Tag: Corruption

Crying Tree – Chopped in Minutes

20180820_181412 I first met this majestic tree in 1982, which stood tall on Bannerghatta Road, just after Basavanapura. It’s been my buddy for 36 years. It was a big old tree back then and more so now. The land adjacent to it is our workplace, from my father’s time. This tree has seen me grow up, it has seen me come and go. It has weathered 100’s of monsoons and has sheltered many a dog, cow, goat, bird, bat and cat. When I arrive at this spot, I know I have come home.

This evening, at about 6:00 p.m., I drove back to my office, but the road was choked with traffic. I finally made it to the gate, only to see my buddy being cut down. I was chocked with emotion. The only thought in my mind was to stop the bleeding.

20180820_182213

I met the tree butchers and quizzed them. No one was in charge. One guy, appeared to be the leader and I asked him for the permits to cut the tree. He had none. He told me that his boss, the BBMP contractor, Shekar, had the permits and that I should speak with him. I called Shekar, who stated that he had the permits and that he had given it to the Police and BESCOM. I called the Hulimavu Police station and they told me that they do not know about the tree cut. They asked me to contact the control room (100). I called them and explained the situation. They gave me the number of the Forest Officer In-Charge, Mahesh.

I called Mahesh and explained the matter. I asked him if permits were granted to cut the tree. He was not too sure and asked me send photographs via WhatsApp. He mentioned that some trees were being cut down for road widening. I told him that the tree was being cut in the middle of rush hour (6:00 – 6:30 p.m.) and that it was a serious safety issue. I specifically told him that it was crazy to fell a tree with hundreds of vehicles passing by – buses, lorries, vans, cars, scooters and bikes.

After I had spoken to the Police and the Forest Officer, the tree butchers had quickly gathered the debris on their bikes and vans and scooted away by 6:40 p.m. Why run, if they were following the Law?

I have many troubling questions regarding the maiming of my tree buddy.

Has the BBMP issued a permit to cut this particular tree? If so, who authorized it?
Has the BBMP carried out a honest environmental impact study on the trees to be felled for road widening on Bannerghatta Road?
Assuming that the permit was granted, why did they have to butcher this tree during rush hour, endangering the public?
Why was the Police not present to control the traffic and protect citizens from falling debris?
Why did the tree butchers carry away the cut up portions on their personal bikes and vans?

The tree has a right to live. If it has to be chopped, in the name of city development, let the Government do it with responsibility. There should be an engineer in charge to explain it to the public and share the permits, while the butchering was done. It should be mandatory for the Government to post Police to safeguard the public from injury, while the tree was being cut. Common sense would dictate that the tree should not be cut, when a high density of vehicles were plying by.

If my tree buddy has to be butchered, in the name of development, let it be done with due process, with dignity and within the framework of the Law. I still hope that I can do something, so that what is left of it can live. Maybe if the tree lovers of Bangalore and the World voice their opinion, it would live to see another day. Good night my lovely tree. I know that you are crying and I cry with you tonight.

Poverty in India – 600 Million!

Poor

I recently saw the documentary 13th and it was stunning. The revelations were startling. President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in the United States of America on January 31, 1865, through the 13th Amendment. It freed about 4 million Black slaves. However, successive US Presidents successfully maneuvered Government Polices and continued to keep a large percentage of Blacks in abject slavery. The US prison population was 327,000 in 1970 and this jumped to 2,220,300 (more than 2 million!) in 2013. Blacks make up 13% of the US population, but account for 40% of the prison population, which is about 900,000, say close to a million. It is shocking, but true.

How is this related to Poverty in India?

There is a connection and it is political. Poverty has been a political cancer since 1947. Every elected Government, since Independence, has made polices that have perpetuated poverty – some intentional and some not.

There are many definitions for poverty and it can be confusing for anyone. I’ll trust the World Bank’s definition of international poverty line, which was revised in 2015 to US $1.9/day (Rs. 122/day) per person, based on the concept of PPP (purchasing power parity).

Take a look at how the Government of India defines poverty. In June 2014 it was defined as a person earning Rs. 32/day in rural areas and Rs. 47/day in urban areas. A Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report in 2012 computes that 270 million people (22% of population) are below the poverty line of Rs. 33/day. This is consistent with the World Bank’s published data.

At a US $1 to Rs. 64 exchange rate, Rs. 33/day is about $0.52/day per person. The accepted 2015 poverty line of $1.9/day adjusted to 2012 figures is about $1.74/day. How do we reconcile a definition of $0.52/day by the Indian Government to $1.74/day by the World Bank, which is a difference of 235%? It’s apparent that the Indian Government is deliberately under-reporting the % of Indian population below the poverty line.

