, had some loopholes remained and unfortunately still remain in the policy formulations of all the banks, but especially in the smaller banks (like the Associate banks of State Bank of India) which are concentrated more in particular states rather than having a homogeneous pan-Bharat presence.

We have accounts in many banks since the past many years and what is  interesting to note is the constant but frequent change of familiar faces that we encounter in the branches.  The same happens more in case of managerial staff than the clerical staff.  We hardly remember seeing any officer for more than 2 years at the maximum working in a particular branch.  Unfortunately it takes around 6 months for him/her to just know us as well as many other good as well as bad customers of his bank and then suddenly out of nowhere, he is shunted out to some other location on Google maps.  While interacting with many bankers, government officials, and studying some literature regarding the various policies of the government and the bank managements, we have been able to find out that there are very few (if at all any present) guidelines or policies set regarding the transfer of officials in the banks of Bharat.

Now why are we concerned with the banker's transfers?  Simple - We want to hand over our hard-earned money and articles in the safe custody of a familiar face rather than ever-changing face and moods - sometimes the officials are very good, charming and co-operative while at many times, we get officials who are not even willing to offer a small helping hand to a confused customer or worst, don't even know the local language to communicate with us!  Strange to note  what are these poor guys doing in an "alien" place like that.  Many seasoned bankers equate their jobs and the necessity of frequent transfers (their alibi is that transfers prevent an official from developing personal and financial interests in a particular area thus reducing corruption...he he he) to that of the defence forces and the high-level civil servants who are subjected to transfers.  But there are some basic differences between the transfer of bank officials and other department officials (as mentioned above):- (a)  Defence officials hardly need to take any financial decisions based on the documents presented in front of them, majority of which will be in the local vernacular language (b) in case of high-level civil servants like the All India Services, they are allotted a State Cadre in which they will be serving for at the least, 10 years, and they have an army of subordinate officials who can even provide them a verbatim translation of the vernacular documents.  Our banker on whom we are interacting and trusting do not have any such heavenly pleasures to enjoy himself or give it to us - hence, s/he is totally dependent on his/her knowledge and "gut instinct" at many a times if we are not mistaken!

Now tell us - is our money safe in such hands???  How do we ensure that our money is being lent prudently by this banker who does not know much about the local culture, geography, language, or the people?  How do we ensure that our money and articles kept in the bank are not subjected to any undue risks by the acts of ignorance unknowingly committed by an "outside" official?  Please do not get us wrong but what we are bringing out is a valid point and is important for safeguarding both our personal savings and wealth as well as the job of the poor official himself/herself.

So then what is the solution?

An official departmental transfer policy (not just banks but for all departments which are subjected to "outside/external" transfers) by the Bharat Sarkar should be brought forward and implemented in all departments.  Here we took the example of a bank because bank is the most frequently visited government institution by all the public; and bankers are the most frequently interacted government officials by the public.  But this policy is the need of the hour for all the departments since just having official language is not enough while handling decision-making exercises for various administrative and financial purposes - what is required is a deep and thorough understanding of the local culture, politics, and geography (physical and political).

Now the big question is - how to decide who will serve the "good" postings, "the not-so-good postings", "the difficult postings", and "the hard area postings."  Let us just define these terms:-

Class I - Good postings - Any posting which is demanded by the official or is near to his/her hometown or place of choice or which is having work load proportionate to staff and timing requirements and which does not make him/her slog extra hours to complete the same amount of work.  Generally these are city postings in metro, Tier I and Tier II cities.

Class II - The not-so-good postings: - These are generally in Tier III or semi-urban or rural centers but which are a little bit far (say in the range of 100 km) from the place of choice of the official.  The other criteria will be same as the "Good postings."

Class III - Difficult postings:-  These are the postings deliberately given to officials either in order to harass him/her or just because there is no better scapegoat left to accept that assignment in the department.  These are generally out of home state or if within the state, then are very far (more than 200 kms) from the place of choice of the official.  The staff strength will be very less compared to the quantum of work load and the official will have to slog it out for long hours even after regular working hours.  But there will not be much problem in the sustenance front, i.e. the personnel will be getting most of the basic amenities including proper housing, water, electricity, etc. and would be in a position to keep his/her family along with him/her.

Class IV - The hard-area postings:-  These are more or less similar to the "difficult postings" but the only difference is that the hard areas will not have even the basic amenities for sustenance of the official and his/her family thus leading to the official leading a singular and lonely life leaving very far away from home and the same goes for his/her family who will have to bear without him/her for a prolonged period of time.

