Tourism in Military Establishments of past, present and future

Military Tourism, a not very widely used term so far, is gaining traction in more than one ways. It has historic, economic as well as strategic significance. Travel and tourism is not just a leisure activity anymore. With the advent of digital connectivity, many opportunities are opening up in the domain of tourism for employment too. Accoding to FY18-19 data, among the ten most popular monuments in India, in terms of number of visitors, stood the Agra Fort (2nd Rank with 5.2 lakh foreign visitors), Red fort (4th Rank with 1.26 lakh foreign visitors) and Shanirwada (Rank 7). All the three sites are enriched with India’s historical legends, showcasing especially its defence chronicles, mesmerising visitors with its militarical finesse and bringing tourism from both India and abroad.

War sites have always lured a section of tourists who find themselves drawn towards the thrill of understanding the past. For a history buff, these sites offer a great insight to events that have occurred in the past and have shaped the present & future of a country. Hence, various countries across the globe have leveraged on their past to attract tourists, which therefore contributes to the overall economy of the country. As defence Minister Rajnath Singh recently launched the BRO Tourism portal and also directed officials to devise a plan to promote ‘Defence Tourism’ in the country, India’s tourism growth is expected to rise exponentially.

The concept of Military Tourism was introduced by MESCO for the first time in India in 2016 as they starte ‘Veer Yatra’, offering civilians an opportunity to experience the brave and thrilling world of our heroic defence forces from up-close. MESCO provided tourists a chance to experience War Memorial, Army Workshop, Defence Academy, Naval Base, Warfare Centre, Military Management techniques, Art of War and Survival techniques. In 2019, the government decided to open the entire area from Siachen base camp to Kumar Post for tourism purposes. Other such fascinating defence sites include the Kohima War Cemetery, Nagaland, the Jallianwala Bagh in the National Capital, and the Wagah Border ceremony that is held daily for two hours, where the flag ceremony is conducted by both Pakistani Rangers and Indian Border Security Force (BSF).

The world is marching on the roads of an unprecedented transition into an entirely new dimension of advanced living. And every such high-end technology or product is experienced first by either the military of the country or its youth. Defence sector is always keen to use emerging technologies to adapt to evolution and enhance their training & combat readiness. Many unique and useful technologies like RADAR, jet engines, satellite navigation, and a computer networking system that we now know as the internet today, have in fact, been invented by militaries, which later got adapted for civilian use. Thus, envisioning the growth and popularity of ‘digital defence tourism’ is also setting a place for itself in a world where people, especially young folks are engaged in using and enjoying their time on things like VR products and services, e-learning, digital photography, navigation, cyber collaborations, digital marketing and entrepreneurship and what not! Events like the annual DEF EXPO and Aero India, India’s India’s military aviation expo, also not only inspire common folks but propel the economic growth for the country in more ways than imaginable.

What you monitor, gets delivered. Even in Exports!

Measuring Export Preparedness using an Index is a great effort in right direction for India, and timing couldn’t have been better. In spite of the shattering COVID-19 second wave, FY 2021-22 has proven to be a smashing hit for India as it has been tactfully upping its game to expand its global export footprint. In Dec 2021, India’s figures of exported goods stood at USD 37.29 billion USD, hitting an all-time high for monthly data, whereas its merchandise exports hit almost USD 300 billion in Apr-Dec, higher by 48.85% year-on-year.

NITI Ayog released The Export Preparedness Index 2021 which is going to assist states and UTs to carve ambitious policies to further ensure a conducive export ecosystem. The Index ranks the states majorly on four main parameters or pillars- policy, business ecosystem, export ecosystem and export performance. This edition of Index has shown that most of the ‘Coastal States’ are the best performers with Gujarat being on the top, followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Among union territories, Delhi topped is on the top, followed by Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh. In this way, EPI also promotes competitive federalism and a fair contest among States/UTs.