If we assume linearity in income and % population data, at $1.74/day (Rs. 111/day) the % of population is 74%. At low income levels, linearity is a reasonable assumption.

The truth is somewhere in-between. The % of Indian population below the poverty line is between 22% (Rs. 33/day) and 74% (Rs. 111/day). I’ll mid-point it out at about 48%, for 2012. This translates to about 600 million people in India below the poverty line!

If politicians say that the % of population below the poverty line is less that 22% in 2018, then we know it is not true! It just can’t come down from 48% to 22% in 6 years, which would be a reduction of 54%! There is no way they can justify it, since the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MOSPI) of the Indian Government does not have any data till date to support a counter claim.

Why is the Indian Government pegging the poverty line to Rs. 33/day per person? It’s simple – because 22% poverty level sounds politically great. If it were taken at Rs.122/day (US $1.9/day), as per the international norm, the % levels would be much higher and this does not sound great to any political party.

I want to further substantiate that the present Indian Government’s definition for poverty of Rs. 33/day is absurd. I spoke to a few of the people I work with, who have come from villages to the city to seek employment. Well, they are from South India and they love rice and sambar, a type of lentil based spicy soup, in their daily diet. They tell me that in the villages, the consumption per person would be about 400g/day of rice and about 200 grams/day of lentil in the form of sambar. Rice is about Rs.50/Kg and lentils (dal) about Rs. 90/Kg. Add to this about 250 grams/day of vegetables at Rs. 25/Kg. This works out to Rs. 44.25/day just on food. What about other things. Let’s take just rent and electricity. In villages, rent may be about Rs.900/month (Rs. 30/day) and electricity Rs.15/day. The basics works out to be about Rs. 89.25/day. One also needs clothes and health care. So, the World Bank estimate of Rs. 122/day seems more realistic than Rs. 33/day of the Indian Government. I don’t have any doubts about it, do you?

The folks I spoke to would be proud to pay for their daily sustenance without doles from the Government. They just want jobs that pay well. They don’t want a hand out of subsidized food supply (Government Ration Schemes or Coupons). Their pride to earn and live well is more valuable to them.

But, poverty is real. The Government is coming up with all sorts of schemes to dole out goodies to the poor and keep them poor. For example, in Tamil Nadu there is the Amma Scheme and in Karnataka there are Indira Canteens, and so on in other states. Such schemes just keep their hunger at bay, but provides no tools for them to progress out of poverty.

The poverty data has always been inconsistently reported and explained since 1947. In the 1950’s about 65% (215 million) of the population was below the poverty line, defined as Rs. 0.6/day per person. In the 1960’s it was 70% (289 million) below Rs. 0.6/day per person. In the 1970-1980’s the figure is reported at 50% and the poverty line was defined at Rs. 1.63/day per person. In the 1990’s poverty was reported at 77%, based on Rs.20/day per person. In the 2000’s, the estimate in 2012 pegs the poverty at 22% based on Rs.33/day per person. Look at the pattern from 1947 – 65%, 70%, 50%, 77% and then 22%. Somebody did some magic in 2012 – political mathematical chicanery!?

I think I have made the case for a poverty estimate of about 48% to 50% at the present time (2018), affecting 600 million people. Of course, I am not an economist or a political analyst or a statistician. So, if anyone disagrees and provides data, I’ll be happy to correct any errors in my analysis.

To pull people of India out of poverty, I think that the Government should re-invest its free doles into more permanent things. In layman’s terms, one way that I see is to create more jobs. For creating more jobs, the new generation must have better skills through education. For jobs that pay better, Companies should be incentivized to do so. If self employed, let the Government re-route the existing free doles to enable people to invest them in working assets, so that it can generate revenue for them.

For salaried and self employed people to earn more, the present 2018 Government of India, should be humble and make practical policies. Their demonetization and GST initiatives have a basic premise – businesses and people are corrupt.

The demonetization policy was a failure. RBI has stated that 99% (Rs. 15.28 trillion or US $239 billion) of the pre-demonetization money (Rs. 15.44 trillion or US $241 billion) in circulation came back to the banks!

I’m a supporter of GST, but the implementation is pathetic. The IT technology behind it is ancient and makes life hell for filers. It’s a system that should grant credit for all purchases, but it does not. Further, even though the businesses have legal invoices and receipts for purchases, they cannot claim credit for all of it, since the GST body wants the seller to upload the sale to the GST site. Why – since the Government thinks we will cheat!