Now after defining these postings, here are some of our suggestions for implementation of the government transfer policies:-

1.  First of all we would like to give our objection to the policy of giving choice posting to only women employees and leaving out the male staff totally forgetting the fact that the wife, mother, and sister of a male staff is indeed a woman only and she also requires the same level of support from her family as a working women, in fact more so.  Hence transfer policy should be as per the needs of the organization and has to be made totally, completely, and unconditionally gender neutral so as to make the government an equal opportunity employer in the true sense of the words.
2.  Generally the location of the government offices, especially banks, is such that the concentration is more in rural and semi-urban areas and lesser in cities just for the simple fact that there are far lesser cities than talukas or villages in our country.  Hence, serving at talukas and rural places cannot be avoided by any government servant.  The only thing that needs to be taken care is the selection of employees in the vacancies at various places.
3.  In positions at taluka and rural places which come under class III and IV, the employees should be given a special non-city compensatory allowance on the lines of the difficult area allowances given to defence staff, etc. so that a handsome incentive is given for working and living in such places.  Investment should be made to open good quality government quarters, schools, hospitals, and club houses (for recreational purpose) for all government staff and their families so that they have at least an option to keep their families with them.
4.  Postings to class I and II areas should be totally based on the choice given by the personnel who have already served the class III and IV postings, which should naturally be on a rotation basis (everybody should serve more or less the equal amount of class III and IV postings so as to remove any discontent among staff regarding postings and transfers).  Only after a personnel has completed at least one class III/IV posting, should s/he be considered for a second class I/II posting.
5.  Where there are less vacancies and more personnel opting for a particular place (say if there are only 3 vacancies in Mumbai and there are 15 personnel who have applied for those vacancies), then given other things equal like the caliber of the personnel for the post, the skill-level required for handling of the post, etc., the selection of the personnel should be done based on a draw of lots in front of them only so that the only thing left for the personnel to blame is his/her own luck and nothing else.  If there are huge number of personnel applying for a particular posting, then better to shortlist candidates through some online test specifically tailor-made for that post and select the meritorious ones.

All these steps will go a long way in enhancing the retention of personnel in the government departments (especially the banks) which are facing huge attrition levels primarily because of posting and transfer policies which are presently marred by total corruption, redtapism, and "butter your seniors" policy.

Are you listening our beloved PM and FM??

Anyways, Happy Ethmos to all

THE ABC MODEL OF BANKING – A REVOLUTIONARY BANKING MODEL FOR BHARAT AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

After celebrating our 4month anniversary, we are back again with another weird and radical idea, which is again a culmination of hours of not just brainstorming but “brain-tsunami/hurricaning/earthquaking” sessions.  But before you proceed, we strongly recommend you to kindly check our articles on the EconomicCost Concept and The Mobile Money Machine in order to get a better appreciation of this our economic-blitzkrieg idea.

Before beginning this article, we wish to clarify that the model of banking that we are proposing is in no way a match for the concept of The Mobile Money Machine that we have proposed and if the mobile money concept is implemented, then all this circus of banking, finance, and the general economy at large will undergo a monstrous positive change for the good.  But till then, this ABC model of banking can serve as a good alternative and act as a bridge to ultimately go towards a totally "no-cash economy."

The Automated Teller Machines or the ATMs as we all know them today came into existence way back in the 1969 and were first introduced by the Barclays Bank in order to bring down operating costs and easy banking for its customers.  All other banks aped the same and bingo – now virtually every bank, even the “Who-Knows-What Co-operative Bank” is also flaunting its ATM!  ATMs do provide ease of transaction, ready availability of cash for public, and even help in transferring money and other ancillary functions like cheque book order, etc. and anything you can dream of except doing a brain surgery!

Then slowly the ATMs became compact and were metamorphosed into the Point of Sale (PoS) machine.  Yes, this is the same small cuboidal hand-held device that you see at your favorite supermarket (say Big Bazaar or Max) wherein you flaunt your ATM card instead of cash and the cahier swipes your card on device and gives you a slip to sign (Strange that the wordings are “I agree to pay as per the user agreement” while the matter of fact is that the money has already been plucked out of your bank account!).  But then why are we giving our readers a sermon on such a silly thing like ATM that even a child will be knowing about?  Because we believe that the ATMs are the best money-wasting equipments in our country as well as the entire world and that it needs to be eradicated as soon as possible!  Now before you take a Bofors gun and blow our heads, please listen to our rationale and explanation for the same.