A plethora of new catalytic changes and initiatives have been rolled out like increasing the number of GI tagged items in the country, introduction of PLI scheme, EODB reforms, rationalisation of duties, clearing some pending tax refunds to exporters to improve their liquidity, and extension of interest subvention scheme to boost textile and engineering exports. Some other measures include tightening the Rules of Origin (RoO) norms, releasing of more than Rs. 56 crores against pending tax refunds of exporters, notifying Remissions of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) rates, Rebate of State and Central Levies and Taxes (RoSCTL) Schemes, and launch of Common Platform for Issuance of Certificates of Origin to facilitate trade and to increase FTA utilization by exporters. Besides, enormous efforts have also gone into promoting districts as export hubs by identifying products with export potential in each district. India is also aggressively negotiating FTAs with the EU, Australia, the UAE, the UK, Canada, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC.

Going forward, the strategies should also be on lines of how to emerge as an alternative to China as India is rightly placed to benefit from the vacuum that has been created by the US-China trade tussle aftermath, COVID-19 Pandemic, rising labour costs in China and other domestic and international factors. Thus, countries like India, which offer less complex business and investment framework and cheaper labour, are becoming an alternative to importing countries like Japan, South Korea and many other South-Asian nations, who are more than willing to strengthen the trade ties with India. Every step of India, thus must focus on expanding more and more business, domestic and overseas.

Financial Literacy for Increased Standard of Living

There’s a common notion regarding the developing countries like India that, ‘the Rich get richer, the Poor get poorer’. One can recall the famous Bible verse, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” This when translated into economical aspects, the only way out is breaking free of the vicious financial cycle that can be achieved by educating majority population and increasing the financial literacy of the country. The recent measures taken by the Government and the four financial sector regulators (RBI, SEBI, IRDAI & PFRDA) to strengthen financial inclusion in the country have started yielding results. PM Jan Dhan Yojana, Jeevan Jyoti Beema scheme, Atal pension Yojana, launch e-RUPI digital payments, recent launch of RBI’s digital currency, etc. are some such initiatives.

The ‘National Strategy for Financial Education 2020-2025’ (NSFE), released by the RBI, had emphasised on a multi-stakeholder-led approach for creating a financially aware and empowered India. Under this, some of the strategic objectives that have been stressed upon include encouraging participation in financial markets, developing credit discipline, developing a savings and insurance-oriented mindset, improving usage of digital financial services in a safe and secure manner, understanding of basic financial flows and investment, and a lot more. The document even stresses on creating financial literacy content for school children, teachers, youth, women, new entrants at workplace/entrepreneurs, senior citizens, divyanjans, and even illiterate folks.

The launch of National Centre for Financial Education (NCFE) promoted by RBI, IRDAI, SEBI & PFRDA, is also playing a big role in promoting Financial Education across India through various programs, courses, Credit Counselling, and thorugh means of its Financial Literacy Centres being set up by leading banks. As at the end of December 2020, there were 1,478 Financial Literacy Centres (FLCs) in the country. While 1,48,444 financial literacy activities were undertaken during 2019-20 (April-March), a total of 45,588 financial literacy activities were conducted by the FLCs during the period April-December 2020.

Demonetisation, urbanisation, reign of smartphones, Digital India campaign, followed by Pandemic-induced dire circumstances have strengthened digital banking infrastructure in the country. People, through their digital engagements, got acquainted with first the platforms, then their features, then to the practice of making digital payments to continue to (or even expand) avail the utilities. The Digital payments in the country have also been on a surge. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) logged 4.52 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 8.26 trillion in February 2022, according to data released by NPCI. The number of Debit and credit card issued also went up from 88.29 crore in January 2018 to 101.1 crore in January 2022.The number of ATMs across the country has risen to 2.13 lakh in September 2021, over 47% of which were in rural and semi-urban areas. The number of branches of Regional rural banks have also grown exponentially. A total of 22,042 rural bank branches were operating across the country in 2021 (from 17901 in 2014). Other recent glam factors that have contributed in the growth are fintech entrepreneurship, popularity of new terms and technologies like Unicorns, Cryptocurrency, digital kiosks, digital wallets, popularity of social media shops, e-commerce social and networking sites, informal investment platforms, NEFT, IMPS, Net Banking and QR codes etc.

