Indians are dying, some 4000 plus every day. Life-saving equipment is lying in warehouses of the world and even in India. Oxygen is still a scarce commodity. The Supreme Court of India has set up an Oxygen Task Force, clearly saying that the government has failed in its management. The Health crisis has strained the public and private health systems. Yet, the tax structure is still not in keeping with the need. WSN editor Jagmohan Singh writes an Open Letter to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting a quick amendment of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) to enable non-governmental, not-for-profit bodies to receive and manage urgently-required Covid19-prevention-related equipment and consumables into the country.

DEAR PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI: Greetings in the Name of God -the Light of every soul. Today, as we witness excruciating human pain and suffering all around us, victim families and others have started questioning God, leave alone human governors and administrators. Hands go up in prayer and appeal, crying and yearning from God to put an end to the misery caused by the Covid19 virus, made worse by the unprofessional, uncaring, inhuman and typically ‘passing the buck style’ management mantra, not-owning responsibility and passing it on to the states, hospitals and even the people. This lacklustre, ad hoc and casual handling of the health crisis is only a continuum of disaster management in India.

The population of India -rich and poor, rural and urban, education and illiterate is seriously looking into the culpability of the government of India run by you which has comprehensively failed its people. Call it everything -misgovernance, lapse, oversight, negligence, failure of the system or even crime against humanity, your government, the political leadership around you and the administrative officials are all responsible for the deaths happening by the hour and hardships being faced by the people.

There has never been much value attached to human life in India, anyway. Exemplary compensations are rare even from the courts of the land. However, now the infectious virus and its sister-like inefficient political mutant have hit very hard, especially considering the fact that the government had all that it takes to prevent the slide into an abyss. The Covid19 crisis has degenerated from a health disaster striking the population to a social and political catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

Your Home Minister, Health Minister and Finance Minister have lost their voice in these crucial times. Modi Bhai, the buck stops at your door, whether you like it or not, whether your administration bothers or not and whether your party believes this to be true or not.

Whether the vaccine is worth it or not, is a separate matter. However, your bravado at vaccine diplomacy by sending millions of vaccines to other countries, without caring for India’s teeming millions is neither excusable nor pardonable, particularly considering the policies being followed by other vaccine-producing countries.

With all this angst against you and your government, I write this Open Letter with a glimmer of hope that even at this nth hour, your government will take some effective steps to salvage the situation by merely amending some laws which are acutely hindering the availability of life-saving relief material in India.

Today, it is sinister to note that while it is easy for an Indian cricketer to bring in his gifted car into the country without any duty or tax, but in such an atmosphere as the present one, it is expensive and difficult to bring in life-saving equipment and individual use gadgets and consumables for Covid19 patients and for prevention of the spread of the virus. It is ironic that while the population is dying, the government is making money from duties, taxes, cesses and more. This vulture-like methodology must change immediately in the present situation and a benchmark set for any such future happening -natural or man-made.

It is easier for a cricketer to bring in a gifted car without taxes or duties but impossible to likewise bring in life-saving equipment and drugs. What a bloody shame!

While your government has waived off customs duties and IGST on oxygen-related equipment, still hospitals, non-governmental bodies and others who want to bring in Oxygen concentrators directly to them cannot do so because there is no waiver under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Whatever little has trickled into India is either a government to government exchange as part of the country to country diplomatic, strategic and business ties or through some governmental NGOs who have the privilege of concessions under FCRA or some other few NGOs who have the requisite permissions.

The reports of dead bodies washing ashore the Ganges is an indelible blot. The sight of a relative taking away their dead mother on a bike and another walking from the hospital holding the dead body of his child, for lack of an ambulance or being unable to pay for it, will make the populace reading and watching this sick. I am not sure of the pachydermous ministers and officials.

Let me share a real example. A philanthropic corporate house is willing to donate a few million N95 masks to an Indian NGO. The shipment has been turned down by the Indian NGO because even with FCRA, the NGO will have to pay millions of dollars as customs duty because N95 Masks is not covered in the waiver list of the Oxygen-related relief equipment announced in the last few days for individual and collective receipt in India. Is this not a crying shame?

Another example, first there are no oxygen cylinders. Second, if oxygen cylinders are there, there are no flowmeters to fix on top of the oxygen cylinders. It is neither rocket science nor atomic to produce flowmeters. Why can’t this be done in many of the public sector units in this hour of dire need?

The Right to dignity of the dead is universal. Since time immemorial, humankind has been paying respects in a befitting manner to those who pass away. Families and society go to great lengths to ensure that the deceased are given a proper burial or their bodies cremated with love, care and devotion. This unprecedented crisis has put even this under strain and has reached blasphemous heights with the rising number of deaths every day. The reports of dead bodies washing ashore the Ganges is an indelible blot. The sight of a relative taking away their dead mother on a bike and another walking from the hospital holding the dead body of his child, for lack of an ambulance or being unable to pay for it, will make the populace reading and watching this sick. I am not sure of the pachydermous ministers and officials.

Please freeze all taxes, duties, charges and fees for the next six months, at least.

International bodies, philanthropists, Indian Diaspora and Sikh Diaspora donors are waiting in the wings, empathising with the people of India in this hour of suffering. It is time we do something urgently to consolidate what is possible. Your government will be able to provide much-needed succour to the people of India, if you take the following steps tonight, not tomorrow:

1. Customs duty must be waived on all products, equipment, medicine including vaccines that are imported into the country.
2. FCRA provisions must be relaxed for NGOs with standard registrations under section 12AA and/or 80G of the Income Tax Act and they should be allowed to bring in relief material in kind without even a day’s delay. FCRA approvals take a lot of time and the government needs to urgently grant an exemption for all such donations and taxes. The ambiguity of the FCRA is preventing small and big Indian hospitals, charities, and recently formed groups working in rural areas to bring in life-saving equipment like oxygen concentrators because of the duties and handling charges involved. The FCRA as it stands, with amendments in September 2020, prohibits even FCRA-registered NGOs to transfer relief material to patients or small NGOs working on a pan-India basis. Where does one go? All that your government has to do is to issue a clear-cut clarification that FCRA rules won’t apply for COVID-19 relief imports.
3. Please allow already FCRA-registered bodies to donate life-saving equipment and consumables to all hospitals, NGOs and others in dire need but not registered under the provisions of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.
4. GST must be fully waived at the very first step. Why should small organisations be made to pay taxes from donations painstakingly garnered penny by penny through crowdfunding?
5. Please freeze all taxes, duties, charges and fees for the next six months, at least.
6. Ensure the smooth transport of life-saving equipment from New Delhi and other cities to where they are needed most. Wherever necessary, the government must provide logistical support.
7. Electric crematoriums must be set up within the next two months by the Union government directly or through the state government in all districts of India.

FCRA provisions must be relaxed for NGOs with standard registrations under section 12AA and/or 80G of the Income Tax Act and they should be allowed to bring in relief material in kind without even a day’s delay.

Your Home Minister, Health Minister and Finance Minister have lost their voice in these crucial times. Modi Bhai, the buck stops at your door, whether you like it or not, whether your administration bothers or not and whether your party believes this to be true or not.

Anarchy seems round the corner. The time to act is only today. Indians across the board are unforgiving and history is not likely to be different.

Hoping against hope,

Jagmohan Singh
Editor, The World Sikh News