ATMs require huge resources – Yes my dears!  To maintain an ATM is no joke for the poor banker.  The ATM is like a King who needs to be treated with the utmost respect by the banker, who keeps him in a chamber with at least two air conditioners which are self-timed to operate for 12 hours each.  Furthermore, the ATMs have be literally “fed” cash at least twice a week or if it is a gluttony ATM which vomits cash very frequently (i.e. where withdrawals are very high like the ones situated near railway stations or bus stands), then the same needs to be loaded may be every day with cash.  And our King is not content with any type of cash – the quality of notes have to be very good.  If by any unfortunate chance the banker could not arrange for freshly printed currency notes, then s/he has to manually “hand pick” the good “ATM-ready” notes (a tough process called note sorting) and “feed” into the ATM.  The processing of arranging ATM-ready notes itself is a very cost and time consuming process.  Just leaving the complex cost accountancy and coming straight to the point – the average cost of just the maintenance of an ATM is around Rs. 50,000/- or more per month for any bank.  Now there are nearly 1.80 lac ATMs in our country.  So please consider the economic cost for the ATMs per annum, i.e. Rs. 50,000/- X 12 months X 1.80 lacs = Rs. 10,800 Crores per annum.  Whopping figure right!  But then many argue that the income generation from ATMs covers up this cost.  But from where is this income coming?  It is from you and me – say if we take cash from any ATM other than our own bank, around Rs. 15/- will be extra debited from our account as service charge.  Plus, in order to profitably run an ATM, it needs at least 170 to 180 withdrawals on a daily basis, which is not very feasible in a semi-urban or rural area set up.

Anyways, going into the details about the pros and cons of ATM and the general banking operations cost is not our point.  Now coming to our point – What we want to tell is that when there are other cheaper alternatives for not only withdrawal of money but also general banking operations for the masses, why keep feeding a white elephant known as ATM or for that matter, any cash deposit machine (which are the reverse of ATMs where in you can deposit cash).

What is the alternative to ATM, CDM, and the time-consuming general banking operations???

My dear friends, we want to introduce you to the revolutionary idea of THE ABC MODEL OF BANKING

ABC stands for Aadhar and Banking Correspondent banking:-  We know that you may be thinking “Oh ****!   Now what’s this new crap these idiots have brought up??”  So here goes your vindication:-

For the layman readers, let us just inform that recently RBI has notified that similar to the mobile number portability concept, there should be bank account number portability concept, which means that one should be permitted to switch accounts from one bank to other by keeping the same account number.  For this the RBI has instructed all banks to create a unique identification number for every individual who has an account with the bank so that a common database of customers can be created for portability purpose to be implemented later on.  Now what we propose is – why to waste huge resources and time on creating and cleaning multiple databases when we already have a good database of people in our country in the form of the UID or the Aadhar card?  Why not use the Aadhar card number as the unique identification number for bank account portability purpose? 

How will this change the banking as we know today?  It will change everything of a bank that we know today.  When mobile SIM cards were introduced in the country, the telecom companies found a very unique way of distributing the same and increasing their network – the kirana stores or the general stores.  Slowly and steadily medical stores, electrical stroes, paan waalas and person-selling-whatever started taking franchise from these telecom companies and sourcing applications for them, thereby earning some decent side-income as well as giving a vital service in the form of mobile connectivity for our Bharat.  Presently you can purchase a SIM card by giving your KYC documents at any of these stores and get your connection activated within a week at maximum – no need to speak to Sunil Mittal or Anil Ambani to get an Airtel or Reliance connection!  We have taken the liberty of borrowing this concept and applying it to banking and generated the idea of ABC – Aadhar and Banking Correspondent.

What is a banking correspondent?  The concept of banking correspondents or BCs as they are called in banking parlance is not new to our Bharat.  Ask any person in a rural or semi-urban setup and he will tell you what a BC is.  BC acts as an agent for the bank similar to agents for insurance business.  They are provided with handheld devices and ID cards by the banks and are authorized to act on behalf of the bank under certain controlled conditions like opening of accounts, recovery purpose, collection of deposits, delivery of ATM cards, etc.  They are not permanent employees of the bank but work on a contract basis and are paid as per the work done or business generated depending on bank to bank.  For those who want a little trivia – The BCs were very active in the opening of more than 17 crore bank accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) in a record span of hardly 3 to 4 months, thus covering a huge chunk of population under the financial services umbrella, which is why they are now able to get their subsidies and government grants directly into their bank accounts without greasing much palms in between!

Connecting the Dots:-  By now, you may have got an idea what we are going to propose.  Akalmand ke liye ishara kaafi hai…….anyways, for the less akalmand, here is the ABC Model for you:-

