Editorial 1 : On the size of council of ministers
Context
The Union Council of Ministers (COM) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in on June 9, 2024. The present COM consists of the Prime Minister, 30 Cabinet Ministers, 5 Ministers of State (MoS) with independent charge and 36 MoS.
Who constitutes the Council of Ministers?
- India is a parliamentary democracy with the President as its nominal head.
- Article 74 of the Constitution provides that there shall be a COM headed by the Prime Minister (PM) to aid and advise the President.
- The real executive powers lie with the COM. A Minister should be a member of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha and if not, should become one within six months of his/her appointment.
- A similar setup prevails in States with a COM headed by the Chief Minister (CM).
- The COM consists of a Cabinet minister, MoS with independent charge, MoS and a Deputy Minister.
- The Constitution does not classify the members of the COM into different ranks.
- All this has been done informally, following the British practice. Cabinet Ministers are higher in rank and handle large portfolios while MoS assist the Cabinet Ministers and work under them.
- MoS with independent charge directly reports to the Prime Minister for their respective ministries.
What is the constitutional limit?
- The first COM at the time of independence had only 15 Ministers headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
- After the first general elections in 1952, Nehru inducted around 30 Ministers into his COM. Over the years, the size of the COM had gradually increased to around 50-60.
- Interestingly, it is the United Front governments led by Deve Gowda (June 1996) and I.K. Gujral (April 1997) that were sworn in with just 21 and 34 Ministers respectively.
- In 1999, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became Prime Minister, his COM had 74 Ministers. However, the size of COM was becoming unwieldy in some of the larger States.
- For instance, in 2002 when Mayawati was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, she had 79 Ministers.
- The National Commission to review the working of the Constitution under the Chairmanship of Justice Venkatachaliah set up in February 2000, had suggested a ceiling of 10% of the total strength of Lok Sabha/Legislative Assembly for the number of Ministers at the Centre/State level.
- Finally, through the 91st Constitutional Amendment in 2003, the total number of Ministers including PM/CM in the COM was limited to 15% of the total strength of the Lok Sabha/State Legislative Assembly.
- There is no minimum requirement at the Central level whereas even the smaller States should have a minimum of 12 Ministers.
- For Union Territories of NCT of Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), the maximum limit is 10% of the total strength of its Assembly.
The issues
- A thorny issue even after the limit on the number of Ministers is the appointment of Parliamentary Secretaries in various States.
- The office of Parliamentary Secretary (PS) also has its origin in the British system. In India, the post of PS was first created in 1951.
- They have not been a regular feature in the Central governments thereafter and the last PS at the Centre was appointed in 1990.
- However, various States have continued with their appointment to circumvent the limit on COM placed by the 91st Amendment.
- High Courts of Punjab & Haryana, Rajasthan, Bombay, Calcutta, Telangana, Karnataka etc. have quashed or questioned the appointment of PS in the States under their jurisdiction for indirectly violating the maximum limit on COM.
Conclusion
Appointing MLAs to the position of Ministers under the guise of PS to circumvent constitutional limits should be strictly prohibited and discontinued.
Editorial 2 : What is SWM cess and why is it levied on waste generators?
Context
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahangara Palike (BBMP) has proposed a Solid Waste Management (SWM) Cess of ₹100 per month for each household.
SWM Cess
- Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) levy user fees or SWM cess as per the provisions of Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
- According to these guidelines, ULBs must collect user fees/cess for SWM services provisions provided.
- ULBs typically charge about ₹30-50 per month as SWM cess, which is collected along with property tax.
- ULBs are now considering revising these rates and imposing higher charges on bulk waste generators to meet a portion of the costs incurred in providing SWM services.
What are the costs?
- Offering SWM services is complex and resource-intensive.
- ULBs typically deploy about 80% of their manpower and up to 50% of their annual budgets to provide SWM services to city residents.
- In a city like Bangalore, an urban resident generates about 0.6 kg of waste per day, totalling 0.2 tonnes per person per year. Overall, Bangalore generates about 5,000 tonnes of solid waste per day.
- Managing this volume of waste requires around 5,000 door-to-door waste collection vehicles, 600 compactors, and about 20,000 Paurakarmikas.
- SWM services comprise four components: collection, transportation, processing and disposal.
- ULBs package collection and transportation together, and processing and disposal together.
- Collection and transportation are resource and labour-intensive and come up to 85-90% of the SWM budget, whereas only about 10-15% is spent on processing and disposal of waste.
The challenges
- Solid waste generated in Indian cities consists of about 55-60% wet biodegradable material and 40-45% non-biodegradable material.
- The portion of recyclable material in the dry waste is minimal, only about 1-2%, with the rest being mostly non-recyclable and non-biodegradable waste.
- Although 55% of the wet waste can be converted into organic compost or biogas, the yield is as low as 10-12%, making both composting and biogas generation from solid waste financially unviable.
- Typically, operational revenue from waste processing facilities covers only about 35-40% of operational expenses, with the rest subsidised by the ULB.
- Apart from financial challenges, ULBs face other challenges associated with SWM services, such as extra work of clearing open points and drains, preventing open littering, seasonal changes in waste generation, and sweeping operations.
- Additionally, the disposal of non-compostable and non-recyclable dry waste, such as single-use plastic, textile waste and inert materials, is expensive since the material needs to be shipped to cement factories or waste-to-energy projects located about 400-500 km from cities.
- Large cities like Bangalore spend about 15% of their budget—about ₹1,643 crore out of ₹11,163 crore — whereas the revenue from SWM services is almost negligible at ₹20 lakh per year.
- Smaller cities tend to spend up to 50% of their budget but also end up with almost negligible revenue. Hence, ULBs charge SWM cess to cover a portion of the costs.
The solution
- Although collection and transportation of waste generate no revenue, several strategies can reduce overall expenditure on SWM and lower user charges.
- These are segregation of waste at source, reducing single-use plastic, decentralised composting initiatives, Information, Education and Awareness (IEC) to prevent open littering, and asking bulk waste generators to process their own waste.
Conclusion
A balanced approach, combining marginal user charges with efficient operations, could help make our cities cleaner.
