Below Poverty Line, Line: Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
Deficient rain not to hit growth: Rangarajan
Priyadarshi Siddhanta
Posted: Thursday , Aug 13, 2009 at 0238 hrs
Voicing concerns over the misery unleashed by scanty rainfall on the
farm sector, newly appointed chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic
Advisory Council (PMEAC) C Rangarajan today said it could unleash
great distress on the farming community. Rangarajan pointed out that
tackling the drought-like situation is one of the key areas of concern
for the EAC. “Though the impact of deficient rains on the overall
growth may not be much, yet it could potentially trigger distress
among the farming community,” he told The Indian Express. He argued
that as a measure to contain rising prices of essential commodities,
the government could resort to importing food items saying “we have
large foreign exchange reserves, so it should not be a problem”.
Refusing to be drawn into the controversy whether the Below Poverty
Line (BPL) population needed more urgent attention on ensuring food
security, he said “both APL and BPL should be provided relief from
rising food prices.” He argued that rise in food prices was more due
to apprehensions of the trading community on lowered farm productivity
in the current crop season.
Among other major concerns of the PMEAC are the inadequate growth of
the power sector, which Rangarajan argued, was a key to propelling the
Indian economy in the medium term. “Infrastructure is a major concern,
if India has to clock a high growth trajectory,” he emphasised. Ruling
out any further scope for softening of interest rates, Rangarajan, who
has earlier served as RBI governor, made it clear that the main
concern now is to prevent a hardening of interest rates.
http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowOriyaColumn.asp?id=13884
Union Budget 2009-2010: The Uncertainty Continues
Thursday, August 13, 2009
By Prof. Sudhakar Panda, Bhubaneswar :
On 6th July,2009 just 140 days after the presentation of the Interim
Budget, Sri Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister presented the
budget for the financial year 2009-10.This budget is crucial and
assumes significance as the economy has come under the impact of
global recession. The slow down of the global economy had its impact
on India’s foreign trade, finance and investment, aviation,
hospitality, real estate, engineering, garment manufacturing,
jewellery and handicraft sectors. Recession in the global market
affected our industries, jobs and income. Our GDP declined. Indian
economy,in fact, suffered a decline in its growth rate from ‘an
average of over 9% in the previous three fiscal years to 6.7%
in2008-09.’There prevailed a fear that internal consumption in India
might drop further leading to a decline in income and employment. The
nation, in fact, was waiting almost breathlessly for a big stimulus
package for the quick recovery of the economy. For announcement of
sops in the budget for industry, trade, agriculture, services sector
and for the social sector.
Higher and faster spending by the state was expected not only to
provide an opportunity for the recovery of the economy but also to
improve the prospects of growth. It became imperative that all efforts
must be made not only to shield the economy from the effects of the
global meltdown but also provide it with financial, functional and
legal support for growth at all levels.
At the sect oral level tax payers including senior citizens and
working women looked forward to tax reliefs. The corporate sector,
because of the impact of global recession expected tax cuts and
investment benefits. Farmers expected debt relief. Poor households
looked forward to government action to bail them out of poverty and
unemployment. They also looked forward to food security. They have to
be given 25kgs.of rice wheat a month at the subsidized price of Rs.3 a
kg.
To check recession successfully and reengineer growth at a higher
level, the government have to spend heavily, put more and more money
into the market, increase opportunities of employment for the youth
and provide the promised benefits to the voters to achieve ‘inclusive
growth’. Though the primary objective was to raise the growth rate of
the national economy, the ‘aam admi’ was not forgotten.
.
The budget which adopts a ‘medium term perspective’
identified the following broad objectives;
1. to achieve GDP growth rate of 9per cent per annum,
2. to strengthen the mechanism of inclusive growth by
creating almost 12million of new work opportunities per year
3. to reduce the proportion of people living below poverty
line in 2009 to less than half by 2014,
4. to achieve an annual rate of growth of 4%in agriculture,
5. to increase investment in infrastructure to more than
9%of GDP by 2014,
6. to provide support to the Indian industry to meet the
challenge of global competition and sustain growth in exports,
7. to strengthen the regulatory framework,
8. to expand the social safety network, particularly for
the vulnerable sections of the society,
9. to strengthen the delivery mechanism for primary health
care facilities,
10. to create an education system of global standards, and
11. to pursue an Integrated Energy Policy to provide energy
security.
The budget recognises the immediate requirement of a stimulus
package for the Indian economy. The Finance Minister has accordingly
adopted a comprehensive approach to spending and given a detailed
analysis of proposed expenditure by the government in the current
year. As the Finance Minister, his immediate job is to prevent
recession and create an enabling environment for investment and
business opportunities at all levels to create millions of jobs for
India’s young people who are restless and look forward to equitable
development. Under these circumstances public spending will go up and
the state has no choice but to take necessary measures to keep money
flowing into the economy to finance investments, job creation and
enlarge the delivery mechanism to run public services and fulfill the
promises made to the ‘aam admi’.
It is therefore not surprising that budget 2009-10
provides for a total expenditure of Rs.10,20,838 crore of which Rs.
6,95,689crore is for Non-plan expenditure and Rs.3,25,149 for Plan
expenditure. Non-plan expenditure takes care of the hike in pay after
the implementation of recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay
Commission, higher food subsidy and higher interest payments
constituting 36%of the Non-plan revenue expenditure. Subsidies have
also gone up from Rs.71, 431crore in B.E.2008-09 to Rs.1, 11,276crore
in B.E.2009-10. As against the budget estimate of Rs.10,20,838 crore,
gross tax receipts and non-tax revenue receipts to be mobilized in
2009-10 has been estimated at Rs.6,41,079 crore and Rs.1,40,279 crore
respectively.Net tax revenue available to the centre after transfer of
States’ share(Rs.1,64,361} crore and transfer to the National Calamity
Contingency Fund(Rs.2,500 crore) stands at Rs.4,74,218 crore .Total
Revenue Receipts(Rs.4,74,218 crore+Rs.1,40,279 crore) available to
union government will brRs.6,14,497 crore. When Capital Receipts[ the
Non-debt receipts, that is Rs.5,345 crore] are added to it, the total
receipts for the year 2009-10 comes toRsRs.6,19,842 crore. Total Debt
Receipts to be raised for financing the projected expenditure has been
estimated at Rs.4,00,996 crore. Market loans will be the largest
component estimated at Rs.3,96,957 crore.
Budget 2009-10 has many ambitious proposals for the economy and
particularly for rural India, that is, Bharat. It has focused on NREGA
with a minimum wage of Rs.100 per day, BPL families, Rural Housing,
Rural Electrification, development of Backward Villages, Empowerment
0f Weaker Sections, Bharat Nirman, Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana
[PMAGY], IAY, and the development of villages with over 50% SCs/STs
population. How do we finance these development projects and achieve
the three challenges it sets out for itself in terms of high GDP
growth, inclusive growth and a strong, efficient and reliable delivery
system. To foster growth and achieve these objectives the country
needs to mobilize funds for investment. Yet it can not afford to
undermine the investment climate by raising either the personal income
tax rate or the corporate tax rate. The state, on the other hand, may
be called upon to adopt a generous view towards taxes to improve
business environment.
To begin with, tax payers in India have reasons to feel cheerful for
the tax cuts which have been announced as a part of the stimulus
package by raising the personal income tax limit for the senior
citizens, women tax payers and other categories of individual tax
payers by Rs.15,000 and Rs.10,000 respectively. Tax exemption limit
for the medical treatment of dependants has also been raised. The
surcharge on personal income tax has been waived. Fringe Benefit Tax
has been dispensed with. Left with a higher disposable income, people
are expected to spend more in the market, raise the size of aggregate
demand and provide incentives to the producers.
Corporate tax rate has not been changed. This disappointed the
corporate sector. But commodities transaction tax has been abolished
Tax incentive provided to the corporate sector for expenditure
incurred on R&D has been extended. The NPS [New Pension System] Trust
has been exempted from income tax. And it is interesting to note that
donations to electoral trusts have been totally exempted from income
tax. This move by the Finance Minister will please all political
parties and provide relief to the donors. Charitable institutions
receiving anonymous donation and trusts ‘engaged in preserving and
improving our environment….------and preserving our monuments or
places or objects of artistic or historic interest’ have been given
tax relief. Tax holiday benefit has now been extended to the energy
sector to encourage the entrepreneurs for commercial production of a
wider range of energy services [production of natural gas].
It may be noted that against all this tax benefits, the Minimum
Alternate Tax [MAT] rate has been raised from the present rate of 10%
to 15% of book profits.
Not only consumption spending but also production of goods and
services has been given the stimulus by creating a soft tax regime by
proposing a number of tax reform measures. Basic customs duty on LCD
panels will be reduced from 10% to 5% to support indigenous production
of LCD televisions. Full exemption of CVD of 4% now available on
imported accessories for manufacturing mobile phones has been extended
for one more year. Tax concession available to leather products,
textile garments, footwear and sports goods etc. will continue. But 8%
excise duty on manmade fibers has been restored. Import of corals for
value addition and export will enjoy full exemption from basic customs
duty. Basic customs duty on permanent magnets has been reduced
from7.5% to 5%. Customs duty on life saving drugs has been reduced
from 10% to 5%. They will also be totally exempted from excise duty
and countervailing duty. Import of gold and gold jewellery, silver and
silver jewellery will be now costlier as custom duties on them have
been raised though branded jewellery has been exempted fully from
excise duty
While central excise duties have been made less burdensome for wool
waste and cotton waste, bio-diesel, car and utility vehicles, petrol
driven trucks, the IT industry[transfer of the right to use packaged
software] and the construction industry [pre-fabricated concrete slabs
or blocks] will now enjoy full exemption from excise duty. It may also
be noted that an initiative has been taken in the budget to facilitate
a convergence of central excise duty rates to a mean rate with
necessary exceptions that include food items, drugs, pharmaceuticals
and medical equipment. All steps are being taken for the
implementation of the General Service Tax both at the national and
state levels from the next fiscal year.
It may also be noted that not only exemptions but also a lot of
simplifications have been introduced in the service tax sector to make
it business friendly.
Two things stand out prominently in the budget. The slowdown in the
growth of the Indian economy in 2008-09 has not led to any cuts in
the provision of funds, particularly for the social sector and more so
when you think of food security, education, health care, employment
and housing programmes for the poor, that is, for the ‘aam admi’. It
is a big stimulus budget intended to create a big bang to raise the
level of spending to put the national economy on a high growth path.
The Finance Minister has tried to achieve it without raising direct
taxes. On the contrary tax relief has been proposed. In case of
indirect taxes, the tax hike has been limited. A visible recession
gives us reasons to feel unhappy. But more money in the pocket makes
us happy. That is what the Finance Minister has tried to do to
increase total spending in the economy to fight the effects of
recession on the economy.
.
To raise resources under the prevailing economic conditions, he has no
other option but to resort to deficit financing and market borrowing.
Fiscal deficit and revenue deficit have accordingly been projected to
rise to 6.8% and 4.8% of GDP respectively in the budget estimate of
2009-10..Debt financing of the programmes included in the budget may
have a stimulating impact on the economy if used for infrastructure
and human capital formation not for financing subsidies and wasteful
expenditure. The economy may not generate enough surplus for repayment
of loans with interest in subsequent years. The state may have to
resort to additional borrowings again and again just to service the
earlier debts. It may also be noted that the state governments have
been authorized to raise additional borrowings from 3.5% to 4% of
their GSDP by relaxing the fiscal deficit target by 0.5% under the
FRBMAct. This would result in states’ borrowing of Rs.21,000 crore
‘additionally over interim budget estimate 2009-10’.Thus market
borrowings may rise to more than Rs.4 lakh crore. A legitimate fear
is that in the process the country may get into huge borrowings and
may walk into an internal debt trap.
The state may, as a part of the reforms programmes, go for
disinvestment of assets in the public sector enterprises to raise
revenue to fund the programmes. In that case, the UPA government may
face political resistance .Given the sheer size of spending in the
current year, one can not rule out the possibility of inflation in the
economy. A policy of fiscal enlargement coupled with a loose monetary
policy intended to fight the downturn and cause an upturn in the
economy may result in injecting too much of liquidity into the system.
It may affect price stability. Inflation then may cause alarm if the
supply of goods and services is not sufficiently augmented
A lot will depend on the spending of the new and additional income
generated in the economy, particularly on the spending of consumers in
the elite class and high income groups. Equally important is the size
of spending and business investment. Both of them should be strong
enough to reinforce the efforts of the government. The recovery may
become slow if consumption spending by the households does not pick up/
business investment remains weak.
( Prof Sudhakar Panda ,Former Profrssor of Economics,Utkal
University,Bhubaneswar)
...and I am Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
Arvind Singhal: Roti, mobile, gaadi aur necklace
Consumer spending patterns are witnessing mega-shifts, with
implications for all involved parties
Arvind Singhal / New Delhi August 13, 2009, 0:56 IST
Notwithstanding the current concerns regarding the impact on consumer
spending on account of a truant monsoon, India will see a spending of
almost Rs 21 lakh crore (about $435 billion) at current prices in 2009
(assuming a GDP growth rate of 6 per cent). Further, factoring in a 5
per cent inflation and assuming that GDP will further grow at 6 per
cent, the consumer spending is likely to cross Rs 23 lakh crore (about
$485 billion) in 2010.
However, a deeper analysis of this gross data on consumer spending
throws up some very interesting insights. For as long as we remember,
roti, kapda aur makaan have been the primary needs and drivers of
private consumption. Indeed, it seems that the impact of the sustained
economic growth of the last 18-20 years is that for a very large part
of the population, consumption has moved beyond the basic survival
needs. While food & grocery continue to account for the largest
quantum of spending (about Rs 12.5 lakh crore in 2009), followed by
healthcare (about Rs 165,000 crore) and textiles & clothing the third
largest (about Rs 150,000 crore), the surprise numbers 4, 5, and 6
items on the consumer spending list in 2009 are spending on mobile
phones and talk-time (about Rs 120,000 crore), jewellery & watches
(about Rs 118,000 crore), and personal transport comprising two/four-
wheelers including spending on fuel and repairs/maintenance (about Rs
115,000 crore).
This data, of course, is at some variation with the official data
since this spending includes some through the parallel economy, but is
more reliable since it has been arrived at “bottom-up” sector by
sector. More interestingly, the growth rates in spending on non-basic
needs are much faster now and therefore it is likely that by 2012,
spending on textiles and clothing could be relegated to the sixth spot
and the hierarchy (excluding healthcare) will be roti, mobile,
personal transport, and jewellery & watches.
The shift in consumer spending priorities does not stop here. The
total outlay of the government on higher education is about Rs 9,600
crore. The estimated revenue of the higher-education coaching market
(including preparation for entrance examinations like JEE, CAT, GRE
and GMAT) is about Rs 10,000 crore. If tutoring and other self-
learning is included, the guesstimated private spending in 2009 is
almost Rs 48,000 crore! Spending on domestic leisure (and religious)
travel and tourism is expected to cross Rs 60,000 crore in 2009, while
the spending on consumer durables and consumer electronics is just
about Rs 55,000 crore. Spending on leisure and entertainment in 2009
is about Rs 55,000 crore, nearly equaling the entire size of the
personal and home care FMCG industry! Other very fast-growing
categories of consumer spending include personal computing (including
internet) where consumers will spend almost Rs 10,000 crore in 2009,
and personal grooming services where the spending is over Rs 4,000
crore already and growing in strong double digits.
There are several implications of these mega-shifts in consumer
spending patterns. For the manufacturers and marketers, some of the
imperatives include giving a fresh, much-deeper look into consumer and
shopper behaviour using new age tools that go beyond traditional
consumer/market research and then work the appropriate value
proposition and delivery channels for their basket of goods and
services. For entrepreneurs as well as businesses seeking to
diversify, the implications are that there are incredibly large new
business opportunities though, perhaps, these opportunities will
require new business models (product, channel, consumer connect,
delivery). Students planning their careers now would be well advised
to study these new emerging sectors and plan accordingly. As is clear
from the above, the sectors that are likely to create the most jobs
(besides retail since most of this consumption will be facilitated
through modern brick & mortar retail channels) are healthcare,
telecom, travel & leisure, education & training, media &
entertainment, personal grooming and fitness etc. The government
itself has to get a much better understanding of these shifts since
the implications are not only on its own revenue generation
opportunities through direct and indirect taxation, but also in many
other dimensions including vocational and higher education, and
infrastructure (such as retail).
http://www.business-standard.com/ecosurvey/storypage.php?autono=362811
Economy is sound, let's push reforms, says Economic Survey
BS Reporter / New Delhi July 3, 2009, 0:26 IST
Painting a picture of a resilient economy, the pre-Budget Economic
Survey 2008-09, tabled in Parliament today by Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee, said India could grow up to 7.75 per cent in 2009-10, up
from 6.7 per cent in 2008-09, provided the global economy,
particularly the United States, bottomed out by September and the
government was able to push the button on significant economic policy
reforms.
The World Bank had recently said India would grow 8.1 per cent in
2010, ahead of China (7.5 per cent). The numbers in the survey also
suggest India is finally ready to rub shoulders with its northern
neighbour.
The economy, according to the survey, can count among its strengths
the large services sector which has historically been less affected by
cyclical downturns than manufacturing, a strong farm sector, robust
savings rate, ambitious infrastructure development programme and
upbeat foreign investors. The "shock absorbers of the economy," it
said, were the sound banking system, large foreign exchange reserves,
a comfortable external debt position and low inflation. It listed as
concerns the dip in growth of private consumption and gross capital
formation and said the downside risks were the reduced availability of
risk capital, lower capital inflows and delayed revival of the OECD
economies.
In keeping with the resurgent mood, the survey listed an ambitious
reform agenda for the government, a clear signal that it was no longer
weighed down by the Communist parties. Surcharges, cesses and new
taxes like commodity transaction tax, securities transaction tax,
fringe benefit tax and dividend distribution tax had reversed the move
towards a simpler tax system, it said. The first three of these taxes
were introduced by Mukherjee’s predecessor, P Chidambaram (2004-08).
High government-administered interest rates on small savings, it
added, had kept lending rates from coming down.
Reflecting the new-found boldness of the Manmohan Singh government,
the survey made some radical suggestions like restricting the cooking
gas subsidy to six or eight cylinders for a family every year, auction
of freely tradable 3G spectrum for next-generation mobile telephone
services, raising foreign investment in defence to 49 per cent,
opening up multi-brand retail, restricting price control to drugs with
just five or six players, relaxing the contract labour laws and
permitting retrenchment of workers by companies without prior
permission.
It conceded that the return to the path of fiscal correction could
occur next year with a fiscal deficit target of three per cent of GDP
by 2010-11, mobilisation of at least Rs 25,000 crore through
disinvestment, de-control of petrol and diesel prices as well as sugar
and fertiliser industries, opening coal mining for the private sector
and reform of pension, insurance and retail sectors.
"These reforms should be implemented over the next four to five years,
which will take the country back on trend of growth," said Arvind
Virmani, chief economic advisor in the ministry of finance. These,
however, are just a wish list of the finance ministry and may not be
implemented in full by the government.
To balance the interests of farmers and consumers, the survey
suggested that there should be a domestic price band for agricultural
commodities within which imports and exports are freely allowed. If
the international price threatens to exceed the brand, export
restrictions and lower import duties would kick in and vice-versa. To
rein in the fuel subsidy, it suggested temporarily taxing upstream
crude oil producers. (This demand was made last year by the Samajwadi
Party at the height of the crude oil crisis.)
The survey suggested that the indirect taxes, that were reduced in the
recent part as part of fiscal stimulus package, could be restored once
the economy is back on track. “The approach of the government has been
to use a mix of fiscal measures including reduction in indirect which
could be reversed subsequently,” it said.
In the last financial year, 2008-09, the government had cut peak
excise duty rate in two tranches from 14 to 8 per cent and service tax
from 12 to 10 per cent.
In spite of the optimistic projections, the survey raised doubts about
the global economy, especially the “green shoots” of recent commodity
price rises. According to the survey, this could be “a result of
position-taking by financial investors, seeking to benefit from global
recovery expectations due to the large fiscal and monetary stimulus
and/or to hedge against inflation risk in the United States due to the
massive quantitative easing.”
bademiyansubhanallah
An epistle to the Prime Minister
The unprecedented monetary-fiscal expansion of the recent period
points to strengthening of inflationary pressures over the next 12-18
months.
The people are putting their faith in the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan
Singh, to check inflationary forces.
Dear Mr Prime Minister,
I am taking the liberty of addressing this communication to you as
inflationary forces have gathered momentum and are likely to get
accentuated in the next 12-18 months. In this context there are two
issues.
First, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) at present reflects a one
percentage point negative rate of inflation while various Consumer
Prices Indices (CPIs) reflect an increase of 9-10 per cent. Even the
CPI does not reflect the recent acceleration in in flation.
Second, advocates of higher growth rates seem to hold sway and are
forcefully, and successfully, asserting that the inflation issue needs
to be put on the backburner. The fisc has undertaken an unprecedented
expansion and monetary accommodation has been equally large.
Dangerous ideas are floating around that printing of money has no
adverse effect as there would be higher output, higher tax collections
and the burgeoning fiscal deficit would be self-liquidating.
The history of monetary and fiscal policies, the world over, has
unequivocally shown that such policies, however well-intended, have
disastrous consequences with a debauching of the currency.
Social sector tilt
The Government, in its recent Budget, has rightly tilted the balance
towards social sector infrastructure investment and various measures
have been devised to ensure distributive justice.
Unthinking criticism has been that these are populist measures which
would result in wasteful seepages. Such views lack an understanding of
the whole growth process.
As you, Sir, have pointed out on innumerable occasions, for growth to
be sustainable, it has to be inclusive, which requires the Government
to provide a strong tilt to social sector expenditure.
A basic axiom is that the pattern of investment determines the pattern
of output, which in turn determines the distribution of income; hence,
the tilt towards social sector expenditures is fully justified given
the basic stance that policies must be pursued to redress the extremes
of income inequalities.
Indian policymakers have all along been known to be inflation
fighters. We have, Sir, imbibed from you that inflation hurts the
weakest segments the most and that there can be no better anti-poverty
programme than the control of inflation.
Inflationary pressures
The unprecedented monetary-fiscal expansion of the recent period
points to strengthening of inflationary pressures over the next 12-18
months, which, even on the basis of the dampened official price
indices, point to double-digit inflation. According to grassroots
information, the situation is getting out of control and calls for
early policy action.
