Daily Financial News Analysis – 17th Sep’20

Table of Contents

Smart Metering

Draft Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules 2020: every new electricity connection will come with a smart prepayment meter or a prepayment meter.
Any exemption to this should be approved by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.
Read Smart Meter, remotely, once in a month. Representative should read other prepayment meters once in 3 months.
The draft also recognises consumer as a prosumer if he generates renewable energy.
The distribution licensee will create an online facility on which the prosumer can register and claim compensation amount.

The British described India as an ocean of trees.
Tree cover was nurtured by village and tribal communities.
Dadabhai Naoroji: To organise the drain of India, the British destroyed these community organisations and took over forest land as State property.

Goa, therefore, remained an ocean of trees till 1961, attracting hordes of tourists.
To this day, the gavkari, or “communidad” organisation continues to bravely hold on to Goa’s natural heritage.
Gadchiroli – at over 70%, it has the highest level of tree cover in Maharashtra
Proper implementation of Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights and provision of FRA
Thousands of villages being assigned lakhs of hectares
CFRs are granted from 2009
It has led to skill development and community-based employment.
Capable tribal leadership + competent and honest officials
Pachgaon, a village in neighbouring Chandrapur district, has been assigned CFR rights over 1,000 hectares.
The gram sabha asked each family to submit 5 rules regarding management of forest resources and other civic affairs.
These were then discussed in a meeting over two days and 115 rules were unanimously accepted.
The entire community now abides by these 115 rules.
These include regimes regarding the harvest of bamboo and other minor forest produce, regular patrolling of CFR areas and sharing of responsibility in sorting and auctioning bamboo.
The villagers used pluck tendu leaves for contractors

Involved setting fire to parts of the forest, which the people deemed undesirable.
Tendu trees are now producing an abundance of fruit.
This fruit is in high demand also.
The wages for bamboo harvest were 3 times what contractors paid.
2015: net profit of Rs 35 lakh from the sale of bamboo
This money is invested in organising forest and village development works which provide year-round employment.
The lessons from villages such as Pachgaon must reach all other CFR-holding villages.
Maharashtra’s tribal development department sponsored a special five-month training programme in the field at Mendha-Lekha, the first village to win CFR rights in 2009.
Kudumbasree – engaged primarily in activities related to food production, processing and restaurants.
Large tracts of farmland are fallow in Kerala
Reason: costs of chemical inputs and labour prohibitive
Kudumbasree groups take such lands on lease and make them productive.
They can afford to do so because, without alternative employment, their members accept lower wages.
Not chemical usage – low cost – pesticides free ecosystem
Empowering communities through organisation and resource rights is a very effective and desirable route to both employment generation and skill development.
India needs to think of an alternative economic paradigm to prevent the distress we have seen this year.