The ultimate objective of our democracy is not to be content with the rule by
the representatives; it is the participation of the empowered citizens more
actively in the governance of all spheres of life. Mr. Subhash Chandra Agarwal
is one such prolific thinker who proposes many appropriate changes in policies
and procedures. The readers who agree with any of his proposals may pick them
up to pursue them further on their own and
campaign for their adoption by the competent decision-makers.
1.
Ban
service-charges by restaurants and hotels: Tips should be totally banned. Refer to highly irresponsible
Guidelines No. J-24-9-2014-CPU(pt.) dated 21.04.2017 issued by Dept.
of Consumer Affairs, GoI wherein consumers going to hotels and restaurants for
enjoying food are advised to approach Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum against
the malpractice of certain restaurants and hotels charging compulsory
service-charge in their invoices and even providing a column for tip in the invoice;
Instead, the Department should impose ban on such levying of service-charges.
If eateries are really sincere for the staff-welfare, they can increase their
wages on their own. Also since there is no limit on served food-prices, they
can increase prices rather than adopting back-door route to fool consumers
through unfair service-charge.
2.
Bureau of
Indian Standards, BIS should call a meeting of printer-manufacturers including
representatives of foreign companies to minimise types of ink-cartridges. Presently,
HP has too many types of ink-cartridges of similar shape and size for their
vast range of inkjet and laser printers. It is not difficult to standardise so
many ink-cartridges to a limited number to be used uniformly in different
models of inkjet and laser printers. Such standardisation will heavily bring
down the cost, as well as reduce the wastage of natural resources.
3.
RTI online
portals of Central and all state governments should be designed uniformly,
adding auto-emailing of RTI responses and orders of First Appellate Authority.
Presently, there are only a few departments like Income Tax Dept. which informs
online RTI applicants about disposal of their RTI applications through emails
and SMS-alerts. But most public-authorities like banks do not have such a
user-friendly practice, requiring many RTI applicants to again and again go to
the RTI online portal for checking status of online filed RTI applications.
Instead, there should be a system for auto email of RTI responses and orders of
First appellate Authority without at all requiring the citizen to go to RTI
online portal to check status.
4.
Simultaneous
elections for President and Vice President are necessary at a time when there
is a thinking of holding of simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state-assemblies.
The rank of the Lok Sabha Speaker should be upgraded to that of a second Vice
President. The President and two Vice Presidents should be elected
simultaneously in the same manner as President, by all MPs and MLAs. In case of
a mid-term vacancy caused to the post of President, the senior Vice President
may be made President for rest of the term. Interim Vice President can be
elected by all MPs only (not MLAs) for rest of the term.
5.
Corona-freebies
necessary but should be limited to small families. Delhi government has announced several
cash-reliefs for families of corona-victims, like rupees 50,000 for death of
earning member, rupees 2,500 monthly pension for families of earning
corona-victims, free education to children, ten kgs. of free ration to all
families irrespective of having ration cards or not. Already, many freebies
like water, electricity, bus-ride for ladies, corona cash-relief to
construction workers and auto drivers are in existence. It is unfair to burden
sensible tax-payers mostly from middle-income class having small families by
taxing them unnecessarily and heavily by freebies to those having large
families.
6.
Scope of form
26AS under Income Tax Act should be widened by abolishing or grouping together
the misused exemptions. The Central Board of Direct Taxes had widened the scope
of form 26AS of Income Tax Act by auto-inclusion of investments made in
approved securities, cash withdrawals or deposited, etc. apart from earlier
only TDS (Tax-Deducted-At-Source). But this form should be made more
user-friendly by auto-inclusion of allowable deductions like investment in
Public Provident Fund, LIC policies, government-securities, mutual funds, etc.,
and spending on Medical-Insurance, etc. etc. Insurance companies should be
directed to incorporate compulsorily PAN number and Aadhar number on policies.
7.