With the monsoon playing truant, the pressure on prices would be
reinforced and all segments of economic policy have to train their
guns to shoot down the inflationary forces.
A recent study by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) shows
that 40 lakh people, out of the city’s population of 140 lakh, are
Below Poverty Line (BPL) with a per capita income of less than Rs 592
per month.
Replicate this for the rest of the country and there are staggering
segments of the population that are vulnerable to the searing impact
of inflation. Well-documented reports on grassroots level prices show
that between 2004 and 2009, prices of basic consumption of items such
as cereals, pulses, sugar, tea, milk, vegetables and edible oils have
risen by 100-200 per cent.
What is also alarming is that surveys show that in the space of the
last four months, a lower middle-class simple meal of roti, subzi,
rice, dal and curd has risen from Rs 63 to Rs 133.
The across-the-board increase in prices of a vast array of essential
commodities of daily consumption cannot be explained away as mere
supply side constraints which are self-correcting.
One of the biggest failures of public policy has been the inability to
step up production and availability (including imports) of pulses. It
is a tragedy that in a country almost entirely dependent on pulses as
a source of protein, the daily per capita consumption has gone down in
a 50-year period (1957-2007) from 72 gm to 36 gm.
The agricultural revolution has completely by-passed pulses. The worst
is yet to come and the nation will pay a heavy price for this neglect.
Need for new CPI
9. The price increases of the recent period are reflective of the
universal law of too much money chasing too few goods. If these trends
continue there would be severe social unrest and a vicious wage-price
spiral could spin out of control, leaving in its wake a hair-curling
inflation of a sort not seen in our life time.
There has been talk of a new WPI with 2004-05 as base as against the
present base of 1993-94.The share of primary articles will
significantly come down from 22 per cent to 10 per cent.
Sad to say, the wide gap between the official price indices and the
ground reality will further increase. There is a pressing need for a
new Consumer Price Index which would reflect the ground realities.
Ultimately, it is not merely a matter of working out an appropriate
inflation index but a need to set up a body of sufficient stature to
pronounce on all aspects of inflation — assessing the extent of
inflation, anticipating inflationary pressures and making specific
recommendations to the Government to undertake measures for
controlling inflation.
In this context, there is an urgent need to set up a High-Powered
Inflation Commission, with clearly defined terms of reference and
powers, headed by an eminent and well-respected person with vast
experience, such as a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
It is unfortunate that policymakers and opinion-makers have put
inflation control on the backburner and the common person is left with
the impression that the Government has lost its will to fight
inflation and is even willing to chance inflation in the hope of
attaining higher growth.
As Dr C. Rangarajan has said, a higher growth rate of 9 per cent would
require the global economy to fully recover and in the interregnum it
would be prudent to plan for a 7-8 per cent growth rate. Pushing for
higher growth rates at this stage is a sure invitation for
uncontrollable inflation.
A heart-rending memory haunts me. At a housing colony an old woman,
bent and worn out, was sweeping the compound. She looked up with a
painful expression and said: “What is there for us: Mehangai aur
Mehangai (inflation and more inflation)”
You Sir, have all along been a strong advocate of inflation control.
With inflation spiralling out of control, the nation turns to you as
the Saviour. You will have the blessings of the disadvantaged, the
deprived and the dispossessed.
Yours truly,
S. S. TARAPORE
...and Sid Harth
Sid Harth
50% Indians living below poverty line: Govt panel
Nitin Sethi, TNN 1 July 2009, 03:44am IST
NEW DELHI: In what could provide a radical boost to UPA's aam aadmi
agenda but also pose a mind-boggling fiscal challenge, a government
panel has recommended that 50% of India's population be given below-
poverty-line cards.
The recommendations of the rural development ministry's committee on
BPL surveys, chaired by Supreme Court-appointed food commissioner N C
Saxena, seek to double the population that benefits from the UPA's
social sector schemes — both existing as well as those on the anvil
like the ambitious Food Security Act and enhanced pension schemes. The
expansion of the social security net is bound to substantially
increase government expenditure.
At present, the Planning Commission estimates that only 28.3% of the
population qualifies for BPL benefits.
While the recommendations of the Saxena committee are not binding, the
former bureaucrat, who was also on the Sonia Gandhi-led National
Advisory Council, has emerged as a powerful voice on food policy. The
government may also be compelled to take a close look at his estimates
because they are close to the tally compiled by states under the rural
development survey.
States reject plan panel's BPL figures
The states have, however, disregarded the BPL figures prepared by the
Planning Commission, to prepare their own list of BPL benficiaries.
The rural development ministry conducts a survey along with the states
every five years to identify the poor, while the Planning Commission
gives an overall percentage for the number of poor in a state.
The mismatch between the two, with Planning Commission progressively
lowering poverty estimates while the states push higher numbers, has
always been a source of controversy. The Centre allocates resources
for BPL schemes based on the figures of the Planning Commission,
raising the hackles of the states. With the government set to increase
the allocation for the BPL schemes, the conflict can escalate, with a
very strong possibility of states pressing of the Saxena formula.
The rural development ministry had set up the Saxena committee to
review the methodology of the survey and resolve the conflict between
the plan panel estimate and the survey enumeration. The report would
be made public on Tuesday.
In order to reconcile the plan panel estimates with the rural
development surveys, the Saxena committee has suggested a change in
the way Planning Commission works out its numbers. The Commission used
the poverty lines of 1973-1974 to arrive at its latest figures in 2004
after adjusting for inflation.
bademiyansubhanallah
'New mortality tables by year-end '
17 Aug 2009, 0536 hrs IST, Bakul Chugan Tongia, ET Bureau
President of The Institute of Actuaries of India, Mr Gorakhnath
Agarwal, is the former Executive Director (Actuarial) of LIC. In a
candid Mr Gorakhnath Agarwal, Chief Actuary, Future Generali India
Life Insurance
conversation with ET Bureau, Mr Agarwal, who is currently designated
as the Chief Actuary of Future Generali India Life Insurance, clears
the air about the new mortality tables which are expected to hit the
market soon and shares his views on the state of under-insurance in
the country and the rationale behind the introduction of insurance cum
investment products. The excerpts...
The current mortality tables are quite old. Meanwhile demographics in
India have gone through lot of changes. So is it correct to use these
old mortality tables even today?
There is a gross misconception among people that we are using 15 year
old mortality tables. While we do take the old mortality tables as a
base, the projections for the future are made taking into
consideration the recent changes in mortality in light of the
scientific innovations, lifestyle of the population etc. So we assess
the mortality for the future and charge the premiums accordingly.
The existing mortality tables are based on the data pertaining to
1994-96 . Why such a long gap between the revised mortality tables?
It is the general international practice to revise mortality tables
after a gap of 10 years, just like the census. For if you examine
mortality after every 4 or 5 years, there will not be many changes in
such a short span. However we have taken more time here because the
insurance industry has opened up to private players only in 2000-01 .
So if we had assumed a 10 year time span i.e. 2004, it would have once
again turned out to be a LIC table like the existing one as the new
private players did not have sufficient data then. So while we have
taken about 14 years to bring the revise the tables, the new tables
will be highly comprehensive as it incorporates data from both the
private and the public institutions and shall thus prove to be a
representative for the entire insurance industry. The new mortality
tables will be ready to be implemented by the end of this year.
Is it right to say that the Indian population is highly under-
insured ?
To some extent it may be yes, but I would beg to differ. To determine
under-insurance , we have to consider only the population that is
insurable. We have got 110 crore of population. If the average size of
a family is taken as 5, we have about 22 crore insurable families in
the country. Now 30% of the population we know is below poverty line
and are being considered by the Government to be brought under the
social security net. Now if we remove these BPL families, we are left
with about 15.4 crore insurable families. Assuming one or two earning
members per family, we may assume some 22-25 crore people that need
insurance. Of these, about 70-80 % of these are currently insured by
about 25-30 crore odd insurance policies. I say 70-80 % since many
people have more than one insurance policy.
But what about the sum assured per policy?
I do agree that the insurance cover is small, very small. And the
reason for the same is that the people in this country take insurance
as a savings product and when you take a policy with savings in mind,
it naturally reduces the cover.
What is the average sum assured per person in this country?
It is very less, not even a year’s salary. In US, people are insured
for an amount equivalent to two years salary, in Japan it is three or
even more than three years salary.
So you agree that insurance should not be used as an investment
vehicle.?
It is not so. In India people are savings oriented since there is no
social security system currently in place. So Indians try to save as
much as possible. In contrast developed countries have elaborate
systems for social security and citizens know that their families will
be taken care of by the government in case of an unforseen event. So
they have a lesser incentive to save. Life insurance provides an
opportunity of compulsory saving.
But then there are other saving avenues. So why go for a savings
insurance plan for the balance?
While there are other savings avenues, people tend to discontinue them
after a point of time. In case of savings insurance plans, you are
discouraged to do so resulting in compulsory savings for the future.
But don’t you think that the term plans are actually under-sold in
this country?
It is not only the distributors to be held responsible. There is a
typical feeling among people that the premium paid for the term plan
is lost if the policyholder survives the policy term. People do not
see it as a cost incurred to provide security to their families. They
want it back and generate returns on the same. They do not realize
that the returns would be not enough for him or his families. But I
always tell people that while taking a term plan assume that you are
paying for some unfortunate person who is going to die and thank God
that you are not the one.
But is it not true that distributors abstain from selling term plans
as these command lower commissions?
Distributors are paid commission on term plans also. However, they
feel that term plans call for a one-time investment so they may not be
called back by the investor once the term plan is sold. However, if
they sell a savings plan of say five or 10 years, then the investor
might seek his advice again and again as the policy matures.
Even after being into business for nine years, private players have
failed to break-even ....
Private players in India are growing aggressively. The growth or
expansion rate has been very high here. So it is taking a longer time
to break-even . But if an insurance company is on a normal growth
trajectory, it can break-even in just about 6-7 years time.
bademiyansubhanallah
BPL protest chokes thoroughfare
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Activists of the Jamshedpur Jan Kalyan Samiti at Sakchi on Monday.
(Bhola Prasad)
Jamshedpur, Aug. 17: Traffic was disrupted for over two hours hours
with the Jamshedpur Jan Kalyan Samiti activists laying siege to the
district collectorate today in support of their demands.
Commuters had to face a harrowing time as the Old Court Road was
blocked by the agitators.
Providing red cards to below poverty line (BPL) families, timely
payment to beneficiaries of the widow pension scheme, development of
road in various localities of Mango and restoration of defunct hand
pumps were some of the major demands of the association.
Hundreds of activists, including a large number of women, started
gathering outside the district collectorate in processions around
11am.
Traffic came to a grinding halt as they shouted slogans and prevented
commuters to pass that way.
The women activists squatted on the road, outside the district
collectorate, thus bringing traffic on the Sakchi-Mango road to a
standstill. Movement of small vehicles was diverted to other routes in
view of the protest staged by the agitators.
Commercial vehicles were also stranded near Jubilee Park for more than
an hour because of the agitation.
Addressing the gathering, founder-president of the Jamshedpur Jan
Kalyan Samiti Sanjeev Diwedi said: “The social organisation has been
formed for taking up various issues concerning people of Mango in
particular.” In his memorandum to the deputy commissioner, Diwedi
maintained that red cards should be provided to people in BPL
category.
“We have requested the district administration to ensure that all the
BPL families are covered in the recent survey undertaken by the state
government. Complaints received by us point that number of families in
Mango are still waiting to get registered in the survey,” he added.
He claimed that the administration had assured the delegation that it
would immediately repair hand pumps lying defunct in the region. “We
have been asked to provide the list of hand pumps, which are not
functional in Mango. Besides, we also took up the issue of bad roads
in various localities of Mango,” Diwedi added.
bademiyansubhanallah
Health insurance for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families
All 2,98,291 below poverty line (BPL) families in the state will be
covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme from the current
financial year...
Source: Tribune News Service
Updated on: 7/20/2009
All 2,98,291 below poverty line (BPL) families in the state will be
covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme from the current
financial year.
The government has decided to extend the scheme, which was introduced
in Kangra and Shimla districts last year, to remaining 10 districts
from 2009-10. The scheme is being implemented through the Swasthaya
Bima Yojna Society of the Health Department, which has been made the
nodal agency for the purpose.
Under this scheme, a beneficiary will be insured for Rs 30,000 per
annum on a family floater basis. The BPL family unit will comprise
maximum five members irrespective of age. It will not be required to
pay any premium for the insurance cover.
However, the beneficiary will be required to pay Rs 30 per annum as
registration and renewal fee. Each beneficiary will be issued a smart
card. Insurance money will be payable only if the beneficiary gets
indoor treatment in hospitals empanelled by the state government. The
scheme provides cashless coverage of all health services in the
insured package.
In the first phase, 1,00,547 families were covered in the two
districts when the scheme was launched last year. The New India
Insurance Company, the insurance provider, has issued 80,242 smart
cards--- 54,511 in Kangra and 25,731 in Shimla. Till date, 310 BPL
patients, 82 in Shimla and 228 in Kangra, had received medical
treatment free of cost from the empanelled hospitals under the scheme.
A provision for pre and post hospitalisation expenses has also been
made and the scheme also covers the services of surgical nature, which
can be provided on a daycare basis, apart from covering all pre-
existing diseases. The transportation cost of patients to the hospital
has also been covered to a maximum limit of Rs 100 per visit and
overall limit of Rs 1,000.
The Centre will spend Rs 491.13 per family per annum and the state Rs
143.70. A provision of Rs 19 crore has been made for the
implementation of the scheme in all 12 districts. The state has
submitted a proposal for covering critical-illness expenses under
which an additional coverage of up to Rs 1 lakh for meeting expense of
hospitalisation and surgical procedures treatment of heart ailments,
transplant surgeries, spinal surgeries and neurosurgery, will be
provided. The insurance for maternity expenses will provide an
additional cover up to Rs 10,000, covering normal deliveries, C-
section deliveries and newborn cases.
bademiyansubhanallah
Roadblock & gherao rock drought-hit dists
TNN 19 August 2009, 06:57am IST
GUMLA/LOHARDAGA: Road blockades and gherao of officials are on the
rise in several parts of this drought-hit state as the cry for
foodgrains reached a feverish pitch. Villagers put up a roadblock at
Langi village on NH-23 on Tuesday, demanding free foodgrain for all
families belonging to the BPL category.
The blockade, which was staged at a place some 12 kilometre from Gumla
town from around 8 am, threw traffic haywire as it went on for about
three hours. Later, police had to resort to a mild lathicharge to
clear the jam on the busy national highway, said Gumla circle officer
Praveen Rohit Kujur. He, along with Gumla police station officer-in-
charge Randhir Kumar, had almost persuaded the villagers to give up
the blockade.
Villagers were demanding BPL (below poverty line) and AAY (Anpurna
Anna Yojana) cards alleging that those who are well off have the cards
while most of them have no card of any kind. Kujur tried to convince
them by saying that the administration was conducting a door-to-door
survey through gram sabhas to ascertain the family wise state of
poverty and rescinding those names from the BPL list who actually do
not fall in this category.
The deputy commissioner's office in Lohardaga district was gheraoed
for the second day on Tuesday while road blockades were reported from
over a dozen places, including Barhi, Bhujanian Road, Masmano and
several other parts of Bhandra, Senha, Kisko and Kairo blocks.
While angry villagers manhandled officials at Bhandra block demanding
equal distribution of foodgrains, officials were locked up in their
offices at Kisko block.
Deputy commissioner M P Sinha said the district administration was yet
to receive guidelines on how to tackle such situations.
bademiyansubhanallah
JVM follows in BJP footsteps
SUDHIR KUMAR MISHRA
Ranchi, Aug. 18: The JVM(P) is out to hijack rival BJP’s political
action plan in the state.
The party today announced that it would begin its Jharkhand Janadesh
Yatra on August 28. The yatra will be led by party supremo Babulal
Marandi, who will address over 115 public meetings and convince the
masses that holding early Assembly elections was the only solution.
The JVM(P) will also send a delegation to meet the Prime Minister and
Union ministers for agriculture and rural development to suggest
effective ways and means to fight drought. Marandi does not want to
knock on the doors of the governor on the issue as his previous
memorandum went unnoticed.
A detailed programme of the JVM(P)’s campaigns has already been
published and the cadres have been assigned their new tasks. They have
been asked to ensure the success of the show.
While Marandi himself is now touring interior pockets across the state
to get first-hand account of the drought scenario, his subordinates
are trying to secure appointments with the Prime Minister and the
Union ministers.
“The state machinery under the President’s rule has failed to work out
viable alternatives. People are fighting for foodgrain. After two to
three months, they will come to blows for drinking water. All the
development schemes have flopped while the role of banks has become
questionable,” said JVM(P)’s principal general secretary Pradip Yadav
at a news conference.
He demanded the Centre to ensure that both below poverty line (BPL)
and above poverty line (APL) families receive essential commodities
through PDS outlets because the drought has affected all. As APL
ration cards too have not been issued in the state for the past 20
years, the state should work out other viable alternatives, he added.
Yadav also pressed for the formation of all-party committees at
different levels to monitor the relief operations.
Similar resolutions were taken by the state unit of BJP yesterday. The
party is also trying to secure appointments with President, Prime
Minister and governor. It is yet to announce the details of its mass
campaign programme to evoke public consciousness for a fresh mandate.
Sid Harth
Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 35, August 15, 2009 (Independence Day
Special)
“When the People Lead, the Leaders will Follow”
Wednesday 19 August 2009, by K Saradamoni
This is not a slogan that I have coined. I got it from the write-up on
the US Solidarity Economy Network which organised its first National
Forum on the Solidarity Economy: Building Another World. The write-up
continues:
The current economic crisis provides a historic opportunity to push
for an economic system that puts people and planet front and centre.
The Solidarity Economy is a growing global movement that is building
real world practices and policies grounded in principles of
solidarity, equity, participatory democracy and pluralism.
The forum took place between March 19 to 29, 2009 in the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.
Besides the forum, there are other events taking place on the theme of
Building a Society from Below. One such was a panel held in MIT on
March 19. Speakers at the panel, supported by the consulates of the
Bolivian Republic of Venezuela in Boston and New York, included the
eminent Professor Noam Chomsky. These are without doubt encouraged by
the changes taking place in the US and the world. The write-up says:
Barack Obama’s election and the Democratic Congressional majority
signal new opportunities and challenges in a period when our nation
and the world are suffering a series of disastrous wars, the most
serious economic crisis since the Great Depression and potentially
catastrophic environmental degradation, including global warming.
As President Obama’s election demonstrates real change comes from
below, from our efforts for greater peace, justice, environmental
sustainability. In a new era, we need new movement strategies to stop
wars, violent conflicts and to guarantee ourselves and others
meaningul security. This requires peace, a dynamic economy and
universal access to health care and clean environment. It has to be
repeated that this is a critical moment for peace, justice and
environmental movements, a time to organise and lead the Obama
Administration and Congress to deliver the changes that we and the
world need. Unfortunately, the composition of the Obama Cabinet, other
senior appointments and some of his policy commitments are sources of
deep concern. President Obama intends to escalate the war in
Afghanistan and Central Asia, to increase the size of the US military
and to leave tens of thousands ‘residual forces’ in Iraq.His economic
stimulus package has been criticised as inadequate and there is much
to do to protect the environment. The Obama administration and
Congress will deliver some of the changes that we and the world need,
but powerful grass roots pressure on the new Administration and
Congress will be required if our hopes for change are to be realised.
To provide clear and profound visions, campaigns, movements for
change, the American Friends Service Committee, Tufts University Peace
and Justice studies Programme and a growing number of co-sponsoring
orgamisations have organised “New Strategies for the Obama Era: Are
you Ready?“
This New England wide multi-generational movement was held at the
weekend from March 27 to 29.
But Solidarity Economy is not limited to certain areas in the US.
While the range of organisations and activities encompassed by the
term solidarity economy are the fulfilment of human needs, the
breakdown of oppressive economic hierarchies of all types, the
development of human potential, and the preservation of communities
and the environment, at the core is a transformation of the values
that motivate and organise economic activity. The Solidarity economy
rejects the individualistic, money and profit centred values of the
modern capitalistic eonomy. It recognises that economics is about our
relationships to other people and to our environment,and strives to
insert values of cooperation, equality, democracy, local community
control and sustainability into these relationships. It advocates the
expression of these values in the myriad economic decisions people
make, from an individual’s decision about what to buy or where to
work, to a business’s decisions about what technology to adopt,of how
to treat its workers, to public policy choices about how to respond to
climate change.
There are four distinct aspects to the interconnected and organic
whole that is the Solidarity economy. It is at once a collection of
existing economic practices that promote these aims and embody these
values; a network of people and organisations engaged in these
practices; a theoretical framework for understanding and analysing
these practices; and a developing local and global movement that
informs and advocates for these practices. As each of these components
grows and develops, understanding and strengthening the connections
among them will facilitate scaling up initiatives that work,
transcending political boundaries, and even challenging neoliberalism.
In the US, there are many practices that strive to embody the
Solidarity Economy values. They include fairtrade product marketing,
socially responsible investing, and community supported agriculture.
However few in this country are familiar with the term “ Solidarity
Economy”or how powerfully the term has redefined economic development
elsewhere. Worker cooperatives have existed in the US for long, but
only recently have they begun to net-work with one another, and to
work on expanding the cooperative sector. In 2004, the US Federation
of Worker Cooperatives was created to bring together local and
regional coop organising, develop new cooperatives and offer support
services to its members. The federation describes its vision as one in
which workplaces will uphold the values of empowerment, equity,
dignity and mutual respect for all workers without discrimination.
Workplaces will offer long term, stable jobs, and a living wage and
the opportunity for ownership for every worker.
The green jobs movement is also gaining momentum, responding to the
twin crises of unemployment and climate change. A number of green jobs
groups also incorporate anti-racist, community development, and work
place democracy values into their organising.… (From Crisis to Job
Creation, Labour and the Solidarity Economy. Dollars and Sense,
Massachusetts, January/February. 2009, pp 15-18)
However the development of the Solidarity Economy is not restricted to
the US. Over a decade ago, the Canadian province of Quebec turned to
the Solidarity Economy to address a serious unemployment problem.
In Latin America, the Solidarity Economy organisation has been able to
create employment opportunities for the poorest of the poor in times
of ecnomic crisis. In Argentina, after the dramatic 2001 ecnomic
collapse caused by the failure of neoliberal policies, factories
closed and capital fled. Over 20 per cent of the population was
unemployed, over half was living in poverty. Out of necessity workers
in numerous idle factories took control over the means of production.
