Union Budget 2015-16 Suggestion

Bikash Choudhury

The principal policy of current years budget should be to “Strengthen the Intensity of Human Activity” in all walks of life including an important segment of our population Women.

Revenue Tax Proposal: 1- Rental income remains unreported or under reported; therefore, through a simple procedure of submission of ‘affidavit’ on actual rental income along with the tax return would help improve Revenue. Identically the cash income of Doctors, Architects, Coaching Centers and Wellness Centers could be targeted.

2- Expand the tax base by taxing Grocery Stores @ Rs.1000-Rs.3000 for a turnover of Rs30- Rs. 50 lakh per annum and Hotels & Restaurants with an annual turnover of Rs.15-Rs.25 Lakh through simple procedure of self declaration and provision of a bank deposit in any bank branch and online transaction.

3- Govt. should penalize cash transaction and encourage formal transaction @

Rs. 1 lakh & above. A cash transaction tax could be reintroduced above one lakh for individuals and two lakhs for business or a suitable parameter could be crowd sourced as it was an unpopular tax.

4. Rs. 5 surcharge on each Rail & Air Ticket for “Swachh Bharat Aviyan” including the cleanliness and Hygiene in the Railways.

5. Rs. 50 surcharge on luxury goods and services for Ganga Cleaning.

6. Rs. 10 surcharge on each Mobile Phone purchase and Re. 1 for a Rs. 100 mobile recharge/top up/bill and Rs. 100 surcharge on each two wheeler purchase and Rs.500 surcharge on Four Wheeler towards Road Infrastructure.

7. Re. 1 surcharge on each 1 lt. bottle of aerated drink and packaged water towards Water Conservation and Family Health.

Revenue Savings Proposal: 1. GoI should make a huge savings in Capital & Revenue expenditure on Automobile Purchase and its maintenance and salary of personnel; which can be transferred to an employee managed company in collaboration with Private sector that provide logistic solution to all GoI offices on rental basis only charged to the revenue expenditure of the Govt.

2- GoI has huge unused or under used assets like Human resources, Land, Building and Automobiles; an inventory of such assets could be made and that could be either disposed off or optimally used to save the tax payers money.

Tax Concessions for a Larger Goal: 1- Govt. could offer 100% tax benefit to Corporate/Business/Industry/High Net Worth Individuals for Investments made in “Adarsha Gramya Yojana” by adopting Villages. Stringent guidelines need to be developed to prevent chances of revenue leakage if any.

2. Tax concessions to Software and other Export companies having Offices in USA and Europe if they chose to Promote Indian Handicrafts and Artisans.

3. Tax concessions for all Hospitality Companies who wish to promote Indian Food and Culture (Indian Style Marriages and Festivals) in USA & Europe.

4. Excise tax concessions for house holds on all items that go into the Installation of Rain Water Harvesting Systems (RWH) in Homes and Workplaces.

5. Tax concessions for those Banking and Financial Services Institutions who Invest in setting up “Start Up Village” Entrepreneurial Incubators at our Higher Education Centers like University/Colleges both technical & non-technical.

6. Ignite Creativity: Tax concessions for Individuals & Corporate on purchase of Art Work/Sculpture and for setting up of Art Gallery, Art Funds and Art Auction House.     

     

   

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Letter to Prime Minister on Governance & Development

Esteemed Prime Minister,

I wish to draw your kind attention to the following points on New Year 2015.

Sir,

Our NDA Govt. under your leadership has taken series of new initiatives that would take little time to show its result; however, the expectation of people from the Prime Minister and his Govt. has grown manifold as we capture sample opinions from Tea shop & drawing room discussions. Therefore, I propose the following:

1. Prime Minister’s vision of the country need to be converted into an ‘expressed mindset’ inside the GoI bureaucracy to start with; that would convert Ideas & Intention of Prime Minister into concrete result in a much shorter time frame.                a. GoI offices should be transformed into “fun work place” that, apart from motivating and inspiring our bureaucracy to contribute to their core work much better while promoting team spirit & team work; they would enjoy their work and work environment as their other aptitude, interest and skills get recognition among their peers. This initiative can be jointly executed by DoPT and IIM Ahmedabad.

                      b. DoPT could take an initiative to encourage the spouses of bureaucracy to start social & cultural organization that should later “egg” the bureaucrats to perform to provide better Governance & Development in the country.

