Balance rate cut with divestment
This letter has reference to the recent cut in the small saving interest rates. As such, reducing interest rates to boost business investment is not a problem. But the problem is that this has been done without balancing other things. The government’s disinvestment programme is not moving at the same pace as the interest rate cuts.

The government prints money and conducts its business through public sector without any accountability. This public sector, inefficient and uncompetitive, is not adding any value to the printed money. Let me give a hypothetical example. A public sector company makes a truck and sells it to a coal-generating PSU at the cost price. No one knows whether the sale price is the correct price for this or not. This cost is absorbed by the coal PSU which then sells its coal (it’s the sole supplier), with all the inefficiencies, to the government-run thermal companies for generation of electricity. This electricity, I and others like me, have to buy at very high cost after absorbing all the inefficiencies in the system.

I propose the following: The cut in the small savings interest rate has to be in tune with the privatisation and disinvestment programmes. A small investor in public provident fund or a post office savings scheme should get higher rate or new schemes with higher interest rates should be introduced for those who are privately employed, retired or working in the non-organised sectors until government business is balanced with money printing.

In these schemes, the interest rate must take care of inflation, provide a reasonable return on investment and compensate for the government’s inefficiencies. It must also consider a ‘privatisation’ factor (government’s salaries + PSU turnover / GDP) and a ‘fixed’ factor, based upon human needs of investors. Lastly, public sector employees should be barred from these schemes as they are enjoying too many social benefits from government businesses already.
-- N Ramesh, on e-mail

Irrelevant CBSE
The results of various entrance tests show that the CBSE has become totally irrelevant. Those who have concentrated on the CBSE exams and done well are nowhere in the list of successful candidates for IITs and other entrance tests. The reason is simple. Both the examinations are differently oriented, as admitted by successful candidates. So much so, many do not even care to attend school regularly and are fully devoted to tuitions and coaching sessions for entrance examinations.

In this process, the losers are those who are not fortunate to stay in cities like Delhi and Chandigarh and who cannot afford to spend big money to send their children to these centres. Girls also lose as their parents are reluctant to send them away from home for security concerns. The biggest beneficiaries are who stay in these metropolises and of course the coaching centres.

This is a serious problem with profound social ramifications. Has the entry to prestigious institutions become the privilege of only the rich and resourceful city dwellers? If CBSE is irrelevant, then abolish it. Let the teaching in schools be on the patterns of the entrance tests so that everybody is on an equal footing or else abolish entrance exams and let marks secured in board exams be the basis for entry into professional colleges. Why should those students who regularly attend classes and are devoted to the school syllabus be the victims? Why can CBSE not be the basis, rather than the joint entrance examination?
-- B Sood, on e-mail