By now over 180 factories have reopened under worker’s control giving
jobs to more than ten thousand workers. The Unemployed Workers’
Movement organised to make collective demand on the government food
parcels, public infrastructure investments and state funded locally
administered jobs. In Brazil, the social movements that were at the
core of the opposition to the military dictatorship also spearheaded
the development of the Solidarity Economy.
In the 1980s Brazil experienced a currency crisis and hyperinflation
as it changed from dictatorship to democracy. This along with the
vastly unequal distribution of income and land and all of the problems
attendant to a huge informal sector,spurred these movements to pursue
an alternative model of employment and economic development.
The Landless Workers’ Movement, the largest Social Movement in Latin
America, uses a clause in the new 1988 Constitution to seize land not
being used for its social purpose, and to create communities of
cooperative farms. The Central Union of Workers, the largest labour
federation in Brazil partnered with the Solidarity Economy movement to
new cooperatives. Since the Workers’Party has come to power
politically, it has also pursued job creation through the Solidarity
Economy. In June 2003 President Lula de Silva created the Solidarity
Economy National Secretariat within the Employment Ministry to work
with, study and support national, regional and local solidarity
economy organisations.
India
WE cannot say that the Solidarity Economy has come to be discussed in
our country. We are proud of the fact that we are a democracy, that
independent India gave voting rights to all above the age of 21(later
changed to 18) regardless of religion or caste, gender or literacy
level. The Constitution of India guaranteed to the people, again
irrespective of religion, caste, gender or place of living, that is,
rural/urban, developed/less developed, equal opportunities to develop
and grow. The government of independent India accepted development
based on five-year planning, a strong public sector which had under
its control all key sectors of the economy. The government was aware
of the inequalities persisting in the society which had deep-rooted
social and economic reasons. Schemes evolved to tackle them did not
lead to any fundamental change in the society. A catastrophe was
prevented by agriculture and a very large part of the economy known by
many names like traditional, informal, household and unorganised.
But things changed for the worse and that too with great speed in the
last two decades. This is the period when the political parties
wielding power at the Centre decided to become part of a ‘globalised
world’. Many of the earlier policies like non-acceptance of foreign
aid with ‘strings attached’ and self-reliance were discarded. In fact
foreign capital with conditions stipulated was welcomed. So also was
foreign technology at the cost of local R and D. These became easy as,
during the past sixty years, especially in the last two, three
decades, a new middle class, educated, visible and articulate, who
began to consider themselves as world citizens, had grown up. They
knowingly and unknowingly became the recipients and propagators of the
ideas of globalisation. They did not find anything wrong in the
globalisation slogans including leaner government, jobless growth,
there is no alternative (TINA). The agents of globalisation
successfully spread the idea that it has a human face and that
globalisation has a good side, and that we should learn to use it to
our advantage. Lack of clarity and/or ignorance about the impact of
globalisation is not restricted to this class. Many among those who
are seen as progressive or even radical do not take pains to
understand the realities surrounding them. When the governments, State
or Central, failed to create employment there was not sufficient
protest. Many lower level jobs in the government were made contract
work, depriving them not only of the security, but all the benefits
that went along with secure jobs. These did not happen in the case of
the well-paid, status-giving jobs. They get regular pay hype,
promotion, paid holidays and pension. However, even such jobs are
shrinking. Banks, Insurance, Postal Service and Railways etc., where
largescale recruitment used to take place, have diminished fresh
intake of employees.
Highly educated people–professionals and others – began to move to
countries like Europe, the USA and Australia in search of better
opportunities. In fact the students of the prestigious Indian
Institutes of Technology (IIT) not only left India soon after their
education, but many shifted to management after reaching there, and
later to the IT sector.
A kind of exodus happened at the lower levels too. Compelled mainly by
the absence of employment opportunities the young and even the middle-
aged, who had a job in India, searched for jobs mainly in the Middle
Eastern countries. In recent years inter-state migration, especially
of young men between the age of 16 or 17 to 25 or so, has increased in
a big way. Collapse of agriculture and all the traditional occupations
have shaken the living arrangements especially of the poor in most
parts of India. Though there is legislation to safeguard the interests
of the inter-state migrants, there life is far from satisfactory. They
live in unhealthy conditions. Neither the agents who recruit them nor
their employers care about their living conditions including food,
medical aid, hours of work, rest and entertainment which are all
necessary for them, especially in places far away from home. Those who
are engaged in works like road construction can be seen working at odd
hours at night.
Like everywhere else this largescale migration was compelled by loss
of earlier occupations and lack of new employment generation. Though
employment, especially in the Middle Eastern countries, was welcomed
and was presented as a success story, all was not well for all. People
got used to do ‘any work’ in places far away from home. There was also
a view locally that this migration resulted in a rise in the costs for
everything from carpenter and similar skilled workers to taxi drivers.
•
IN our search for the “people” who are to “lead” let me take the
readers to Kerala in southern India which many within and outside
consider as a “model”. The main reasons for this qualification
included a sex ratio favourable to women, high female literacy rate,
low infant mortality rate. Over the years many more attributes have
been added. Today the State is seen as progressive, modern, and alive
with a highly educated and politically charged people. But are they
moving towards the Solidarity Economy or creating a new society from
below? Leaving aside my earlier researches, observations and critical
comments, I am putting down what I read, saw and heard at a time when
the elections for the Lower House of the Parliament or Lok Sabha took
place. Practically every television channel arranged debates between
the main contestants and the voters. The views and hopes of the former
were also featured in the newspapers. Naturally development became a
favourite subject, and it turned around widening of roads, railways,
drinking water, and other needs of the region. However, the
inequalities the society is experiencing, and how this divide is
affecting the society did not appear as a serious matter in election
debates. Like elsewhere Kerala too is a haven for consumer goods which
cater to the middle class with plenty of disposable money. The
markets, which are flooded with newer goods every day, are seen even
by those who have no money. A new life-style, which the people of the
State had never known, gets accepted with the moneyed. A greed for
money, it can be made by any way (with no qualms about honesty or
morality), has been absorbed into the value system. While there is
government sanction for the construction of hugely expensive houses by
the moneyed, a section of the poor finds a way to make money, not in
the skilled and unskilled jobs that are necessary for that purpose.
This construction also creates a new breed of people who are better
known as the ‘mafia’. They are there in the areas of real estate,
demolition of sturdy and beautiful old-style houses, extracting sand
from river beds, illegal cutting of trees—all of them resulting in
huge depletion of natural resources and creating grave environmental
problems. There are many other new ways of making money. There are
regular newspaper reports giving details of individuals and groups
cheating or robbing ordinary, often ignorant, people, promising to get
them attractive jobs abroad, or double or treble their savings by
investing in ‘reliable’ financial enterprises. Then, there are the sex
rackets using women and children who may get a pittance when compared
to the ‘entrpreneurs’ minting money.
The story can go on endlessly. Who among the above “people” can lead
the leaders? No fresh enquiry is needed to prove that these people
have been trapped by the illusionary world the corporate powers have
set up. Of course there are people who are outside the world we have
seen above, women and men who have nothing but problems, and no way to
resolve them. They face oppression, exclusion and often have no means
of livelihood. They are sometimes driven away from the place, people
and works they have known. In this State where there are families and
women and men who can claim five, six generations of education behind
them, we can find families where even the present children find it
difficult to complete primary classes. The same disparity can be found
in having secure jobs with high salaries and positions. This can be
extended to levels and style of living. It is better not to speak
about the aspirations among the youth of the two categories of people.
What they see and get attracted to are the ever increasing high-rise
buildings, as against the slums immortalised by the cinema the Slumdog
Millionaire, the new shopping complexes and the display of goods of
all kinds that can be bought there, whether it be jewellery, made of
silver, gold, diamonds or platinum, clothes, footwear, eatables of all
sorts, toys and every other possible item. There are also the serials
and the cinema to give people ideas about life. They are different
from the olden days where the good-looking heroine and the hero went
round and round the bush singing melodious songs or dancing in
beautiful gardens. Many of the present-day movies/serials have an
overdose of violence, abusive language, villains who have a number of
goondas at their beck and call to kill the enemy and destroy her/his
property and other assets, and even life. One can see from beginning
to end scheming, manoeuvring and deviousness in human relationships.
And there are the never-ending reality shows for everyone, from the
tiny-tots to the grandparents. The prizes one can dream range from
huge amounts of money, jewellery, flat or villa. What sort of people
and society can we expect from such surroundings?
If we consider that the most deprived and despised have to “lead”,
fundamental changes will have to be made at many levels including
among the progressive sections who think about social change. The
government’s ideas of the deprived as poor divided into Above Poverty
Line (APL) and Below Poverty Line (BPL) have to be changed. The
widening gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of security
in work and wages/earnings, opportunities gained and lost, educational
levels and entry into political offices have to be studied. In this
process the people have also to be involved.This is not an easy task
in a society which has not freed itself from a hierarchical past. That
does not mean that it is not impossible. There are individuals and
groups working against globalisation and its manifestations which
include conversion of small farming into contract farming for the
benefit of foreign and Indian corporate powers, GM seeds, Special
Economic Zones etc. These may be generating some employment, but large
numbers are left out, and women and men working there do not have any
security neither in terms of employment, assured wages and hope for a
better life.
The word Alternative was heard occasionally in the election speeches
by speakers from the Left political parties. But nobody has spelled
out what Alternatives can be adopted here, especially in the context
of the present global economic crisis. True, some speakers—very few—
have said that the present Government of India have made the rich
richer and the poor poorer. The news that there are some Indians among
the richest in the world was a cause of celebration for the media.
There are millions in the world and India who not only sleep under the
sky, but with empty stomachs. The questions before us is: why is this
so, and should it be allowed to continue? If our convinced answer is
“no”, we have to chalk out ways and means of ending it. It is time
that an honest attempt at a relook into all policies and programmes
meant for the ‘upliftment of the poor’ is made. They are to get
minimum wages which they often do not get; minimum levels of living;
their children are forced to study in ill-eqipped poor schools. I am
reminded of something that happened during the apartheid rule in South
Africa. In a school run by the Dutch Reformed Church, the school
authority who was also the local priest and very powerful asked the
teachers not to let the students see the grass in the distant area as
they could never be able to graze there. The Solidarity Economy, as I
understand, upholds that one person’s or group’s success and gains
depend upon the person or group closeby. That is how cooperatives and
networking of cooperatives become important.
•
IN the Indian context we can start with the resurrection of
agriculture. Agriculture does not limit itself to the cultivation of
grains and pulses, vegetables and fruits but includes cattle rearing,
poultry, fishery, bee-keeping, forestry, irrigation, rejuvenation of
the soil, manufacturing and maintenance of essential implements. If
started and continued with honesty, commitment and earnestness, this
can generate largescale employment. Agriculture can take us to an
economic and social order which is not individualistic in nature. On
the contrary it entails cooperation, mutual support and collective
action. At present all that we hear about Indian agriculture are
farmers’ suicide, lack of labourers in time and the high wages they
demand. The answers to them from the government side are loan waiver,
insurance, and other ‘packages’. These have not so far changed the
situation for the farmers or raised their confidence about their
contribution to the society and the nation’s economy.
Along with agriculture we have to restore the ‘traditional’ industries
including weaving, carpet- making, arts and crafts in various places
famous for these products. They are not to be seen as ‘traditional,
household activities, unorganised’ etc. The women and men engaged in
these activities are not to be seen as poor and marginalised or
destitute. They have kept alive the generations-old skill and
knowledge, which we can say about the farmers and the agricultural
labourers too. What we refuse to acknowledge is that what they have
got in return is sheer neglect.
There are crucial questions which need to be sorted out immediately.
How is their work evaluated? How are the prices fixed for their
products? If we are serious about reducing poverty, it cannot be
gained by ‘gifts, and charity’. Poverty has to be seen along with
inequality, employment generation and also wages/salaries/ incomes at
different levels. The present policies of the government are far from
that. But if the country is to outlive the global economic crisis and
satisfy people’s desire to have a secure life free from the present
anxieties, tensions and tendency to put an end to life,we have to
examine the notions that have been floated till now and made the
people accept as development. While in many of the international fora
environmental degradation, climate change and global warming are
accepted as top priority in development, here they are not raised as
important issues by the parties, leaders or the people themselves.
Wide roads filled with cars, flyovers, flats and villas, shopping
complexes currently known as malls, new eating houses catering non-
local food, etc. (the list goes on and on) are also seen as
development by the elites. While railway to Sabari Mala, a famous
temple in the Western Ghats attracting huge numbers of pilgrims over a
fragile mountain area, is demanded by all, improvement in public
transport never comes up for discussion. It is not that people do not
want it as we can see large numbers of women and men waiting for hours
after work in public and private offices. So also footpaths free of
open pot holes, waste from construction material dumped here and
there. Surprisingly, food security, price rise, lack of employment,
the possibility of largescale returnees, especially from the Middle
Eastern countries, do not come up as immediate issues to be tackled.
Garbage cleaning remaining an impossible task its serious consequences
to health unfortunately escapes the attention they demand.
The political leadership and concerned social activists have failed to
educate the people at the lower strata that it is their fundamental
human right to have clean air and water, and also the wherewithals to
have a decent and secure life. These will become part of their thought
process only when they are disillusioned with the make-belief world in
which they are caught. For that to happen they should know about
viable alternatives which would come to them not as ‘benefits’ and
‘gifts’, but as the rights so far denied to them and something they
can help create.
This, I wish to repeat, is not easy at present in our country. We are
yet to see strong, grassroot movements like the Unemployment Workers’
Organisations, legislations like the one in Latin American countries
which says that land, if not used for its social purpose, would be
taken over. Loud and consistent critique of the individualistic, money
and profit oriented economy as well as the weakening bonds between
people within families and among communities are also absent. It is
for the concerned citizens, social activists and all those who want to
see a peaceful, harmonious and contented India to make the people
realise their rights and roles and the treachery hiding behind the
attractions the neo-liberal economy offers.
The author is a renowned economist and concerned social activist based
in Thiruvananthapuram.
Sid Harth
Priyadarshi Siddhanta
Posted: Thursday, Aug 20, 2009 at 0925 hrs IST
Updated: Thursday, Aug 20, 2009 at 0925 hrs IST
Discuss New Delhi: The issue of poverty estimation seems to be getting
more complicated as a government-sponsored panel has now said that
about 38 per cent Indians are poor — 10 percentage points higher than
a previous estimate.
The states are already opposed to the Centre’s calculations on poverty
estimation. In an interim finding, former chief of the Prime
Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Suresh Tendulkar has estimated
that 38 per cent of India’s population (comprising 8.32 crore
families) is poor.
The Planning Commission in 2004-05 had said that 28.5 per cent of the
country’s population was poor. The estimate was based on a National
Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey’s finding which said an
income of Rs 560 per month for urban families was enough to purchase
2,100 calories of nutrition and an income of Rs 368 per month was
enough to purchase 2,400 calories of nutrition in rural areas.
However, different government bodies disputed the plan panel’s
estimate. In 2007, the Arjun Sengupta committee had said that 77 per
cent of India’s population was living below the poverty line, earning
less than Rs 20 per day.
In June 2009, a rural development ministry-sponsored committee headed
by N C Saxena to fix criteria for the Below Poverty Line survey in
India had estimated that 50 per cent of Indians were poor. The Saxena
Committee’s estimate matched the number of BPL ration cards issued so
far — 10.86 crore households. As per the estimate, 10.87 crore
households will have to be issued cards as per the new estimation,
starting January 2010.
In the backdrop of the findings of these committees and the UPA
government’s pledge to give a legal guarantee of food for everyone,
Tendulkar was asked to determine the number of poor in India based on
the new nutritional realities of the country. Abhijit Sen, the
commission member in-charge of food, had advocated that the new
estimation methodology be based on income. In line with the changing
poverty estimates, the figures for annual subsidy requirement too
changed. According to official estimates, 10.86 crore families
currently hold BPL cards with each family drawing 25-kg foodgrains per
month entailing a subsidy of about Rs 28,890.56 crore. If the Saxena
Committee’s findings were factored in, then nearly 10.87 crore
families would mean a government subsidy of nearly Rs 36,812.62 crore.
And now with Tendulkar pegging BPL families at 8.32 crore, the subsidy
bill would be nearly Rs 47,917.22 crore. The Planning...
...and Iam Sid Harth
Sid Harth
New report shows increase in rural poorThe report, however, does show
that poverty levels have declined from the mid-1990s
Anil Padmanabhan and Sangeeta Singh
New Delhi: Four out of 10 people in rural areas in India are poor,
according to a new report—a significant change from an existing
estimate dating back to 2004-05, the most recent data available, that
pegs rural poverty at 28.5% (which means around three in 10 people in
rural areas are poor).
The report, however, does show that poverty levels have declined from
the mid-1990s.
If the government accepts the report, which is to be submitted next
month, it will have implications for public policy, increase the
fiscal burden on the government and lead to greater devolution of
resources to states with larger number of poor people.
Also See Tracking The Poor (Graphics)
The potentially controversial findings are part of the report of the
high-level expert group appointed by the Planning Commission and
chaired by Suresh Tendulkar, former chairman of the National
Statistical Commission. Tendulkar could not be immediately reached for
comment.
Some details of this report were first reported on 20 August by the
Hindustan Times, which is published by HT Media Ltd that also
publishes Mint.
According to a person in the Planning Commission who has viewed the
contents of the draft report, but did not want to be identified, it
estimates the number of rural poor in 2004-05 at 42% of the rural
population, as opposed to the existing estimate of 28.5%.
The report also estimates that between 1993-94 and 2004-05, the number
of rural poor dropped from 50% to 42% and in urban India from 31% to
26%. This is also the period when the country witnessed an
acceleration in economic reforms and the beginnings of an
unprecedented surge in growth that pitchforked India into the
exclusive preserve of trillion-dollar economies.
New norms
The report has also revised the number of poor in the states. In urban
areas, the trend is mixed, with some states showing a higher number of
poor people after the revision and some, lower. However, in rural
areas, the revision has been uniformly upwards.
The revision in the poverty estimates came about after the expert
group revised and expanded the norms that define people living below
the poverty line (BPL). The group was mandated to calculate the
poverty line and the proportion of the population below it, and if
required, to redraw the line itself.
Conventionally, poverty in India has been measured through a minimum
household consumption level estimated by the National Sample Survey
Organisation, part of the Central Statistical Organisation, the apex
statistical body. This measure was anchored in the per capita calorie
norms of 2,400 (rural) and 2,100 (urban) per day. The existing
official poverty line was originally defined in terms of per capita
total consumption expenditure at 1973-74 prices; while the original
reference basket of goods and services was left unchanged. This is
periodically updated by an expert group, using state price indices.
However, the calorie count—which measures individual consumption—
assumed in the original poverty line in 1973 has not changed.
Now, the expert group has completely reordered these norms by doing
away with the upper bound for the calorie count per person,
standardized the price indices and at the same time expanded the
criteria to include education, health and actual spending on rent and
conveyance as part of the individual’s consumption basket.
The committee justified this shift on the grounds that: the
consumption basket of the poor was getting upgraded with the rapid
economic growth and rising living standards; the crude price
adjustment for inflation was leading to implausible results, wherein
urban poverty ratio was higher than that of rural areas in some
states; the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers that was
used for measuring inflation for the rural population tended to
understate the price rise and hence the extent of rural poverty; and
the earlier measure of poverty did not cover private expenditure on
education and health, which have been increasing over time.
The impact
This fundamental shift in approach, explains an official familiar with
the findings, recognizes fundamental changes in the economy and
revisits basic assumptions on poverty. In the 1970s, the implicit
assumption was that it would be difficult for a BPL person to break
free of the shackles of poverty; hence the response of public policy
was to prevent starvation. In the new millennium, in a fundamentally
transformed economy, by including health and education, the expert
group has implicitly asserted that these are requirements for someone
to come out of poverty.
According to Harsh Mander, Supreme Court commissioner on the right to
food, if Tendulkar has included education, health and actual spending
on rent, it’s a very good idea and a reasonable measure of poverty.
“Today, a street child can earn up to Rs100 a day. By convention he
should be out of poverty, but does he have the shelter and facilities
to educate himself and get health benefits?”
Mander also said that expert groups and the government deliberately
minimize one’s satisfaction levels so that the quantum of government
expenditure on anti-poverty measures is reduced. “Food consumption and
per capita income are narrow measures of poverty. It is necessary to
improve one’s capabilities in order to move one out of poverty, and
education, shelter and good health help doing that.”
He added that even Arjun Sengupta has said over 76% of people in India
are poor.
The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector
(NCEUS), in a report brought in 2007, said that a majority of the
population, 77%, subsists at incomes just above the poverty line, at
Rs12 per person per day, and much below the prevailing minimum wages,
which range between Rs40 and Rs150 a day across most states. Sengupta
was the chairman of the commission.
“I cannot comment till I have seen the report. Having said that, I
feel Suresh (Suresh Tendulkar) is a good economist and if he says
something, it has to be taken seriously,” said Sengupta, former
chairman of NCEUS.
Y.K. Alagh, economist and former Union minister and also the person
who had headed the earlier expert group on poverty that measured
poverty in terms of calorific value, had a different perspective.
While maintaining that it was difficult to comment on the report
without actually seeing it, he said: “The earlier theory was that the
state should take care of food consumption of the poor under the basic
minimum needs programme, and education and healthcare are anyway
responsibility of the state. The 11th Plan also says that government
should take care of necessities of the poor.”
“I don’t know whether Tendulkar has assumed that private sector is
willing to take care of these facilities (education and health) or
that government facilities are not up to the mark, but I am sure he
has used some sound logic,” added Alagh.
Photo by Ramesh Pathania / Mint and graphic by Ahmed Raza Khan / Mint
Sid Harth
A vote bank called NREGSWith the new changes in store, chances are the
rural jobs scheme will become a vehicle for gigantic expenditures in
the name of the poor with very little money actually going to the poor
We have for long said that the National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme (NREGS) has the potential to turn into one large political and
bureaucratic machine. With the changes now being considered in the
programme, that may be announced soon, the chances are it will become
a vehicle for gigantic expenditures in the name of the poor with very
little money actually going to the poor.
From being an employment guarantee programme NREGS is being mutated
into a vast official set-up with its own permanent staff and “mini
secretariats” at the village assembly level. In addition, the nature
of work allowed under NREGS is being changed: From being a public
programme where the rural landless poor work on the creation of public
assets, the government now plans to permit work on private sites, such
as farms of small and marginal farmers as NREGS work.
The original instigators of NREGS, Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy and others,
have decried the move. They should have known better: In India
“welfare” schemes often meet this fate. But their ignorance is another
story.
