STs

Provisions of SC/ST Atricities act

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Provisions of SC/ST Atricities act,

The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted to prevent atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The Act is popularly known as POA, the SC/ST Act, the Prevention of Atrocities Act, or simply the Atrocities Act.

Article 17 of Indian Constitution seeks to abolish ‘untouchability’ and to forbid all such practices. It is basically a “statement of principle” that needs to be made operational with the ostensible objective to remove humiliation and multifaceted harassments meted to the Dalits and to ensure their fundamental and socio-economic, political, and cultural rights.

Objectives of the act

The basic objective and purpose of this more comprehensive and more punitive piece of legislation was sharply enunciated when the Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha:

“Despite various measures to improve the socio-economic conditions of the SCs and STs, they remain vulnerable… They have, in several brutal incidents, been deprived of their life and property… Because of the awareness created… through spread of education, etc., when they assert their rights and resist practices of untouchability against them or demand statutory minimum wages or refuse to do any bonded and forced labour, the vested interests try to cow them down and terrorise them. When the SCs and STs try to preserve their self-respect or honour of their women, they become irritants for the dominant and the mighty… Under the circumstances, the existing laws like the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 and the normal provisions of the Indian Penal Code have been found to be inadequate to check and deter crimes against them committed by non-SCs and non-STs… It is considered necessary that not only the term ‘atrocity’ should be defined, but also stringent measures should be introduced to provide for higher punishment for committing such atrocities. It is also proposed to enjoin on the States and Union Territories to take specific preventive and punitive measures to protect SCs and STs from being victimized and, where atrocities are committed, to provide adequate relief and assistance to rehabilitate them”.

The objectives of the Act, therefore, very clearly emphasise the intention of the Indian state to deliver justice to SC/ST communities through affirmative action in order to enable them to live in society with dignity and self-esteem and without fear, violence or suppression from the dominant castes.

The salient features of the Act are:

  • Creation of new types of offences not in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or in the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 (PCRA).
  • Commission of offences only by specified persons (atrocities can be committed only by non-SCs and non-STs on members of the SC or ST communities. Crimes among SCs and STs or between STs and SCs do not come under the purview of this Act).
  • Defines various types of atrocities against SCs/STs.
  • Prescribes stringent punishment for such atrocities.
  • Enhanced punishment for some offences.
  • Enhanced minimum punishment for public servants.
  • Punishment for neglect of duties by a public servant.
  • Attachment and forfeiture of property.
  • Externment of potential offenders.
  • Creation of Special Courts.
  • Appointment of Special Public Prosecutors.
  • Empowers the government to impose collective fines
  • Cancellation of arms licences in the areas identified where an atrocity may take place or has taken place (Rule 3iii) and seize all illegal fire arms (Rule 3iv).
  • Grant arms licences to SCs and STs.

Defining ‘atrocity’

  • Atrocity is “an expression commonly used to refer to crimes against Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in India”.
  • It “denotes the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane, whereas the term ‘crime’ relates to an act punishable by law”.
  • It implies “any offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) committed against SCs by non-SC persons, or against STs by non-ST persons. Caste consideration as a motive is not necessary to make such an offence in case of atrocity”.
  • It signifies “crimes which have ingredients of infliction of suffering in one form or the other that should be included for reporting”. This is based on the assumption that “where the victims of crime are members of Scheduled Castes and the offenders do not belong to Scheduled Castes caste considerations are really the root cause of the crime, even though caste considerations may not be the vivid and minimum motive for the crime”.

The Act lists 22 offences relating to various patterns of behaviours inflicting criminal offences for shattering the self-respect and esteem of SCs and STs, denial of economic, democratic and social rights, discrimination, exploitation and abuse of the legal process, etc.

Section 3 of the Act lists the criminal offences and the punishments. It contains:

  • 19 offences in their own right (Section 3(1) contains 15 subsections with an equal number of offences. Section 3(2) contains four subsections with offences).
  • two derived offences (sections 3(2)(vi) and 3(2)(vii)). The derived offences are based on the offences given in the SC/ST Act. They only come in the picture provided that another offence under the SC/ST Act has been committed.
  • one subsection that increases the punishment for certain offences under the IPC (Section 3(2)(v)).

