Poverty Reduction by Decentralisation: A Case for Rural Panchyats in Tamil Nadu

An attempt has been made in this paper to study the linkage between decentralisation and poverty reduction with special reference to panchayati raj institutions in Tamil Nadu. The policy implication of the study emphasises that the process of decentralisation should be designed and implemented so as to achieve required reduction in poverty. In the globalised era, decentralization has attracted significant interest in recent years. Decentralization is being seen as one of the missing institutional link between economic growth and distributive justice. Decentralisation is linked to poverty reduction in many ways. While decentralization has become a development strategy of many developing countries, its linkage to poverty reduction in particular has been the subject of recent time. In India, where social and rural sector are still backward and further affected by the ongoing liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation process, even high growth rates and innumerable poverty eradication schemes of the union as well as the state governments have failed to ensure distributive justice and left millions in sustained deprivation. Panchayati raj institutions could be a promising institutional link to combat poverty in terms of efficient designing and effective targeting.Poverty Reduction; Decentralisation; Rural Panchayats; Tamil Nadu

New approach to planning in Tamil Nadu: Targeting the growth process

Achieving a high growth rate as well as a desirable level of income distribution is a goal that continues to be elusive in India. Thus, the maiden approach of the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission to place importance on the `growth process', alongside the growth rate, is interesting and appropriate.Planning - Social Sector - Growth Process -

Federal Transfers and the Tax efforts of the States in India

The paper has examined the the impact of federal fiscal transfers on the budget of the state (sub-central) governments in India. The relationship between the federal fiscal transfers and the tax efforts of the 14 major Indian states have been anlysed for fifteen years (from 1970-71 to 1984-85)through a panel dadat set. Fixed efeect model and its variants have been employed. The study found that the federal transfers have dampaned the tax efforts of states in India. Hence, a hiher weightaege for the 'tax effort criterion' has been suggested in the vertical devolution formula of the Indian Finance Commission to ensure efficiency.Federal Transfers; Tax Efforts; Fiscal Federalism in India; Efficiency; Vertical fiscal balance

Kelewatan Proses Pembayaran Balik Cukai Berlebihan di Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri

Selaras dengan pembangunan ekonomi negara yang pesat, labatan Hasil Dalam Negeri telah dikorporasikan untuk meningkatkan prestasi perkhidmatannya kepada pembayar cukai. Sebagai sebuah badan berkanun kerajaan, LHDN diberikan penuh kepercayaan untuk memungut hasil cukai bagi pihak kerajaan. Bagi mencapai hasrat ini, LHDN telah melaksanakan beberapa langkah untuk meningkatkan mutu perkhidmatannya kepada pembayar cukai. Salah satu daripadanya ialah potongan cukai melalui PCB. Tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti faktor - faktor utama yang menyebabkan kelewatan proses pembayaran balik cukai berlebihan akibat daripada potongan cukai melalui PCB. Di samping mengenalpasti, kajian ini juga bertujuan untuk menyenaraikan faktor - faktor tersebut mengikut kepentingan melalui penggunaan kaedah AHP. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa faktor kecuaian majikan mengisi borang CP39, beban kerja dan kekurangan staff merangkumi 60% daripada keseluruhan masalah di Kaunter Pembayaran. Di Cawangan Penaksiran pula, faktor kelewatan menerima borang B, ketidaklengkapan maklumat dalam borang B dan beban kerja staff menyumbangkan 63% daripada keseluruhan masalah. Akhirnya di Cawangan Pungutan, faktor kesulitan mengemaskinikan ledger pembayar cukai, persefahaman di antara bahagian dan kepentingan memperolehi maklumat di antara cawangan merupakan faktor - faktor utama yang menyumbang kepada kelewatan proses pembayaran balik cukai berlebihan. Berdasarkan kepada kajian di atas, pihak pengurusan LHDN dapat mengambil langkah -langkah yang sewajarnya untuk mengatasi masalah - masalah yang telah dinyatakan. Semoga sistem potongan cukai melalui PCB dapat membantu meningkatkan prestasi perkhidmatan LHDN dan menyenangkan pembayar cukai

THE SEPARATION OF CARBON DIOXIDE – METHANE – PROPANE BY USING HOLLOW FIBER MEMBRANE: EFFECT OF FEED PRESSURE AND CO2 COMPOSITION

Carbon dioxide, CO2 is known with its corrosive properties when dissolved in water. Therefore, CO2 is needed to be removed from the natural gas to avoid it from damaging the pipelines and equipment due to its corrosive properties. There are a lot of method to separate CO2 from natural gas however membrane technology can be considered one of the methods which offers the largest potential in terms of economic feasibility especially in offshore. However there is lack of studies on the effects of multi component feed on the carbon dioxide separation using a membrane. Hence, the main objective of this project is to evaluate the permeance and relative permeance of commercial hollow fiber membrane under different feed pressure and feed CO2 composition using CO2-CH4-C3H8 as feed. A hollow fiber membrane module is prepared to conduct the lab experiments. Using the prepared module, experiments on the effect of feed pressure and CO2 composition in feed was conducted. The results obtained was analyzed to study the effect. From the analysis, it is learned that the permeance and relative permeance of CO2 increase with pressure in the range of 10 to 18 bar. The permeance and relative permeance of CO2 also increases when CO2 composition is increased from 16 Vol. % CO2 to 67 Vol. % CO2

Australian Health Insurance Reform: Challenges and Opportunities

Health actuaries have been quite busy over the past few months trying to make sense of the various reforms that were introduced by the Department of Health to address the challenges of affordability and complexity of New Private Health Insurance (PHI) in Australia. Some of these reforms (although not yet finalized) will come into effect on April 1, 2019. The new reform measures present health insurers with both a challenge and an opportunity: How to minimize the impact on existing business? How to maximize the opportunity to grow the business

A high-sensitivity OH 5-cm line survey in late-type stars

We have undertaken a comprehensive search for 5-cm excited OH maser emission from evolved stars representative of various stages of late stellar evolution. Observed sources were selected from known 18-cm OH sources. This survey was conducted with the 100-m Effelsberg telescope to achieve high signal to noise ratio observations and a sensitivity limit of about 0.05 to 0.1 Jy. A total of 64 stellar sources were searched for both main line and satellite line emission. We confirm the previous detection of 5 cm OH in Vy 2-2, do not confirm emission from NML-Cyg and do not report any other new detection within the above sensitivity limit. Implications of these results on the pumping mechanism of the OH radical in circumstellar envelopes are briefly discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, A&A in pres

Impact of National Food Security Mission on Farmers Livelihood in Tamil Nadu

In order to combat the challenge of deficit in food availability, the Government of India launched National Food Security Mission (NFSM) in 2007-08. The main objective is to achieve self-sufficiency in foodgrains production to improve livelihood of the people. Rice, wheat and pulses are given high priority in the process of production by the Union and State Governments. In Tamil Nadu, only 25 per cent of the districts (8 districts) where rice cultivation is predominant have implemented the scheme. After the implementation of the NFSM scheme, there has been significant improvement in the farmer’s life. NFSM beneficiaries are in a better position with improved performance in terms of input use, production, productivity in comparison with that of the Non-NFSM farmers. Further, many of the selected villages in the study area are yet to satisfy the existing coverage norms. The farmers are not well equipped with adequate farm materials like cono weeder, multiple planters, power weeder, pump sets, sprayers and power tillers as they have not been provided with them under the scheme. They have been given only a limited support like the provision of seeds and inputs. Besides, there is widespread intra-district disparity in terms of subsidy and benefits distributed