The ministry of rural development has claimed that so far, Rs60,350
crore has been expended on NREGS. Of this amount, Rs41,000 crore has
been spent as wages under the scheme. If a permanent bureaucracy is
created, it is certain that spending under wages will come down
drastically due to salaries being paid to officials. The plan, at the
moment, is to recruit a permanent cadre of local officials called lok
sewaks who will “safeguard” NREGS workers. It is anybody’s guess
whether these officials will safeguard these workers or ensure that no
one gets any work.
More pernicious, however, is the plan to classify work on private
sites as NREGS work. There is no economic rationale for that. Work on
private site involves private assets: Anyone who owns land or any
other asset, however meagre, has no business being on NREGS rolls.
Once this is allowed, vote bank politics will kick in like a torrent.
Money will only flow to those whom officials, and in turn their
political masters, favour. This will ensure that the real rural poor
get no work under NREGS.
Corruption in publicly funded programmes in India is inevitable: The
wonder is that a flagship employment scheme is being subverted so
openly and on a breathtaking scale.
Is this the end of the road for NREGS? Tell us at vi...@livemint.com
bademiyansubhanallah
bademiyansubhanallah
Ending rich-poor divide more vital than being PM: Rahul
Posted: Friday , Aug 21, 2009 at 1505 hrs
Raipur:
AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi addresses the media in
Raipur.Related ArticlesMost Read Articles
Minister points out problems with NREGS, Rahul stays mum
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that ending
the wide disparity between rich and poor in the country is more
important than being the Prime Minister.
"Today, there are two worlds in the country. One which is progressing
very fast and another the backward one, which includes states like
Chhattisgarh," Rahul told reporters in Raipur on Friday.
The Congress leader said that working towards making both the worlds
progress and develop simultaneously is more important for him than
being a minister of prime minister.
He also said that Chhattisgarh government is not doing enough to deal
with Naxalism.
"I have already said that Naxalism will prosper wherever the benefits
of welfare schemes do not reach," he said adding Chhattisgarh is
suffering because of the same problem.
He, however, evaded reply when asked if Congress party intends to end
reservations in the country.
Rahul said that the poor in the country do not have any identity.
"At times, even the ration card provided to them turns out to be fake.
They also have to face a lot of problem if migrated to other states,"
he said.
"To deal with such problems it is very important that an identity is
provided to all."
"Therefore, an ambitious project to provide a unique identity card to
all in the country has been undertaken," he said adding it will not be
based on caste, class or religion.
Rahul Gandhi is on a two-day tour of the state to review elections in
National Students Union of India.
"More and more youth are joining NSUI," he said adding they should
work their way to the top in a democratic manner.
Gap between rich and poor
By: A.Dias | 21-Aug-2009
It is true that there are two worlds in the country i.e. Rich and
Poor. But one thing is sure that Congress Politicians are not there in
the Poor world. Congressmen by nature are the corrupt people in the
country. Congress Party brought and flourished the Corruption in the
country. Congress Party is fully responsible to run these two worlds
in the Country. It is good Mr.Rahul has realised that Poor people has
the right to live a decent life in India. Mr. Rahul, to make this- the
first step is Stop Corruption at every level in your Government. Make
sure your M.P's and MLA's are accountable. Check their loot. See how
fat they have become overnight by looting the people. Set a target
date to make country Corruption free. Bring stringent laws to deal
with corruption. Today, the politicians are the most corrupt people in
the country. Deal with them first if you really love the poor and the
country. Show that you can do this. WE INDIANS LOVE YOU. Jai Hind!!!!
Rich - Poor Vs The real divide)
By: S. Desikar | 21-Aug-2009
What does this mean? Will rich become poor or the poor become rich?
How will having an ID eradicate poverty?People in power should
understand that poor are not craving to become rich. Do what may there
will be poverty or the divide (as even in developed countries). More
important is how citizens feel living in the country. Needed are> All
should be same before law.> Clear separation of power (water tight)>
Make justice fast
Rahul Gandhi's intentions
By: Anurag | 21-Aug-2009
I must praise the Congress for their strategy- Send Rahul baba go to
undeveloped areas in non-Congress led states and have him give
statements to the media that show how much he cares for the youth,
democracy and development of the poor. I wonder if Rahul baba ever
realizes that when he criticizes the Chattisgarh govt for weak action
against the Naxals, that his party has been a strong opponent of Salwa
Judum (which was to a certain extent effective in holding the Naxal
tide). He talks of lack of development, and his concern (if genuine)
should be appaluded, but should we also not remind him that for 47
years Congress has ruled India, that for 35 years a member of the
Nehru-Indira lineage has been P.M.? Democracy should also involve
accountability, and where is the accountability in conveniently
negelecting your own failures and berating others for that ? And
finally, it was found that majority of new recruits in NSUI in Surat
(who joined under his watch) were actually fake !
welldone Rahul
By: sasi | 21-Aug-2009
It is very pleasant to hear .It proves the desire of a young man with
a servise mode.Our claps to you ,keep it up.Please upheld the slogan
to eradicate corruption from the politicians,govt. servants etc .Then
congress can win the match easily .
Rich-Poor
By: S. Desikar | 21-Aug-2009
What does this mean? Will rich become poor or the poor become rich?
How will having an ID eradicate poverty?> All should be same before
law.> Clear separation of power (water tight)> Punish the guilty quick
and fast, without favour.> The perception that one can get away with
making mistake in India to change.> Hypocratic mentality to be done
away with (all else need to stand in line and me not, jumping traffic
light is ok but still I am law abiding).>Do away with cuts,
commissions and bribe culture. Would be difficult since votes need to
be bought (in parliment too).> Accept merit has to be one of the
criteria and last of all> People to take pride in calling Indian.
bademiyansubhanallah
Top Article: Creative Leadership Can Make All The Difference
GEETANJALI KIRLOSKAR22 August 2009, 12:00am IST
The recession has, thank God, stopped all of us crowing about how
India is rising and shining. Giving us time to reflect on it in terms
of our
personal value systems and not "irrational exuberance".
But did the 'boom' pull everybody's quality of life up? Without doubt,
agriculture only 20 per cent of our GDP but supporting 60 per cent of
our population grew at a healthy clip.
The NREGS benefited 44 million families. The debt write-off made the
lives of 43 million farmers a little easier. But travelling
extensively around India, one cannot say that life for the poor and
even lower middle classes has changed substantially over the past
decade.
The tide is coming in and, if we grab the opportunity, every single
one of us 1.1 billion Indians can rise. If this tide is not harnessed,
it will result in social and economic conflicts leaving India worse
off than before. The India growth story is on razor's edge in almost
all dimensions.
India's young have driven the growth story. Our educated, English-
speaking youth have made India the world's back office. But the back
office business can absorb only a fraction of our almost limitless
supply of the young which will continue to increase well into this
century's third decade.
India must ensure all its young have a shot at getting educated well.
The Right to Education Bill has been passed and i will be rooting for
it to achieve its objectives. To paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt, we
cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our
youth for the future.
India must ensure its educated young have more avenues of productive
growth than just the IT-BPO industries. More sectors need to take off.
The central challenge is in promoting originality and innovation.
India cannot emulate its way to success.
We cannot do a US or a Japan. The US's population density is 30 times
lower than India's. The US had to do a lot less with a lot more
resources. But India has time on its side. We can find sustainable
growth models that harness modern technology provided we learn from
others' mistakes and innovate.
India has no dearth of grassroots innovation yielding world class
results in diverse fields. Consider the story of Ram Charan. He grew
up in a small town in UP.
In his early years he worked in his family's modest shoe shop. As he
saw his father juggle the shop's finances to meet the income rhythms
of mostly rural customers, he learnt the importance of carefully
managed cash flow.
Today he is a world-renowned consultant to global companies. In the
recession his practice, unlike that of some consulting giants, is
unaffected as he helps clients through turbulent times, adapting the
lessons he learnt in his father's little shop.
Consider India's private health care sector. Doctors have fearlessly
rejected new technologies like surgical robots and keyhole surgery
kits despite these being popular in the West as fanciful and not cost-
effective.
Instead they innovate, making breakthroughs like 'beating heart'
surgery which causes less pain, does not require general anesthesia,
has the patient faster on his feet and costs less! 'Beating heart'
surgery has medical tourists from across the world flocking to
Bangalore.
Paul Yock, head of Stanford University's bio-design laboratory which
develops medical devices, thinks that amid growing concerns about
runaway health spending, the global industry can find inspiration in
India on how to serve need without being blind to cost.
The Indian as an individual has in every field across the world,
including business, demonstrated innovation and originality. But as a
society and as communities, India is among the world's least
innovative.
In every social sector public education, public health, public
infrastructure, public morality India is abysmally below world class
standards, ranking below 100 in the comity of nations.
India has always been a land of contrast. But this contrasts between
the achievement of individuals and businesses and the continuing rot
of India as a society can destroy us all. India must and will find a
solution. Indian society needs a new kind of leadership.
While the most visible component of a society's leadership is the
people in the corridors of power, an equally if not more important
component is at the grassroots: the village sarpanch, the wise teacher
whose counsel many seek, the respected NGO worker, the journalist
respected for his perspective and his integrity, the spiritual or
religious leader who is his community's rallying point.
This ecosystem of leadership needs to shift from perpetuating the
status quo to being a catalyst of change. To me, the greatest sign of
hope is that this is beginning to happen.
The general election results were a symptom of this tectonic shift.
More important, the most potent political force to emerge from the
election is a quiet young man who continues to concentrate on building
a new apparatus of leadership at the grassroots. With creative
leadership, India will become innovative at the societal level.
Combine this with the innovative abilities of individuals and business
and India could reach a strategic inflection point that finally puts
it on a path that lifts millions to a life without lack.
The writer is chairperson, India Japan Initiative.
Sid Harth
Friday, August 21, 2009
INDIA BECOMING POORER?
STILL IN HOPE OF BETTEMENT
S.D.Tendulkar, the former chairman of Prime Minister’s economic
advisory council has prepared a report, according to which India has
38 % population below poverty line (BPL). At present Planning
commission of India’s 2006 figure is only 28.5%. of the population is
under BPL.
If Tendulkar’s report is accepted officially by the Govt and the
Planning commission, there shall be an addition of about 11 crore
populations in the exiting number of people living BPL. In India,
since 1972, Poverty is being calculated in terms of calories. 2100
calories for Urban and 2400 calories for rural areas are the
yardsticks to measure poverty in India.
Tendulkar has used different methodology for this survey and took
education, health, sanitation, nutrition and household income etc into
account while calculating Poverty, the definition of which has always
been a point of difference amongst economists and experts. Many
experts, economists and rights activists believe, and they give some
convincing arguments also to support their views, that poverty
measurement formula in India is not satisfactory, there are actually
more people below BPL, they argue.
Efforts has had been made earlier also by the government in order to
find a broader consensus on the definition of poverty. One N.C.Saxena
committee was formed by government in June this year which suggested
that 50% people are under BPL. In 2007, Arjun Sengupta, associated
with National commission for enterprises in unorganised sector, said
that 77% of Indians are in BPL.
Only a couple of years ago, NSSO, the national sampling govt
organisation, has thrown a figure in the public domain that about 70%
of populations in India don’t even spend 20Rs/- a day on them. Whereas
in this country itself, there are people who gifts 700 crores plane to
his wife on birthday. The number of HNI in India is increasing with
galloping speed and it has crossed one lakh figure till date. What a
contrast and irony in deed!
Nitish Kr, CM of Bihar, only a couple of years ago, organised one
‘Global Seminar’ at Patna for evolving a unanimous definition on
poverty. It was attended by a plethora of luminaries from across
different fields ranging from economy to science and from NGO to
government functionaries. The seminar deliberated upon ‘Poverty’ and
consensus was arrived at that the definition of poverty should be made
‘broad based’. Kumar had called on the union government to reconsider
the determinants to define the poverty. The report of Tendular has
vindicated the stand of Nitish kumar.
FALL OUT ON PROPOSED NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT- the union government
is to come out with a historic bill on food security in the next
session of parliament. The proposed legislation is historic in the
sense that it would guarantee availability of at least 25 Kg of grains
to one BPL families per month @ 3 Rs/-. The proposed legislation would
incur an additional 9500 crore rupees on the subsidy of the grains. At
present government is incurring 37,010 crore rupees on the subsidy of
the food meant for BPL families.
Posted by Om Prakash Yadav at 10:40 PM
Sid Harth
Hope for BPL families, landless farmers
KOLKATA, 21 AUG: The state government today announced the launch of
three schemes for widows belonging to Below Poverty Line (BPL)
families, persons with certain disabilities and farmers who have lost
land. The initiative would be taken up very soon.
State panchayat and rural development department minister, Mr Anisur
Rahman today said the state would launch the Indira Gandhi National
Widow Pension Scheme (IGNWPS) for BPL widows aged between 40 and 64
years, Indira Gandhi National Disabled Pension Scheme (IGNDPS) for
disabled persons aged between 18 and 64 years and an insurance scheme
for landless farmers aged between 18 and 59 years soon in the state.
The minister said all the widows fulfilling the criteria and living in
gram panchayat areas or municipal areas would be given Rs 400 every
month as pension.
The Centre would bear 50 per cent (Rs 200) of the expenditre and the
remaining 50 per cent would be shouldered by the state. Similarly,
disabled persons aged between 18 and 64 years would get a pension of
Rs 400 every month. The Centre would bear 50 per cent of the cost and
the rest would be given by the state.
In case of the insurance scheme, one time premium of Rs 200 has to be
given per head. The state and the Centre would share Rs 100 each to
pay the premium. Under this pension scheme, a farmer's family would
get Rs 30,000 in case of natural death. In case of accidental death,
Rs 75,000 would be given and if a farmer becomes disabled completely,
he would get Rs 75,000. If a farmer becomes partially disabled, he
would get Rs 37,500 under the scheme.SNS
bademiyansubhanallah
Severe poverty in rural areas of India: Report
By: Babu Thomas
Saturday, 22 August 2009, 9:34 (IST)
According to a government estimate, 38 per cent Indians live in severe
poverty — 10 per cent higher than a previous estimate.
The report, by the Planning Commission chaired by Suresh Tendulkar,
former chairman of the National Statistical Commission, states four
out of 10 people in rural areas in India are poor.
Earlier in 2004-05, the Planning Commission had said that 28.5 per
cent of the country’s population was poor, based on a survey by the
National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).
The finding said an income of Rs 560 per month for urban families was
enough to purchase 2,100 calories of nutrition and an income of Rs 368
per month was enough to purchase 2,400 calories of nutrition in rural
areas.
Later, in 2007 a different version was rendered by the Arun Sengupta
committee that said 77 per cent of India’s population was living below
the poverty line. Says the committee, mostly all of those earned less
than Rs 20 per day.
According to the current estimates, the number of poor in India is
approximately 297 million. This means the government will have to
spend an additional $1.9bn on ensuring food security to the poor.
In the last four years, the Indian government has spent $31.19bn on
poverty alleviation schemes.
Interestingly, the latest report does also show that poverty levels
have declined from the mid-1990s. Between 1993-94 and 2004-05, the
number of rural poor dropped from 50 per cent to 42 per cent and in
urban India from 31 per cent to 26 per cent.
Sid Harth
Are you below/above the poverty line?
Nistula Hebbar / DNA
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:01 IST
New Delhi: How many are really poor in India? The figures have always
been disputed. But now, the rural development ministry is coming out
with a new set of criteria to determine who makes it to the below
poverty line (BPL) list.
"The ministry has finalised five characteristics that will decide
whether a person is below or above the poverty line," said a source in
the ministry. The criteria were cleared at a meeting of state rural
development secretaries on June 13.
Families who meet any one or more of the following criteria will not
be considered eligible for BPL listing: A monthly income of over
Rs5,000, a person owning a mechanised farm implement or a two-wheeler
and above, living in a pucca house of about 1,100 square feet.
The land holding of a family should also be less than the district's
average land holding size to be considered eligible for BPL category.
"The enumeration will begin at the end of this month and continue till
January 2010. After a preliminary survey by the village panchayat, a
rough list will be posted on the walls of the panchayat building.
After that someone from another block will come and, helped by three
people from the village, verify the list.
Sid Harth
Posted: Tue, Aug 25 2009. 11:00 PM ISTEconomy and Politics
Food subsidies to rise 25-140% under new criteria
New measure includes education, health, rent and conveyance as part of
individual’s consumption basketSangeeta Singh
The cost of food subsidy for the poor can rise by between 25% and
140%, reaching as much as a staggering Rs90,000 crore, if new
definitions of poverty suggested by two expert panels are adopted by
the government, according to an analysis by the Planning Commission,
India’s apex planning body.
More benefits? A true estimate of BPL families has become important
for two reasons--to tackle the problem of the government’s rising
subsidy bills and implementation of the proposed National Food
Security Act. Ramesh Pathania / Mint
One expert group was headed by Suresh Tendulkar, former chairman of
the National Statistical Commission, and will submit its report to the
government next month. It estimated that four out of 10 people in
rural areas are poor, a significant increase over the most recent
estimate, dating back to 2004-05, that pegged rural poverty at 28.5%.
The group, appointed by the Planning Commission, expanded the criteria
for defining those below the poverty line (BPL) by including
education, health and actual spending on rent and conveyance as part
of an individual’s consumption basket, besides expenditure on food.
The other report was prepared by the National Commission for
Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector, headed by Arjun Sengupta, and
was published in 2007. That report said 77% of the population subsists
at just Rs12 per person per day, much below the prevailing minimum
wage, which ranges between Rs40 and Rs150 a day across states.
Click here to watch India’s overhauled definition of poverty
According to the Planning Commission analysis, the number of persons
living BPL stands at 36% of the total population, or 65.2 million
families. These figures pertain to poverty as estimated in 1993-94. At
a monthly allocation of 35kg of foodgrains per month per family, the
annual subsidy to BPL families works out to Rs37,000 crore.
“These figures rise to Rs46,500 crore, or by 25%, if we were to adopt
the definition of poverty as estimated by Suresh Tendulkar,” said a
Planning Commission official, who didn’t want to be identified.
“According to his report, all-India poverty figures stand at 38%.”
According to the same Planning Commission analysis, the government
will have to spend as much as Rs90,000 crore as food subsidy on BPL
families, 140% more than the present subsidy cost, if the Sengupta
report is accepted.
Food subsidy is the largest explicit subsidy in the government’s
budget. The budget estimate of the food subsidy bill for fiscal
2009-10 was Rs42,490 crore. Apart from subsidy on foodgrains sold
through the public distribution system to BPL families, the cost
includes welfare programmes such as mid-day meal schemes meant for
schoolchildren.
The Planning Commission official also said the Centre is continually
being told by states to increase the BPL count. The total number of
BPL cards, which entitle holders to subsidized foodgrains, already
issued by state governments is 109 million.
Union food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar last week told
reporters in New Delhi that if states were to have their way, the BPL
population can be as high as 80-85% of India’s total population.
Conventionally, poverty in India has been measured through a minimum
household consumption level estimated by the National Sample Survey
Organisation, part of the Central Statistical Organisation, the apex
statistical body. This measure was anchored in the per capita calorie
norms of 2,400 (rural) and 2,100 (urban) per day.
The existing official poverty line was originally defined in terms of
per capita total consumption expenditure at 1973-74 prices; the
original reference basket of goods and services was left unchanged.
This is periodically updated by an expert group, using state price
indices. However, the calorie count—which measures individual
consumption— assumed in the original poverty line in 1973 has not
changed.
A true estimate of BPL families has become important for two reasons—
to tackle the problem of the government’s rising subsidy bills and
implementation of the United Progressive Alliance’s proposed National
Food Security Act.
Under the legislation, every BPL family in rural as well as urban
areas will be entitled, by law, to 25kg of rice or wheat per month at
Rs3 per kg.
A note for the empowered group of ministers on the National Food
Security Act, a copy of which was reviewed by Mint, says the
government will soon have to come up with well defined figures for BPL
families to decide what number will be covered under the Act, besides
working out a mechanism to identify BPL families in rural and urban
areas.
Social worker Harsh Mander, a special commissioner appointed by the
Supreme Court to advise it on the right to food, hunger and state
responsibility, said a larger BPL population would reflect a “more
correct scenario of the poor in India”.
“Spending on education, health and shelter are basic necessities,
which help in capacity building and, therefore, should be included
while calculating poverty,” he said.
bademiyansubhanallah
August 26, 2009
Legislating against hunger
Zoya Hasan
AP A child outside her home at a roadside slum area in Allahabad.
Photo: AP
The time has come for a comprehensive right-to-food law to tackle the
deprivation and food insecurity that haunts India.The essential
demands of the campaign have to be seen in the context of the
nutritional emergency in India and the need to address the structural
roots of hunger.
Over the last decade or so, a series of developments have drawn
attention to the problem of food security. These are the persistence
of hunger in many parts of the country being juxtaposed with food
surpluses and stocks; the adverse impact of globalisation on
agriculture and rising food prices resulting in widespread food
insecurity; media reports of starvation deaths, hunger and
malnutrition and, finally, the Supreme Court rulings in response to
public interest litigation.
Despite reports of hunger and rampant malnourishment, the government
has not paid enough attention to ensuring food security. In the last
few years civil society campaigns, public interest litigation and
directions issued by the courts have converted the benefits of
nutrition-related schemes into legal entitlements. As a consequence,
food security is emerging as a significant policy area for public
intervention and public demands stressing a rights-based approach to
ensure it. The central idea of the right-to-food campaign that started
in 2001 is simply this: the right to food is one of the basic economic
and social rights to achieve substantive democracy, and without it
political democracy is incomplete. It is directly linked to the right
to life, a fundamental human right enshrined in the Constitution and
conceivably all human rights conceptions.
The essential demands of the campaign have to be seen in the context
of the nutritional emergency in India and the need to address the
structural roots of hunger. Indias track record, as far as the
commitment to tackling hunger and malnutrition is concerned, is among
the worst. The National Family Health Survey (2006) showed that the
child under-nutrition rate in India is 46 per cent. This figure is
almost double that of sub-Saharan Africa, which is economically poorer
than India. In the Global Hunger Index (2008), India ranks 66th among
the 88 countries surveyed by the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI). It comes below Sudan, Nigeria and Cameroon, and
slightly above Bangladesh. The recent rise in food prices has possibly
made matters worse in terms of peoples access to food. The blame for
this nutritional emergency has to be shared by the persistence of
widespread poverty, poor implementation of government programmes
(especially Integrated Child Development Services and the Public
Distribution System), and various other factors that interact in many
ways to produce this dismal result.
