Politics over pain: Migrants' long walk home and the Centre-state tussles

Tired of walking miles after the lockdown was announced on March 24, hundreds of migrants had gathered at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Friday in the hope of getting back home by bus once the word had spread that the administration was arranging transport for them. Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) were still undecided on whether to give a green signal to a proposal to screen and transport workers to their domicile states while visuals of the migrants’ long walk made international news.
The governments in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand had started making arrangements to transport migrants from their states. In fact, Ila Giri, the assistant resident commissioner of the Uttarakhand government, moved fast to issue a notice even before the lockdown kicked in. The notice said the state government would make arrangements to pick up stranded workers from two bus stations in Delhi.

It’s another matter that the Uttarakhand government could not ply the buses as planned-- the Centre’s lockdown order had put a ban on the movement of people within or outside the states, except if they were travelling for essential services or were under the exempt list. Frustrated migrants however were already on the road to Uttar Pradesh, hoping to cross the border on foot, leaving the remaining home-bound journey to luck.
“By Friday, around midnight, (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath decided to send buses to pick the migrants from the state. The bus drivers and conductors of the state government buses were called in and it was decided to start the service,” UP CM's advisor Mrityunjay Kumar told Business Standard recalling the events of the past few days. He added that by then, the state had made arrangements to bring in 150,000 migrants by putting them under quarantine facilities in governments schools or colleges in villages. In the past three to four days, around 300,000 had reached UP, Kumar said.
By Saturday noon, when Adityanath’s office said on Twitter that 1,000 buses had been arranged “to help migrant workers reach their destination without any hassle’’, buses had started arriving in various parts of UP, the word spread like wildfire in Delhi.
Within half an hour of the UP government’s official announcement, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that about 100 buses of the Delhi government were carrying people who were trying to leave Delhi. At the same time, Sisodia appealed to the migrants to follow the lockdown. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too made an appeal, requesting migrants to not return to their villages as the state had made arrangements for food, shelter and whatever else they needed. The Central government, which had imposed a lockdown, remained silent.
On the roads of the national capital, a sense of understanding was visible between the authorities as the Delhi Police helped migrants board the buses. The Delhi Police, which comes under the Union Home Affairs Ministry, even prevented workers from walking on the highway while making them reach the Anand Vihar bus station, where the UP government buses were lined up.
“The Delhi government had been making appeals to the migrants not to move out. We didn’t want to promote any kind of movement. We observed that people had started making a move from the state on March 26 and according to our estimates 60 per cent were from Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan who were passing through Delhi,” Delhi’s Dialogue and Development Commission vice-chairman Jasmine Shah said.
He added that though these were manageable numbers, “the chaos” started with the UP government’s announcement on Saturday. “No governments had made special arrangements till then. We had made all arrangement for workers living in Delhi.”
But Kumar said the Delhi government had started moving buses from various industrial areas of the national capital towards the UP border on Friday, which led to huge crowds. The UP government was left with no option but to bring the migrants back, he added.
“The Delhi government buses were deployed only to disperse huge crowds within the city as it was counter-intuitive in tackling coronavirus. So, we did send buses to some locations in UP,” Shah said.
By Saturday afternoon, around 50,000 people had gathered at the UP border to catch buses to their home destinations. This was a direct result of the UP government’s decision, taking the central government into confidence, to ply the 1000 buses, Shah pointed out.
The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation had sent a communiqué to all the district magistrates within the state to allow the entry of buses which have been deployed to pick people stuck across various points at border districts of Delhi. “The government has now taken a decision to allow these passengers en route to reach their destination…The special task of carrying people from Delhi border to various districts in UP will continue today and on March 29,” UPSRTC managing director Raj Shekhar had said in a letter.
The UP government fell short of buses as the crowd swelled at the border and it had to dial up the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana government for help. Some buses came from Faridabad and picked up people even on Sunday to take them to UP. By then, migrant workers from other states had also started moving in the hope of returning home. Soon, the exodus and the crowd breaching all lockdown norms sent out panic waves in the power corridor and the Central government intervened on Sunday.
Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla held a video conference on Sunday morning with the top bureaucrats and police officers of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi. “In the meeting, they expressed their alarm and unhappiness at the large-scale movement of migrant labour on the roads by foot followed by the accumulation of a large number of people especially at the Anand Vihar Bus Terminal. In order to disperse the crowds from this area, buses had to be provided in large numbers on March 27 and 28 evening,” a communication sent by Haryana Director General of Police Manoj Yadav to officers within the state on Sunday stated.
The central government decided to immediately seal the borders and stop movement of people. It also ordered the state governments to offer relief measures for the migrants, instructing them to pick up workers travelling on foot on highways. The Centre was clear that the migrants must be returned to the localities from where they had started.
By Sunday night, the Central government had suspended two senior Delhi government officials – one in the transport department and another in finance, while issuing a showcause notice to a state official in the home and buildings departments and the sub-divisional magistrate of Seelampur (in-charge of Anand Vihar bus terminal area), indirectly putting all the blame on the Delhi government.

