Letters to the Editor
Business Today readers give feedback on magazine's coverage of the February 15, 2015 issue.
Thought-provoking
This refers to your cover story on banking (Capital Crisis, February 15). The article was thought-provoking. The multiple problems of rising NPAs, decreasing CAR coupled with the stringent Basel III guidelines, pose a big challenge for the banks to tackle. However, a slew of cost-control and NPA ring-fencing measures may solve the problem. Public-sector banks in India by virtue of their CASA have a large database of retail and other customers. By utilising this database, credit scores and other demographic information of borrowers, banks can tighten their loan underwriting criterion, generate more cash by directing customers to the more economical self-service channels like Internet or bank ATM kiosks, and look at a manner in which to improve their CAR in a phased manner. Kudos to the BT team for publishing a very well-researched and well-articulated story. - Rachana Grover, On e-mail
Ordinance Route
This refers to an article The Futility of Ordinances (Feb 15). Is the BJP heading the same way as the Congress? Politicians and political parties always find a way to do anything they like - for instance, if a bill is not passed in Parliament, they take the "ordinance route". After coming to power, the ruling government has 11 temporary legislations so far - known as ordinances. The recent one is the Land Acquisition Act. Politicians have violated the laws in Parliament many a time, even superseding the court's decisions. This is a dangerous trend for democracy. - Mahesh Kapasi, New Delhi
Tax Slabs for Elders
This refers to a column by Rajiv Kumar on the Budget, A Make or Break Budget (Feb 15). Before presenting the Budget in Parliament, the Finance Minister must look into the income tax aspects of senior citizens. There should not be any tax deduction at source (TDS) for senior citizens. Their tax exemption limit should be raised to Rs 10 lakh, thereby abolishing super senior citizens category (80 years or above) or let their whole income be exempted from income tax. - M. Kumar, New Delhi
Power Sector in a Coma?
This refers to your cover story on electricity, Switching Back to Power (Feb 1). Your intro says, "After spending years in a coma, the power sector has risen to embrace a life of multimillion-dollar deals." But according to the author, the power sector has been adding roughly 20,000 megawatt every year. In that case, it is a great achievement for the power sector. So I fail to understand how the power sector was in a coma.- Aqeel Ahmad, On e-mail
The author responds: The term "coma" refers to the industry stage in which new plants were set up but not operationalised due to fuel shortage.
Send all your comments to: editor.bt@intoday.com