Amend the rules
for packaged commodities. The Dept. of Consumer Affairs should amend the
rules whereby it may be compulsory to pack all commodities in true
metric-spirit in units of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 gms. or mltrs. or
ltrs. or kgs. only so that consumer may judge comparative prices of a commodity
marketed by different companies.
8.
‘Write-To-Prime-Minister’ portal is to
be modified. Better to club this with www. helpline.
rb.nic.in and www.pgportal.gov.in and similar portal at website
of President of India with www. pgportal.gov.in with provision to
entertain suggestions. Dept. of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances
deserves compliments for introducing a
provision for filing appeal against the status at theportalwww.pgportal.gov.in
9.
Legal-size
paper should be banned with all government-offices. The High Courts should be
asked to follow Supreme Court in using both-sides of A-4 paper with 1.5
spacing. Just replacing legal-size paper with A-4 size paper with reduced
margins and 1.5 spacing will reduce the paper usage by around 45 lakh tons
annually. The Supreme Court has also done away with practice of printing and
distribution of hard copies. Also, it is time to discontinue any further
manufacture of legal-sized paper to reduce hardships of common people in trying
to get photocopiers.
10.
Considering the ever increasing space-crunch and
rising land-prices in cities, smaller houses may be provided for those having
ministerial status both at the Centre and in states. System of allotting
post-retirement official bungalows may be retained only for former President
and Prime Minister (not even for former Vice President). It is significant that
even a former US President just gets half of last drawn salary as
post-retirement benefit.
11.
Give NOTA
(None-Of-The-Above) effective teeth to ensure good candidates in the coming
2022-elections for five state-assemblies. All candidates who get less votes
than NOTA should be disqualified to contest any election or their being
nominated to any legislative body for the next six years. A person must not be
allowed to contest from more than one constituency for both Lok Sabha and
Vidhan Sabha. Rather a sitting MP or MLA must resign from earlier seat before
filing nomination for the other, and persons who resign mid-way from any
legislative body should also be disqualified to be a member of it for next six
years.
12.
National
Anti-Profiteering Authority, NAA should accept submissions for general
improvements to check anti-consumer practices, which may result in removing
malpractices and excessive profiteering at root-level. Such suggestions include
fixing maximum trade-margin between ex-factory price and printed
Maximum-Retail-Price of commodities. Further, it can be made mandatory to print
invitation to the consumers to make suggestions, on the back of every invoice.
13.
Time in India should be shifted to GMT+6 Hours
Time-Zone. India should also advance its time-zone by half an hour to make it
GMT+6 hours rather than present haphazard GMT+5.30 hours as also recommended by
the National Institute of Advanced Studies. Making Indian Time at GMT+6 hours
will fulfil long-pending and genuine demand of people from north-east India.
14.
India should also take the lead in taking up
matter of metric-measure of time, as all other measures are already converted
into metric-system from earlier haphazard systems. Metric unit of time should
be introduced with a whole day divided in 10 metric hours, instead of present
24 hours. Each metric hour may have 100 metric minutes with a metric minute
having 100 metric seconds, thereby making a complete day of 1,00,000 metric
seconds instead of present 86,400 seconds.
15.
Too many variants of a car-model must not be
allowed and to Standardize consumables in car-industry. (I). There may be just
two variants apart from the third with automatic gears, one basic Lx for
economy customers and the other Vx, all company-fitted with extra accessories
and luxuries for affording customers. There is no sense in having too many
confusing variants like Lx, Lxi, Vx, Vxi for same model.
(ii). The Union Government should induce standardization
of common accessories like tyres and batteries so that same parts may be used
in different models of cars produced by various car-manufacturers. It will
heavily bring down cost of consumables through their large production in some
limited sizes and specifications.
------ From Mr. Madhu Agrawal or Mr. Subhash Chandra Agarwal.1775 Kucha Lattushah, Dariba, Chandni Chowk, Delhi-110006. Mo: 98100
80011 Fax: 23254036. email: subhashchandra agrawal@gmail.com/madhuagrawal1951@gmail.comhttps://www.facebook.com/madhuguinness.
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