These protections can be broadly divided into protection from:

  • social disabilities (denial of access to certain places and to use customary passage and to get water from any spring, reservoir or any other source).
  • personal atrocities (forceful drinking or eating of inedible or obnoxious substance, against stripping, outrage of modesty, sexual exploitation, injury or annoyance). atrocities affecting properties (land, residential premises, existing properties).
  • malicious prosecution.
  • political disabilities. economic exploitation

Urban spheres of influence and rural urban fringe

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Urban spheres of influence and rural urban fringe

Urban spheres of influence

  • Urban spheres of influence reflect centre-to-hinterland relationship, compared with the non-central region, the centre assumes more complex economic functions, and provides more economic activities.
  • Famous theoretical contributions to this research field are the Central Place Theory (Christaller, 1933), the extension to the Central Place Theory (Losch, 1940), the modification to the Central Place Theory (Isard, 1956), and An Economic Theory of Central Places.
  • After verification and conceptual refinement of these classical literatures, it can be found that any study on delineating sphere of urban influence has been guided by either of two research approaches: the empirical research and model research.
  • Empirical method determines sphere of urban influence according to data features and regional characteristics. As for example, sphere of urban influence in America is described in terms of the extent of the regional delivery system (Huff, 1973).
  • Models are developed to capture the interaction between or spaces using theoretical understanding, the intensity and pattern of contact among cities, and thus those models help to determine the sphere of urban influence.
  • In modeling, the sphere of urban influence, Huff (1973) and Lutz (1995) made a great contribution by using a model namely “Sphere of Urban Influence and Urban System” to delineate the urban sphere of influence of United States of America, Ireland and Ghana.
  • Now-a-days in Western countries, the study of sphere urban of influence is diminishing in general. By virtue of their high degree of economic and social development, most of the developed countries have accessed post-industrial society, where node-to-node interactions have become, as compared to the node-to-hinterland relationships.
  • But, for the developing countries, they are still pursuing industrial development and hence, develop the industries; the node-to-hinterland relationships are distinctly dominant.

Urban Spheres of Influence on Population

  • The urban sphere of influence can be defined as the geographical region which surrounds a city and maintains inflow-outflow relationship with the city.
  • Every urban centre, irrespective of the size of population and the nature of function, has a region of influence. Generally speaking, as the size of the population increases, the multiplicity of functions increases. As a result, the influence zone is larger and vice versa.
  • The term sphere of influence area was first used by Northam and supported by Canter. Other terms to express a similar entity, which have got recognised, include umland and city region. Umland is a German word which means the area around. The term was first used by the Allies in the Second World War.
  • The term city-region was first used by Dickinson. It is used to describe a similar situation on a much larger scale. Some other terms which have become popular include urban field, tributary area and catchment area. The term sphere of influence is preferred by political geographers.

Delineating the Sphere of Influence Area:

  • Several methods have been worked out by geographers and sociologists, but no single method seems to be perfect.
  • The pre-First World War geographers depended primarily on empirical methods (through questionnaires and field surveys) taking into account all those relevant functions which are performed by cities and the surroundings of the city.
  • The influence zone of each function is first delineated. It brings out the multiplicity of boundaries of spheres of influence area.
  • Harris has suggested that a common boundary is to be drawn from within those boundaries which are very close to each other.
  • Harris himself drew a sphere of influence area for the Salt Lake City of Utah State in USA. He used 12 important services for this purpose which included retail trade, wholesale grocery and drug sale, radio broadcasting, newspaper circulation, telephone services, banking distribution etc.
  • Harris scheme shows greater dependence upon the services of the cities. He practically ignored the services rendered by rural areas.
  • Geographers like Carter, Dickinson and Green studied the sphere of influence area and their empirical methods gave due weightage to the rural services.
  • The post-Second World War geographers began to use statistical methods. This made the inferences more precise, logical and scientific.
  • This method, however, has the disadvantage of being rigid. Still, it is a popular method throughout the world.
  • The conclusion of the method brings the delineated influence area closer to Christaller’s observations, who suggested that every urbane settlement (service centre) is supposed to have a hexagonal influence region.
  • It solves the problem of existence of shadow zone which normally appears in the case of spherical delineation of the influence region.
  • The statistical method is based on the principle of gravitation.
  • Reilly propounded the Law of Retail Gravitation to delineate the market zone of urban centres. Since marketing is a principal function, this method is used by geographers to delineate the zone of influence area.