Financial literacy supports the pursuit of financial inclusion by empowering the customers to make informed choices leading to their financial well-being. Financial abilities can pave way for unprecedented economic growth and increase the standard of living. India’s work force combined with strong financial literacy can make it a financially savvy country resonating strong global influence. The dream of making India financially educated is an uphill task for a country whose one-fourth population is not even literate. However, these recent interventions and strategies have resulted in positive changes and these should intensify.

Diverse Success of Indian Equities

India is a diverse country in many ways and perhaps one such arena is the age of successful companies in the country. On one hand, India boasts the third largest startup ecosystem with an increasing number of unicorns, and on the other hand, the listed companies are breaking their own record when the Indian equity market enters the top five clubs.

For the first time, India’s equity market has entered the top five clubs in the world in terms of market capitalization. The country’s total market cap stands at $3.21 trillion, ahead of some of the most loved markets of the world, namely, the UK ($3.19 trillion), Saudi Arabia ($3.18 trillion), and Canada ($3.18 trillion). At the start of this year, the UK and France were ranked fifth and sixth with a market capitalization of $3.7 trillion and $3.5 trillion, respectively.

The tumultuous situation around the globe, in the background of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, has overturned the ranking of market capitalisation. The dent, perhaps, has been borne massively by European Nations. Case in point, Germany, which was formerly one of the top five markets, is now ranked tenth. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has climbed three places from 10th to 7th. The country, especially its largest firm Aramco, will benefit from a jump in oil prices this year.

The recovery of Indian markets over the last few days could be a reflection of the positive wave seen after election results, in addition to the ongoing peace talks regarding the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Further, now in India the long-term capital gains on listed equity shares, units etc. are liable to a maximum surcharge of 15 per cent, while the other long term capital gains are subjected to a graded surcharge which goes up to 37 per cent. There is a cap on the surcharge on long term capital gains arising on transfer of any type of assets at 15 per cent. These steps will give a boost to the startup community for sure.

Today India has the third-largest number of Unicorns in the world. More than 10 thousand start-ups have been registered in the last 6 months. Recent exponential growth in the number of unicorns in India is not only backing innovative solutions but also large scale deployments.

India has become a hotbed of start-ups including some of the difficult domains like defence. India has also deregulated many sectors like Drones, Space, Geo-spatial mapping and made major reforms in the outdated telecom regulations related to IT sector and BPO. The spirit of Entrepreneurship is high and shining bright in the times of Atmanirbhar Bharat. This strengthening of Indian Equity market’s standing in the global ranking bodes well for these wealth creators.

PLI Schemes for Boosting the Economy

Productivity is the operative word for leap in New India’s growth story. Lagging productivity is one obvious domain but adaptability is the biggest strength which can be utilised. Taking these two key parameters as target, Product Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes have worked well in the country.

PLI schemes are aimed at enhancing competitiveness and leveraging the untapped potential of Indian industries to fulfill the vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat. Reopening the application window for Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for White Goods has put the spotlight back on this very significant economic reform of the Government of India. The scheme has enormous potential to transform the manufacturing sector by encouraging domestic and local productions further boosting economic growth and amplifying exports. Keeping in view this vision, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an additional allocation of Rs 19,500 crore under the PLI scheme for manufacturing high-efficiency solar modules in her Union Budget 2022-23, besides committing financial support to farmers to take up agro-forestry.

