5th Feb 2020 : The Hindu Editorials Notes : Mains Sure Shot for UPSC IAS exam

No. 1.

Question – Discuss the impacts of attaching medical colleges to existing district hospitals in the PPP mode.

Context – The experiment of PPP model in hospitals.

Proposal:

Setting up of medical colleges in existing district hospitals under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
The States which fully allow the facilities of the hospital to the medical college and wish to provide land at a concession would be eligible for viability gap funding.

Reason:

To address the shortage of doctors.
It is practically not possible for Central and State governments to bridge the gaps in medical education with their limited resources and finances, necessitating the formation of a PPP model.

Benefits:

Criticism:

Allowing private parties to “operate and maintain the district hospital and provide healthcare services” could seriously dent public health services
The draft indicates that the private firm “can demand, collect and appropriate hospital charges from patients”.
It destabilizes people’s access to affordable public health services, which can be disastrous.

Way forward:

The government must consider raising health-care spending beyond the usual under 2% of GDP.
It should ensure more resources are available to provide free, quality health care to all.

No. 2.

Note – Today there is an article on the 15th Finance Commission. The following are the major highlights:

15^th FINANCE COMMISSION:

The appointment of the Fifteenth Finance Commission by the President of India under Article 280 of the Constitution was notified on November 27, 2017.
It was required to submit the report by October 30, 2019 for five years for the period 2020-21 to 2024-25.
However, due to various political and fiscal developments, the tenure of the Commission was extended to submit its report.
Now it will submit two reports, one for 2020-21 and the second covering the period of five years beginning April 1, 2021.

Finance Commission and its functions:

The Finance Commission has the following functions or duties:

The Commission makes recommendations to the President of India on the distribution of tax proceeds between the Union and the States and the share of each state.
The Commission also decides the principles that govern the payment of grants-in-aid to states from the Consolidated Fund of India.
The President of India can also refer any other matter to the Finance Commission in the interest of building a sound financial system.

Reasons for extension:

The abolition of Statehood to Jammu and Kashmir required the Commission to make an estimation excluding the Union Territory.
The deceleration in growth and low inflation has substantially slowed down the nominal GDP growth which is the main tax base proxy; making projections of tax revenues and expenditures based on this for the medium term could have posed serious risks.

Recommendations suggested in the Report:

The Commission has continued with the approach and methodology adopted by the previous Commissions for tax devolution and revenue-gap grants.
vertical division of taxes – States’ share is 41%
For the horizontal shares, however, the formula has been changed to consider “fiscal needs, equity and efficiency”.
Factors considered – income distance, population and area and forest cover, two additional factors — demographic performance and tax effort were also used.
Weightage:

o 15% weight to the 2011 population,

o reduced the weight of income distance to 45%,

o increased the weight to forest cover and ecology to 10%

o 12.5% weight to demographic performance and

o 2.5% weight to tax effort.

In terms of relative shares in tax devolution, among the major States the biggest loser is Karnataka followed by Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The major reason for Karnataka and Kerala losing on devolution is that their per capita income growth has been faster than most other States.
Suggested grants for local bodies amount to ₹90,000 crore comprising ₹60,750 crore for panchayats and the remaining ₹29,250 crore for municipal bodies.
For PRIs, 50% of the grant is tied to improving sanitation and supply of drinking water, rest untied.
The Commission has recommended the creation of a disaster mitigation fund at the Central and State levels.
For 2020-21, it has recommended ₹7,735 crore for improving nutrition based on the numbers of children in the 0-6 age group and lactating mothers.
Proposed to give grants for police training, modernisation and housing, railway projects in States etc.