This method states that:

  • P= MA x MB / d2
  • where MA = Mass of centre A measured by population size, such that MA > MB
  • MB = Mass of centre B
  • d = distance between two cities.
  • The result will mark the distance of the sphere of influence area from Mass (city) A; the remaining distance will mark the influence area of Mass (city) B.
  • Modern urban geographers give importance to this method as they consider this cut-off as an important factor for development of respective influence areas.
  • Some development authorities have begun to use the sphere of influence area as the basis of regional planning.
  • They use detailed questionnaires to understand the nature of influence. They consider factors such as daily commuting, functional structure of village, household types of villages, milk supply, vegetable supply, newspaper circulation etc. This approach seems to have some practical utility.
  • It gives due weightage to natural hindrances.
  • Factors like rivers, mountains, forests, marshy lands etc. are bound to modify the influence area and in that case, the statistical method is not of much relevance. Information collected through questionnaires is, however, properly processed through different statistical methods and a composite index, indicating a common boundary, is worked out. This common boundary gives the limit of the sphere of influence area.
  • Thus, it becomes clear that the sphere of influence area is highly relevant in socio-economic patterns of a city and its surroundings.
  • In India, the regional planners have given due recognition to the role of city regions or spheres of influence areas in the ‘Growth Pole’ strategy adopted by the Planning Commission of India in the Sixth Five- Year-Plan.

Rural urban fringe

What is the rural-urban fringe?

  • The rural-urban fringe is the boundary zone outside the urban area proper where rural and urban land uses intermix.
  • It is an area of transition from agricultural and other rural land uses to urban use.
  • Located well within the urban sphere of influence the fringe is characterised by a wide variety of land use including dormitory settlements housing middle-income commuters who work in the main urban area.
  • Over time the characteristics of the fringe change from largely rural to largely urban. Suburbanisation takes place at the urban boundary of rural-urban fringe.
  • The nature of the rural-urban fringe is influenced by four main factors: agricultural policy, regional planning, the urban economy and the agricultural economy.
  • Baker et al have identified four types of fringe resulting from these influences:
    1. Disturbed landscapes
    2. Neglected landscapes
    3. Simplified landscapes
    4. Valued landscapes

Increasing demand for land in the rural urban fringe area because:

  • Land is cheaper – as the accessibility of the RUF is lower than that of the inner city areas and most of the people have to travel to the inner city for work, fewer people are willing to live in the RUF. Thus the land prices are lower.
  • There is less traffic congestion and pollution – as the area is a new development in the outskirts, and the population living in the area is lesser than the inner city, the traffic congestion and pollution levels are lesser.
  • There is easier access and a better road infrastructure – as it is a newer development with a lot of space available.
  • There is a more pleasant environment with more open space – the amount of open space decreases with time as the extent of development increases, and so does the pleasant environment.

In INDIA study by Sudesh Nangia in Delhi Metropolitan region for R-U Fringe

  • In India, Sudesh Nangia studied Delhi Metropolitan region (1976), and highlighted some of the chief characteristics of the R-U fringe around the metropolis.
  • She pointed out that the fringe area extended over 212 sq km and encompassed 177 villages within its fold. The zone is not concentric but polygonal in shape (Figure 17.2).
  • Its structural units include slums and squatter-settlements, built-up dwellings without any proper plan, mixed land uses, areas of agricultural production usurped by lot of industrial units, dispersed location of settle­ments suffering from urban facilities, and also it commands sewerage treatment plant and recreation centres as well.