In a bonanza for stock markets, govt may scrap DDT, review LTCG slabs

A bonanza is in the offing for the stock markets as the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Finance Ministry are working on measures which may include dividend distribution tax (DDT) to be scrapped and a review of existing slabs and holding period of long term capital gains (LTCG), short term capital gains (STCG) and securities transaction tax (STT).
Officials of Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) and Revenue Department in the Finance Ministry have held meetings in this regard with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

The LTCG was introduced in the 2018 Budget after more than a decade with a tax of 10 per cent on an amount above Rs 1 lakh. There may be a review under which after a particular holding period, the tax may be done away with.
Short term capital gains are taxed at 15% of total gains for equity holdings less than a year. Capital assets in this category include listed equity shares, ETF (exchange traded fund) and equity-oriented mutual funds.
The STT is charged on buy and sale of securities instruments, including equity. The markets have been demanding reduction of the STT or doing away with it altogether. However, it is a big money spinner for the government, and it also helps to track equity buying at source and was introduced in 2004 after abolishing capital gains.
According to analysts, the announcement related to buyback attracting 20% tax to close the loophole on ADDT had made investors jittery. Also, no booster shot for LTCG, STCG and STT had left the stock markets disappointed.
The provision on buybacks was a new one, introduced in this year's Union Budget by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The motive was to clamp down on the strategy of avoiding dividend distribution tax (DDT) through buyback of shares by listed companies. The Budget had proposed an additional tax of 20 per cent in case of buyback of shares by listed companies.
This was one of the key reasons for the nervousness in the stock markets post Budget when they fell heavily. Hundreds of companies which were planning buybacks were stuck in the middle of the new tax and since then there has been a lull for new buybacks. This has also unnerved investors who used to benefit from surrendering shares to the companies.
As per the Budget provision, as per section 115QA of the Act, buyback of unlisted shares attracts additional tax at 20% (plus surcharge and cess) in the hands of the company distributing the income on such buyback. Such income arising in the hands of shareholders is exempt under section 10(34A) of the Act.
However, such provision is not applicable on buyback of listed shares. "It is now proposed that section 115QA of the Act will be amended to include such tax on buyback of listed shares. Further, section 10(34A) of the Act is consequentially proposed to exempt income received by the shareholders on buyback of listed shares. The proposed amendment will be applicable with effect from 5 July 2019", the Budget provision said.

P K Sinha: A soft-spoken man, listener who cannot be 'accused of passion'

Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha is moving to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as an official on special duty at a time when reviving the economy has become the biggest challenge for the government.
A soft-spoken man, Sinha brings with him experience of not only leading two ministries as secretaries but also of balancing and coordinating views and plans of various government departments that are often contradictory to each other.