Few countries in the world can claim to have achieved total food
security. Even fewer of them have introduced legislation to guarantee
it. Implementing this right requires not only equitable and
sustainable food systems and increases in agricultural productivity
but the purchasing power to buy the necessary food. This, in turn,
requires means of livelihood security such as the right to work and
social security. Since those at risk of hunger are poor and also
socially powerless, discriminated and marginalised, an enabling legal
entitlement can weaken the power of entrenched interests arraigned
against them, and empower the intended beneficiaries by assigning the
responsibility and culpability of the government since the primary
responsibility for guaranteeing these entitlements rests with the
state.
The Congress 2009 election manifesto promised to enact a law to
facilitate access to sufficient food for all, particularly the most
vulnerable and deprived sections of society. The party is keen to
implement this promise, which has much to do with the widely held view
that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) played an
important part in the Congress election victory. Not surprisingly,
making access to food a fundamental right is likely to become the
centrepiece of the United Progressive Alliances second innings.
Politically the main challenge is to ensure that the Right to Food law
is not limited to the fulfillment of the Congress election promise of
25 kg of grain a month at Rs. 3 a kg for Below Poverty Line families:
this would amount to whittling down the peoples access to food in the
guise of the new law. However, Sonia Gandhis very first letter to the
Prime Minister on the food security issue after the installation of
the UPA government raises the hope that the proposed legislation will
offer a more comprehensive guarantee of food security for the poor.
The draft of the Right to Food (Guarantee of Safety and Security) Bill
has been widely criticised for its excessive focus on freezing the
number of the poorest-of-the-poor who need guaranteed food
entitlements. Since then there has been a big debate on the scale and
scope of the proposed law.
Three conceptual issues are critical to the provision of an effective
food security law. These pertain to how much to give, at what prices,
and to whom. On the first issue, there is a consensus that the
entitlement under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana which stands at 35 kg of
foodgrains per poor household, which is anyway below national
nutritional norms, should not be cut.
On the second issue, the rate of Rs. 3 a kg for rice and wheat that
the Congress has promised is higher than the existing price of
foodgrains available to BPL households in several major States and
this would mean paying more for less foodgrains. The entitlements
should not be cut to 25 kg, and BPL families receiving wheat at Rs. 2
should obviously continue to do so.
Of the three issues, the criterion for identifying beneficiaries and
coverage under the food security law is the most crucial. Taking a
minimalist view, the Food Ministry proposes to find a way to limit
this list to BPL households, at a level decided by the Centre, and
without giving much flexibility to the States to expand the list.
However, BPL estimates vary sharply because of the different methods
used to determine the beneficiaries. While the Planning Commission
estimates that there are just over 62 million BPL families, State
governments claim the existence of nearly double that number. Adding
to this debate, a recent report by a Supreme Court-appointed panel on
food security says the number of food-insecure people is larger than
the figures of people officially declared as being poor.
Limiting access to the public distribution system in terms of food to
BPL families is at variance with the current political expectations
from a law that must ensure food for all to combat widespread
malnourishment and hunger. Narrow targeting of food security on the
basis of income poverty is likely to exclude a large part of the
vulnerable population. The key to an inclusive approach to food
security is a guarantee of universal access rather than getting bogged
down in ascertaining the target group. For this it is necessary to
delink food security from poverty which would help avoid the mistakes
inherent in targeting: unfair exclusion of the really poor and the
gratuitous inclusion of the non-poor. Above all, a law to make access
to food a fundamental right for all must not be hindered by the
question of additional fund allocation or subsidy.
Recent campaigns for the right to food, education, work, and
information have brought issues of deprivation and livelihood
centrestage as never before. Some of these campaigns have produced
substantial results in the form of the NREGA and the Right to
Information Act. The time has now come to put in place a comprehensive
right-to-food legislation that can begin to tackle the colossal
deprivation and food insecurity that continues to haunt the country. A
food security law will be effective only if it is based on universal
access and ensures that the nutritional requirements of every citizen
are met.
This also means that the entitlement must be individual and not
household-based. Based on individual entitlements, such a law would be
able to avoid the difficulties faced by many of the rural development
programmes, including the NREGS, which are only nominally rights-based
and are heavily dependent on the benevolence and discretion of the
implementing government. Such a law will not only give an impetus to
the UPAs paradigm of inclusive politics but underline the important
point that the right to food, to health, to education, and to
employment are interdependent and incomplete without one another.
( Zoya Hasan is a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)
bademiyansubhanallah
Haryana eases building norms, makes room for cheaper homes
Posted by paragjani on August 27, 2009
New Delhi: Homebuyers can now look forward to buying homes for as low
as Rs 4 lakh to Rs 16 lakh in Gurgaon, thanks to a recent policy
initiative by the Haryana government. The state government’s new
scheme caps the price of the homes built by developers in return for
permission to builders to make more housing units of smaller sizes in
the same area.
Developers say the scheme will help launch new projects and increase
cashflow . “Projects under the scheme would give minimal margin.
Nevertheless , developers would be encouraged to launch homes under
the scheme, as there is a great demand for low-cost homes,” says Navin
Raheja, chairman of Delhi-based Raheja Developers that plans to
shortly launch some projects in Gurgaon under the scheme.
The incentives for developers include a relaxed density norm (from
current 250 people per acre in Gurgaon to 600 people per acre) and
higher ground coverage area from 35% to 50%. “The move to relax
density norms will help us build smaller homes and thus make them more
affordable ,” Unitech head of corporate planning R Nagraju said,
adding that it was impossible to build homes of less than 1,500 sq ft
on average under present density norms. Under the new scheme, a 10-
acre plot will be able to house over 1,200 dwelling units as against
450 units at present, Mr Raheja estimates.
A larger ground coverage means concrete structure could occupy larger
area on the ground thus lowering project costs. Construction cost is
usually lower in low-rise buildings.
Under the scheme, which will be open for developers until November 20,
the low-cost homes with a minimum carpet area of 25 sq mt (approx 350
sq ft) will have a maximum price tag of Rs 4 lakh all over the state.
Dwelling units with a minimum 48 sq mt (approx 700 sq ft) carpet area,
defined as affordable category by the government, will be sold for Rs
16 lakh in Gurgaon-Manesar urban complex, Rs 14 Lakh in Faridabad,
Panchkula and Ballabhgarh complex and Rs 12.50 lakh for rest of the
state.
Below poverty line (BPL) families as well as the class IV staff of the
state government will be eligible for the Rs 4-lakh homes, which will
be at least 15% of the total dwelling units built in a project. The
allotment will be made through a draw of lots and allottees can’t sell
their property before five years of possession.
Haryana government’s new scheme caps the price of the homes built by
developers in return for permission to builders to make more housing
units of smaller sizes in the same area
Incentives for developers include a relaxed density norm (from current
250 people per acre in Gurgaon to 600 people per acre) and higher
ground coverage area from 35% to 50%
Under the new scheme, a 10-acre plot will be able to house over 1,200
dwelling units as against 450 units at present.
Source : http://content.magicbricks.com/haryana-changes-building-norms-to-make-room-for-cheaper-homes
bademiyansubhanallah
Full interest subsidy on edu loans for poor students: Govt
by Agency on August 27, 2009
In a significant move, the government has decided to provide full
interest subsidy on education loans taken by poor students to pursue
technical and professional courses and fixed their parental income
limit at Rs 4.5 lakh per annum to avail the benefit.
A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, gave its nod to the scheme to enable
students from economically weaker sections to
continue any approved course in recognised technical and professional
institutions in the country.
The scheme would benefit over five lakh students to pursue higher
education in technical and professional streams, Home Minister P
Chidambaram said, adding that the number of loans as on 31st March
this year was 16 lakh and the total outstanding amount Rs 24,000
crore.
The scheme, to be applicable from the ongoing academic year, would
provide full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium on loans
taken by students from scheduled banks.
The moratorium period begins from the launch of a course till one year
after the course ends or six months after the student gets a job,
whichever is earlier.
The interest during this period would be borne by the government.
After this moratorium period is over, the interest on the outstanding
loan would have to be paid by the student borrower as per its
provisions.
Chidambaram said the interest subsidy would be available to students
only once, either for the first undergraduate degree course or the
post-graduate degree and diploma courses.
The interest subsidy scheme, formulated by the Indian Banks
Association, would however be admissible for combined undergraduate
and post-graduate courses.
The benefit would not be available for those students who either
discontinue the course mid-stream due to any reason, except on medical
grounds.
He said the modalities for implementation and monitoring mechanism
would be finalized in consultation with Canara Bank, which has taken a
lead role. A Memorandum of Understanding would be signed with the
bank.
The monitoring mechanism would see how the benefits of the scheme were
reaching the students belonging to the scheduled castes, tribes and
OBC communities.
Observing that one of the responsibilities of the government was to
ensure that no one was denied professional education due to their
economic conditions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had in his
Independence Day address this year announced that a new scheme would
be started in this regard.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in this year’s budget speech also
made a similar announcement.
...and I am Sid harth
Sid Harth
Panel recommends religion, caste as new BPL criteria
BS Reporter / New Delhi August 28, 2009, 0:03 IST
In a drastically new approach to identifying Below the Poverty Line
(BPL) families, the Manmohan Singh government may resort to a three-
pronged approach to identify poor households that could, for the first
time, see caste and religion as determinants.
There will be a list of those automatically excluded and included. The
remaining rural households will be surveyed and judged on the basis of
scores, to ascertain their eligibility for the BPL category.
Currently, BPL families are identified on the basis of scores (0 to 4)
on 13 socio-economic parameters. But an expert committee, formed by
the rural development ministry, has recommended additional marks for
scheduled castes and tribes (SC/STs), Most Backward Castes, Other
Backward Classes (OBCs) and Muslims. If a household has members with
tuberculosis, leprosy, disability, mental illness or AIDS, it will
also be awarded points.
While the previous methodology had a maximum score of 52 (4x13), the
new method will have a maximum score of just 10 marks. “The scheme has
to be so simple, that everyone in a village could calculate his own
score even before the survey,” the draft report said.
The committee is chaired by N C Saxena, a former bureaucrat who’s a
respected figure for his work and advocacy on poverty and development
issues. He headed as Secretary of both, the Planning Commission and
the rural development ministry.
The committee was formed in August 2008, after various states pointed
out major anomalies in the methodology adopted during the 2002 BPL
census. While the estimation of poverty is done by the Planning
Commission, the census to identify the BPL households is undertaken by
the rural development ministry. Based on the Census figures, the Plan
panel decides the BPL quota in different states.
The Saxena committee also strongly argues that the Plan panel’s system
of fixing BPL quotas for all states should not be continued, as it
allows only a section of those eligible to enroll as BPL families. If
the recommendations are accepted, the number of BPL households is
likely to increase substantially. States like Bihar and West Bengal
have been complaining for a long time that many deserving poor are
left out because of the flawed approach.
Sid Harth
STAFF WRITER 15:33 HRS IST
Patna, Aug 28 (PTI) Finding holes in the computation method of the
Centre for calculating the number of BPL families, Bihar government
today demanded setting up of a commission to fix the criteria to
define the people living below poverty line.
"Centre's criteria with regard to computation of below poverty line
(BPL) families is not correct and has many shortcomings which need a
relook," Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi claimed.
He demanded setting up of a commission to fix the criteria to define
the people living below poverty line saying "the Centre's criteria is
marks based, which in most cases have adversely affected the poor
itself".
Modi, who also holds Finance portfolio, said the state government has
identified 1.50 lakh families living below the poverty line whereas
Centre's figure stood at 60 lakh.
Sid Harth
Poverty alleviation schemes: Official delay denies benefits to city
poor
TNN 28 August 2009, 04:11am IST
JAIPUR: Targets for poverty alleviation programmes and social security
schemes such as National Old Age Pension Scheme, Annapurna, Antyodaya
and
other benefits like soft loans for the poor and needy in the city have
not been met in the past. People seeking benefits under various
schemes have to chase Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) official for
the JMC happens to be the processing and facilitating agency.
As per JMC records the city has around 25,000 people living below
poverty line (BPL) and there has been over 600 applications seeking
benifits under various heads who have not received any benifit due to
various reasons. Mohan Chandra Bansal, in-charge for the schemes with
the JMC, said on Thursday the delay was due to various banks which do
not readily offer money as per the government provision.
Poor applicants, who barely understand the technicalities involved in
the process, complain that the official apathy and insensitivity to
their needs force them to run from pillar to post to prove their bona
fide.
"I have been coming to the JMC and the concerned bank to get the
credit of Rs 50,000 under Shahri Rojgar Yojna and I am in both
handicapped and BPL category but yet to receive any penny. The JMC
official say they have sent the particulars to the bank and the bank
authorities say that the application is under process, now it has been
more than a year since I applied," said Muhammad Aslam.
Bansal said that the JMC has been processing around 800 applications
for credit under various categories and those would be sent to the
district administration shortly. But when asked about specific time he
said, "We are processing the applications, the decision to disburse
loans are the prerogative of nationalised banks and we can not
expedite their process."
In the past four years the JMC got more than 4,500 applications for
the loan under Swarna Jaiyanti Shahri Rojgar Yojana (SJSRY) out which
only 318 applicants have got their due till this date, show how
serious the official machinery has been about uplifting the poorest of
the poor.
Regarding the Antyodaya Scheme, the district administration said out
of 1,572 applications, only 231 were shortlisted as eligible and they
are now covered under the scheme. It has been learnt that in most of
the cases official paper work deter the poor and old people from
taking the plunge to get the benefits, as result a majority of
deserving people remain bereft of social security benefits.
bademiyansubhanallah
Centre's move to enact NFS Act causes jitters to AP govt
Published by: Noor Khan
Published: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 at 21:50 IST
Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad, Aug 28 (PTI) The Government of India's move to enact the
National Food Security (NFS) Act is causing jitters in the Andhra
Pradesh government.
For, it may not only lose huge quantities of rice and other
commodities under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) but
will also be forced to cut down heavily on its populist welfare
schemes, what with the gross scaling down of number of below poverty
line (BPL) families in accordance with the Planning Commission of
India norms.
Now, taking a cue from Bihar, the State government has shot off a
missive today to the Centre objecting to the artificially low number
of BPL families fixed by the Centre.
AP has also opposed the ceiling on the number of BPL families as
stipulated by the Planning Commission.
Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is expected to personally take up
the issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter's visit
to the state on September 5 and 6, sources in the Chief Minister's
Office told PTI.
AP currently has over 2.20 crore BPL cards through which it has been
supplying three lakh tonnes of rice at a highly-subsidised price of Rs
2-a-kg, with the subsidy bill crossing over Rs 4,000 crore this year.
Moreover, the government has promised to increase the rice
distribution from 20 kgs per family to 30 kgs from October and
proportionately the rice requirement too will shoot up. .
Sid Harth
KochiCorp to issue smart cards to BPL families
Express News Service
First Published :30 Aug 2009 01:14:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 30 Aug 2009 01:18:46 AM IST
KOCHI: The Kochi Corporation Council which met on Saturday has
approved a scheme to issue `smart cards’ to members of the Below
Poverty Line(BPL) families, under the National Urban Health Mission.
Holders of the smart cards will get insurance coverage for meeting
hospital expenses. Under the scheme, each eligible family can avail a
maximum benefit of Rs 30,000, annually.
The facility will be available at all government hospitals, all ESI
hospitals and selected private hospitals. The smart cards will be
issued by United India Insurance Company.
“Members of the family can avail themselves of a total reimbursement
of Rs 30,000 annually, either individually or collectively.
The project will be implemented with the help of the Kudmabasree
units,” said Mayor Mercy Williams.
The Council has also passed a resolution to entrust the construction
of the Goshri-Mamangalam road, the Pachalam flyover, the Thammanam-
Pulleppady road, the Ponnuruthy railway overbridge and the Atlantis
railway overbridge with the Kerala Roads and Bridges Corporation.
These projects are included in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban
Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
Construction of the Panampilly Nagar flyover, the Island- Kanhangad
bridge and the Rajaji Road-Gandhinagar railway overbridge will also be
entrusted with the Kerala Road and Bridges Corporation. The
preparation of the detailed project reports of these projects is
progressing,” the Mayor said.
She also said that the Corporation would take the necessary steps to
remove all the unauthorised hoarding in various parts of the City.
Sid Harth
Govt to file criminal case against bogus ration card holders
BANGALORE, August 30, 2009: More than 20 per cent of the above
poverty line families obtained BPL cards and many below poverty line
families obtained bogus ration cards, according to Minister for Food
and Civil Supplies H Halappa.
The department has decided to file criminal cases against illegible
persons who obtained BJP cards, the minister warned. Referring to
bogus ration cards, he said 18,732 bogus ration cards have been
detected in Bellary district alone.
He said the tur dal prices already touched Rs. 90 per kg, the State
Government has decided against distribution of the commodity to the
BPL families under the public distribution system (PDS).
Mr Halappa told the media that the State government has turned down
rejected the Centre’s plea to distributed tur dal to BPL families at
subsidised prices. The State’s food subsidy bill has touched Rs. 1,000
crore a year in 2009-10, he said.
The Centre has come forwaded to provide 10 per cent subsidy to the
State to distribute tur dal under the PDS. The Government would be
ready to distribute the commodity only if the Centre grants 40 per
cent subsidy, he said.
To tackle the shortage of tur dal and contain prices, the Centre has
proposed to import the commodity from Tanzania and Burma, The Minister
said one kg of sugar is being distributed to BPL families each month.
He said the department has proposed to hold “Akki Santhe” all over the
state, which would help both rice producers as well as consumers.
There was a overwhelming response the "Santhe" held in seven places in
Bangalore.
Our Correspondent
bademiyansubhanallah
Let us work for a better and different KBK
Sunday, August 30, 2009
By Umi Daniel
The Southern and Western districts of Orissa are regarded as the most
backward region by the planning commission and re-designated some of
these districts as KBK (Koraput, Bolangir, Kalahandi). During
1992-93, the three larger districts were re-organized into eight
districts: Koraput, Malkangiri, Nawrangpur, Rayagada, Bolangir,
Sonepur, Kalahandi and Nuapada. These eight districts comprise of 14
Subdivisions, 37 Tehsils, 80 CD Blocks, 1,437 Gram Panchayats and
12,293 villages. The eight districts which form the KBK account for
19.72% population occupy over 30.59% geographical area of the State.
Around 90 % people of this region still live in villages. Female
literacy is only 24.72%. As per the 1997 census of BPL families, about
72% families are below poverty line live in this region which was 82 %
during 1992 census. More specifically, 49 CD Blocks of KBK districts
are regarded as “very backward” and 28 CD Blocks are considered as
“backward”. Persistent crop failure, lack of access to the basic
service and entitlements, starvation, malnutrition and migration are
the leading manifestations in the region.
Myths about KBK development:
Removal of regional disparities has been one of the important planks
of the development strategies adopted by Union as well as Orissa
Government during successive Five Year Plans. A Long Term Action Plan
(LTAP) for the KBK districts was formulated in consultation with the
Centre for a period of seven years from 1995-96 to 2001-2002 and was
formally launched by the then Prime Minister on August 18, 1995. LTAP
was formulated with two principal objectives in view: (i) drought and
distress proofing, and (ii) poverty alleviation and development
saturation.
Despite the much-hyped declaration, subsequent events suggest that no
separate provision were made in the Union budget in the name of “KBK
Yojana”. It was mentioned in the third Revised LTAP that in the field
of rural development other then the allotted money of central plan
there would be an additional requirement of Rs. 715.15 Crore.
Similarly, in the field of agriculture, health and family welfare,
employment etc. there will be an additional requirement of Rs. 789.35
Crore. Going through such calculations the Union Ministry of Finance
decided to provide an additional amount of Rs. 1503.85 Crore only.
Subsequently, another Central delegation headed by Yugandhar, the then
Secretary of PMO, after holding discussion with the state government
observed that at both the stage the required amount is Rs. 4,859
crore. In addition, after deducting the already allotted central
assistance of Rs. 4,282.39 crore in those areas, it calculated that
another Rs. 5,76.61 Crore could be provided for these areas. Finally,
the grant amount came down to only a sum of Rs. 389.21 crore. In the
subsequent years what was provided in the name of KBK Yojana or
Revised LTAP was far below from what was announced originally.
Politics of development in KBK:
The first Special Area Development Programme (SADP) of the Union
government was experimented in the region during 1958-1985 when the
Dandakarnya Development Authority (DDA), a ministry of resettlement
and rehabilitation was established by the Centre to rehabilitate and
resettle the 30,000 refugee families of erstwhile East Pakistan. The
early form of KBK was conceived involving Koraput-Bastar and Kalahandi
where the refugees were supposed to be resettled.
However, finally the refugees were settled in Bastar and undivided
Koraput district with huge central government investment,
infrastructure, man power which has sustained for about 30 years. The
project has acquired and reclaimed around 180,000 acres of land
against the target of 260,000 acres for the purpose and launched a
number of developmental programmes. Unfortunately, despite the stated
mandate of DDA to redistribute the fruits of investment to the locals
who have sacrificed their land, common property and natural resources
for the projects have been largely forgotten and denied their
legitimate share.
Furthermore, it is quite troubling to reconcile as how on earth the
central government with all its frontline departments actively worked
for 30 years in remote Malkangiri, Koraput and Bastar covering 30,052
sq km tribal land has failed to realise the intricacies, aspiration
and development of the tribals and messed up with KBK development.
Successive political parties and ruling elites have tried their best
to play with the starving people’s aspiration into precious vote bank
and continue to propagate and fuel the starvation and development
politics as key election mantra. While, the Congress wanted to appease
its loyal tribal voters through KBK yojana with multi million budget,
the BJD conveniently used the time tested divide and rule policy as
weapon to dismantle the collective bargaining of the people of these
districts through redrawing the new district boundaries. Today the BJD
has successfully demolished the Congress domination in the region and
now repackaged the KBK in a brand new wrapper and named as Biju KBK.
Time will tell whether the legends name will do any black magic in
KBK.
The outcome:
In his report dated March 13, 2006 to NHRC, the Special Rapporteur,
NHRC has observed, among other things, that " poverty in the KBK
region has to be considered in its specific context by recognizing not
only the incidence of poverty as per national norm but also the depth
and severity of poverty which distinguishes it from poverty in other
parts of the country and calls for special strategies and concerted
action”.
The New Delhi based Institute of Applied Manpower and Research, which
was entrusted by the Union government to review the KBK programme
revealed that despite of the Central aid of Rs 4,544 Crore under the
KBK head (1995-96 to 2005-06), it has not really changed the living
condition of the people.