1. Give the BC agency to shops and establishments who have good dealings in cash.  For example, any properly running supermarket will have cash of around Rs. 50,000/- at any point of time during the day.  This agency will be similar to the ones given by telecom firms to agents for procuring business.
2. Functionality of instant account opening on hand-held devices – THIS TECHNOLOGY ALREADY EXISTS and it just needs to be scaled up in proportion to cover the entire length and breadth of Bharat.  Give these devices to our BC agents in every nook and corner of the country.  No need to go to any bank for opening an account.  There should be functionality of choosing the bank and branch for the customer so that a customer can open account with any bank of his/her choice from the agent nearest to his house.
3. Want to open an account – go to the nearest agent with your Aadhar card.  The device should be installed with the technology to recognize the biometric details on the Aadhar card.  Once the details are validated, a one-time password (OTP) should be sent to the registered mobile number (mobile number given on the Aadhar card) of the customer and after the customer enters the OTP, the account should be opened in a bank and branch of his/her choice.
4. HOW IS ATM AND BRANCH BANKING ELIMINATED?  As we mentioned earlier, any BC agent who is taking the agency should be having good cash transactions with him/her on a daily basis so that s/he can handle the cash inflow and outflow on a day-to-day basis.  Say if you want to withdraw Rs. 5,000/- from your account – NO NEED FOR AN ATM – just take your Aadhar card with you, put your fingerprint for biometric scan with the hand-held device of your nearest supermarket/kirana store BC, and once the details are validated, the BC will pay you Rs. 5,000/-.  Similar procedure for depositing cash also can be done but in deposit of cash,     biometric verification is not mandatory since anybody can deposit a cash on another person’s behalf – just s/he needs to carry the person’s Aadhar card with him/her for account number validation.  The same procedure can be extended to all sort of branch operations like ATM request, cheque book request, INB kit request, transfer of funds from one account to other, NEFT/RTGS, etc.
5. IF EVERYTHING IS DONE BY BCs, WHAT WILL THE BANKERS DO?? An excellent question – Even though you implement the ABC model, the banker will have the following works

a.       Collection and deposit of cash from the BCs in their area of operation or BCs attached with a specific branch and depositing the same in safe custody.

b.      Internal audit and controlling of BCs to remove any malpractices.

c.       Clearing operations.

But this is not what you are paying the Banker to do – You are actually paying the banker to safe guard your money and to generate income from your money by prudently lending your money to credit-worthy entities who can pay interest on your money.  So, now the banker will be a little bit of a free man to look after and manage your money properly and will be better able to handle some of the defaulters who have eaten away your money and are not willing to poop it out. 

The following are some of immediate benefits of this ABC model as we visualize today:-
1.  Huge reduction in operating costs to all banks.
2.  Banks need not kill each other for deposit mobilization and all.  In fact, customer service will have new definitions after the introduction of this model and banks will be more rated based on their prudent lending decisions rather than their ability to butter up the customer and get his/her hard-earned money.
3.  Huge reduction in the NPA portfolio of banks and improvement in asset quality.
4.  Nearly paper-less banking and hence no need to maintain huge space to store the "kabaad" generated out of day-to-day banking operations.
5.  Even passbook updation functionality can be provided with passbook printing machines installed at BC kiosks.

The possibilities, permutations & combinations of the ABC model are innumerable and only time will tell that how this genius of an idea from a worthy Ethmotican has changed the world.

Happy Ethmos to you

Celebrating Four Months of The Ethmag with the launch of our new logo - The All-Seeing Eye

The All-Seeing Eye - The new logo for The Ethmag - Ethmos Magazine

So, we lived and completed our first four months in the big bad but beautiful world.  By now, many of our readers might have got an idea regarding what Ethmos is and on what ethos and ideas it stands for.  The Ethmag - The Ethmos Magazine, is our mouthpiece and we just put forward our frank and unbiased views in front of our readers - views which the traditional media thinks "unimportant" but which nonetheless affect the lives of the aam aadmi of our Bharat varsh.  So on the anniversary of completing four months of existence we decided to do something more stupid and released our logo.

The logo is a simple visualization of a hexagonal triangle, which represents the thought processes moving in all directions and an eye inside the same which represents the nature of Ethmos - i.e. nearly nothing misses our view.  It may seem very primitive and stupid to some, but that's that and that's what we are - whether you like it or not!

Now taking a peep into the past four months and summarizing what Ethmos has given to our Bharat - there is only one conclusion that we can come with - we have given some radical, mind-boggling, country and world reforming, weird but unique ideas that if implemented even in partiality can lead to significant changes in the quality of the life for the common man on the streets.  When the whole media was busy following some socialite's murder case, going about "society babas" and "political babas" (and giving stupid acronym names like "RaGa"), we were busy looking into the problems faced by an average middle-class person (who includes nearly 70% to 80% of any country's population), thinking about possible solutions day and night, discussing them for hours with brainstorming sessions that stretched our brain's capacity to handle stress as well as mobile radiations, and then finally coming to conclusions that were and are not only unique but practical and applicable and the only thing required to implement them is the political will to do - nothing more and nothing less - that's what we did and that's what we gave you.  In case you have missed anything, here is a small gift of the Ethmotican ideas to our world:-

Problem	Solutions that we offered
1.        Corruption and black money	1.  Financial Trail Reports. 2.  The M2 Machine 3.  CETRAD, OPOF, and EUL 4.  PAS and RMS 5.  Video recording of public offices
2.       Food security and agrarian crisis	Unified Agricultural Policy – Part I and Part II
3.       Defence issues	Solution for our Vayu Sena
4.       The Rail conundrums	1.  Partnership of the Indian Railways. 2.  One more view
5.       Finance and Economy	1.  The Pradhan Mantri Bima Yojanas 2.  The Golden Investments 3.  The Economic Cost Concepts 4.  Mergers in the Banking industry

We also sometimes got so frustrated from our bloody systems that we wrote real stupid and satirical jibes at our present systems and institutions, some of which even offended many high-profile babus sitting on the top!  Some of our famous satirical jibes were on the Indian Railways, banking industry transfer policies, farmer suicides, and the Bharatiya R&D sector.