“It’s an appropriate decision, since he (Sinha) can bring in continuity because he has been Cabinet Secretary,” said Anil Razdan, a former power secretary, who worked with Sinha in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
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Razdan added, “One of his assets is that he is a patient listener who will decide after listening to all.”
Of his 42 years in Indian Administrative Service, Sinha has spent about 20 in the energy and infrastructure sectors. He moved from the petroleum ministry to head the shipping ministry and later the power ministry.
In 2015, he took over as Cabinet secretary from Ajit Seth. After two extensions, he got a third one for three months ending this September.
A retired IAS officer of 1977 batch, belonging to the Uttar Pradesh cadre, Sinha cracked the highly competitive civil services examination in the first attempt at the young age of 22 years.
A senior official, who interacted with him in the ministry of petroleum, said, “He cannot be accused of passion; he takes decisions after thinking through.” Sinha is a typical officer, who follows rules and “thinks the role is more important than the person”.
Sinha’s contemporaries describe him as an extremely pleasant person who is known to back his juniors to the hilt. “As the financial advisor in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, I always found his inputs very useful. He was the government director on the board of many state-owned petroleum companies but unlike joint secretaries, who were also in the same positions, he had a grasp on the operational matters of the companies,” said S C Tripathi, former petroleum secretary.
Sinha’s appointment also indicates that there could be a complete overhaul of the team that looks at the country’s economy at the PMO. His experience as head of a high-level committee on stressed power assets could come in handy.
An economics graduate from Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College and a postgraduate from the Delhi School of Economics, he can now oversee the government’s ambitious plan of investing Rs 100 trillion in the infrastructure sector in the next five years as part of the plan to make the economy grow to $5 trillion by 2025.

PMO wants FinMin to restudy issuing of overseas sovereign bond: Report

The Indian Prime Minister's Office (PMO) wants the finance ministry to reassess the idea of issuing foreign currency overseas sovereign bonds, two sources with knowledge of the development said on Thursday.
The office has asked the finance ministry to seek wider consultation from stakeholders before proceeding with any plans, said the sources, who declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The Ministry of Finance and the PMO declined to comment on the matter.
This month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech that India would look to issue overseas foreign currency sovereign bonds.
The idea, however, has been criticised by former heads of the Reserve Bank of India, economists and allies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party alike, as they argued it could create long-term economic risks by exposing the government's liabilities to currency fluctuations.
The benchmark 10-year bond yield rose as much as 11 basis points to 6.55% after the news of a rethink of the proposal, as market participants fear this may boost government borrowing in the domestic market.
The PMO was not properly apprised of the consequences of overseas dollar-denominated bonds by outgoing finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, who originally pushed this idea, said one of the two sources, who is an adviser to the government.
The proposal to raise funds via overseas bonds is likely to be withdrawn, and as an alternative, the government could raise funds through rupee-denominated bonds in the overseas market, he added.
Garg, a high-flying finance ministry bureaucrat, was in a surprise move transferred to the less high-profile power ministry late on Wednesday.
Garg was a central figure amid the tension that arose between the government and the RBI in 2018, that culminated with the sudden departure of former RBI governor Urjit Patel in December.
It was not immediately clear whether Garg's transfer was linked to the fallout from the overseas bond proposal, but a third source told Reuters on Thursday that Garg had applied for voluntary retirement after being handed the transfer.
Garg told media later on Thursday that he had sought voluntary retirement, but would serve out a notice period of three months and take charge as power secretary until then.
He declined to comment on the sovereign bond issuance.
The finance ministry declined to comment on Garg's transfer, or voluntary retirement application.

CIC again asks PMO, RBI to disclose wilful defaulters' list, Rajan's letter

Severely admonishing the RBI and the PMO, the Central Information Commission has again directed them to disclose the list of wilful defaulters and Raghuram Rajan's letter on bad loans.
In an exhaustive 66-page order, the panel pulled up the Prime Minister's Office for not complying with its directive to disclose the letter from former RBI Governor Rajan on bad loans.
Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said, "If there is any objection based on any exception, the PMO should have pleaded such provision and justify their denial."
He said the PMO refused to comply with the direction of disclosure of action on Rajan's letter on "grounds which are not legal, which is unfortunate".
Acharyulu was hearing the plea of one Sandeep Singh who had sought details of bank loan defaulters.
The commission had earlier issued a show cause notice to RBI Governor Urijit Patel for "dishonouring" a Supreme Court judgment and CIC directive on disclosure of the list of wilful defaulters.