Marathon KBK reviews by planning commission, state government and high
powered committees, CAG’s rims of reports on financial ineptness,
mindboggling NHRC special rapporteurs observation and recommendation,
lengthy debate and discussion in Parliament and State Assembly has
hardly produced any significant and visible result in the region.
The failure of development, unequal resources distribution and
depressing poverty has perhaps fueled the emergence of Maoist movement
in this region. The radical people’s movement has been slowly and
steadily strengthening its base and influence in the tribal region. As
a consequence, the central government’s focus and priority for the
region has significantly shifted from development to more of law
enforcement and counter Maoist programme implementation.
On the other hand, the state government which used to demand and argue
for more development funds for the KBK has started bargaining for more
budget, infrastructure and equipment to tackle Maoist movement. It is
a complex, egg and chicken situation for the government to consider
whether development is the best way to tackle the spread of radical
movement or armed counter strategies is the best option for brining
development to the region.
Need for a collective vision and action:
Where to go from here? Is there any readymade, quick fix or instant
recipe available to solve the historic, structural and complex social,
economical, environmental, ethnic and political issues of KBK. No one
has the answer, but the people of this region perhaps have some
solution. Some process should be embarked on to involve, engage and
give a patience hearing to common people’s idea, suggestion and
alternatives. The people led change process should begin afresh.
The process of engagement and idea’s can be structured and open,
cognitive level or based on practical experimentation, local knowledge
or state of the art technology oriented, basic service, entitlement,
social justice and resources management focused, larger policy
formulation vis-à-vis enforcement of the existing ones, and notably,
creating a political determination and bureaucratic action is
must.
In an effort to engage, dialogue, critique, and contribute to the
politics and processes of development policy and action in KBK, a
forum known as “KBK roundtable” citizen’s initiative for development
and change has been underway. The forum is an open and voluntary
platform for concern citizens from all walks of life to come together
and to find out a local and collective solution to the historical
deprivation, backwardness and poverty of people of KBK and the region
through an active engagement with the government and civil society
organizations for a better different and developed KBK. A viable forum
need to be evolved as collective groups in all the eight districts
including Phulbani and Gajapati districts to facilitate the
following:
1. Create pressure group and be a watch dog on KBK development.
2. Socio-economic research to understand the issues in depth and
educate the people and influence policy makers.
3. Create a pool of local experts and intelligentsia who can help
rebuilding the lost vision and plan alternatives development paradigm.
4. Budgetary and financial analysis of programmes and projects in KBK
to demystify the politics of budget, fund and its utilization.
5. Workshop, seminars and consultations to seek people views,
suggestion and prepare peoples vision for a different KBK.
6. People’s assembly and public hearing to expose bottleneck,
irregularities and bungling of development fund and programmes.
7. Interaction with press, people in politics, bureaucrat, NGO and
larger civil society to air dissent and alternatives.
8. Publication and disseminations to reach-out people, media and
policy makers.
9. Networking and alliance building process to strengthen collective
vision, action and advocacy.
10. Demand and assert revision of KBK plans and inclusion
of other similar districts having similar problems and end regional
disparities.
[The author is the initiator of a dialogue, KBK Roundtable, for a plan
of action for the overall development of the KBK region. He actively
works on the issues related to the deprived section of Orissa. You can
send your comments and suggestions at janatavi...@gmail.com .
And, visit www.jvmonline.com for more details.]
bademiyansubhanallah
Bangalore, August 31, 2009
No foodgrains for those with cards without photos
Special Correspondent
Those who possess ration cards without photographs will not get
foodgrains through the public distribution system from September in
Karnataka.
This is an effort to weed out what the Government calls “bogus cards”
that are in circulation in the State. The Department of Food and Civil
Supplies has already conducted a drive to take photographs and issue
cards with pictures attached, covering 83 per cent of cardholders. The
department will hold a special photography drive between September 15
and October 15 to cover the rest.
As many as 1.6 crore below poverty line (BPL) and Antyodaya cards are
in circulation in Karnataka right now.
Just before the code of conduct for the Parliamentary elections came
into force earlier this year, the State Government issued ration cards
to persons who applied with routine affidavits at the 882 Nemmadi
Kendras. This was, however, without any process of verification.
According to statistics available with the Food and Civil Supplies
Department, 28,98,536 temporary cards were issued in this phase. This
was in addition to the 78,50,727 BPL cards that were in circulation in
the State.
Now, the Government says that at least 20 lakh cards currently in
circulation are in possession of families who do not meet the criteria
to be classified as BPL families.
bademiyansubhanallah
CPI activists stage protest in Mangalore - Images
MANGALORE Sept 2: Communist Party of India workers on Tuesday staged a
demonstration in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office here to
protest against the “anti-people” policies of the Union and State
governments.
They took out a procession from the party office to the venue shouting
slogans against the Union Government for its “failure” to control
rising prices of essential commodities including petrol, diesel and
LPG.
They demanded that the Government provide allowance to the unemployed,
improve facilities in government hospitals, fill all vacant posts in
various departments, increase the upper limit of income for below
poverty line (BPL) families from the present Rs. 11,800 to Rs. 50,000
a year, restore trade union rights to workers in the Karnataka State
Road Transport Corporation, initiate measures to ensure communal
harmony in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts and ensure regular
power supply.
The party will hold demonstrations in Udupi on Thursday and Bantwal on
Friday.
Hindu
bademiyansubhanallah
Govt ready with criteria for BPL tag
CITHARA PAUL
New Delhi, Sept. 1: How poor is not poor?
The rural development ministry has come up with a new set of criteria
for assessing poverty in a country where the indigence yardstick and
the number of poor have always been disputed.
According to the new norms, a family will be excluded from the below-
poverty-line (BPL) list if it owns any one of five determinants
proposed by a ministry panel.
The determinants relate to monthly income, the type of house the
family lives in, the farm implement it uses, the vehicle it owns and
the size of its landholding.
If a family has a monthly income of over Rs 5,000, or lives in a pucca
house, or owns a two-wheeler, or has a mechanised farm implement like
a tractor, or has land more than the average landholding size in the
district, it is to be excluded from the BPL list.
“Families that meet any one or more of the criteria will automatically
be excluded from the BPL list, provided the new criteria is accepted
by the government,” a ministry official said.
If approved, the number of people below the poverty line could rise
beyond 50 per cent of the population, the official added, emphasising
that the criteria laid down by the panel headed by M. Shankar, a
former secretary in the department, was the most “lenient” so far.
A BPL tag means a family can benefit from any poverty-alleviation
scheme sponsored by the government.
The existing criteria, prepared in 2002, had taken into account 13
socio-economic parameters, making it easier to exclude families from
the BPL list.
The criteria, which included cultivable land, house, sanitation,
ownership of consumer durables, literacy, status of children, type of
indebtedness and migration in search of work, drew criticism on the
ground that the objective was to project a rosier picture.
Almost all states had added their own criteria to include more people
in the BPL list.
The first BPL census, in 1992, was based on income. The second, in
1997, was based on consumption. Expenditure details on food and other
basic amenities were collected, and people with more than two hectares
of land, a pucca house and consumer durables were excluded.
The rural development official said the criteria being decided by his
department were crucial as the Planning Commission estimated poverty
on the basis of the BPL census carried out by the ministry and the
National Sample Survey Organisation.
Moreover, he added, the government is working on a national food
security bill.
A committee headed by N.C. Saxena, who served as secretary in the
rural development ministry as well as in the Planning Commission, has
submitted a report to the ministry suggesting additional marks for the
Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Most Backward Castes, Other
Backward Classes and Muslims while assessing poverty.
If accepted, it would be the first time that caste and religion are
used as determinants to assess poverty.
“The ministry has not taken any stand on this proposal as it is bound
to create a lot of controversy,” said an official.
bademiyansubhanallah
Govt meets over 72 pc capacity addition target
Published: September 1,2009
New Delhi, Sep 1 The government today said it has been able to achieve
more than 72 per cent of the targeted power capacity addition at 4,123
MW in its 100-day programme, which ended yesterday.
" Against a capacity addition target of 5,653 MW the target achieved
as on August 31, 2009 was 4,123 MW,"an official statement said, adding
that efforts are being made to achieve the target set within 15 days.
Apart from the capacity addition initiative, Ministry of Power had
decided to achieve certain targets or milestones within 100 days from
the President’s address to both houses of Parliament.
Under its rural electrification scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen
Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), the Power Ministry&aposs aim was to
extend electricity connections to 12 lakh BPL (below poverty line)
households against which 12.33 lakh BPL households have been covered
as on August 15, 2009.
chhotemianinshallah
Over 1.22 lakh BPL families to get insurance
TNN 3 September 2009, 01:58am IST
PUNE: The district administration in association with insurance
companies has floated the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna scheme which
will provide insurance cover of Rs 30,000 per family per year to over
1.22 lakh below poverty line (BPL) families in the district.
The scheme was launched recently by district collector Chandrakant
Dalvi who distributed smart cards to around five BPL families from
Ketkawle village in Nasarapur taluka in Pune district.
Dalvi said the scheme has been started primarily to provide health
insurance to people living below the poverty line. These smart cards
would enable families to avail free treatment and medicines.
"Under the scheme, the premium of the insurance cover is being shared
by the Union and the state governments. The central government will
contribute 75% of the annual premium, while the remaining 25% will be
paid by the state. The scheme is being made available in around 28
districts in the state in the current phase, while seven districts
were benefited in the first phase," he added.
J K Patil, zonal manager of the New India Insurance Company, said,
"The scheme will provide a smart card-based cashless health insurance
cover of Rs 30,000 per year to a maximum of five members of each BPL
family. The coverage will include hospitalisation and surgical
procedures and also covers expenses for normal pregnancy up to Rs
2,500 and Rs 4,500 for caesarean procedures."
Meanwhile, Dalvi said the district administration and insurance
companies should initiate establishment of inspection committees at
the Block Development Office level.
Sanjeev Kumar, chief executive officer of the Pune Zilla Parishad,
said over 1.22 lakh BPL families in the district would be benefited
under the scheme. The work for registration and distribution of smart
cards to the families will begin soon.
chhotemianinshallah
LIC to roll out new policy
BS Reporter / Kolkata/ Berhampur September 03, 2009, 0:35 IST
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is set to introduce a micro-
insurance policy called Jeevan Mangal on September 3 this year.
The policy meant for the people living below the poverty line (BPL) is
a term assurance of premiums on maturity. The policy holder can pay
the premium either as a lump-sum or on yearly, half yearly, quarterly,
monthly, fortnightly and weekly basis.
“The policy is basically for the poor people and we hope that many BPL
families of south Orissa will come forward to take this new policy as
the premium amount is very less and there are multiple modes of
premium payment ranging from weekly to yearly”, said CH Jakkappanava,
senior divisional manager of LIC's Berhampur division. He, however,
did not specify the targeted premium collection for the new policy.
“The total premium collection in the Berhampur division was Rs 622.35
crore by the end of March this year while the number of policy holders
stood at 2.61 lakh. LIC had settled as many as 4265 death claims in
the division by the end of 2008-09 and Rs 24.81 crore was paid as
death claims”, said Jakkappanava.
chhotemianinshallah
Cost estimates differ on proposed food security law
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi June 27, 2009, 0:45 IST
The cost of the proposed Food Security Act, meant to entitle every
poor family each month with 25 kg of food grains at Rs 3, is engaging
many quarters in the government and outside, with differing
calculations on the cost and the number of beneficiaries.
Government sources say the food subsidy bill will rise, but by only
about Rs 3,000 crore. Some others argue it would actually cut the food
subsidy bill. Others note all this will be unclear till the scheme
details are made known.
The Ministry of Food and Public Distribution, which is working on a
draft food Bill which is supposed to entitle below poverty line (BPL)
families with 25 kg of food grains at Rs 3, has worked out cost
estimates which it did not share.
The ministry, according to sources, is worried whether the food
security criterion would increase the number of BPL families and hence
increase the subsidy bill. It is struggling with questions as to
whether the Bill is meant to provide food entitlements to BPL or for a
separate category of beneficiaries who are suffering from food
insecurity. It has also raised questions as to whether the new BPL
census due this year would increase the numbers.
According to sources in the Planning Commission, there could be
differing cut-offs for different schemes. The basis for this cut-off
and the resultant ranking of BPL beneficiaries would be clear in a few
weeks when the Tendulkar committee report is released.
N C Saxena, chairman of the committee, said it was up to the
government to decide if there should be different criteria to identify
those who are food insecure and deserve food at Rs 3 a kg.
According to Biraj Patnaik, advisor in the Supreme Court
Commissioner's office on Right to Food, it is premature to talk about
costs, as nothing is clear, starting from the proposed price of rice
and wheat, the number of beneficiaries, and so on. So, it is like
talking in the air.
One estimate shows the modified targeted public distribution programme
for BPL families would cost the government only an additional Rs 3,800
crore.
At present, 35 kg of food grains are given to BPL card-holders at a
price of Rs 4.5 (in the case of wheat). In addition, food grains are
provided at a price of Rs 3 only to a limited number of people under
the Antyodaya scheme.
Economist and activist Reetika Khera said if the market price is above
Rs 8.5 a kg, then the new measure implies reduction in subsidy.
The current price of wheat is Rs 12.5 and the current subsidy is Rs
4.5. Though the price in the instance of wheat has been brought down
to Rs 3, the quantity has been reduced by 10 kg.
According to Khera, this would give a cheaper subsidy figure.
However, she added that the subsidy size would also depend on the
number of beneficiaries.
According to the Arjun Sengupta committee, the BPL number should be 70
per cent of the population and in that case, the amount would
certainly be more than the present figure.
But if the beneficiaries are only the current 33 per cent of the
population, then the bill of about Rs 35,000 crore is all set to
reduce, she said.
Sid Harth
Soon, cash not grains on BPL ration cards
Aanchal Bansal
Posted: Sep 03, 2009 at 0010 hrs IST
New Delhi While the World Bank has offered to assist the government in
re-structuring the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Delhi
government is set to soon initiate a pilot project to launch its ‘cash
for food’ programme in the Capital.
This is seen as the first step in overhauling the system.
The scheme is in line with the idea floated by the Centre earlier this
year of giving food subsidy in cash to families below the poverty
line. The proposal aims at checking losses due to pilferage of
foodgrain meant for distribution under PDS.
As part of the scheme, the government is to open bank accounts for
ration card-holders from families both below and above the poverty
line. The idea is to deposit the difference — between market prices of
grains and controlled prices — in the accounts of card-holders.
The idea was floated by the Centre after the Supreme Court-appointed
Justice D P Wadhwa Committee called PDS an “inefficient and corrupt”
system. The committee, set up in 2006 to check the functioning of PDS,
said there is an “unholy nexus between transporters, fair price shop
owners and officials of the Department of Food and Civil Supply”.
About the cash for food scheme, Delhi government officials said the
Centre has given a go-ahead in principle. They said the Food and
Supplies Department has been asked to identify a district to launch
the pilot project.
“We will begin with a part of the city and are roping in organisations
and agencies to assist us,” Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta said. He said
the government may include global networks like the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) as part of the project.
Following recent reports of bogus and multiple ration cards, the idea
is to make the system more transparent and ensure subsidies reach the
poor, for whom PDS was designed, according to officials.
There are about 14 lakh ration card-holders in Delhi, officials said.
And as per a recent survey by the government for the Mission
Convergence Scheme to ensure that welfare schemes benefit people who
deserve them, there are 3,99,122 people in Delhi in the Below Poverty
Line category.
According to an official, the cash amount to be deposited in a
beneficiary’s bank account would be calculated on the basis of subsidy
given. For instance, if a ration card-holder is saving Rs 200 through
subsidies provided by the government, the department will deposit Rs
200 in his account, the official explained.
Nilekani: Unique I-cards in 3 years
The Delhi government will share details of its database compiled for
the Mission Convergence Scheme, officials today said. This came after
Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the National ID Authority of India, met
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta and
gave a presentation on all aspects of the project. According to
officials, Nilekani said with the state government’s cooperation,
Delhi residents could get their unique identity cards within three
years.
Sid Harth
Left, Delhi bicker over BPL
- Issue rocks Tripura House
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Agartala, Sept. 2: The Tripura government is on collision course with
the Centre following a threat by the Union ministry of rural
development to slash funds for poverty alleviation schemes if the
state did not stick to the below poverty line figure finalised by it.
While Tripura maintains that its BPL population stands at 66.81 per
cent, the Union rural development ministry informed the state on
January 30 that the Planning Commission, based on socio-economic
indices of 1999-2000, put the figure at 44 per cent.
“Central assistance on poverty alleviation schemes will take into
account the 44 per cent BPL figure before finalisation of sanctions
for Tripura and if the state presses its demands with higher
percentage of BPL, the funds sanction will be slashed,” said the
letter sent by the Union ministry.
The issue came up for discussion at the ongoing monsoon session of the
state Assembly with Congress MLA Gopal Roy raising it in the form of a
matter of urgent public importance.
Replying to the notice, state minister for rural development Jiten
Chowdhury said the start of a five-year plan was always preceded by a
survey conducted by state governments at the directive of the Union
ministry of rural development. The aim of the survey was to identify
people living below poverty line for providing assistance under a slew
of poverty alleviation schemes like Indira Awas Yojana and Swarna
Jayanti Gramin Swarojgar Yojana, Antyoday Anna Yojana and so on, he
said.
However, there was a marginal change since 1997 with families having
an annual income of Rs 16,000 and below included in the BPL group and
accordingly the state’s figure stood at 66.81 per cent.
The minister pointed out that the methodology of BPL survey changed
since 1997 as the Centre introduced 13 specific socio-economic indices
to determine the figure over and above the income and expenditure
pattern of the families.
Sid Harth
There have been Centre-states tensions over identification process
Who is poor? Fresh yardstick coming
Ajith Athrady, New Delhi, Sept 5, DH News Service:
How to determine who is poor and who is not? To identify people living
below the poverty line (BPL), the Centre is all set to unveil fresh
yardsticks soon.
The ministry of rural development has brought out a set of new
guidelines to identify BPL families. According to the proposed norms,
if a family has any of the following determinants — income, house,
farmland owning and vehicle — it will be excluded from the BPL list.
If a family has land more than the average landholding size or has a
monthly income of over Rs 5,000, lives in a pucca house, owns a two-
wheeler, has a mechanised farm implement like a tractor, harvester,
owns tubewells or pays income tax, it will not get the BPL tag.
The new criteria, for the first time in the country, also give marks
for the SC/STs, the most Backward Castes, Other Backward Classes
(OBCs) and Muslims. If a household has members with tuberculosis,
leprosy, disability, mental illness or AIDS, it will also be awarded
points to get a BPL tag.
As identifying a BPL family has always been a bone of contention
between the Centre and the states, the rural development ministry now
seeks to streamline it with a fresh set of norms, sources in the
ministry told Deccan Herald.
Once the new proposal, which is still under the consideration of the
Planning Commission, is approved, it could raise the number of BPL
families, sources admitted.
At present, the criteria for identifying a BPL family — which were
prepared in 2002 — are based (on scores 0 to 4) on 13 socio-economic
parameters. The criteria include cultivable land, house, sanitation,
ownership of consumer durables, literacy, status of children, type of
indebtedness and migration in search of work. However, these had drawn
strong criticism from the states as they dubbed them anti-poor.
Now, with the Centre preparing to roll out a cheap food grain
distribution scheme, which entails every BPL family to get 25 kg of
rice/wheat at Rs 3 per kg, the issue of BPL families has cropped up
again. The Centre is likely to discuss the issue at the National
Development Council meeting to be chaired by the PM in a couple of
months.
Criteria for BPL tag
* If a family has any of the following determinants — income, house,
farmland owning and vehicle — it will be excluded from the BPL list
* If a family has land more than the average landholding size or has a
monthly income of over Rs 5,000, lives in a pucca house, owns a
two-wheeler, has a mechanised farm implement it will not get the BPL
tag
* The new criteria gives points to SC/STs, the most Backward Castes,
OBCs and Muslims
* If a household has members with tuberculosis, leprosy, disability,
mental illness or AIDS, it will also be awarded points to get a BPL
tag
Sid Harth
Posted: Mon, Sep 7 2009. 9:57 PM IST
A national healthcare scheme Recent debates in the US serve as a
reminder that India needs a nationwide health insurance programme
Gulzar Natarajan
The raucous public debate in the US on healthcare reforms to expand
insurance coverage and offer affordable healthcare to ordinary
Americans has important lessons for India.
The need for health insurance assumes enormous significance here,
considering that only 10% of Indians have some form of coverage with
out-of-pocket expenses forming 80% of total healthcare spending. The
National Sample Survey Organisation found that 21% of the poor are in
debt due to healthcare expenditures. Further, recent studies like that
by David M. Dror et al., have found that the “median cost of an
illness episode was 73% of the monthly income of a person, reaching
780% among the 10% most exposed households”.
Photo: Madhu Kapparath / Mint
Hitherto, public policy on healthcare in India has focused almost
exclusively on setting up hospitals, providing diagnostic and
treatment facilities, and recruiting doctors and nurses, leaving
health insurance at the margins. However, unlike other products and
services, and as Paul Krugman recently described it, “you don’t know
when or whether you’ll need healthcare—but if you do, the care can be
extremely expensive”. Therefore health insurance has emerged as the
natural and cost-effective vehicle for delivery of health services
across the world.
Further, as the latest diagnostic and treatment techniques become more
widely available here, it will become embarrassingly evident that
large numbers of lives could be saved with health services available
next door, if only patients could afford them. In the circumstances,
an appropriately designed universal health insurance programme could
become one of the biggest ever welfare interventions by the
government.
Accordingly, in the recent past, there have been a slew of health
insurance schemes by the Union and state governments. While the Union
health ministry started the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana to cover
unorganized sector workers below the poverty line (BPL), the state
governments of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh launched their
own insurance plans for the BPL poor. They are in addition to numerous
other overlapping state and Union government health insurance plans
for government employees, organized sector workers, farmers, BPL
households, specific categories such as weavers, women and so on.
However, the proliferation of such plans has gone against the
fundamental tenets of cost efficiency in any insurance. Since the most
important factor in an insurance plan is the risk profile of the
insured, it is natural that universal coverage will have the most
optimally distributed risk profile and will, therefore, be the
cheapest. It is then appropriate that holders of the various insurance
plans be made part of one National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS),
with the most diversified pool of risks.