We also stumbled sometimes in our path and did seem to get one of our predictions wrong regarding the downfall in the prices of the gold metal by November-December 2015.  But even that was a very big learning experience and we learnt never to underestimate the power of stupidity of the general junta who will grab anything (regardless of its use or utility) if they are given at a discount.

But for one wrong prediction, we were vindicated in one correct prediction regarding the glut of sugarcane in the Bharatiya agricultural industry with the government now urging the sector to export the extra produce in order to get some price and pay the poor farmers.  Our Unified Agricultural Policy idea provides the solution for the myriad of problems affecting our agrarian sector as well as bring in food security for the billions of us.

In the meantime, we introduced one more hopeless of our characters - The Mr. Nobody, a la common man of the Ethmos, which was nothing but a way of mortifying our own views into a common point of vision for the public.

So, at the end of four months of existence, what did we do?  We can only say what we DID, but you can JUDGE what we did and did not; and only time will tell, that we were indeed right.  Now that's the height of obnoxious attitude - but then again, that's what we are!

Thank you and Happy Ethmos to All!

An open letter to our beloved PM and FM - Part II

Dear Sirs,

We hope you did read our previous letter.  Even if you have not, then also we want you to know that we are the most shameless organisms ever produced on mother earth and we would continue to push our views down everybody's throats (just joking, please don't put treason charges against us!).  Anyways, here is the second installment of our open letter to you.  Here we would like to discuss about three of the most "legal corruptions" in our Bharat, namely, housing, schooling, and medicine.

1.  Can I purchase a house without becoming "Man in Black" (any person having black money)?

A owned house is every Bharatiya's dream - roti, kapda, aur makaan.  Luckily nowadays we don't have to worry about roti but the "dal chawal" because the dal is not being produced in our country since every kisaan is busy making sugarcane and we have to import the dal for feeding our millions!  (Sorry for the distraction - more about that later).  So coming to our makaan aspect.  Briefly speaking, virtually no builder in our country registers the sale of the land, flat, house, or any sort of real estate property at the actual price of sale.  Say if the property is for Rs. 100/-, it will be registered for Rs. 50/- or even below that price, if the poor man purchasing it had done brutal unpardonable crimes in his previous birth.  This actually results in the government losing on the tax, creation and concentration of black money in the hands of few resulting in huge inflationary pressure, lack of development of banking industry since the banks generally finance on the "registered sale price", and the scourge of private lending which every aam aadmi has to bear in order to get his dream makaan.  We have already given the solutions to these problems and if you can spare some time, kindly check the following:-

Solution 1 - Mobile Money Machine (M3)

There are other solutions too, which we will discuss later since this is a very complex issue.

2.  Can my child study in a good school without paying the donation?

Yeah ...yeah....you will say that you have banned donation/capitation fees/whatever name it has been called long back.  But even you know that all these bans are on the paper only.  Because even after nearly 70 years of azaadi and after the implementation of the famed Right to Education, a lot of children are still working as labourers (unofficially of course!) and many cannot even see what a school looks like!  Now coming to the aam junta (i.e. "the middle class salaried labourers" like me), we are the victims of the "legal corruption" of our present schooling system.  Just take a look at the fee receipt of any common man.  He will be paying say Rs. 30,000/- to 50,000/- per annum for studying his children in a decent enough school (and we are not talking about the likes of Don Bosco and DPS....just the normal ones like XYZ Vidhyabhavan, ABC International Academy although I never could fathom what was international in those desi schools except the spelling in their names!).  So, even though the fees charged is around Rs. 30,000/- to Rs. 50,000/- (let's take a comfortable average of say Rs. 40,000/-), the fee receipt shows the breakup of the fees as follows:-
Tuition Fees: 15,000/-
Administration Fees:  5000/-
Building Fees:  5000/-
Electricity Expenses:  5000/-
Laboratory/Activity Fees:  5000/-
Miscellaneous Fees: 5000/-
Total:  Rs. 40,000/-
Now a middle-class salaried labourer like me who gets his salary after deduction of the mandatory hafta (called TDS) do pays his taxes on his time and has to claim his refund on the taxes since our "chavanni salary" sometimes do not qualify for your tax brackets and during that time, I can claim no rebate for the entire Rs. 40,000/- that I have expended on my child's education.  Just a small suggestion - instead of giving interest subsidy of 1% for higher education loans, kindly give 100% rebate in income tax for educational expenses (everything given in the fees receipt), and we will keep your idols in our home and offer it coconut twice a day. 