ALSO READ: RBI is duty-bound to release names of wilful defaulters, says CIC Acharyulu
The PMO has a "moral, constitutional and political duty" to tell the citizens of India as to who are the defaulters and what action has been taken to recover the huge loans advanced to them by banks, from out of taxpayer's money, he said.
The commissioner said several categories of information were declared by the RBI as not disclosable as part of their disclosure policy' and the RBI calls the exceptional clauses under the RTI Act as enabling' provisions.
"It is against the RTI Act, the collective intention of Parliament, affront to democracy, reflecting disrespect to the Supreme Court's directions in RBI v Jayantilal N Mistry case. The RBI has a strong legal team with experienced legal experts and meritorious graduates from National Law Schools, yet has audacity to openly defy RTI Act, CIC directions and judgment of the Supreme Court," he said.
ALSO READ: RBI's Urjit Patel gets CIC notice for not disclosing wilful defaulters list
He said as per law, in each RTI request, the CPIO and First Appealing Authorty (FAA) of the RBI need to justify the denial under exceptions prescribed under sections 8 and 9 of the RTI Act.
"But any public authority cannot declare that it will never give such information as declared by the RBI. Exceptional provisions under the RTI Act cannot straight away enable a public authority to deny in advance," he said.
Acharyulu said in spite of the Supreme Court's direction that Section 22 of the RTI Act will override the RBI Act and other Acts, the RBI again quoted those Acts and declared that it would not give information.
"The RBI has totally ignored the provisions of the RTI Act," he said.
This non-disclosure in the name of disclosure' policy is also in contradiction of various office memorandum and guidelines issued by the Department of Personnel and Training under the RTI Act, he said.
"If the RBI does not respect the SC orders and denies the citizens right to information, it will result in perpetuation of financial regime of secrecy that is potential enough to facilitate financial frauds and allow fraudulent rich and influential business persons to flee the country, as witnessed in recent times," Acharyulu said.
He again directed the PMO to disclose the names of the defaulters, action taken for recovery of loans in response to Rajan's letter and the policy, if any, about recovery from defaulters including high-profile ones.
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Acharyulu also urged parliamentary committees such as Public Accounts Committee, Committee on Finance and Committee on Estimates to deliberate the issues raised in this case as they are also seized of such matters.
"The commission directs the office of this CIC to present the copy of this order to concerned officers of Parliament who are responsible for placing such papers before respective committees within one week from the date of issue of this order," he said.
He rejected the submission of the representative from the PMO who had informed the CIC that the RTI application in this particular case had been filed by the applicant with the Directorate General of Employment and Training (DGEAT) and no copy of the said RTI was received in the PMO from either the applicant or on transfer from any other public authority.
Acharyulu said, "The PMO contended that as the original RTI application, first and second appeals were not filed with the PMO, the direction to provide information was not maintainable and hence the compliance question does not arise."
"The commission cannot agree with this kind of attempt to deny the substantive part of information access by unreasonable procedural interpretations without any legal basis. There is no provision in the RTI Act that prevents the Information Commission from directing any public authority to provide information if that is possibly available with them," he said.
He said information pertaining the identities of loan defaulters and action taken against them is an issue of larger public interest.
"The stand taken by the PMO in this case will not serve any public interest, and compel the citizen to start his effort ab initio, by filing an RTI request with PMO, treating as a separate unconnected public authority and reach the ultimate level at the CIC or up to the Supreme Court, if the government prefers to litigate with the citizen and ultimately it has to give that information.
"This was not the intention of Parliament in passing the RTI Act, 2005 that aimed at creating a practical regime and not procedural tangles to delay and deny the access to public information," he said.

Plea seeking bad loan details not treated as 'information' under RTI: PMO

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has termed as a "roving enquiry" an RTI plea seeking to know details of bad loans submitted by the then RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan to it and which finds mention in his response to Parliament's Committee on Estimates.
The PMO has said the query does not come under the definition of "information" in the RTI Act.