 

  • L. Singh studied R-U fringe of Varanasi and called it an extension of the city itself, actual and potential.
  • According to him, “the R-U fringe is an area where most of the rural land is forced into urban uses prematurely”.
  • Singh studied urban fringe of ‘KAVAL’ towns and concluded that their fringe areas coalesced together inheriting all the evils of large conurbations such as horrible slums, appalling house and traffic congestion and long daily trip to work

Beneficial development in rural urban fringe area:

The rural urban fringe is characterised by a mixture of land uses, most of which require large areas of land

  1. Housing developments as urban sprawl continues
  2. Science and business parks
  3. Hyper-markets and superstores
  4. Retail parks and out of town shopping centres
  5. Office developments
  6. Hotels and conference centres
  7. Airport expansion

Issues in Urban rural fringe

Uses    Positive Aspects Negative Aspects
Agriculture   Many well managed farms and small holdings Farms often suffer litter, trespass and vandalism; some land is derelict in the hope of planning permission
Development   Some well-ited, carefully landscaped developments such as business and science parks Some developments, such as out of town shopping areas cause heavy traffic flow and pollution. Unregulated businesses such as scrap metal and caravan storage. Airport expansion
Urban Services   Some, such as reservoirs or cemeteries, may be attractive. Mineral workings, sewage works, landfill sites etc can be unattractive and polluting
Transport   New cycleways and footpaths can improve assess to countryside Motorways destroy countryside and promote new development, particularly near junctions.
Recreation and sport  

 

 Country parks, sports fields and golf courses can lead to conservation. Some activities such as stock car racing and scrambling erode ecosystems and create localised litter and pollution
Landscape and nature conservation  

 

 

 Many SSSI (sites of special scientific interest) and AONB (Areas of natural beauty) Much degraded land eg. land ruined by fly-tipping; many SSSIs under threat

 

Railway,Roades And Ports of India

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Railway,Roades And Ports of India

Impact on The Indian economy

The Indian Railways contributes to India’s economic development, accounting for about one per cent of the GNP and the backbone of freight needs of the core sector. It accounts for six per cent of the total employment in the organised sector directly and an additional 2.5 per cent indirectly through its dependent organisations.

Road transport is the second important mode of transport in India. It covers every corner of the country which the railway transport even could not cover. Road transport provides the basic infrastructural facilities to both the agricultural and industrial sector of the country.

Some of the important socio- economic benefits of ports are:

 

  • Fuels economic development – They are important links of hinterlands to points overseas. They facilitate movement of goods to and from hinterland. They increase international trade ( both exports and import).

 

  • Development of cities – Most of the world’s major cities are port cities. Ports spur the economic activities around them like banking, finance, Insurance, logistic etc.

 

  • Increase in Employment  –Ports increase employment both directly and indirectly. Direct employment refers to employment in port related activities. Indirect employment increases due to increased industrialization and increase in other services like banking and insurance.

 

  • Relatively Environment friendly –When compared to other transportation systems, railway transportation requires twice as much energy consumption, while road transportation requires ten times as much as sea conveyance.

 

  • Increase world Economic Integration –Globalization has been partially successful due to cheap transportation facilitated by ports.

 

  • Development of Infrastructure – Increase the economic activity between hinterland and ports lead to development of infrastructure including railways, roads & inland waterways.

 

Indian Railway

Introduction

Indian Railways is one of the world’s largest railway network consists of freight, passengers, tourist, Suburban rail systems, toy train and luxury trains. IR has 4,337 operating railway stations,operates on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. Indian Railways is divided into 16 zones and Locomotives are consist of electric and diesel locomotives.

  1. Project Planning and Implementation
  2. Indian Railways entered the Billion Club in freight loading in 2012-13 by achieving 1,008 million tonnes of originating loading. The loading target fixed for 2014-15 is 1,105 million tonnes which is 4.9% higher than the achievement of 2013-14. The XIIth Plan projections of freight loading in the terminal year of the Plan (2016-17) are 1,405 million tonnes.
  3. Indian Railways carried 8,425.6 million passengers in 2013-14 which is about 1,430 million higher than the population of the world put together. The annual target for passenger traffic in 2014-15 is 8,645 million, which is 2.6% higher than in 2013-14. The XIIth Plan target is 11,710 million passengers in the terminal year of the Plan.