Another important point is - for gaining admission, we have to near about mandatorily pay some or the other donation to the trusts that actually run the schools and which is never accounted in the fees.
And without that donation, forget about the admission and look for some other school, which will of course charge a lesser donation but nonetheless charge the same.  Can you please stop this corruption?

2.  Can I and my family get quality medical treatment without going to costly 5-star hospital-cum-hotels?
We are your desi public and would happily eat the dal-chawal and roti-sabzi combo that you offer in the hospital canteens and will never crib for the Italian Forno Campo De Fiori Pizza (never knew what it was - just taken from a 5-star hotel menu...he he he) that our new-generation 5-star hospitals offer in the name of quality healthcare.  We do not have millions in our pockets and many of us are not even medically insured so as to undergo such costly treatments.  Hence, we request you to kindly put some investment in our hospital infrastructure and open some good hospitals in every nook and corner of our country, at least one good hospital at each taluka places so that quality and affordable medical treatment can be given to the millions of us.  Believe me, you will never regret having made this investment.  And as far as the quantum of investment required, please go through the following rough calculation that we have made:
Cost of construction of a hospital per sq. ft:  Rs. 3,800/- (as per this report).
Average carpet area of a good hospital:  Say 20,000 Sq. Ft.
Hence, average cost of construction:  Rs. 3,800/- X 20,000 Sq. Ft = Rs. 7.60 Crores.
Average land acquisition cost:  Say Rs. 1 Crore (Please note that all these figures have been taken at a bit higher end and the actual cost may vary in various places and will be considerably lesser in rural and semi-urban areas including taluka headquarters)
So, the total cost of setting up a hospital will be around Rs. 8.6 Crores and if we include the salary and other annual administrative expenses including electricity, water, etc. the total cost will be around Rs. 10 Crore.
Now there are around 676 Districts in our country and if you can provide at least one good multispeciality hospital in each district, the total cost would be around Rs. 6,760 Crores.

My...my...is that a huge figure ........... please look at these figures and judge for your self:-
Education Loan waived (for students who are working and earning well!) for 2014-15:  Rs. 4000 Crores.
Farm loans waived......................he he he....don't want to faint you with the figures!

An open letter from Mr. Nobody to our beloved PM and FM - PART I

Dear Sirs,

I am the Mr. Nobody of our country and I thank you very much for governing me for more than 1 year.  We (me and other nobodys) do really like your governance style and want to tell you that in your raj (unlike the previous ultra-corrupt foreign and familial raj) the corruption has really come down and now the government servants are really showing some willingness to work towards the betterment of the "nobodys" like us.

But as with all systems in the world, it can do better.  And we just want to share our thought processes with you regarding the same.  Please note that this letter will not be a "happy song" about your governance style and your achievements, but some deep introspection regarding some anomalies in our system - and we sincerely apologize if we are causing any discomfort to you with our views.  And we also hope that you DO ACT on what we are requesting for.  So, here goes the first part of this:-

Is my money really safe in a bank or any other financial institution including the stock markets??

Of course, you will answer in the affirmative stating that there are institutions like RBI, IRDA, SEBI, etc. to safeguard our interests.  But let us just inform you that in this era of fast information, we do have some info regarding the functioning of these institutions.  Like for example, your RBI tells (literally forces) the bankers not to take any security for giving loans to farmers (up to Rs. 1 lac) and to businessmen for loans up to Rs. 10 lacs. (What about we salaried class nobodys???).  So, if there is no security, then why are you distributing the loans like giving prasad at the Tirupati Temple?  Now the bankers tell that there is something called primary security, which is the asset which the borrower purchases out of the loan but then I have never seen any instance wherein the banker has sold any primary security like crop, sarees & dress materials, machinery, etc.  Otherwise, we would have definitely purchased something for cheap!!!  Furthermore, to make things worse, our courts are burdened with litigations from bankers and other institutional lenders regarding non-payment of our dues by the "sticky" borrowers who just misuse the loopholes in the system (like non-requirement of collateral security, etc.) and just eat our money.  When a banker lodges a cheque bounce case in any of our courts, there is no distinguishing factor between the banker who is guardian of our money and a local businessmen who has sold the goods on credit.  Then how is my money safe???  Why can't you just make a FIRE Act (Financial Institutions Recovery Act.....he he he ...... we are getting better day by day in making stupid acronyms) wherein it should be made a non-bailable cognizable offence wherein the willfully defaulting borrower is first sent to jail and afterwards his/her assets are auctioned off to recover our dues??  We have also taken various loans from our government banks and believe me, they never harass anybody whatsoever the reason and give you multiple of multiple chances to repay your debts before taking recovery actions (which are nothing but blunt useless notices which the borrower uses to eat samosas!) when pushed to the brink.