     2. Swachh Bharat Aviyan 2.0: In three months time this program has generated unprecedented awareness in the country on the subject; now it is time to show concrete result though in a smaller scale. I propose let us actually clean and maintain cleanliness in all 6 metro cities, All State Capitals and All cities of Tourist attraction like Varanasi & Puri.

                     a. GoI could launch a website/portal for “SBA’ that would enable all volunteers to join the program who wish to contribute 1hr a week in their designated cities, those who wish to contribute technical know-how and equipments and those who wish to donate technical personnel, accessories and finance for their respective cities.

                     b. The website/portal could generate 10,000-20,000 hard core volunteers who would create awareness and actually donate their labor to clean their city entirely including drainage system, roads, railways and all public places just like advanced countries.

                     c. GoI only needs to provide a team of officers with genuine interest on the subject to each city to coordinate with civic bodies and State Govt. to make things happen.

                     d. Gandhiji started his cleanliness drive from ‘Harijan Basti’ and we could start such a program from each slum in the respective cities.

                     e. This program if successful will improve savings in healthcare of respective cities and give a boost to tourism.

I hope ideas discussed here would be of interest to our prime minister.

Yours Faithfully,

Bikash Choudhury

Socio-Economic-Political Activist

Email: streben.market@gmail.com Twitter: @ideasofhope Mob: 09853426657/07504106233     Address: Plot No: 3309 Adarsha Vihar Lane-2 Patia Bhubaneswar Odisha-751024                     

IDEA OF PAKISTAN NEED ALTERATION

Bikash Choudhury

Genesis of Pakistan was backed by sectarian violence in British India and its inception carried a gigantic human tragedy in both sides of the borders of India & Pakistan. In last sixty plus years India has accepted inevitable but sad partition of the country on religious line and focused on socio, economic and political development of its people with creation of robust institutions and made peace with itself. Now, after getting a State and Territory for majority Muslim Population of British India; why Pakistan still remain a very volatile region in South Asia? Recent massacre of tiny school students at Peshawar has drawn Global attention to fratricidal war within Pakistan. It remain unanswered why Muslims slaughtering people pursuing Islamic faith in such large numbers and in such an organized manner. Obama administration has chosen to reward Pakistan with one billion dollar aid to control terrorism; however, it has been observed violence has generated more violence and terror groups get more recruits. Terrorism can be managed or controlled when we eradicate the mindset that propels young people from offering themselves as ‘suicide bombers’ to kill innocent people. We should create environment where life & lives gets celebrated not death & dead bodies. Pakistan has turned into a ‘confused state’ and that remain the main stumbling block against its consolidation and growth. In one side it consider itself as ‘Islamic Republic’ and in other side it hold on to its liberal and secular ethos of ‘Hindustan’. Terrorism and violence in Pakistan is the manifestations of deeper conflict that exist about the genesis and more profoundly ‘the idea of Pakistan’.

                                                It has become an ‘a priori’ globally that Pakistan has become the fountain head of terror all across the world as the 9/11 in New York and 26/11 at Mumbai was conceived and executed from Pakistani soil and dreaded Osama Bin Laden was eventually found in the luxurious shelter of Pakistan Army & its spy agency-ISI. That is not all; ISI was credited with the murder of its own Army Chief & then President of Pakistan Ziaul Haq and American Ambassador to Pakistan. Pak Army still sponsor terror group to conduct murderous attack on Indian soil of Jammu & Kashmir. Pakistan claims to be the victim of Global terror while it also aid terrorism from its soil. It is not an irony; but, hard reality that ‘violence’ as the State policy of Pakistan has also consumed many a tall political leaders in its grip at different points of time in its history; however, no attempt has been made to resolve its ‘conflict inside’ that continue to take a heavy toll of its institutions that now make Pakistan one of the dangerous place on earth and a ‘Rogue Nation’ that does not function as per its rule of law. 

