This article is targeted at exploring the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) model for financing planned urban development programs and projects in Indian cities—smart cities, in particular. This is founded on the premise that the TIF approach offers an excellent opportunity to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) for the creation, capture and recycling of values in cities to support funding of core urban infrastructure in a sustained manner. This article identifies the key components of the TIF model and explains why it is a theoretically elegant and practically desirable strategy for potential acceptance by Indian cities at the present level of urban evolution when municipal finances are unstable and the municipalities are also not in a position to generate current tax income surplus. This article is grounded on the precept of "theory follows practice and vice versa", case studies on TIF as implemented internationally. In the end, this article suggests directions as to how the TIF principles could be integrated into the theoretical account of financing innovative projects under the Smart Cities Mission, including accessing capital market funds through municipal bonds. The key findings of this article suggest that the efficacy of tax increment financing tools in Indian cities will depend on several factors: the versatility of city development strategy and plan; reforms in municipal finance system; reforms in spatial planning; effective design of TIF projects and financing strategies, including mechanisms for value capture and recycling to catalyze economic growth‐enhancing enterprises that create further values to land‐owners and the city; and human resource capacity to plan, design, finance, implement and monitor projects. If planned well, TIF instruments can act as potent tools to augment external economies of agglomeration and networking and give a momentum to the economic growth, bringing forth a self‐financing or even surplus‐generating process of planned urban expansion, growth and reclamation.
AbstractThe study examines the impact of financial inclusion, promoted through the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) scheme, on the economic performance across the Indian states. Using the index of financial inclusion developed in Sarma (2008), the current study develops a three‐dimensional financial inclusion index for 25 major Indian states from 2011 to 2016 to assess the status of financial inclusion across Indian states. The impact of financial inclusion promoted through the PMJDY scheme on the economic performance of the Indian states is investigated using bootstrap corrected fixed effects estimation and inference in the dynamic panel. The study's finding suggests that most Indian states fall under the low or medium level of financial inclusion. The dynamic panel results reveal a positive and significant association between financial inclusion and economic growth across Indian states. Further, results show PMJDY scheme marginally improved the pace of economic growth but failed to improve the overall economic prosperity level across states. Poor usage of financial services and a rise in the number of dormant accounts after the PMJDY scheme's launch are the significant limitations of the PMJDY scheme's failure.
Ambitions to mitigate climate change, increase the pressure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across all sectors of the economy, with significant implications for the energy landscape as well as other emissions sources. Switzerland has committed to reducing its annual direct emissions of GHG by 50% by 2030 compared to 1990. A major share of this reduction shall be achieved domestically while some emissions can be based on measures abroad through the use of international credits. The Swiss government has also formulated the long-term goal to reduce GHG emissions in 2050 by 70-85% compared to 1990 levels (including measures abroad), and to achieve climate neutrality after 2050. Today, domestic GHG emissions in Switzerland originate by about 60% from energy conversion in the transport and building sectors, and by 40 % from other sources including industry. Carbondioxide (CO2) is the major GHG that is emitted with the transport sector being the sector with largest contribution. Given this distribution of GHG emissions, particularly CO2 emissions in the demand sectors attributable to energy conversion and industrial production processes need to be avoided to achieve the climate goals. As of 2017, the Swiss electricity sector is already almost CO2-free as electricity is mainly generated from hydropower (60%), nuclear (32%) renewable and non-renewable combustible energy (5%) and other renewable energy (4%). Future pathways for the developments of the Swiss energy sector are framed by the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050, which aims at discontinuing energy supply from nuclear power plants in Switzerland, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. The transformation of the Swiss energy economy calls for the deployment of new low-carbon energy solutions while maintaining the high level of energy supply reliability, which in particular applies to the electricity sector. One option to provide low-carbon energy services is an increased electrification of energy demand services while using low-carbon generation sources. Against the background of a growing share of variable renewable energy sources in the electricity mix, such as wind and solar energy, the challenges of temporal and spatial balancing of supply and demand is expected to increase in future. Temporal balancing arises due to the inevitable mismatch between renewable electricity production and demand as a consequence of day/night cycles, weather effects and seasonal differences, while spatial balancing is resulting from differences between the locations of electricity production and consumption. A future Swiss energy supply substantially relying on large shares of intermittent electricity generation (mainly photovoltaics and wind power) will need sufficient flexibility options. These must allow for shifting energy between day and night as well as from summer to winter: roof-top PV installations, which exhibit the largest potential for new renewable electricity generation in Switzerland by far, show a distinct seasonal peak in summer and daily peak at noon. These peaks in electricity generation – if not to be curtailed – must either be stored and re-used as electricity at times without sufficient generation, or transformed into other energy carriers such as gases and liquids, which can be used as e.g. transport or heating fuels. In addition to the flexible power plants operated in Switzerland already today, i.e. dam hydro plants and pump storage power plants, increasing the system's flexibility and installing of further flexible power plants and storages becomes inevitable at very high shares of wind and solar PV electricity production in order to operate the electricity system cost-efficiently and to ensure the system's secure operation. A related aspect concerning flexibility options is their location in the system, which, preferably, is close to the Solar-PV generation sites which are often embedded in the consumption centres. There are multiple technologies and measures to avoid CO2 emissions and to increase the energy system's flexibility with Power-to-X (P2X) technologies representing one possible option of the technology portfolio. As defined in this White Paper, the terminology "P2X" refers to a class of technologies that use an electro-chemical process to convert electricity into a gaseous or liquid energy carrier or chemical product (and vice versa), and which may include energy storage. As such, P2X technology not only offers the possibility of enhanced sector coupling between the power sector and energy demand sectors but also to provide short and long-term supply and demand balancing. The objective of the White Paper its supplementary report is to collect the major existing P2X knowledge and to provide a synthesis and evaluation for the Swiss energy market. With the aim to derive a technical, economic and environmental assessment of P2X in the energy system, the gas market, the mobility sector and the electricity market are specifically investigated. Where possible, the White Paper also provides information on applications of P2X technologies in production industries. P2X technology stands for a cluster of technologies which use electricity and other inputs in order to produce other secondary energy carriers. Hence, P2X comprises multiple conversion pathways and energy carriers. In this White Paper we focus on the conversion to hydrogen as well as further gaseous and liquid energy carriers, such as methane, methanol, OME and FT-diesel, as well as the reelectrification where appropriate. For industrial P2X applications further energy carriers/conversion pathways might be included (depending on available information). Since this White Paper focusses on P2X technologies based on chemical conversion processes, technologies for the conversion of electricity with the purpose to produce heat as target product is not in the scope of this White Paper. The White Paper on Power-to-X Technology and its supplementary report emanate from the corresponding project of the Joint Activity of five Swiss Competence Centers for Energy Research (SCCER) funded by Innosuisse with complementary funding from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE).