We have also heard that you want the banks to give our money to the farmers and waive their loans.  It does not really matter to us whether the banks waive the loans from their profits or whether you waive the loans from your exchequer - in both the cases, it is our hard-earned money that is going to be lost.  And is there any end to this cycle.  Next year, drought or flood or famine or any other natural or man-made calamity may occur and you may again waive the loans resulting in a culture of loan delinquency wherein "people just love eating away the money."  We also come from rural backgrounds (just like you!) and know that there are big farmers who are very well capable of not only repaying the loans but also lending their surplus to other small farmers, which they generously do and suck the small farmer's soul out in order to get his dues back which will never end since the interest will be around 3 times the principal at any point of time.  Really sorry to say, but we will be blunt over here - YOU DID NOTHING TO STOP SUCH BLOOD-SUCKING MONEYLENDERS.  Instead you just forced the banks where we keep our money to lend not only the farmers but also to sugar factories (who are run by the kith and kin of politicians only!!) and what not.

Now regarding the stock markets - first of all, why are we letting the people gamble in the stock markets without even understanding the basics of market dynamics.  What happens is that - any company who starts an IPO (initial public offering) gets say around Rs. 10/- per share and sells say 100 such shares and raises Rs. 1000/- from the public.  Now these 100 people will start selling these shares for various prices starting from Rs. 12/- to Rs. 15/- and whoever has purchased the share for a particular price will not be much willing to sell it for a lower price.  What this results in??   You already know the answer.   A company whose intrinsic asset value was Rs. 10/- is now being traded for Rs. 20/- or Rs. 30/- depending on the "market perceptions" rather than economic conditions.  This results in extra income in the hands of the junta which ultimately results in the price rise and other inflationary effects.  We just want to request you to limit and restrict the entry to the stock markets to either institutional players and if you want to permit the public, then at least put some entry level filter so that a difference is made between a sane person and a gambler.

We do hope that you just take some of your precious time and give us a patient hearing.

Regards and Happy Ethmos to You!

Video recording of all public offices - An initiative to kill corruption - An Ethmos perspective

The honorable Supreme Court of our country (Bharat) has directed the Delhi Police to install CCTV cameras at "conspicuous" places in police stations (here is the new report for you to read) in order to prevent and control harassment of victims and complainants by the police.  The same has been done based on an incident where a woman lawyer was manhandled by policemen last year in April.  We at Ethmos totally welcome this move of our apex court and request our government to implement the same in the entire country, not just in the police department, but in ALL THE DEPARTMENTS.

Why?  May be you know the answer already.  But here is the Ethmos perspective.  Obviously it will keep an "eye" on the "mischievous" officials who think that since there is nobody to question them and nobody watching what they are doing, they are free to do and behave in any manner they deem fit to the public, who most of the time are treated just a shade better than vermin.   Hence, apart from CCTV cameras, there should be voice recorders also in order to capture the actual conversation going on between the official and the public and to make sure that the public is not verbally abused or harassed in any manner.

Many naysayers will argue that the cost of installing and maintaining the same will exceed the benefits.  But we will prove them wrong mathematically over here:-

Approximate cost of installing one CCTV camera in any office:  Rs. 20,000/-
Average no. of CCTVs required per office:  5 to 6 (smaller offices require only one or two)

Total cost of installing CCTV (6 nos) per office:  Rs. 1,20,000/-
Average no. of government offices in one district:  Approximately 30 (including police stations, courts, collectorate, hospital, etc.)
Total cost of installing CCTV in one district (approximate):  Rs. 36,00,000/- (Rupees thirty six lacs only).
Total number of districts in Bharat:  676 as per 2014 census.
Total cost of installing CCTV in the country:  676 X Rs. 36 lacs = Rs. 243.36 Crores (approximately Rs. 250 Crores)

So, as you can see, only with Rs. 250 Crores will be required to install CCTV cameras in all of our sarkari departments and keep a tab on our babus.  But it is very important that the cameras include audio recording functions too so as to get a correct record of the going ons in the departments.

This can be connected to a central database wherein the aam junta should be able to download the video files if and when required; if not for anything then just to study the functioning of the departments which are running on our hard-earned money.  This will function as a first line of vigilant mechanism against corruption.  However, let us just caution you.  As with all systems, there are misuses also possible for this system wherein even honest officials can be harassed by unscrupulous elements using this system.

Furthermore, for the really "core-to-the-core" corrupt, they will just devise a system of code language communication wherein they will be communicating with their benefactors.  For example, "ek cutting chai" may start to mean a particular amount of say Rs. 10,000/- or say Rs. 1,00,000/- depending on the code set.  Anyways, we will devise a solution at the time when that happens.  Till that time, we just request our government netas to show some will power and implement this system in our offices to at least bring some fear among the corrupt officials.