Coming back to the recent initiative of the central government, in pursuance of the Prime Minister’s clarion call for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ to bring manufacturing to the center stage and emphasize its significance in driving India’s growth and creating jobs, the PLI Scheme for White Goods for manufacturing of components and sub-assemblies of Air Conditioners (ACs) and LED Lights, which was approved by the Union Cabinet in April last year with an outlay of Rs 6,238 crore, was notified by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) on 16 April 2021. Now, applicants were given the flexibility to choose the gestation period either up to March 2022 or up to March 2023.

The Central government also wants the states to take advantage of the PLI scheme, thanks to their relatively low labour costs and huge demographic dividend. Since all states can’t be good in all sectors, hence niche and specific areas are being suggested to excel by taking comparative cost advantage in key areas. Government support is also helping and inspiring AC manufacturers to switch over to CFL-free cooling technology, shifting to clean energy in the automobiles sector and indigenous production of magnets and electric motors.

The PLI schemes, presently in place for 14 sectors, are being implemented by the concerned ministries and departments. The PLI schemes for various sectors are helping a lot in the post-Covid industrial and economic recovery. There appears to be positive industry feedback about these schemes as textile, automotive and white goods have started giving a good sign of growth.

Building bright future upon actualised synergies of present

The scale and speed with which India has managed to implement vaccination to combat covid pandemic, showcases unprecedented implementation skills. It clearly seems that India has seized upon the opportunity to see what it wants to learn and copy, and more importantly what it wanted to leap frog and skip. India has relied on both traditional form of innovation, finding new ideas to unsolved problems, as well as innovations towards efficiency, also termed as frugal innovations or workable solutions, enablers and solutions needing much lower resources and super cheap prices. These abilities are bound to put India on a virtuous cycle towards rapid development across sectors as vision of ‘Century India’ is realised. Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh says, “INDIA@2047 would have evolved beyond imagination. Not only are things moving fast, but also the pace of this movement is much faster than ever before, which makes it very difficult to visualise the exact shape of India that would emerge 25 years from now.”

In this light, a three-day symposium has commenced from March 7 in Chennai under the theme ‘Imagining India at 2047 through Innovation.’ The symposium aimed to bring the government and the citizens together by the use of digital technology. It goes without a doubt that digital technology will pave the way for future innovations, furthering the development of any nation. The use of digital technology will also lead to next-generation reforms and innovations with policy objectives of “Maximum Governance, Minimum Government”, entailing Government process Re-Engineering, Universal access to e-services, excellence in digital initiatives at the district level and excellence in adopting emerging technologies. Around 200 participants are chosen for nucleus and cell teams composed of one lAS officer, a young faculty member and a young entrepreneur and they will sit together for discussions.

Under the overarching themes of ‘Research and Development,’ and ‘Innovation and Digital Governance,’ ten key areas are being explored, namely, Energy and Net Zero, Education, Health Care and Assistive Technologies, Water, Infrastructure and Communications, Transport and Mobility, Urbanization and Housing, Rural Development and Agriculture, Fintech and Inclusion, Information Security and Defence. These are clearly the core domains which require concerted efforts of academia, industry and bureaucracy to leap India into pole position.

Developing Mass Rapid Transit Systems in India

Traffic in almost all major population centres in India seems to have been stuck in chronic congestion with an average vehicle speed of around only 10-15km/h. Indian urban centres have long lacked both a city railway network and short-distance rail lines connecting the suburbs. These cities are facing an explosive combination of rapid population growth, a sharp rise in the number of privately owned vehicles as city dwellers have been forced to depend on only buses, private-owned cars and two or three-wheelers for transportation. The low-quality fuel and inefficient engines used in cars and buses add to the toxicity of the prevailing problem of air pollution.

In this backdrop, it had become critical that a mass rapid transit system be developed in all major cities of India for accelerating the modal shift from automobile to the metro system. Cities with an operating Metro system in the country have seen successful alleviation of traffic congestion as well as the reduction in air pollution caused by exhaust fumes and emission of greenhouse gases.

Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Pune Metro and inaugurated several other developmental projects in the city.

