CIC: Government employees have an equal stake in good governance

Chief information commissioner says citizens should get proactive about government functioning through the use of RTI. But this should not become a tool to harass officials. Rather, there should be minimum friction between the information seeker and the provider. "Even a government servant spends only 32% of his time at his job and he is an ordinary citizen for the rest of the time. His stake in the ruling government is much lesser than in his citizenship. So it is in his benefit to uphold the Right to Information and improve governance," Shailesh Gandhi, central information commissioner, said today. Mr Gandhi was addressing a seminar on "How to use the Right to Information effectively," hosted by Moneylife Foundation at Ravindra Natya Mandir, in central Mumbai.  The central information commissioner described the history and scope of the Act and outlined the provisions, and even elaborated on the proper format and procedure for citizens to seek information. He explained the functioning and powers of public information officers (PIOs) and deemed PIOs. "The procedure and system should be so smooth that there is minimum friction between the information seeker and the provider," Mr Gandhi said. 

Referring to an observation made by V.S.Das, Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India, on the needless and voluminous queries that tax an organisation's resources and time, Mr Gandhi said the RTI should not become a tool to harass officials. He also drew attention to the definition of 'public authority' in the Act to point out that cooperative housing societies, unless specified by a government body or funded substantially by the government, cannot be termed as public authorities. However, he argued that public-private partnerships should come under the RTI Act. "A lot of public assets will be shifted to these PPPs soon, so these should be covered by the RTI. Otherwise, it will be like a fraud, when public resources are privatised without anybody's consent," Mr Gandhi said. The central information commissioner also talked about section 4 of the RTI Act, which relates to suo moto dissemination of information by public authorities, which he said is at the heart of the Act. On the matter of exemptions mentioned in the Act, Mr Gandhi gave examples from his personal in this area saying that government deals with any private businesses or parliamentary papers (six months after they are tabled) must not be exempted from the purview of the Act. "A PIO cannot deny information just by saying that the matter is sub judice or that it is personal," he said.  Asked about the proper way to sensitise people about the Right to Information and how to become pro-active in demanding good governance, Mr Gandhi said it requires a combination of lobbying and campaigning to develop a culture of transparency.  On disciplinary penalty for erring PIOs, the central information commissioner said, "Asking for more penalty is not a solution. Lots of corrective measures can be taken by the authorities within the framework of the law available." But he agreed that a time frame must be specified for the second appeal as well.

On the inspection of files under the Act raised by a participant, Mr Das, who is the appellate authority at the RBI, said that in case information was left out of the manuals and other documents, or they are not updated, the people should draw the bank's attention to this. On this matter, SS Mundra, Executive Director, Union Bank, said, "In physical form, most information is available at the offices."  Mr Das said RTI activism has a long way to grow. "Very few applications are received from less developed areas of the country. It we get only two applications from Tripura and four from Assam this year, I think there is a need to educate people on the scope of the Act," he said. Mr Das outlined the RBI's engagement with the Act, how the highly centralised operation had spread out to all its regional offices, and said that the RBI has proactively disclosed a lot of information on its website. "Being the central bank of the country, it is our duty to disseminate information and also protect sensitive data," he said. In six years since the RTI Act was adopted, the RBI has received over 18,000 applications, but only 16% of these have gone for first appeal.  In this respect Mr Mundra added, "There are doubts in the mind of both the provider and the seeker of information. The central information commissioner can dispel these doubts and give us guidelines on how to access and disseminate information." He said Union Bank was committed to organise six seminars on different topics with Moneylife Foundation this year and felt privileged to be a part of this initiative.  This seminar is the latest in a series of discussions on RTI organised by Moneylife Foundation, which have been very popular with alert citizens, activists and civil society workers.

Moneylife

JIMS holds National Seminar on Indian Banking

The objective of this seminar was to identify the emerging trends in this sector while keeping in mind the international perspective, in the context of global financial turbulence. Jagan Institute of Management Studies (JIMS) Group of Institutions, an institute of excellence in the field of management studies and technical education, today organized a National Seminar on “Indian Banking: Robust; Reliable; Resurgent”. Outlining and emphasizing the inspiring story of Indian banking sector that successfully sailed through the financial tornado witnessed by the global as well as the Indian economy a few years ago JIMS, organized the day-long seminar at PHD House in the capital. Present on the occasion were Chief Guest Nagesh Pydah (Chairman & MD, Oriental Bank of Commerce), Guest of Honour, Chandan Sinha (Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India) among others. Multiple technical sessions were organized on issues such as ‘Survival in Turbulent times and Strategy for Risk Management’, ‘Beyond Centralized Core Banking Solutions: Issues and Way Forward’ and entrepreneurial opportunities through working capital loans etc. Speaking on the occasion Dr. J.K. Goyal, Director, JIMS said, “JIMS takes pride in organizing a National Seminar on the robust and resilient Indian banking sector. The objective of this seminar was to identify the emerging trends in this sector while keeping in mind the international perspective, in the context of global financial turbulence. The success story of Indian banking sector could be attributed to the sound policies of our apex bank and fiscal stimulus packages provided by the Government. The experiences shared by the experts here at this platform today are bound to help our students in understanding, at a deeper level, the banking operations and appreciating our banking institutions.” The seminar was well attended by executives from banks, financial institutions, corporate, academicians, research scholars and JIMS’ students.