The Challenges

  1. As the growth in the economy picks up in the years to come, IR will have a challenging task ahead because of line and terminal capacity constraints in transporting the incremental traffic. Therefore, there is need for significant investment in the network, especially the HDN routes and its feeder and other important routes

 

2.There is a large shelf of pending projects which is estimated at Rs. 4,91,510 crore on the basis of originally estimated costs Of these, fund requirement for the prioritized works such as doubling, new lines, gauge conversion, traffic facilities, signal & telecom works, workshops and electrification is estimated at Rs 2,08,054 crore

Budget 2017

  1. A Rail safety fund with a corpus of Rs 100,000 crore will be created over a period of 5 years

    2. The service charge on rail tickets booked through IRCTC will be withdrawn.

    3. As many as 500 rail stations will be made differently abled-friendly by providing lifts and escalators.

    4. Steps will be taken to launch dedicated trains for pilgrimage and tourism

    5. A new metro rail policy will be announced+. This is expected to open up new jobs for the youth

    6. At least 25 train stations are expected to be awarded during 2017-18

    7. By 2019, all coaches of the Indian railwayswill be fitted with bio-toilets

 

  1. Railways will integrate end to end transport solutions for selected commodities through partnerships

 

  1. Unmanned railway level crossings to be eliminated by 2020

 

  1. A 22% rise in the Railway Budget was announced

 

Structure of IR’s finances:

 

The structure of IR’s finances is such that they are divided into revenue and capital expenditures.While revenue expenditure takes care of the day to day and operational working expenses, inclusive of debt servicing and dividend payment, capital expenditures take care of IR’s investments inclusive of repair and renewals. There are three streams that comprise capital expenditure; these are Gross Budgetary Support from the Ministry of Finance, internal generation of resources and leasing from IRFC.

Indian Roads

Introduction

 

India has the second largest road network across the world at 4.7 million km. This road network transports more than 60 per cent of all goods in the country and 85 per cent of India’s total passenger traffic. Road transportation has gradually increased over the years with the improvement in connectivity between cities, towns and villages in the country.

 

Key Investments/Developments

1.The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) has been           awarded a contract to build five all-weather access tunnels worth Rs 23,000 crore (US$ 3.57 billion) in Jammu and Kashmir by 2024.

2.Abertis Infraestructuras SA, a Spanish infrastructure firm, has agreed to buy two toll road assets in operation in South India from Macquarie Group for Rs 1,000 crore(US$ 150 million) to scale up its presence in India

Ports of India

 

Introduction

 

The nine coastal Indian states Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and  West Bengal are home to all major and minor ports of India. The long coastline of India forms one of the biggest piece of land into a body of water,These twelve major Indian Ports are handle a large volume of cargo traffic and container traffic. There are total 13 major sea ports of India,out of 12 are government and one, Ennore port of Chennai is the corporate one. Ennore Port is one of the major port of India located at Coromandel Coast of Tamil Nadu state along with Kakinada Port and private Krishnapatnam Port and Mundra Port

 

 

 

Key Policy Development

 

1:No approval required for foreign equity up to 51 per cent in projects providing supporting

services to water transport

 

2:Automatic approval of foreign equity up to 100 per cent in construction and maintenance of ports and harbours. However, the proposal needs to be referred to FIPB for investments exceeding Rs 15 billion.

 

3: Open tenders to be invited for private sector participation on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis

 

4: Permission granted for formation of joint ventures between Major Ports and foreign ports, Major Ports and Non-Major Ports, and Major Ports and companies

 

Challenges:

  1. Geograhical: Heavy silting as seen in riverine ports like Haldia.
  2. Technological: Inadequate dredging capacities. Poor mechanization and manual handling of critical processes Eg in Paradip port
  3. Infrastructural: Congestion of roads connecting the port leading to time delays as seen in JLN port Underutilization of physical infrastructure of the ports Eg in Cochin port.
  4. Policy and regulatory issues: Currently the ports operate on “Trust Model” where government is the owner and operator of the port. Non-uniform tariff structure (TAMP) which makes some ports uncompetitive High turnaround time is as much as 3-4 days compared to average time of 6-7hrs in other developed ports because of cumbersome documentation and clearance.