In his address, the Prime Minister said that Smart Mobility for citizens is the need of the hour. This includes having more green transport, electric buses, electric cars, electric two-wheelers and the use of a single card for transport facilities.

“There should be Integrated Command & Control Center in every city to make the facilities smart,” PM Modi iterated emphasising that the more people travel in metros, the better it will be for cities.

Not only on cities but the Metro system also has a very positive impact on worker productivity. The system ensures that city-based employees have lesser stress of the commute with less time wasted in traffic. People are able to save money and are under less financial strain from car costs when they are seeking employment in different parts of their city. Metros have become the engines of growth as they are opening doors of opportunities for the poor who otherwise are limited by the lack of available transport or ability to pay. Clearly, the public health benefits of the Metro system are the real winner as lower pollution as well as fewer accidents are observed, as a great proportion of accidents happen during rush hours.

While the Metro system has been a boon, it needs to be seen as the first step towards the development of a sustainable long term mass rapid transit system. Currently, all urban mass transit systems are developed on the hub-and-spoke concept, where the transport system is the hub and users have to travel from various parts of the city and converge in the hub to use it. Prototypes of one next-gen MRT system, known as MINI ELEVATED cTrain (caterpillar train) developed by one of the engineers of Indian Railways had won a global competition on innovations at MIT, Boston. Rather than the current form of Metro coaches, the C-Train envisages a series of small, seating-only cars that would be “as high as an SUV” with a capacity of only 20 passengers. These would have wheels both below and on top, giving them the ability to travel on the track as well as under it, thereby giving them the appearance of a caterpillar. Further, due to lightweight coaches, C-Train would run on poles joined together to form an arch, and it would run on electricity (with battery backup). With a combination of such innovations on the horizon with solar power harnessing capability enhancement, India is looking to emerge as the true leader of next-gen public commutation.

Digital Rupee vs RBI’s CBDC

Digital transactions in India are seeing unprecedented growth and indeed for a large chunk of the population, rupee has become digitised. In this context, RBI’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) becomes nuanced for really appreciating its usefulness. One advantage of digital currency could be segregation of spending from savings. CBDC is likely to act as only a spending instrument, and become the catalyst for efficiency enhancement of the informal sector.

Presently, ₹ is both an instrument of savings as well as for spending, and the dual role makes the availability of banking services vital for efficient business operations. Present digital transactions are facilitated by commercial and other banking service providers. This leaves unbanked or difficult banking experiencers like those dwelling in slums and remote villages vulnerable to the VUCA world.

One of the unfortunate realities of rapid pace of urbanisation is slum dwelling in Cities. People migrating from rural settlements to more informal settlements in and around the city in bids to find work are subjected to a highly volatile business environment. Even if there is no wage or price earning opportunity, informal sector workers still have the goods and services to offer to each other, but nobody has money to pay for them. With no buffer and no surplus money to inject into the informal sector, availability of wage earning tasks in season and thereafter no source of income creates huge uncertainty. This is where a coupon-like setup provided by CBDC can save the day. One underlying case study can be the use of Bangla Pesa in Kenyan slums.

As Bangla Pesa is entering the 10th year of its existence, it has become a role model for poverty alleviation. Mombasa has more than 60k Bangladeshi slum dwellers who have used a complimentary voucher system by the name of Bangla Pesa which uses M-Pesa APP to transact in this alternative currency. Slum dwellers had goods and services but no money at all, thereby wasting time and rotting goods. Bangla Pesa came into being as a real measure of value of goods and services allowing a barter system to evolve instead of wasted opportunities. Users say that, “You can’t steal Bangla Pesa and it has no corruption. You take money to get rich but not to eradicate poverty. Use of Bangla Pesa indicates somebody who doesn’t have money is going to get help.”