A universal health insurance plan will help minimize administration
costs, enable negotiation of the best terms from service providers and
pharmaceutical companies, and thereby ensure cost-effectiveness for
every rupee spent. The substantial cost of a comprehensive NHIS will
be more than offset by its enormous benefits. Our demographic profile
with its youthful majority will help keep the premiums down and ensure
that budgetary resources are not unduly strained.
Taking a cue from the Affordable Health Choices Act pending
congressional approval in the US, we can establish regulated insurance
exchanges through which insurers sell plans with varying benefit
levels. These exchanges would become single-stop marketplaces for
individuals (and even small employers) to comparison-shop among
private and public insurers and their myriad plans, facilitate
enrolment, provide choice, and administer direct subsidies to
predefined groups of underprivileged.
Most developed countries have mandatory and universal healthcare
systems, with each person insured for a basic package of healthcare
benefits, financed either by the employer, the individual, the
government alone or in tandem. Similarly, the NHIS can offer a basic
package of healthcare services to the poor—to be purchased at the
exchange, without discrimination based on health risks, and at a more
or less flat premium, with only small variations to account for age
and geography.
Specific categories of the under-privileged population can be
subsidized to cover all or a percentage of their premiums. States can
provide health vouchers or other forms of support to the poorest to
top up on coverage beyond the basic package. Further, out-of-pocket
spending on outlier healthcare emergencies, for specific categories of
people, can be capped and the additional expenditure borne by the
government.
More differentiated plans, including those with greater service
coverage, can be purchased from these exchanges on payment of higher
premiums. Government and even private employees should have the
freedom to opt for either their portable employee-sponsored default
plans or choose those with greater coverage by paying the
differential. The project can be gradually phased in to cover all
citizens within five years.
The existing large government-run health insurance providers can
either be consolidated or remain separate to keep the competing
private insurance providers honest and preserve access. To optimize
use of all resources, both private and government hospitals should
offer healthcare services under NHIS.
Further, by expanding the market for medical care, a universal NHIS
would spur innovation, and provide a massive stimulus for both
pharmaceuticals and the healthcare services sector. It would,
therefore, be in the interest of all supply-side stakeholders in the
sector to support all efforts to implement the NHIS.
Gulzar Natarajan is a civil servant. These are his personal views.
Your comments are welcome at thei...@livemint.com
Sid Harth
Rural folks to dominate the service sector
TNN 7 September 2009, 08:22pm IST
VARANASI: The rural folks are all set to dominate the service sector
as under the Swarnjayanti Gramin Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), the training
of youths belonging to the below poverty line families from the rural
belt has been started to make them skilled for retail management and
other services.
Launched in April 1999, the SGSY was initially known for developing
entrepreneurship among the rural youths. However, assessing the
opportunities in the service sector, the government has decided to
make the rural folks from BPL families skilled for some selected works
under SGSY. The project director of District Rural Development Agency
(DRDA), I D Dwivedi, told to TOI, "the training of 100 rural youths in
retail management (salesmanship) has been started by an organisation
from Monday."
According to him, the training programmes would be run to develop
skilled manpower for computer operations, private security, retail
management, ladies tailoring, ward boy, midwife, old age care and
travel ticketing. Six organisations including Udyamita Vikas Sansthan,
Lucknow, UP, Satya Seva Sansthan, Heritage Foundation, Bombay
Intelligence Security, Inflight Airway Training. "Dr Ram Kumar Singh
of Agriculture department of Banaras Hindu University has been
entitled by the state government to run the programmes," he added.
The government would pay Rs 5000 as fee for the training of each
candidate, but 25 percent of this fee would be paid to the training
institution after the placement of candidate, he said. Ensuring
placement of a candidate after two-month training has been made a must
for the selected institutions, he added. In view of the increasing
demand of the skilled salesmen with the arrival of branded outlets,
youths from the rural belt have shown interest in joining the training
programme for retail management. Their training programme was started
by an organisation. Other institutions have also intensified their
efforts to begin training programmes in various prescribed works.
Dwivedi said, "a total of 550 candidates would be trained under these
programmes in 2009-10 financial year. 40 percent seats are reserved
for women. The basic objective of this programme is to ensure an
earning of over Rs 2000 per month in order to bring these BPL youths
to the above poverty line category."
bademiyansubhanallah
Rly to give 75% discount on train fares to HIV+
TNN 8 September 2009, 05:15am IST
NEW DELHI: For people living with HIV/AIDS, travel to hospitals and
ART centres will get cheaper with the railway ministry agreeing to
provide them with 75% concession even in reserved compartments.
The Centre through counsel Aman Ahluwalia told a Bench comprising
Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam on Monday that
the railway ministry had also agreed to extend this concessional
travel arrangement to an escort of such people.
Till now, HIV/AIDS patients were given 50% concession in unreserved
coaches though patients of other diseases like cancer, leprosy and TB
were given 75% concession even in reserved compartments. Both railway
and food ministries agreed not to refer to such patients as HIV or
AIDS infected but as persons with “immune deficiency”.
This decision followed the August 13 meeting of officials from
ministries of food and public distribution,
railways, road and transport, law and justice and health and family
welfare.
The food ministry has agreed to treat all HIV/AIDS patients living
below poverty line (BPL) as ‘poorest of poor’ and provide them with
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cards to get a supply of ration from PDS
stores.
As per estimates, 6.52 crore people live below the poverty line, of
which the government treats 2.5 crore people as ‘poorest of poor’.
Under BPL scheme, rice is sold at Rs 5.65 per kg while wheat at Rs
4.15/kg. But those having AAY cards can buy rice at Rs 3/kg and wheat
at Rs 2/kg. Many state governments, as per the ministry of road and
transport, had agreed to provide free travel to HIV/AIDS patients for
going to hospitals and ART centres. But Madhya Pradesh government said
it would not be possible to do so as passenger buses were run by
private operators.
Sid Harth
BPL families to get more sugar during festival
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 08:00 IST
Our Bureau, New Delhi
The below poverty line (BPL) families will get 2 kg more sugar from
the PDS during the Dasara festival at the end of September. But for
Diwali which falls in October, the government is likely to raise the
issue price of sugar from the present Rs 13.50 to Rs 15 a kg. An
empowered group of ministers (EGoM), headed by finance minister Pranab
Mukherjee, discussed the sugar crisis last week and decided to supply
2 kg more sugar to the BPL families during the Dasara festival which
falls in the last week of September. The EGoM also proposed to raise
the price of levy sugar, the 10% of the sweetener sold to the
government by the mills for distribution through PDS, to Rs 15 per kg
from the existing Rs13.50 a kg.
Sugar mills now may have to sell more levy sugar to the government
from the present 10% to 20%. Mills have agreed in principle to supply
more under the levy sugar but have been demanding Rs 20-22 a kg for
the levy sugar and Rs 30-32 for the open market sale. The government,
however, plans to raise the price to about Rs 2,020 per quintal as the
average ex-factory price.
The retail price of sugar has touched Rs 32-35 per kg from Rs 18-20 a
year ago and is expected to go up further to Rs 40 during the
festival. In the wholesale market medium sugar quality (M-30) firmed
up at Rs 3,380 per quintal from Rs 3,120 a quintal. Small sugar
quality (S-30) touched Rs 3,280 from Rs 3,010. With production set to
hit a three-year low of 14.7 million tonnes this sugar season,
stockists are on a buying spree in spot markets across the country in
anticipation of a sharp rise in prices in the coming months.
Sid Harth
National Rural Livelihood Mission(NLRM) A fresh lease of life for the
rural people living below the poverty line (BPL)
12:27 IST
Backgrounder
The Ministry of Rural Development has decided to re-design and re-
structure the on going Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) into
National Livelihood Mission (NRLM). The idea has been conceived as a
cornerstone of national poverty reduction strategy.
The objective of the Mission is to reduce poverty among rural BPL by
promoting diversified and gainful self-employment and wage employment
opportunities which would lead to an appreciable increase in income on
sustainable basis. In the long run, it will ensure broad based
inclusive growth and reduce disparities by spreading out the benefits
from the islands of growth across the regions, sectors and
communities.
The Mission has been designed to achieve the following ‘Outputs’ and
‘Outcomes’ by 2016-17.
Output and Outcome Targets for
the NRLM : 2016-17
In Lakh
S.
No.
Output/ Outcome Indicator
Target for
remaining
period of
11th Plan
Tentative
target for
12th Plan
Total target by 2016- 17
Number
of BPL
families
I
Outputs*
1
Total number of new BPL SHGs to be formed
12.25
15.75**
28
280
2
No. of SHGs to be provided
Revolving Fund support
12.25
15.75
28
280
3
No. of SHGs to be provided Capital Subsidy
5.25
10.75
16
160
4
No. of SHGs to be provided Interest
Subsidy
10
12
22
220
5
No. of rural BPL youth to be
provided Skill Development Training
15
60
75
75
II
Outcomes*
1
No of SHGs to be entering at Micro
enterprise level
5.25
10.75
16
160
2
No. of rural BPL youth to be
provided placement support
15
60
75
75
Note- Each SHG having on an average 10 members (one from each family).
* Subject to availability of resources and cooperation from other
stakeholders.
The Rural Livelihoods Mission is proposed to have a three-tier
interdependent structure. At the apex of the structure will be the
National Rural Livelihoods Mission, under the Ministry of Rural
Development, Govt. Of India. At the State level, there will be an
umbrella organization under the State Department of Rural Development/
Department which is responsible for implementing self-employment/rural
livelihoods promotion programs. The State level Mission with dedicated
professionals and domain experts under the State department of Rural
Department will be guided financially, technically and supported by
the NRLM on need basis. The National and the State Mission will have a
symbiotic relationship. They will have mutual access to the knowledge
and services in the area of rural livelihoods.
The NRLM will be set up in the Rural Development Ministry under the
overall supervision of Joint Secretary in-charge of existing SGSY
Division. It is proposed to have a Governing Council (GC) and an
Executive Committee (EC). A GC will be constituted under the
chairmanship of the Minister for Rural Development, GOI. The Minister
and Secretary of Agriculture, Women and Child Development , Labour ,
State Minister of Rural Development ( 4 on rotation basis), Adviser
(RD), Planning, Land Resources(LR), Panchayati Raj Institutions(PRI),
Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation(DW&S), Tribal Affair Commission,
DG Indian Council Of Agriculture Research (ICAR), CMD NABARD,
Financial Service, DG National Institute Of Rural Development (NIRD)
and DG (CAPART), Representative of Self Help Group (SHG) Federation,
(3) Experts (RD)/ NGO’s (5) will be the member of the Governing
Council of the Mission while Secretary (RD) will be the Convener and
the Mission Director (JS) will be the Co-Convener of GC.
The Governing Council will be the policy making body setting overall
vision and direction to the Mission, consistent with the national
objectives. It will lay down priorities and review overall progress
and development of the Mission. The GC will be empowered to lay down
and amend operational guidelines. However, the subsidy norms of the
NRLM as approved by the Government shall in no circumstances be
changed or exceeded for any of the Mission components. It will meet at
least twice a year.
The NRLM has been envisaged to perform the following functions:
(i) facilitate establishment of state level umbrella agencies by the
state governments for providing institutional support for poverty
elimination programs; (ii) support state level umbrella organizations
in the design and implementation of pro-poor programs;(iii) provide
professional and technical support an guidance to the state agencies
by seeking out and disseminating pro-poor technologies and
institutional innovations through research and development and forging
linkages between the state agencies and the national centers of
excellence; (iv) liaise with other Missions/departments to explore
areas for convergent action and facilitate such convergence to enhance
the capabilities and facilitate access to other entitlements such as
wage employment, food security, education, health, etc and ; (v)
explore and facilitate partnerships between National/State Rural
Livelihood Missions and public, private, NGO and Co-operative sector
partners, for diversifying and sustaining the livelihoods of the poor;
(vi) undertake/commission studies to assess emerging self employment/
skill based employment opportunities and disseminate the information
to the State agencies; (vii) study best practices in self-employment/
micro enterprise activities across the country and support their
replication in other parts of the country through workshops, cross-
learning visits and exchange programs; (viii) develop capacity
building and training modules for functionaries of the peoples
institutions as well as the state agencies and district units, and
other stakeholders participating in the poverty elimination programs;
(ix) facilitate analysis and dissemination of the impact of changing
economic policies on the poor and play policy advocacy role; (x) act
as information warehouse on rural poverty statistics by accessing
information from multiple sources; (xi) identify shortcomings in
program design and implementation and facilitate debates/discussions
thereof by experts for finding innovative & workable solutions and
their dissemination to the state agencies. (xii) promote institution
of comprehensive monitoring and learning systems at the state agencies
and district units, including web enabled MIS and community monitoring
systems; and (xiii) identify high quality institutions in livelihoods
education and training and facilitate linkage of the state
organizations with missions with such institutions for capacity
building of professionals.
The need for restructuring the SGSY has arisen on account of feedback
provided and recommendations made by various studies including those
conducted by National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD),
Hyderabad, Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), Lucknow,
Centre for Management Development, Thiruvananthapuram etc. and reports
of the Steering Committee constituted by the Planning Commission for
the 11th Plan Further, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD),
Government of India (GoI) has accepted the recommendation of the
Committee on Credit Related Issues under SGSY (Prof.Radhakrishna
Committee) to create a National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) to
provide greater focus and momentum for poverty reduction to achieve
the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015 through rapid increase
in the coverage of rural poor households under self-employment.
In addition to provide self employment to the rural folks, the Mission
will also help in enhancing their capabilities and facilitate access
to other entitlements such as wage employment and food security and
benefits of Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), drinking water, land
improvement, education, and health and risk mitigation through
convergence and coordination mechanism. The decision follows three
major developments that have taken place in the recent years and had
major impact on the rural economy especially the rural poor i.e (i)
the economy experienced a robust growth (ii) National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) emerged as a major program to provide
additional income to the rural poor and (iii) various initiatives
taken under the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM).Taking these
developments into account and in order to achieve the objective of the
11th Plan of broad based inclusive growth in this perspective, the
strategy paper of Ministry envisages a four pronged strategy to
attack rural poverty comprising (i) generation of self employment in
credit linked micro enterprises and salaried employment through demand
driven skill development (ii) wage employment under National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme (iii) payment of pension to elderly and
vulnerable sections under National Social Assistance Program (iv)
income generation and social security programs of other Ministries of
Government of India.
NRLM programs is proposed to be implemented in all rural districts of
different states excluding the districts in Delhi and Chandigarh.
However, the Governing Council of the Mission based on the latest
available data is empowered to include or exclude the districts for
the implementation of various components of the Mission.
It is envisaged that the State Governments will transit into the NRLM
mode only in a phased manner. Till such time the States do not transit
into NRLM mode, the SGSY activities will continue to be implemented as
per current guidelines/norms and fund releases will be made to DRDAs
as per existing procedures. The revised norms of SGSY will be
applicable to the States having the commitment to fulfill the
following within the stipulated time period:
i. State level agencies and the district level units are set up
ii. Full complement of professional staff has been trained and placed
iii. State level poverty reduction strategy has been formulated
Funds for implementing the Mission’s programs are proposed to be
directly released separately to the state level agency and the DRDAs
on the basis of the detailed district wise annual action plans
submitted by the state agencies and approved by the EC of the National
Mission, but within the overall allocation indicated for each state on
the basis of the poverty ratio. The funds to state level agencies will
be transferred to meet expenditure on: (i) establishing and running
the dedicated state /district/sub-district level agency; (ii)
organizing state level skill development and placement services
(covering more than one district); and (iii) other activities such as
technical services, concurrent evaluation and such other activities.
The funds to DRDAs will be transferred to the meet expenditures on:
(i) subsidy to SHGs; (ii) infrastructure and marketing (district level
and sub-district level); (iii) corpus for federations; (iv) interest
subsidy; (v) training and capacity building of all stakeholders and
(vi) engagement of NGO facilitators. The funds to district units will
be released where full complement of professional staff has been
placed and district poverty reduction plans have been formulated. In
other case the exiting procedure of fund release will be followed.
Funds will be released in two installments based on the progress
report and submission of utilization certificates by the district
units under intimation to the state level agency. The State level
agency will compile and consolidate expenditure details, physical
progress and other details and submit to National Mission
periodically. MoRD will release 75% of the approved amount to the
State Government/DRDA and the State government will release the
balance amount of 25%. In respect of north-eastern states, J&K,
Himachal Pradesh & Uttrakhand, the GOI and state share will be in the
proportion of 90:10, respectively.
As far as possible, e-banking will be used for transfer of funds to
the state level agencies and to the districts. The state level agency
will maintain a separate budget and prescribed accounting system for
the Mission activities both at the state and district level. The
district units will adhere to the accounting system and financial
guidelines prescribed by the state agencies. The block units will be
directed by the district units to follow similar systems and
guidelines to ensure transparency and accountability.
The National Livelihood Mission will have a strong mechanism of
Monitoring and Evaluation with the involvement of the state level
agency and dedicated district level units. The Monitoring and Learning
(M&L) specialists at the Mission and state agency levels will
coordinate concurrent monitoring of the Mission activities. At the
district level, the Monitoring and Learning specialist will undertake
monitoring of the physical and financial targets of various Mission
interventions, adopting the formats designed by the National Mission
for this purpose. In addition, the district level M&L specialist will
be responsible for instituting community monitoring systems including
a system of self monitoring by the SHGs and their federations.
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) will be actively involved in the
following activities of the Mission:
(i) identification and mobilization of BPL households into SHGs, with
priority being given to the SC and ST households especially primitive
tribal groups, poorest of the poor households, women headed households
and households engaged in declining occupations;(ii) facilitating
federation of SHGs at the village/gram panchay at level/ block level
and providing basic facilities for the effective functioning of such
federations in terms of providing accommodation for federation office
and such other basic facilities;(iii) giving priority to the demands
of the SHGs and their federations in the annual plans/activities of
the PRIs by making suitable financial allocations;(iv) entrusting
execution of panchayat activities including civil works to SHGs and
their federations on a priority basis; (v) leasing out panchayat
resources such as fishing ponds/tanks, common property resources,
market yards, buildings and other properties to the SHGs and their
federations for proper management and maintenance;(vi) entrusting
responsibility for collection of panchayat revenues including house
property tax to the SHGs for a small fee; and(vii) entrusting
management and maintenance of select civic amenities to the SHGs.
(viii) any other activity which could be taken up by the members of
the SHGs or their federations.
NRLM will have multi pronged approach to strengthen livelihoods of the
rural poor by promoting SHGs, improving existing occupations,
providing skill development & placement and other activities thereof..
The training and capacity building, deployment of multidisciplinary
experts and other initiatives will enhance the credit worthiness of
the rural poor. The services of craft persons, community resource
persons etc will be utilized as TOT to for capacity building and
training under NRLM. The periodic interaction of Mission with Public
Sector Banks and other financial institutions to enhance the reach of
rural poor to the un-banked areas will ensure their financial
inclusion. Further, poor have multiple livelihoods and they need multi
pronged approach to strengthen it. The existing strategy of social
mobilization of poor, their organization into SHGs, training &
capacity building, credit linkage for micro enterprise for self
employment will continued to be one of the main components of NRLM.
Emphasis will be on convergence with various schemes of Rural
Development along with other line departments/ministries to strengthen
the exiting occupations of the rural poor, ensure their participation
as beneficiary of emerging opportunities as a result of various
schemes for sustainable livelihood and also introducing newer
technologies in their enterprises. The multidisciplinary domain
experts at various levels will coordinate with all the stakeholders
for benefiting the poor in risk mitigation, food security, training
and capacity building, micro financing, infrastructure development and
better marketing linkages for getting appropriate prices for their
products. People owned & people centered organization by federating
SHGs will act as facilitators for strengthening the SHGs and thereby
benefiting the rural poor. In addition skill development & placement
will be the subset of the redesigned program for deploying the rural
BPL poor in the sun-rising sectors of the economy. The Mission will
make concerted efforts to train rural BPL to provide last tier
implementation personnel as service providers, lok sevaks, etc to
local bodies to implement to programs efficiently and effectively.
AKT/ST/SAK
Sid Harth
September 7, 2009
Maharashtra polls: Act II, Scene I
P. Sainath
The Hindu A man speaks on his mobile phone in front of a hoarding at
the Mumbai Congress office on September 1, 2009. Photo: Vivek Bendre
There are more fronts in the fray across the State this time. And with
multi-cornered contests in almost all seats, there could be some major
upsets.
Unfazed by either drought or swine flu, the Congress party in the
State was celebrating a victory in the upcoming Assembly elections
even before these had been announced. The Congress-NCP alliance had
won 25 of the State’s 48 Lok Sabha seats in May this year. The rival
Sena-BJP front won 20 and others took 3. This convinced the Congress
of two things. One, they would repeat their win in the Assembly polls
now set for October 13. The ‘bounce’ from the Lok Sabha win will boost
them further. And two, the NCP is at their mercy (which at this point
it does seem to be).
In the Lok Sabha polls this year, the Congress-NCP led in 133 of 288
Assembly segments. That’s just eleven more than the number of segments
the BJP-Sena alliance led in. If this were repeated in the Assembly
polls, neither side would have a majority on its own. And new fronts
will cause upsets in sundry seats. Then what accounts for the
confidence? In two words — Raj Thackeray. The MNS’s showing torpedoed
the Shiv Sena in the Mumbai-Thane region. (Never mind that these polls
could be fought on different terms and issues.)
With voting just over a month away, it’s worth asking: How has this
State done in the past few years? How have governments performed?
Maharashtra lost two million jobs before the “economic slowdown”
began. Food production was reckoned to have fallen 24 per cent —
oilseeds 49 per cent and sugarcane 43 per cent — in 2008-09. All that,
without a drought. The State is third from the bottom in the country
in terms of people living in poverty. Fifth from the bottom in terms
of percentages. Over thirty million people, or close to a third of
Maharashtra’s population, are BPL. It is also the State worst-hit by a
policy-driven agrarian crisis — a very different thing from drought.
It has seen over 40,000 farmers suicides since 1995.
The State government’s own economic survey reveals plenty. It shows
that employment in Maharashtra, “which was on the rise till 2004-05 at
4.3 crore, declined to 4.1 crore in 2007-08, clearly indicating the
footprint of recession.” The last six words are a joke. That figure
ends at March 2008. The global shock struck more than five months
later. It does raise the question, though: if the State could lose so
many jobs before the slowdown, how many must have vanished once that
began?
Maharashtra lost those two million jobs in 2005-06, 2006-07 and
2007-08. It means that, on average, over 1,800 people lost their jobs
every day in that period. In a time of rising food prices (and falling
foodgrain output in the State). So how did it fare in 2008-09? We
don’t know the half of it. But we do know that employment generation
under various schemes fell 30 per cent. In fact a drop of 18 million
days compared to 2007-08.