Finally, the officers in the Central Government are still corrupt. Businesses still pay a bribe to get things done in the departments. This nasty practice must stop. So, with honest and practical reforms in GST and the way the Government works, businesses can no doubt create more jobs and also better paying ones. Self employed citizens will thrive. It’s the only way out of poverty, other than being socialistic. India is democratic and it has too large a population for socialism to work. The private sector can do what the Government just cannot.

I think that a little honesty from the Government is needed. It must think real hard and solve the poverty problem. It should stop making policies that keep the poor in poverty. The equation of poverty to votes must end now and forever.

GST Portal Errors – Why is the Indian Government not Truthful?

I’ve wasted several man days trying to get the DSC (digital signature) working in the GST portal. A few months back I spent a lot of time getting it working on Windows 10, on which I had specifically installed Google Chrome for this purpose. With all the automatic updates and changes, we could not get the DSC working again, since last week. I’ve been tinkering for a few days and I realized that the problem is with the GST technical implementation.

The GST portal and department has not been truthful to the people of India. Just imagine, if we could have spent the wasted time with our families and loved ones, instead of fixing the DSC problem, which is not our own making.

Deceit #1
You have to look at the GST System Requirements to understand what the government wants from you. It stipulates that you need – Desktop Browser: Internet Explorer 10+/ Chrome 49+ or Firefox 45+. There is no qualification on the OS – whether it is Windows 10, 8, 7 and so on or Mac OS Mountain Lion, High Sierra or whatever.

After following all the guidelines on the GST System Requirements page, I realized that I was wasting my time. While signing with the DSC, I was continuing to get an error that the GST page was unable to connect to the server. I read several online Help pages, but it was just not working.

I began thinking from first principles. The browser has to first communicate with a Java application called emSigner. This application, emSigner, is the GST’s so called server, that is able to communicate with your digital signature token, which is typically purchased by you and provided to you on a USB drive. If the browser is unable to communicate with the emSigner, then it means that the Java interface will not function.

In my case, I was running Windows 10. I had 3 browsers installed- Microsoft Edge (updated in Feb 2018), Google Chrome (Version 63.0.3239.132) and FireFox (57.0.1). At least my Chrome and FireFox comply with the requirements of the GST portal (Chrome 49+ or Firefox 45+).

Next, I checked whether java communication is enabled in the brower, by typing https://java.com/verify in the browser address bar. To my surprise, Chrome 63+ and Firefox 57+ gives feedback that Java is not compatible with it.

So, is it truthful for the Government of India and GST to publish such inaccurate system requirements on its GST portal? Is it fair for it to mislead Indian businesses?

Forget Microsoft Edge, Java is not even supported. Instead, in Windows 10, you have an option to open a page in the legacy Internet Explorer (IE). Apparently, Java does work in IE. For brevity, I’ll refer you all to a solution posted on another blog site post.

Deceit#2
Assuming that everything is working correctly (browser, emSigner and your DSC token), my team is often running into a problem of not being able to access the GST portal server, for submission. This is another strange problem.

I did some digging around and found that Infosys was awarded the contract to implement the GST portal technology. The Indian Government contracted them for Rs. 1380 crores. Further, about 40 lakh businesses filed GST returns in July 2017, when it first started. It is also reported that in October 2017, about 50.1 lakh businesses filed GST returns and that the collections were about Rs. 83,346 crores (US $ 23 billion).

These 50 lakh (5 million) business have to file GST returns in three forms – GSTR-1 (details of all sales made and itemization of individual sales invoices), GSTR-2 (details of all purchases made and itemization of purchase invoices) and GSTR-3 (summary reconciliation of GSTR-1 and GSTR-2 and determines whether a company has to pay net taxes or receive a credit). This is a heck of a lot of data! Just imagine, a typical average might be about 500 Invoices (purchases and sales) for a company and we have about 5 million companies, for a total of 2.5 billion invoices. Multiply these 2.5 billion invoices with about 10 data points for each invoice and we have about 25 billion data points per month. All this data has to stored on Government Servers for years together, practically forever, hopefully.

What is the kind of investment required to maintain such huge mounts of data? One needs state-of-the-art data centers, that are reliable and secure. I only know that Infosys was paid Rs. 1380 crore (US $0.2 billion) for the implementation. I am not in the know of how much the Indian Government has spent on the GST data center or where it is. For comparison, Google invests about US $11 billion each year and Facebook about US $2.5 billion each year on their data centers. How much do you think the Indian Government has spent on its GST data centers? I hazard an estimate – probably a few hundred million dollars at the most and certainly not a billion dollars.