Use cases of CBDC can be built around the experiences of Bangla Pesa. Not to mention that RBI taking direct liability and making this token based, solves a major issue of cryptocurrencies i.e. Transactional Privacy. DBT transactions can become more efficient and effective using such CBDC and not to forget the benefits manifesting to a local villager who will no longer need to travel distances to receive cash from the bank and also pay high percentages as remittances charges.

MMLPs for Logistics Efficiency

“Contracts for implementation of Multimodal Logistics Parks at four locations through PPP mode will be awarded in 2022-23”, announced Union Budget 2022. This is going to provide a much needed solution towards reducing logistics costs in India. It is well documented that as a proportion of the total value of goods, logistics costs are almost double in India (around 14%) as compared to developed nations( around 7%), hence there is a lot of room for improvement. This underlines the need and power of Modern logistics mechanisms, which is a lot systematic and integrated. It offers a full range of one-stop service through using IT and industry expertise extensively to support the entire supply chain, from transport, to warehousing management, to order processing, to delivery and customer service.

Multi-Modal Logistics Parks or MMLPs, a key policy initiative of the Government of India, is being led by NHAI and the National Highways Logistics Management Ltd under Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). It may be defined as a freight-handling facility with a minimum area of 100 acres, with various modes of transport access, mechanized warehouses, specialized storage solutions (such as cold storage), facilities for mechanized material handling, bulk and break-bulk cargo terminal, etc. In 2017, the Government of India launched a program to develop 35 MMLPs across the country. This was followed by India securing rank 44 in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2018, wherein it competed with 160 other countries.

India has been able to climb up in the Logistics Performance Index riding on massive capacity investments made since last 4-5 years, in transport, in major policy reforms like GST and measures supporting Ease of Doing Business. Mega projects like the ambitious Bharatmala, Sagarmala, UDAN, Dedicated Freight Corridors, and other relief measures in transportation mechanisms have largely contributed in churning the Logistics and supply chain cycles.

In India, each segment of logistics encounters tricky challenges which lead to low efficiency and high cost. In order to bring this cost down MMLPs can facilitate freight aggregation and distribution, integrated storage and warehousing, seamless multimodal freight transfer, tech support, and value-added freight services. MMLPs aim to improve India’s freight logistics sector by lowering overall freight costs and time, reducing warehousing costs, cutting vehicular pollution and congestion, improving the tracking of consignments and more.

RBI Digital Currency

“Introduction of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will give a big boost to the digital economy. Digital currency will also lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management system. It is, therefore, proposed to introduce Digital Rupee, using blockchain and other technologies, to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India starting 2022-23.” FM Nirmala Sitharaman announced during her budget 2022 speech. Apart from RBI, Central Banks of Singapore, Thailand, Sweden, England, Canada, Venezuela, Uruguay, and a few other countries have been working towards implementing respective Central-bank-backed digital currencies.

It was a big leap in human civilisation to move away from the barter system towards a centralised monetary system, which has started with Gold and other kinds of coins had moved on to gold-backed legal tenders, and finally evolved into a Fiat currency. Rather than equivalent gold holding, a Fiat currency is backed by full faith and credit of the issuing government of the Reserve Bank or Central Bank of the country. Transactions in these Fiat currencies happen in physical notes and coins form or via a bank account, for on paper or digital transactions. A CBDC is in the token form of Rupee. It is an electronic record of the country’s official currency and can prove to be crucial towards goals of financial inclusion. Transactions of a CBDC do not necessarily need one to have a bank account.

Financial inclusion is critical for strengthening the abilities of the poor to tap all opportunities to come out of poverty, and to a vast majority in India, the middle class, to fruitfully utilise nurturing ecosystem of entrepreneurship and skill development in their chosen domain. The zero balance requirement concept for bank accounts opened under Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojna has been critical in bringing banking services to millions of unbanked Indians. RBI-Digital-Currency will be truly a shot in the arm to the efforts of bringing the unbanked into the financial system. As FM noted, the added benefit of the CBDC would be simplifying the implementation of monetary and fiscal policies and a more efficient and cheaper currency management system.