MyVoice: Views of our readers 31st March 2021

Tread with care on NRC

The write-up by Madabhushi Sridhar Acharyulu on citizenship rejection letters was forthright and specific. At the outset, when NRC is an Assam specific exercise to identify illegal migrants and determine genuine Indian citizens, mere issuance of rejection slips without following the Assam accord in letter and spirit will only compound problems than arriving at a solution.

However during the course of exercise, allegations arose that the exercise is biased with many wrongfully rejected must be necessarily looked into before coming to a logical conclusion. Agreed that Assam has long borne the brunt of migration from Bangladesh and NRC was taken up as per the provisions of the Assam accord to settle the immigrants issue once and for all. But the bone of contention arose is about issuance of rejection slips to people excluded from the NRC which led to conflicts that prima facie is in contravention to the Assam accord.

Further, as there is no deadline fixed for the purpose, the Assam government wanted re-verification to weed out only illegal immigrants is apt. Therefore, the war cry from Centre to issue rejection slips in order to send back immigrants at a time when assembly polls are underway is only an exercise in futility. At the same time, it is a reminder to Congress that the dirty politics played by its leadership has resulted in a major demographic shift which need to be rectified and settled sooner in the interest of the nation.

K R Srinivasan, Secunderabad

How about auditing pavements?

Prashanth Kumar of Delhi University has brought out openly CAG Report's glaring state of affairs in Telangana. with regard to financial mismanagement and opaqueness in the State budget (The Hans India, 30 March, 2021). The report "also reveals the fact that the state treasury is under excessive stress". Kumar has not mentioned anything about the colossal assets of hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of "sidewalks" (also called pavements/footpaths) worth hundreds of crores of rupees. Apparently they have not "audited" since they are twin-laid alongside roads. There is little or no possibility of roads being pilfered, the sidewalks can and infact they are "shrinking" and "disappearing" as observed by Telangana High Court in their recent findings in a PIL (The Hans India, 12 February 2021).

I am therefore raising the question of "audit" of sidewalks. ever since these (sidewalks) were laid many years ago. Sidewalks are "valued lands", they are not vacant lands, they are in use 24x7, but unfortunately they remain uncared, unmaintained, unattended, unclean, unsafe, and cluttered. Propertied-owners (like shop/building/house owners) are, obviously, responsible for "shrinkages/disappearances" of the footpaths.

Even now, periodic auditing of sidewalks is possible by double-checking on original measurements (length x width) of sidewalks on the one hand and SDM Card method (sale-deed-measurements) of properties of owners lining up the footpaths on the other hand.. For every city, we need a government-declared Custodian Of Sidewalks (COS) who will liaise with CAG. It is a matter of saving "valued lands" worth thousands of crores of rupees besides making available the mandated safety to the walking public.

Prof B R Sant, Hyderabad

Privatisation of PSUs can work

Basically, privatisation policy in India has been encouraged by the need to raise resources in tough fiscal conditions. This is apparent in terms of privatisation which implies that the ownership and management of companies or assets move to private holdings. It clearly shows improving efficiency and hence achieving higher productivity and optimum allocation of resources to boost up the economy and contribute in Global trade on large scale are indeed the major outcomes according to government.

Moreover, in sectors such as defence and national security, which could be the termed 'strategic', the government may continue to play a significant role. However, in areas where there are private players and where there is already a competitive market (such as steel, pharmaceuticals), or where the market has a few dominant players but is regulated (such as telecom), it makes sense for the government to exit.

Bishal Kumar Saha, Murshidabad

Better to be safe than sorry

It is definitely an alarming situation that there is an increasing cases of Covid caseload in the country especially in the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh contributing to around 85 per cent of new Covid cases. This is certainly due to an amount of laxity in the minds of the people who have thrown away all the three types of social distancing norms in spite of the huge tremendous publicity given by the government in several media platforms.

It is important for the people to know that Covid vaccination is being done only to a very small percentage of the people step by step and still crores of population have to be vaccinated which is bound to take some more time. Even the strains of the new Covid sample are getting changed over a passage of time which is making the vaccine manufacturing companies think once again as regards the challenge in facing the new strains while preparing vaccine medicines.

It is therefore high time that the government including the state governments should implement all social distancing norms with more vigour and pressure on citizens by imposing penalties for all violators whereever required as it should be known that it is these people who are responsible for increasing covid caseloads in the country. Afterall, if health is lost , everything is lost and the government in the present situation should not attempt for another lockdown.

Katuru Durga Prasad Rao, Hyderabad