Never be afraid to trust an
unknown future to a known God.
—Corrie Ten Boom (Dutch,
1892-1983)
Word for the day
Fuliginous (adj)
Sooty; smoky, e.g., the
fuliginous air hanging over an industrial city.
(Source: Dictionary.com)
Malice towards none
Shahrukh Khan claims to be
the greatest patriot in the country!
Any higher bids?
First random thought this morning
Now a days it is common to watch, hear and read stories narrating how
a child born in a very poor family landed a good job or succeeded in
competitive examinations, etc.
Ostensibly, the objective is to highlight the social awakening and
to motivate millions others who are facing similar types of socio-economic
challenges. Unintended consequences are rise in fear psychosis in a section of
the society that is unnecessarily feeling threatened by rise of the
downtrodden.
This reminds me the most overrated Hindi movie of recent times - 3
Idiots. Whatever was the objective of that movie, it might have motivated many
stressed students to commit suicide!
States of the Union - 2
Confronted with chronic and unsustainable levels of fiscal deficits
and public debt regional governments have embarked upon corrective strategies
to attain a certain degree of fiscal consolidation. The primary objective is to
align the key macroeconomic parameters with the broader socio-economic context
of respective states.
These efforts are typically driven by a rule based framework
through the enactment of fiscal responsibility and budget management (FRBM)
legislations. The legislations at state level are designed, keeping in view
specific requirements and characteristics of the respective states.
While the fiscal rectitude shown by the states is welcome, a
careful impact assessment of the mechanism employed for expenditure management
is imperative.
For seizing the full impact of the fiscal consolidation, it must
be made sure that it does not result in sacrificing the expenditure considered
necessary for stimulating growth, and promoting larger objectives of inclusion,
equality and integration of socio-economically backward population.
The study of FY15 state finances relates that there is significant
variation in expenditure on social and physical infrastructure among states in
terms of both composition and the level of spending. Expenditure on physical
infrastructure shows greater variability, with energy being the most volatile
component. By contrast, states’ spending on the social sector exhibits
stability and is dominated by outlays on education.
Majority of the Non Special Category (NSC) states incurred
expenditure on social and physical infrastructure (as proportion to aggregate
expenditure) below the group average; indicative of the presence of sharp
outliers.
Two features are noteworthy: (a) states’ spending on medical and
public health has tended to exhibit a central tendency, with a greater degree
of cluster around the average (NSC states) relative to expenditure on energy
which is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of dispersion from the
average.
At a disaggregated level, average social sector expenditure on
education and health is higher among top 5 states than the other states,
indicative of the impact of income levels on the quality of expenditure. In
respect of physical infrastructure, expenditure on roads and bridges is highest
for the bottom 7 states.
It is clear that the states in lower income brackets need to improve social
sector spending, given the correlation of around 0.5 between expenditure on
health and education and the human development index (HDI) of NSC states. These
adjustments would enhance labour productivity and enable states to reap the
benefits of the “demographic dividend”
(Source: RBI)
(Based on April 2016
report of RBI on "State Finances - A Study of Budgets of 2015-16")
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