                                                Idea of Pakistan needs little alteration to become a vibrant Nation once again on the back of its creative and hard working people. It has to first drop its tag and pretensions of a ‘Islamic’ Nation which it is not in spite of its majority of people pursuing Islamic faith as its founding fathers designed a Muslim majority secular Nation for better Governance & Development of its people. Pakistan should come out of its Identity crisis and concede its century old ‘Hindustan’ identity in which it would find Mogul emperor Akbar a secular King ruling over entire Indian continent for over half a century having a majority of its people following ‘Hindu’ religion. Emperor Akbar was equally admired by his Hindu & Muslim subjects then and even at present; as the Monarchy State had no religion of its own and both faith prospered economically and culturally on their respective merit; which needs to be emulated by Pakistan to have a tryst with its destiny and nip the global terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism in its bud. Once this is done, the three top Institutions of Pakistan Viz., Civilian Government, its Armed Forces and Judiciary would function as per their respective objectives in the rule of law while clipping the wings of its spy agency-ISI from meddling in politics and thus bringing much needed peace and prosperity for people of Pakistan sooner than later. This is easier said than done; however, if the Diaspora of Indian Sub-continent and Obama led USA administration make a common cause on this issue then before long Pakistan could walk firmly on a new path towards real progress & development and our World could become much safer to live in. Shall we?     

(Author socio-economic-political activist from India)

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HOW TO CONTROL PAK MILITARY?

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

Sacrifice of hundreds of innocent school children at Peshawar even did not change the Pakistan Military a bit. It is apparent now that Pak Military has hardened its stance and would like go down with the Sovereign Country of Pakistan; not, a day earlier. It has taken complete ownership of its Govt. and people. Just two weeks after Peshawar massacre it has started raining bullets on Indian borders and simultaneously planned to conduct terrorist attack on the western part of the country; however, luckily boat with explosives caught by Indian Coast guards which later exploded on sea. While writing this piece firing from Pakistani side continues since the night of New Years Eve. It is quite possible that Pakistan Military & ISI have some sinister plan to conduct a large scale military strike in India directly or indirectly during the visit of US President Barak Obama to shock India and discredit its security forces. India has to keep a constant vigil on the evil forces and put the Pak Govt. and it’s Military on sufficient notice; that, should there be a terrorist strike in India from Pakistan soil; then, India would reciprocate in kind on all Military Installation inside Pakistan at a time of its own choosing. India Govt., howeve, could reach out to Pakistani people through Pakistan Diaspora about its genuine desire for peace and prosperity in the region. There should be an attempt by India to rope in all SAARC members against Pakistan on Terrorism and Aggression. India could share information with the Govt. of SARRC Nations on the materials available about the sinister designs of Pakistan Military and ISI. God forbid if there were another terrorist strike any where in India then SARRC Nations could be persuaded to cut Diplomatic Relations with Pakistan Military State to corner it for Good. This should control the Adventures Pakistan Military substantially.      

AUTOMATIC TOILET

Indian Space Research organization (ISRO) successfully sent a space craft to Mars on a shoe string budget of four hundred crore rupees, which is a world first. Can’t India design an automatic toilet just like an automatic washing machine with a MSP of Rs.10000.00? India has taken long stride in micro-processor technology, bio-technology and electronics which can be generously used and applied to make a low cost but high-tech toilet that would consume less water and should be capable of processing the night soil into compost, filter the water for non-portable use or, that could be simply drained out while killing the foul odor. This automatic toilet should save the need and cost of expensive sewerage pipeline and treatment plant in cities and towns. This is some thing which could be deployed smoothly across the country to make “Swachh Bharat” a reality soon. A country where an over 62% population goes out in the open to relieve themselves holds a market potential of over $ 700 billion USD in Indian house holds alone. If we could design a SMART TOILET just like SMART PHONES and WHAT APPS then India could truly be on the highway towards economic transformation. Any takers?    

