[volkman10]

Not only we, even the Auto Companies are fed up of this thing called 'Niti Aayog’.

Automakers have raised objections to the Niti Aayog’s proposal that a cess be levied on fossil fuel-powered automobiles to cross-subsidise electric vehicles

Central and state taxes on passenger vehicles in India add up to 70%, making this the highest in the world, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said, urging the government to utilise the extra cess, charge or taxes currently being levied on diesel vehicles to promote environment-friendly options, instead of imposing a new cess

SIAM said the industry would like to see that the additional revenue collected by central and state governments in the name of environment protection or pollution was earmarked exclusively and used for providing rebates to new energy vehicles.

Link

[Detritus]

Originally Posted by Sheel

I do not know, but if someone can start a petition to abolish the NITI Aayog on Change.Org, I am ready to sign up and share it.

Yeah, because change.org petitions are always so effective. /sarcasm
The middle class will continue to get proctally violated because we are a minority in this country. Even if all of us started voting en masse(fat chance of that happening), we are massively outnumbered by the rest who will keep electing leaders that will milk us to provide them freebies.

Originally Posted by vipul_singh

If it is approved and about to be implemented, then sure we should.

It will be too late by then.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

For those moaning about the middle class and the common man being squeezed to death here is my take. You may think of yourself as the common man but 97.8% other Indians may see you as a rich man/woman. 22 cars to a 1000 Indians and you as a car owner think you are the mango man?? - ask your maid servant; ask the junior clerk in your organization. As car owners we are the top roughly 2% of this economy whether we like it or not - that is a fact.

With due respects sir, and I like many others on the forum highly value your posts/opinions, but as a tax-payer, I believe I already pay my due share to the country's exchequer in the form of various taxes. And I am feeling stretched. What one expects now, is not more taxes but better deployment and transparent allocation of the currently collected taxes. Until such time, any additional proposed tax/cess/levy will be greeted by resentment.

I would for now give the babus the benefit of the doubt on implementation.

I would not. What we have currently and even the incremental progress made in 5 years, is the bare minimum, which keeps the country from breaking into chaos. It still takes ages to build roads. I most frequent the Jalandhar - Delhi highway. (Can't stress more the importance of this highway both from a strategic and economic perspective. This is apparent to me as a citizen, why not to the babus and the powers that be?) Its been over 10 years now ( 2 different governments at the center, 2 different governments at the state level- both Punjab & Haryana), yet portions of highway is incomplete. I have seen additional toll booths constructed and dramatic increase in the toll that was already collected. And worse, the portions of the highway that were constructed just 3-4 years back are already breaking down. It is no wonder that it is one of the most dangerous highways to drive on.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by sri_tesla

Air travel becoming affordable has nothing to do with GOI policies. New planes and competition are the main reasons for this.

I love your posts especially as I am a pro-EV guy. On the point above, however, we may have to digress. A little off topic but nevertheless - it was Govt Policy or change of Govt Policy that created the legal-commercial platform that enabled private players to enter circa 1990 and provide competition to the public sector monopolies. The competition then led the way to lower fares and greater choices. It is GoI policy again which has launched the Udaan scheme to eventually bring air travel to Tier III and Tier IV towns in the next 6 years.

Originally Posted by kaushikduttajsr

Just technicalities here, but here are my 2 cents on the statement:

1) "2% of the population own cars" doesn't translate to "2% of population can afford a car"

Hair splitting I suppose. The key point here was that no matter how we (Team BHPIans) and car owners see ourselves we are not the middle class of this country. Even I view myself as upper middle class. I doubt my employees see me that way.

Originally Posted by kaushikduttajsr

2) The top 2% doesn't bear the responsibility of the the other 98%

To each his own. Let's agree to disagree 1000% on this.

Originally Posted by rrsteer

With due respects sir, and I like many others on the forum highly value your posts/opinions, but as a tax-payer, I believe I already pay my due share to the country's exchequer in the form of various taxes. And I am feeling stretched. What one expects now, is not more taxes but better deployment and transparent allocation of the currently collected taxes. Until such time, any additional proposed tax/cess/levy will be greeted by resentment.

I cannot agree with you more @rrsteer. Having filed my returns since 1982 I too am waiting for our money to be used more efficiently by GoI. I would say though that we have come a long way since 1982 but the road ahead is still very long & tough. Digitization I hope will bring transparency. The big difference today versus say 1988 is that the senior echelons of GoI are much more progressive in thought and intention - still arrogant but a darn sight better than the characters back then. In the middle and lower echelons the old attitudes, habits and dishonesty pervades. It will take us another generation to change that.

Originally Posted by msk016

In my honest opinion, the RBI has been acting like a draconian and high handed monarchy which wants to protect its turf under the garb of making monetary policy. It has consistently failed to make worthwhile contributions to consumer protection; especially with regards to bank charges and mis- selling of various 3rd party products. It has also miserably failed in restricting bank frauds as we all know very well. I don't understand how the government alone can be held responsible and not a shred of accountability is accorded to the RBI. The worst thing that the RBI has done in the recent past is to constantly obstruct the MUDRA act. Had the MUDRA act been implemented, it would have largely eased the credit requirement for the unorganized sector which contributes more than 40% to our GDP, but gets less than 5% of all institutional credit.
The present debate about the finance ministry asking for RBI reserves is completely misguided. The debate is purely about what should be the accepted levels of reserves that RBI should hold on its balance sheet.

Thank you @msk016. Your opinion, which I fully agree with, is not popular with the liberal press or the economics threads on Team BHP. The RBI needs some reform to make it a Central Bank that plays as significant role in development of a rapidly & constantly evolving economy instead of viewing itself solely as a detached monetary body like the Bank of England. One reason our interest rates are high is because the RBI has repeatedly failed completely to predict inflation.

[sreeharipv]

Thoughts!

1. For statistical accuracy, 22 cars for 1000 population doesn't make a car owner the top 2%. This is not because lots of rich people doesn't buy cars. We need to look at statistical relevancy. If you exclude the obvious non-car buying demographic (like 0-20 age group), you quickly see that you only need to be in top ~20% (wild guess) to be a car owner. And car purchases need to be looked at a family level not individual level. There itself you have a factor of 4. etc..

2. Where's all the electricity going to come from? We have beaten this horse to death several times. Nope, we won't need to rebuild our grids because the power demand in the night is less when EVs can be charged and this actually is welcome by the power companies as their utilization will improve.

3. Isn't the electricity in our grid as dirty? Nope. Even if all the electricity to charge EVs came from coal powered plants, the EVs pollute less on account of CO2 emission and far less in terms of particulate and other poisonous emissions. This is even without taking in to the fact that renewable energy is now actually cheaper than coal and hence is replacing coal in new capacity.

4. Are the car owners paying for the externalities in proportion? Nope. Lets be real. You thought you are on hook only for the maintenance of the infrastructure? You need pay for in-proportionate damage that you cause to the environment as car owners. Don't be a baby and about it.

5. Are goverments very efficient in allocating the resources to what the resources are said to be earmarked to? Nope. But we can't wait until the goverment system becomes perfect.

6. Will incentivizing EV adoption helpful in long term. Hell yeah! A little induced demand will spurt all kinds of innovation that comes with the scale. Government should tip the scale a little towards the EVs for the common good of everyone. I think all the proceeds from the extra levy should go to subsidizing electric autos. This will help remove some of the worst polluting vehicles from the streets, provide livelihood for the lower strata, help establish the EV supply chains etc all at once.