IIFL 

Sholinganallur taluk yet to get treasury account

CHENNAI: More than 18 months after coming into existence, the Sholinganallur taluk  office on Old Mamallapuram Road (OMR) remains without a bank account where money paid for land transactions, community certificates and other jobs can be deposited. Presently, applicants deposit the required sum at the SBI branch attached to the Tambaram taluk office on GST Road and submit the receipt at Sholinganallur. There is an SBI branch near the Sholinganallur taluk office but the RBI is yet to give its nod for the branch to receive money from the applicants. "The taluk office was opened on December 31, 2009. We gave complaints to officials at all levels of governance including CM's cell on grievances and commissioner of treasuries and accounts," says G Satish of Semmenchery. Most of the applicants are senior citizens and women, who come to get certificates for land patta, birth and death certificates, copies of land records and other documents, are the most affected. The distance between Sholinganallur and West Tambaram is 36km and the two are not directly connected by bus. People have to change two buses to reach Tambaram and walk another two km to the bank. "Delays, either at the taluk office or at the bank, force us to visit the taluk office often. For elderly people like me, it is physically tiring," says K Sarawathi of Perungudi. After a Government Order was issued on December 24, 2009, bifurcating Sholinganallur and Alandur taluks from Tambaram, the taluk office at Sholinganallur began functioning on December 31, 2009. Since then, however, it has not got proper administrative and infrastructure facilities. Officials say they have taken up the issue with the government many times. "The government has also written to the RBI for its nod to allow the SBI branch at Sholinganallur to receive amount from people coming to the taluk office but nothing has been done."

TOI

Threshold level for inflation is 4-6%, says RBI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Saturday if inflation stayed beyond the threshold level of four-six per cent, it could hurt economic growth in the medium term. “The Reserve Bank’s current assessment suggests that the threshold level of inflation for India is in the range of four-six per cent. If inflation persists beyond this level, it could lower economic growth over the medium term. These costs, therefore, necessitate monetary policy response to control inflation,” Deepak Mohanty, Executive Director, RBI, said in a speech at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. With high global commodity prices likely to stay firm, the threat to price stability from global inflation continues to persist. Mohanty said the stance of the central bank was to bring down medium-term inflation to three per cent, which was consistent with the country’s integration with the global economy. “In this direction, monetary policy aims to contain perceptions of inflation in the range of 4-4.5 per cent, with a particular focus on the behaviour of the non-food manufacturing component,” he said, setting aside the theory of high inflation seen as ‘new normal’. India’s headline inflation has stayed much above RBI’s comfort zone for more than a year now, despite policy tightening measures. RBI has hiked the key policy rates by 11 times since March 2010. The central bank’s inflation management became more challenging, as supply side factors stoked food inflation. As Mohanty pointed out, inflation remained high on account of high food prices, rising rural incomes, high global commodity prices and increase in administered fuel prices. “Inflation has remained elevated and persistent over 18 months now. The inflation path was influenced by a number of domestic and international supply shocks.” He emphasised monetary policy recognised that over the long-run, high inflation was inimical to sustained growth, as it slowed investment by creating uncertainty which posed significant risks to future growth. “It was indicated by the Reserve Bank that bringing down inflation, given its generalised nature, even at the cost of some growth in the short-run, should take precedence,” he added.

BS

Reducing food inflation will take time: Pranab

Conceding that double-digit food inflation is worrisome, union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said the monetary policies of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will take some time to have an impact. "The double-digit food inflation is a matter of concern. There is a seasonal factor, but apart from the seasonal factor, there are supply constraints in some critical agricultural products which we have to remove," Mukherjee told reporters in Kolkata.  Stating that so far as the demand side was concerned, the monetary policies adopted by the RBI will take some time to have their impact, he said: "It will take some time to have full impact on the demand management. "In short and medium term, we are trying to improve the supply constraint so that the moderating influence of the inflation is felt in the coming weeks," he added. Food inflation was recorded at 10.05% for the week ended Aug 20, as onion, fruits, vegetables and protein-based items turned more expensive.

HT

How much is too much? Legal experts debate new bank norms

However, the question is are the restrictions threatening to make a Frankenstein out of RBI or is RBI opening a Pandora’s Box and the sector will be impacted uncontrollably?

Read...... 

‘Business confidence levels have dipped' - Industry bodies want RBI to cut interest rates

Major industry bodies have come out with reports indicating a decline in business confidence levels and have called upon the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut interest rates to boost sagging industry. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have in their separate reports expressed concern over the global economic downturn and the U.S. fiscal position and the European debt overhang which in addition to the domestic factors were generating uncertainty about the economic outlook. The FICCI business confidence index (BCI) was at the lowest level in the last two years, while the CII quarterly BCI showed a decline by 8.9 points. Both the exercises were carried out in August. The CII, however, said expectations for the second quarter indicated a modest recovery, while FICCI forecast a further slowdown in gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate during the third and fourth quarters based on U.S. and India GDP growth correlation. Both CII and FICCI seemed to agree on the GDP growth rate for the current fiscal. The former expects it to be in the range of 7.5-8 per cent while FICCI puts it at 7.9 per cent. According to CII, most firms do not plan to increase investment plans and FICCI maintained that corporates saw a significant downward pressure on profit margins, affected by high interest rates and input prices. The CII held high interest rate and high raw material cost as the two top business concerns and FICCI pointed to the 11 times increase in interest rate by the RBI and said the tightening monetary policy had resulted in sharp slowdown in industrial growth and had also impacted consumer demand. FICCI suggested a cut in interest rate to boost corporate confidence including those of exporters who had taken a hit as well. According to the CII, other factors of concern to the business community are global economic and political instability and institutional shortages.

HBL

New banking guidebook: What does it mean to the industry?

Watch the video..........