Bikash Choudhury

Bhubaneswar     

PONZY SCHEME TO FUND INFRASTRUCTURE

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

Ponzy schemes have taken a heavy toll of scamsters, politicians, real-estate builders in recent CBI investigation in Odisha and West Bengal. The amount swindled from poor depositors estimated to be about Fifty Thousand Crores of Rupees. The bottom line is as long as the craze for higher return exist such scamsters would reappear again and again in newer avatar; unless Govt. steps in a substantive manner. Modi Govt. could create a virtue out of the huge demand for “Investment Products” with 20-25 % return in a year. Indian infrastructure sector need huge funding to make World Class Infrastructure available to its people in next decade. One important aspect of fulfillment of Infrastructure need in the country is mostly overlooked—that is the capacity of infrastructure sector to pay for itself if done in a time frame. If our country at one stroke provide for World Class Road, Rail, Air connectivity and Inland & Coastal shipping services in a period of ten years then the savings accrued and productivity enhanced could pay for the infrastructure more than proportionately to its investors. Govt. has taken series of steps to improve the FDI climate to attract investment from abroad in various sectors of the economy including the infrastructure sector. It is now time to aggregate the domestic investors for sunrise infra sector. The other benefits could be the demand for yellow metal as investment option would come down substantially reducing the pressure on current account deficit.    

GLOBAL CORPORATION MUST WORK FOR HUMANITY

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

World is currently going through a tempestuous phase in its life for the mankind. While it is being battered by Nature in all its ferocity as a consequence of climate change phenomena in one side; it is also being targeted by Global terrorism in a very organized manner with growing violence on innocent people. On top of it Global economic systems have completely failed to remove poverty in many parts of the World. There has been attempt to deal with a few of them through millennium development goal; however, as the deadline of 2015 is getting nearer the failure to achieve the goal staring on our face. Global community urgently need to address three important issues like conservation of nature, reduction in global defense expenditure and better understanding between various religions & race. Indian Prime Minister while speaking at United Nations General Assembly emphasized upon lifestyle changes and practice of yoga that would help in conservation of nature by cutting down conspicuous consumption. Nation States are spending huge amount of their revenue in armed forces disproportionate to their security need and much in excess their spend on education & healthcare. There is a need to convince the Nation States to reallocate resources from defense to development; some where and some how the global terrorism is deeply embedded to the growing numbers of poverty stricken people. The central problem that remains unattended and grossly fuels the global terrorism is the misunderstanding between a set of religious faith and race which can be easily resolved by spreading awareness and facilitating learning about all religious faith from ground up- that is from children to adults. The raw violence that is being perpetrated by the brand new terrorist group ISIS and the counter offensive from allied forces led by USA seem to have no end and have the potential to spread into many peaceful neighbor hood of the World. United Nations and sensible leaders of Nation States have been trying to end this vicious problem of violence and poverty; however, their efforts have been limited by resources and organization. Therefore, Global Corporation must now work for the mankind to conserve, preserve and progress; as without mankind there would be no business. In a recent news report the chief of social networking site Face Book donated twenty five million dollars to the Disease Control Centre of USA for EBOLA virus and for a long time founder of Microsoft Bill Gates spending a fortune for health & sanitation in most developing countries including India. This individual and isolated act of philanthropy may not be able to resolve the core issues faced by the Global community. At this moment it is imperative for Global Corporation to work for humanity as part of their business policy and earmark a substantial portion of their idle resources and the organization to help generate awareness and contemplate action wherever required to bring elusive peace and sustainable economic prosperity for the Global community. Global Corporations like Google, Face Book and Microsoft have considerable influence over the classes and masses which they could use to incubate three organizations to adequately deal with current problems. One, University Students for Global Peace with a mandate to convince and get buy-ins from the lawmakers of each country to cut their respective defense expenditure by five to ten percent and redeploy such resources in development of their own country or wherever such resources are urgently needed across the World. This should considerably reduce the State sponsored violence, aggression and war like condition and at the same time help the recovery of Global economy with higher spending on social expenditure and capacity building in deprived regions of least developing countries. This initiative also could help check the territorial ambitions and aggressive posturing of countries like China by creating a very strong Global Public opinion against warmongering and adventurism. Two, Global Social Forum—just like ‘World Economic Forum’ with an objective to bring the various and varied religions and race on a common platform for a constructive dialogue between leaders in the field to create a better and shared understanding on the matter of faith. That should over a period of time control Global Terrorism by stopping the inflow of followers to the terrorist network. At the end, World now misses an organization that works on the concept of “fortune lies at the bottom of pyramid” making the economic development of rural settlement in developing countries as its only business. If Global Corporations eventually take these initiatives in near future; then, a new Global Order would emerge and World could remain in Peace with itself in a sustainable manner for a long long time and the financial statements of Global Corporations would look very attractive. Shall we?

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