Farmer Suicides and Unified Agricultural Policy - Mr. Nobody's perspective - II

Unified Agricultural Policy: Mr. Nobody’s Brain child

In our previous article we discussed about kisan suicides, how our kisan is fighting his battle singlehandedly? In this article we will be discussing about the unified agricultural policy [UAP], a brainchild of Mr. Nobody, a discussion which we initiated in our previous article.

Bharat - “one of the most prosperous nation” - every Bhartiya wants to hear these words whenever the international media refer to Bharatiya issues. International media is unable to take the name of Bharat in the same breath as its western counterparts such as USA, UK, etc.  The probable reason could be that we are unable to tap the potential we have and the greatest potential of all - human potential. We are a rashtra having large number young people and as a country, Bharat should show tremendous growth as it has huge mind capital.  Our kisan is also part of this large human capital.

As a nation Bharat is fighting on all the fronts - be it terrorism, economic meltdown, internal disturbances, inflation, and now a new one food scarcity. The question is “are we seriously fighting with food scarcity”? Kendra sarkar just now imported pulses to fight with inflation.

Imagine a hypothetical scenario where we are having sugarcane juice in morning breakfast, then sugarcane slices in lunch and sugarcane slices & juice in dinner. The way our agriculture produce has been shifting from staple food crops to cash crops this scenario will not remain hypothetical in near future. Our kisan is going for the cash crop in order to earn extra income; he/she is right in his own way. As he has family to feed and expenses to meet. Kisan is also struggling with the inflation like a normal salaried class person sitting in his plush drawing room in a metro.

This shift from staple food crops to cash crops is actually leading to food scarcity in india. Now days majority of the kisans are going for sugarcane as crop and are also protesting to increase the price of the sugarcane.

Sr. no	Crop	Area	Output/acre	Expense	Price	Net income	Net output
1	Sugarcane	3A	60 ton	30%	2000*	120000	84000
2	Maize	3A	30 quintal	30%	1400	42000	58800**
3	Wheat	3A	15 quintal	30%	1400	21000	14700

*As per the rates paid by the factories 

**Two crop season in one year

As per the data mentioned, it's quite economical for a kisan to go for cash crops like sugarcane as he is able to generate more income for household.  However if all the kisans will shift from the staple food crops such as wheat and maize to sugarcane then the food scarcity will happen in india. If government will increase the MSP rate of sugarcane then more and more number of kisans will go for it. Because of this reason Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare is unable to increase the MSP’s of certain cash crops.

In order to avoid the situation of the food scarcity and regulate the price of the food products of daily use the Kendra Sarkar should intervene in the agricultural sector. Mr. Nobody has come up with the solution – bingo!

APNA KISAN - CENTRAL GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE

The marginal kisans who are unable to generate enough income so as to continue with the farming activity should be encouraged to join this programme.

The main guidelines for this programme should be as follows:-
The kisan has to enter into a lease agreement with government of the state / country. 

He has to grow the commodity as per the terms and conditions of the agreement.

He will get a fixed monthly salary to work for GOI plus performance linked incentive.

Kisan will get incentive for producing more than stipulated output as mentioned in the agreement. This will encourage him to go for farm innovation to maximize the output.

Kisan should register himself with local agriculture office. He will get the seeds and fertilizer to produce the commodity. The fields of the kisan will be inspected by the agriculture officer on monthly basis to check the diversion of funds.

The food produce from the field will be directly transferred to the FCI (Food Corporation of India) warehouses and from there to the mandis and other government outlet so that the Bhartiya nagrik will be able to purchase the required food commodity at a pre-defined rate.

Depending upon the staple diet of the area, the sarkar can go for the food crop to be produced (like say rice in southern states and wheat in northern states).
The sarkar will decide what to grow, how much to grow, and in what area to grow.  That is to say, if a particular area is facing shortage of pulses, then the sarkar can decide to predominantly grow the pulses rather than wheat and thus regulate the supply in the market.  Since our kisan is paid a fixed monthly salary, he need not worry about the weather conditions or other market-related problems - he just needs to concentrate on his work, i.e. quality farming.

The sarkar need not import the food grains to fight the inflation, the kisan will happily produce the food grain irrespective of profit or loss as he will be getting fixed monthly payout. At the same time this will increase the farm innovation at the grass root level as kisan will get incentive for producing more than stipulated output.

Kisan need not go for the loans or borrow money from the money lenders as the inputs and small implements will be provided by the government itself.

As sincere citizen of the country it is the responsibility of everybody to come up with ideas like Mr. Nobody to help the Kendra Sarkar and improve the condition of Kisan.

After all, he also has a family to feed and expenses to meet.

Regards and happy Ethmos to All

- Mr. Nobody