"The information sought is in the form of roving enquiry and does not come under the definition of 'information' as per Section 2(f) of the RTI Act, 2005," Under Secretary and CPIO at the PMO, Praveen Kumar said.
Section 2(f) defines 'information' as any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority.
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The applicant had mentioned that he was seeking from the PMO information related to communication received from Rajan when he was RBI Governor on bank loans which is mentioned in his response to the Committee on Estimates during a hearing.
He had sought to know the list of bad loans submitted by Rajan, action taken on them by the PMO and the name of the public authority to which the matter was referred to among others.
The PMO also declined to provide information as to when it received the communication from Rajan and on the note sheet of action taken.
In the note to Chairman of Estimates Committee Murli Manohar Joshi, Rajan said the size of frauds in the public sector banking system has been increasing, though still small relative to the overall volume of non-performing assets(NPAs).
ALSO READ: RTI confirms Rajan sent PM Modi list of bank defaulters in February 2015
"The RBI set up a fraud monitoring cell when I was Governor to coordinate the early reporting of fraud cases to the investigative agencies. I also sent a list of high profile cases to the PMO urging that we coordinate action to bring at least one or two to book. I am not aware of progress on this front. This is a matter that should be addressed with urgency," he said.
Rajan, who was RBI governor for three years till September 2016, is currently teaching at the Chicago Booth School of Business.
Noting that the system has been singularly ineffective in bringing even a single high profile fraudster to book, he said frauds are different from the normal NPAs.
"The investigative agencies blame the banks for labelling frauds much after the fraud has actually taken place, the bankers are slow because they know that once they call a transaction a fraud, they will be subject to harassment by the investigative agencies, without substantial progress in catching the crooks," he said.

PMO asks agencies to identify beneficiaries of NuPower-Videocon loan case

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation and the income tax department to probe transactions involving NuPower Renewables, Videocon Industries and other related parties in connection with the Rs 32.5 billion ICICI Bank-Videocon loan case. The PMO wants the agencies to identify the actual beneficiaries of these transactions made in India and abroad.
This is the first time the PMO has directly stepped into the case, seeking a detailed investigation. “This ministry is issuing direction for inspection of the books of accounts and papers of NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd, Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd, Pacific Capital Services Pvt Ltd and Videocon Industries… to reach at the bottom of the nature of the transactions and the issues,” the PMO said in a letter sent to the agencies, which have been investigating the matter.
The letter, which cited the sequence of transactions among these companies since 2008, directed the probe agencies to identify the beneficiaries of such transactions, besides identifying the violations of the Companies Act, if any, and action accordingly. Business Standard has reviewed a copy of the note.
According to the letter, issued a week ago, the Registrar of Companies (RoC) has done a detailed analysis of transactions among the entities mentioned above. “The sequence of transactions, which was reported widely, has been verified by the RoC from documents filed by the respective companies,” the letter noted.
Citing RoC findings, it said that in 2008, Videocon group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot and Deepak Kochhar, husband of ICICI Bank MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar, promoted NuPower Renewables. Dhoot and his associates held a 50 per cent stake in the company and the remaining was held by Deepak Kochhar and Pacific Capital, a company owned by his father and Chanda Kochhar’s brother’s wife, Neelam Advani.
Widening the probe
PMO directs probe agencies to inspect the books of accounts of NuPower, Videocon Industries and related entities
Raises doubts on frequent changes in the shareholding pattern among entities
Says there were allegations of conflicting transactions
Notes the matter was beyond the scope of RoC enquiry
The second company Supreme Energy (SEPL), which was owned by Dhoot, became a 94.99 per cent shareholder in NuPower by March 2010 following transfer of shareholding from Dhoot to Kochhar and subsequently from Kochhar and his Pacific Capital to SEPL.
Kochhar held a 4.99 per cent stake in NuPower then. The same year, Dhoot transferred his entire shareholding in SEPL to his associate Mahesh Chandra Pungalia, who transferred his shareholding in 2012 and 2013 to Pinnacle Energy, a trust where Deepak Kochhar is managing trustee.
The letter further said that according to the annual returns filed for 2017, Deepak Kochhar held an aggregate of 43.4 per cent shares in NuPower, both as direct holding and through SEPL and Pinnacle Energy. Mauritius-based DH Renewable Holdings holds 54.99 per cent.
There were frequent changes in the shareholding pattern in these companies, resulting in the exit of Dhoot and exclusive control of Deepak Kochhar in his own name or through his companies/trusts. Also, there were investments in convertible securities and allegations of conflicting transactions, the PMO observed.
Citing the limitations of the RoC, it said the matter was beyond the scope of the RoC enquiry, which entails calling for information/explanation from the respective companies.