If I were to take an educated guess, the Indian businesses are struggling to file and access the GST portal due to sub-standard and poor technology infrastructure – both in terms of inadequate server hardware and terrible software technology.

Way forward
In my opinion the Indian Government has to be honest and transparent with its citizens. It should humbly tell us how much it has spent on server hardware and software. It should be honest about using current and relevant software technology, and also communicate it clearly to Indian businesses.

Knowing very well that the browsers (Edge, IE, Chrome, FireFox) have deprecated Java, they should have abandoned it and used the latest industry standard web technologies. They knew this before GST was introduced (July 2017), but they still went ahead with Java. Is this being honest?

Most importantly, I don’t want the Indian politicians gloating about how they have implemented GST and using hyperbole of catching dishonest businesses. I want the Indian Government to be first honest with the people. If it is honest, people of India will also automatically be honest. It is this type of culture that is needed today in India, to transform itself into a progressive country.

Is the Government of India up for this challenge?

KSPCB has fooled the world!

Are you running a business in India? Do you plan on starting a business in India? Think again! The Government of India can shut down your business without notice and for no fault of yours. I’m not kidding, its true!

I’ll share with you a true story of a polluted lake in Bangalore, India and how the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has made the world believe that it was caused by 488 industries and closed them.

Bellandur Lake is one of the large lakes in Bangalore and it is highly polluted. It is well documented that it regularly bellows snow like white foam and that it catches fire! The National Green Tribunal (NGT), which is head quartered in New Delhi, passed on Order (M.A. 440 /2017) asking the Karnataka Government to shut down all industries in the lake’s catchment area. The literal extract of the order says:

“All industries which are located in the catchment area of the Bellandur Lake and are discharging their effluent (treated or untreated) into the water body are hereby directed to be closed forthwith. No industry directed shall be permitted to operate unless they have been subjected to an inspection by the joint inspection team and their analysis of the effluent are found to be within the permissible limit.”

Based on the NGT order, the KSPCB, which is the enforcement agency for pollution for the State of Karnataka, ordered the shutdown of 488 industries on its website (http://www.kspcb.gov.in/) on 05 May 2017.

I downloaded the list of 488 industries that were shut down and computed the total effluents generated by them. In fact, the totals are also listed by the KSPCB at the bottom of that list. According to it, these industries generate 0.003586 MLD (million liters per day) of Trade Effluent (from industrial processes) and 12.455 MLD of Sewage Waste (toilets and day to day people use), for a total of 12.45869 MLD.

The KSPCB cleverly projected that these 488 industries are the root cause for the pollution of Bellandur Lake. They proudly reported the closure to the NGT, the Indian and global media, and the people of Karnataka. The KSPCB Chairman, Lakshman, and his team of Evironmental Officers were the new saviors of the environment, akin to the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

Sounds wonderful? But, hear me out!

I was curious with a simple question – “What is getting into Bellandur Lake?”

When I travel around Bangalore, there are locations where the stench is obnoxious and unbearable. It is like a toilet stuck deep inside your nose. No matter which time of the year I visit these locations, the stench is prevalent. I set out tracing the locations of these stinky places in Bangalore on Google Maps and I was astonished at the end result!

The image in this post is a result of my analysis. You can zoom in on the image and you will see little colored (red, orange, magenta, green, yellow, black and blue) circles that I’ve placed on it. For a live interactive map see https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Q3gTo0SMicfBWPut4yLfILn3KUk&usp=sharing.

Do you see a pattern? The top part has 3 open sewage channels that drains into the Ulsoor lake. The Queens Road Stream is marked in magenta red circles, the Benson Town Stream is marked in purple circles and the Banaswadi Stream is marked in pink circles. The Ulsoor Lake drains via a circuitous long path (orange circles) directly into the Bellandur Lake, via Indiranagar.

The middle of the map has 2 open sewage channels, the JWR Stream (red circles) and the Victoria Layout Stream (orange circles), which merge and drain (pink circles) into the Bellandur Lake via Koramangala.

At the bottom we have 3 open sewage channels, the BTM Stream (green circles), the Tavarekere Stream (olive circles) and the HSR Stream (purple circles), which drain into the Bellandur Lake.

It is obvious that the domestic water waste from half of Bangalore is ending up into the Bellandur Lake. Half of Bangalore population would be about 6 million people. The BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) estimates the usage of 164 liters per day per person (https://bwssb.gov.in/content/about-bwssb-2). For 6 million people this translates to 984 MLD. The total BWSSB installed sewage treatment plants (STP’s) is 721 MLD in the whole of Bangalore. If we assume that they are working and we consider that 50% of these cater to this part of Bangalore, the STP’s can only treat 360 MLD. There is a deficit in treatment of 624 MLD. Where is it going? It is simply dumped into the open sewage channels and it merrily flows down into Bellandur Lake. By the way, if you can spot the BWSSB STP’s on Google Maps in this part of Bangalore, you will see that there are insufficient units. The actual domestic sewage effluent flowing into Bellandur Lake is much more than 624 MLD.

We are dumping much more than sewage into these open channels and eventually into the Bellandur Lake. Massive amounts of household chemicals also are dumped. In today’s modern lifestyle, we consume an exotic concoction of surfactants (anionic, cationic, zwitterionic, fillers and builders and cleaning liquids (ammonia and alkali based, acids, hydrocarbons such as phenyls/phenols/alcohols/terpenes/ketones). At 10 grams usage per day per person, this computes to an added 60 MT (metric tons) per day of household chemicals dumped in the Bellandur Lake.

Now comes the icing on the cake. Domestic households are dumping more than 624 MLD of untreated sewage (984 MLD of domestic sewage waste) and 60 MT/day of household chemicals into Bellandur Lake. The 488 closed industries are producing a total of 12.5 MLD, all of which is disposed as per the KSPCB consent permits and not into the Bellandur Lake. This is about 1.2% of all the waste that enters the lake.

Hasn’t the KSPCB fooled the world?

This blog is about the challenges one will face in India. I still have to finish my story. It’s crazy that the Government can shut down working industries with zero due process, fairness and justice. Is it Above the Law?

The NGT order clearly states that “only industries who are discharging their effluent into Bellandur Lake should be closed”. However, the KSPCB issued a closure order to 488 industries, in gross violation of the NGT order. For example, I run a company that is in this famous list and we are 14 Km away as the crow flies. By road, it is about 25 Km. We do not get any supply of water from the city of Bangalore (BWSSB) and we cannot discharge any water since the city has not provided us with sewage drains for the past 35 years! We get our water from bore wells or sometimes we buy it in tankers. We consume about 800 liters of water per day for domestic use and the toilet waste goes into a soak-pit located on site. We produce about 4 liters per day of trade effluent, which we send to a CETP (Centralized Effluent Treatment Plant), as per the KSPCB consent permit. Further, there are no water channels, either natural or manmade, between our location and the Bellandur Lake. The probability of any effluent, even by accidental discharge, reaching the Bellandur Lake is zero!

The KSPCB further empowered other departments to cut off electricity (BESCOM) and water (BWSSB)! How can an industry take care of its non-operational activities? People need to use toilets. They need access to water fountains and pantry facilities. Companies have to use their computers, phone and internet to carry out other activities such as filing of mandatory statutory returns stipulated by the Government of India. They also have a legal obligation to pay their liabilities to vendors and banks.

The hard reality for anyone shutting down an industry even for a few days is staggering. Employees are the first to be hit hard. With no pay, their families suffer the most. The industries default on statutory obligations, since they have no tools to fulfill them. In a modern electronic world, without electricity and internet, life comes to a halt.

Simply put, the KSPCB issued closure orders to all industries in a 20 Km radius from the Bellandur Lake, who had secured proper operational permits and who were in its database. They did this with no prior verification whether an industry was discharging effluent into Bellandur Lake or not. They have not even defined the catchment area. The logic of identifying the 488 industries is bizarre. However, the KSPCB has many reasons for this approach. The motive is spectacular and I’ll write about it in another post.

Their approach has been – shoot first and ask questions later. They have blatantly violated the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Article 21 states:

“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal property except according to a procedure established by law.”

Article 21 is a fantastic right and mirrors other similar fundamental rights in countries around the world. It also guarantees the right to “livelihood”. Deny this right and it is no longer a democracy.

This is the way it is in India. It’s like a patient who goes to the doctor for a heart surgery, but instead they operate on the kidneys! I have encountered this type of insaneness with every Government Department. But, the KSPCB takes the gold medal, at least for now.

As they say in Kannada, which is the state language of Karnataka – “swalpa adjust maddi”. It translates beautifully to “please adjust a little.”