However, it was also during that time that India made steady progress
in the Forbes lists of dollar billionaires, crossing the 51 mark (i.e.
Rank 4 in the world) by 2008. More than 20 of those billionaires had
an address in Mumbai. One of them is doing the city proud, building
what must rank amongst the costliest residences in the planet. That,
while over half the people in his city rot in slums. His Xanadu — with
27 storeys and three helipads — will be a tourist landmark. Also a
shining symbol of the obscene inequality this State revels in.
As the price rise shredded household budgets these past few years,
some governments tried to reduce its impact on their people. Those in
Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, amongst others, unilaterally
increased the “BPL population” in their states. They then gave them
cheap rice at Rs. 2 a kilo. (Or even Rs. 1 a kilo as in Tamil Nadu).
The government of Maharashtra did nothing of the sort. The number of
workdays fell when a hungry population needed them most.
Next door, Andhra Pradesh mourns a chief minister who will be
remembered for boosting the NREGs, old age and women’s pensions, and
rice at Rs. 2 a kilo. The previous chief minister of Maharashtra’s
most memorable moment came when he visited the terror-attack shattered
Taj and Trident Hotels with his actor son and Bollywood’s Ram Gopal
Varma in tow. Disaster tourists checking out the rich cinematic
promise thrown up by the tragic events. But he too cared for the down
and out, too, he told the media. After all, pointed out Mr. Vilasrao
Deshmukh, he had not prosecuted all those farmers committing suicide
in his State on his watch. “Committing suicide is an offence under the
Indian Penal Code. But did we book any farmer for this offence? Have
you reported that?” ( The Hindustan Times, October 31, 2007).
The present Chief Minister, less given to such talk, nonetheless
declares he will take the State even further ahead. “It is my dream to
raise the per capita income in the state to Rs. 1 lakh.” Well he’s got
part of it right. It is a dream. The government is proud that
Maharashtra’s per capita income (2007-08) “is higher than the national
income.” And that “the State ranks second after Haryana among the
major states of India.” The State’s per capita income was a hefty Rs.
47,051. Per capita National Income was a piffling Rs. 33,282.
The State’s per capita income is an odd construct resting on a few
rich regions. Move out of those and it plummets. Mumbai — home to more
dollar billionaires than all the Nordic nations put together in 2008 —
has a per capita income of Rs. 73,930. In the well-off Konkan region
that is Rs. 66,197. Get down to Aurangabad in Marathwada and you’re
looking at Rs. 30,499. Cross into Vidharbha and you’re a little over
Rs. 29,000. So the Rs. 47,051 figure reflects no one’s reality well.
What’s clear are the stunning regional, class and caste inequalities
of the State.
Only Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have more human beings below the poverty
line than Maharashtra does. In percentage terms (at 30.7 per cent
BPL), the State moves up a slot — above Madhya Pradesh amongst bigger
states. In 1993-94, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Maharashtra had more
or less the same BPL ratio — around 36 per cent. By 2004-05 those two
states had sharply reduced their poverty figures both in absolute
terms and in percentages. Maharashtra’s percentage fell much less than
theirs. And the Sate’s total BPL number went up not down. But heck,
let’s dream. Rs. 1 lakh per capita income it shall be.
Mumbai, too, with all its wealth, has its own Third World within: The
National Family Health Survey (NFHS - 3) shows us that 40 per cent of
children below 3 years of age in Mumbai are malnourished. That, by the
way, is higher than the State’s average. Mumbai also has millions who
live on less than Rs. 19 a day. Yet rural-urban disparities, too, are
real. As the NGO Sathi points out in its “Report on Health Inequities
in Maharashtra,” the rural parts of the state have 22 hospital beds
per lakh of population. In urban Maharashtra, that is 431 beds. This
does not stop the government from claiming to be “at the forefront of
health care development in India.”
Per capita foodgrain production in Maharashtra was just about 100
kilograms (2004-05) says the State’s economic survey. (That’s a nearly
40 per cent deficit against its minimum requirement.) It was around
212 in Madhya Pradesh, 166 in Andhra Pradesh, 186 in Karnataka, all
neighbours. It was 262 kg in Bihar at the time.
And then there’s all those farmers the government was nice to. The
suicide victims it did not prosecute. National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB) data reveal 40,666 farmers suicides in Maharashtra between 1995
and 2007. The State accounts for over a fifth of all such deaths in
India. In 2007, Maharashtra logged over 38 per cent of all farm
suicides in the five States worst-hit by the phenomenon. It was the
only State that saw, since 1997, an increase of over 100 per cent in
farm suicides — while actually recording a two per cent decline in
suicides by non-farmers.
All this has not dampened the Congress’ spirit. It is sure it will win
the way it did in the Lok Sabha polls: against a split opposition,
with the Shiv Sena hobbled by a lame duck BJP on the one hand and
undercut by an aggressive Raj Thackeray on the other. But there are
more fronts in the fray across the State this time. And with multi-
cornered contests in almost all seats, there could be some major
upsets. The more so in a situation where no one is sitting on a
majority.
Comments:
Sir
I am from one of the most corrupt & underdeveloped state of
Jharkhand,
but the scene of Maharashtra showed by you is just unbelievable for a
state considered as developed and for a city once designated to be
Shanghai of India.
from: Shwet Kashyap
This surely is a surprise to everyone. Maharashtra was always
considered as one of the well-to-do States. But this report is an eye-
opener to the neglect the poor people of Maharashtra have been going
through. I hope the politicians wake up to these facts and get their
act together.
from: Deepak V.P.
Ya it is of great concern that the financial capital of the country
has the 40 percent of the below 3 children are malnourished also the
ASIA's largest slum is in the same city.Govt must do something to
raise the standard of the Mumbai as well as the Maharashtra.
from: Ajay Wadhara
chhotemianinshallah
HomeAbout NVOWorld Newsताजा समाचार
National Rural Livelihoods Mission, strategy for poverty reduction
Sep 9th, 2009 | By NVO Bureau | Category: News, Top Story New Delhi:
The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has said that the Government
attaches highest priority to poverty alleviation and will work
purposefully to improve the quality of public system and delivery of
public service for employment generation and rural prosperity.
Inaugurating a conference of Ministers of Rural Development and
Panchayati Raj from States and UTs at Vigyan Bhawan here today, he
underlined the need to develop the skills of Panchayati Raj
Institutions in designing, planning, monitoring and the implementation
of flagship , anti poverty programs NREGA and the proposed NRLM. The
Conference on Rural Employment has been organized by the Ministry of
Rural Development to discuss the proposed National Rural Livelihood
Mission (NLRM) and emerging issues in NREGA.
Appreciating the fact that works under the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Program are helping to rejuvenate and revive our natural
resource base, the Prime minister said that we must draw lessons from
the experiences of NREGA and the the past five years to put in place a
reform program which meets the legitimate aspirations of the rural
population. While admitting that there are success stories and there
are indifferent performances in different parts of the country, he
called upon the participating ministers to deliberate upon the ways
and means to ensure that the benefits reach out to the needy and the
poor in their respective states. The Prime Minister advocated the need
to shift from input base monitoring to independent evaluation of
outcomes.
Dr. Singh said that the proposed National Rural Livelihoods Mission
will be implemented in a Mission will be a multi- pronged strategy for
poverty reduction in a time bound manner by providing sustainable
livelihood through various means to rural population below the poverty
line. He emphasized that the primary goal of the Mission will be to
saturate mobilization of poor communities into Self Help Groups in a
time bound manner and the Mission will be, learn and in due course of
time, upscale productive partnership between the people and the
Government institutions.
In his welcome address, Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj
Minister, Dr. C.P.Joshi said that NREGA and the a boost to the rural
economy and has shown the way how benefits can reach out to the needy
and the poor living in the villages. He pointed out that although only
14% households so far have availed of full 100 days employment under
NREGA and theinception , efforts would be made to enhance their skills
to encourage them to move on from wage employment to self employment.
The Minister said that the decision to restructure and redesign the
Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana and convert it into a National
Rural Livelihoods Mission will be another significant step towards
poverty reduction in a time bound manner by providing sustainable
livelihood through various means to rural population below the poverty
line. While highlighting the role of Self Help Groups in sustainable
livelihoods for the rural people, he called upon the participating
states to share their ideas and experiences so that the best practices
could be replicated wherever possible. The Minister said that the
integration of NREGA and the with Skill development would go a long
way toward mitigating the problems of the rural poor so that they can
lead a life with dignity. Dr. Joshi also took the opportunity to
highlight the need for discussion on watershed management issues in
the states.
The Secretary Rural Development, Dr. Rita Sharma presented a detailed
accounts of the issues related to NRLM and NREGA and the Secretary,
Panchayati Rj , A.N.P. Sinha gave an account of the issues related to
implementation of NRLM and NREGA and the role of Panchayats.
The meeting assumes significance in the backdrop of the decision taken
by the Ministry of Rural Development to re-design and re-structure the
on going Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) into National
Livelihood Mission (NRLM) as the cornerstone of national poverty
reduction strategy. The objective of the Mission will be reduce
poverty among rural BPL by promoting diversified and gainful self-
employment and wage employment opportunities which would lead to an
appreciable increase in income on sustainable basis. In the long run,
it will ensure broad based inclusive growth and reduce disparities by
spreading out the benefits from the islands of growth across the
regions, sectors and communities.
The one day conference is being attended by the Union Ministers of
State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain Aditya, Shishir Adhikari and
the Ministers of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj from various
states/UTs. It would provide a forum to seek the views of various
stakeholders in finalizing the details of the NLRM for a focused
approach on poverty eradication in a time bound manner, integration of
NRLM with NREGA and the the implementation and monitoring of NREGA and
the the delivery mechanism.
chhotemianinshallah
Govt may give free LPG stoves
9 Sep 2009, 1642 hrs IST, PTI
NEW DELHI: The government may give poor people LPG stoves free of cost
as part of its blueprint to expand domestic cooking gas coverage to at
least three-fourth of the population.
The Petroleum Ministry is considering a proposal to use the funds
state-run oil firms set aside for CSR activities, an official source
said.
"Public sector oil companies have been asked to spend at least two per
cent of their net profit each year on corporate social responsibility
(CSR) initiatives. A part of these funds is proposed to be use to give
free LPG stoves to poor people," he said.
The scheme, he said, is part of Petroleum Minister Murli Deora's
blueprint to release 5.5 crore new LPG connections by 2015, taking the
total number of LPG connections from present 11.5 crore to 16 crore.
This would increase coverage from 50 per cent of population at present
to 75 per cent.
"People living below poverty line (BPL) will be given free stoves and
subsidised LPG," he said.
As part of the agenda for the first 100 days of the UPA government's
second innings, Deora has already rolled out mobile phone text or SMS
booking for LPG refills and toll-free number to make complaints.
Deora's ministry has surpassed the targets set for first 100 days by
rolling out a path-breaking Gramin LPG Vitarak Yojana, raising oil and
gas output and laying of roadmap for expanding city gas services.
Beginning of oil production from the Mangala oil field in the Thar
dessert of Rajasthan and ramping up of output from the Krishna
Godavari basin KG-D6 gas field have been the hallmark of the 100 days,
an official statement issued said.
Peak output of 8.75 million tonnes from the Mangala field will reduce
the nation's oil import bill by about 8 per cent while gas from the KG-
D6 will cut fertiliser subsidy and boost power generation.
Eighth bid round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP-VIII)
offering 70 blocks covering an area of about 1.64 lakh sq km and the
fourth bid round of Coal-Bed Methane (CBM -IV) offering 10 blocks
covering an area of about 5,000 sq km were launched with a view to
intensify exploration, it said.
Bids close on October 12.
chhotemianinshallah
Workshop on health insurance for BPL families
TNN 9 September 2009, 12:17am IST
A workshop on the national health insurance scheme to be introduced
for below poverty line (BPL) families will be organised at the
district collector's office on Monday. The one-hour workshop will
focus on the structure and actual implementation of the scheme. New
India Insurance Company Ltd has been selected for implementing the
scheme in Pune district. The labour commissionerate will act as the
nodal agency in implementing the scheme.
Knee joint brace camp
The Rotary Club of Pune University is organising a knee joint brace
camp on September 8 and 9 at the Punjab Cultural Association's
cultural hall, Salisbury Park. While the timing for new registrations
is from 9 am to 12 pm, old patients may follow-up on September 9
between 9 am and 12 pm.
Workshop on presentation skills
The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture has
organised a workshop on presentation skills' (effective public
speaking-basic module) on September 9 from 10 am to 5 pm at MCCIA,
MIDC, Ganeshnagar, Bhosari. For details, call Kishor Mandke or Mangesh
Kulkarni on 32605687/25709282.
Janata co-op bank office-bearers
Vidyadhar Damle was re-elected president of the Janata Cooperative
Bank Ltd. in the annual general meeting. In the meeting of the board
of directors, Arvind Khaladkar (tax consultant) was re-elected
chairman and Sanjay Lele (director of a catering service and marriage
hall) re-elected vice-chairman of the bank.
Milking parlour inaugurated
Ramesh Bhujbal, chairman of the Pune District Co-operative Milk
Producers' Association (the Katraj Doodh Sangh), inaugurated a milking
parlour near Warvand in Pune district. Bhujbal said the facility will
benefit milk producers from neighbouring villages and enable the
Association to make available its products in the area. Another such
facility will be set up near Naigaon in the coming days, he added.
Factories told to submit annual returns
The additional director of industrial safety and health, in a written
communiqu?, has asked management of various factories to submit the
annual returns in duplicate, in form No 27, 5 and 11 for the year
2008, to the office of the additional director, Industrial Safety and
Health, Sahakarbhavan, Pune-Satara road, Pune-37. Submitting the
returns is statutory requirement under Rule 119 of the Maharashtra
Factories Rules 1963, states the communiqu?.
Abhinav School wins best NSS unit award
The NSS unit of Abhinav Education Society's English medium school and
junior college, Ambegaon (BK), was given the Best NSS unit in the
state' award by the Department of Higher and Technical Education,
Maharashtra government recently. Programme officer Vinodkumar Bangle
was presented with Best programme officer at this occasion.
Regional level Dak-Adalat on Sep 24
The postmaster general of Pune (regional) will be holding 16th
regional level Dak-Adalat at the office of the postmaster general, 4
Finance road, at 11 am in on September 24.
Complaints regarding postal services pertaining to the Pune region,
including the district of Pune, Satara, Solapur and Ahmednagar that
have not been settled within six weeks will be considered. Complaints
regarding mails, speed-post, counter services, saving banks and non-
payments of money orders will be considered.
Complaints raised should contain details like the dates, names and
designation of the officers to whom the original complaint was
addressed. Customers may send their complaints in duplicate copies to
P G Karne, assistant director of postal services, office of the
postmaster general, Pune region, Pune-01, on or before September 10.
Courses in safety
In a bid to enhance safety measures at water bodies, like swimming
pools, lakes, rivers, canals and on roads, the Rashtriya Life Saving
Society (RLSS) will conduct the basic courses in safety at its
Swimming and Lifesaving Training Centre located at Bapu Sahib Kedari
PMC swimming Pool, Shivarakar road, Wanowrie, from September 6 and
September 30. Courses like first aid course, lifesaver/lifeguard
course, learn to swim and survive, course will be held. For details
contact: 32535902/26817424/9766492288
Seminar on private ltd companies
With the objective to enrich entrepreneurs in and around Pimpri-
Chinchwad with the knowledge of a private limited company and basis of
company law, the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and
Agriculture will organise a one-day seminar on All Aspects of Private
Limited Companies' at Lakaki board room, MCCIA, Tilak road at 10 am on
September 11. For details and registration contact: 25709000/25709182
Hitesh Nikam wins science competition
Hitesh Nikam, a standard IX student of New English School, Tilak Road,
won the division level science eloquence competition. Hitesh will
represent Pune division in the state-level competition, which will
held in Mumbai. Chandrayaan 1: Aims & results' was the subject of the
competition.
Dhere elected as president of PMCBL
Vijay Dhere and Hemant Jagtap have been elected as the president and
vice-president of Pune Merchant's Co-operative Bank Ltd (PMCBL),
respectively. Both of them are active social workers and are attached
with various socio-political organisations.
Sid Harth
Subir Roy: The way to crack the sugar dilemma
Subir Roy / New Delhi September 16, 2009, 0:36 IST
Ethanol from sugarcane is not an option available to water-deficient
India.
The sharp rise in sugar prices in India, now the world’s largest
producer and consumer of the commodity and currently a net importer,
is sending ripples round the world. Global sugar prices have reached a
three-year high, driven by expectation of continuing Indian import
requirements. A poor monsoon has added to the effect of lower
sugarcane acreage.
India urgently needs to set its house in order, marked by regular
cyclical change in sugar output and prices. These induce policy
measures that end up reinforcing the cycle. Take the recent central
government decision to up the minimum support price for sugarcane by a
massive third. This will lay the foundation for a higher sugarcane
crop and sugar output which will take care of the current shortage.
But things won’t stop there. The measure will also create a sugar
glut, fall in prices, massive arrears in mill payment to cane growers
(mills’ cash flow being hit by low sugar prices). This will enrage
farmers who will cut sugarcane acreage which will create a sugar
shortfall which will prompt the government to sharply raise cane
prices.
To get out of this it is necessary to absorb a few truths which are
not widely recognised. First, sugarcane largely goes to produce white
refined sugar, used extensively in soft drinks and alcohol. All these
are not just non-essential but harmful to health. Second, sugarcane is
a water guzzler. It takes twice to three times as much water to grow
sugarcane as rice.
Third, India is already water-deficient and with weather uncertainties
and glacial melt leading the country into a serious phase of water
scarcity, it is necessary to go easy on cultivating crops that need
lots of water. Fourth, with food prices currently running high and
likely additional pressure on them through population growth (India’s
is still one of the highest) the foremost necessity is to sharply hike
cereal output.
To draw the obvious conclusion from the foregoing, it is necessary to
get one red herring out of the way. Biofuels, ethanol in particular,
have lately emerged as a potential saviour which can supposedly
deliver us from the tyranny of global energy prices. But if a country
is water-scarce and its food security position is precarious, then it
has to save as much water as it can to grow cereals first. Ethanol
from sugarcane is not an option available to water-deficient India.
The obvious first policy imperative is to sharply downgrade the
importance given to sugar and sugarcane. Sharp rise in sugar prices
will make governments unpopular among the middle class but the
reaction should be a public education campaign saying that sugar is
bad for your health and now, when sugar prices have shot up, is a good
time to sharply cut back also on mithai.
If sugar prices remain permanently high at their present levels then
reaching enough sugar to below-poverty-line consumers through the
public distribution system will get very difficult. But how much sugar
BPL families actually get from ration shops is anybody’s guess. A good
part of it leaks out to the open market, making the PDS allocation a
source of corruption. To minimise the political damage caused by not
officially offering sugar, the government can promise and offer more
cereals. This ties up with notions of promoting food security.
If sugar and the cultivation of sugarcane are downgraded then the 50
million farmers who rely on it as an important source of income have
to be found an alternative. Obviously, support to farmers for growing
cereals has to become more important. The need is to ensure that
farmers get a better price for their grain and middlemen less by
drastically overhauling the controls on distribution. If this is done
the cost to the consumer for his food will not go up by as much as the
support price for cereals.
While all this is being done, the current unduly high weightage given
to sugar in the price index will need to be lowered as the commodity
will become less important. A windfall gain will be the boost to the
fight against inflation.
In this scenario, where sugar will cease to matter less to
policymakers, controls on the sugar industry will be gradually eased.
This will allow the more efficient sugar mills to thrive at the
expense of the rest. Among the winners will be those who will have
invested in capabilities to generate more byproducts and electricity
from bagass.
The real losers will be soft drinks and liquor companies and
politicians who have their hands in the tills of cooperative sugar
mills and inefficient private mills, mostly in north India, which have
survived by drawing rings round everybody and depriving cane growers.
chhotemianinshallah
Centre may’ve to pay Rs 2.3k cr on levy sugar
17 Sep 2009, 0131 hrs IST, Prabha Jagannathan, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Centre may have secured additional levy sugar for the
below poverty line (BPL) consumers for the festive season, but is
staring at
over Rs 2,300-crore bill due to them on account of depressed levy
sugar payments for the current sugar year (Oct’08-Sept’09).
Levy sugar is that portion of sugar production, currently 10%, which
the government takes away for supplying to the public distribution
system (PDS). The liability came up after a Supreme Court ruling on
levy sugar pricing earlier this month.
According to the Sugarcane Control Order, levy sugar pricing by the
Centre has to be based on the statutory minimum price (SMP), the cost
of conversion into sugar, excise and other taxes. Sugar mills have
been arguing that the price of levy sugar should be based on the state
advised price (SAP), the actual price paid by mills to farmers, and
not SMP. Many states announce their own price for sugarcane, which is
usually significantly higher than the centre’s SMP.
The judgement rejected Centre’s position that it would base levy sugar
pricing on the SMP. The Centre informed the apex court that it is
working out the additional burden it will have to bear on account of
this. According to industry estimates, the Centre will have to fork
out around Rs 2,300 crore for the 2008-09 sugar year alone.
Centre issued orders to sugar mills last week using Clause 2 (1) of
the amended Levy Sugar Supply (Control) Order, 1979 to release
additional sugar for the PDS at existing levy sugar prices. This
forced mills to release all unsold sugar from the dissolved sugar
buffer stocks. In addition, mills are also being directed, under
threat of penal action, to handover all the levy sugar carryovers from
the previous year not picked up by states.
Retail sugar prices are nearing the Rs 40/kg and the government is
trying to contain prices. The acute sugarcane shortage in the country
is likely to cause a sharp drop in sugar production from 26 million
tonne in 2007-08 to only 15 million tonne for the 2008-09 season.
An even lower availability is projected for 2009-10 even as output is
pegged at 16 million tonne since carryover stocks into that year
(Oct’09-Sept’10). Low production and prospect of heavy imports from
India, the largest sugar consumer in the world, have already driven
international prices to record highs, which has made imports
unviable.
chhotemianinshallah
3 Indian origin men among 25 highest paid globally: Fortune
16 Sep 2009, 2237 hrs IST, PTI
NEW YORK: Sanjay Jha of Motorola and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup are
among the three who have made it to the league of top 25 highest paid
men in Savvy girls in 20s new scions
According to the list published by Fortune and compiled by executive
compensation research firm Equilar Inc, Motorola Co-CEO and CEO,
Mobile Devices Sanjay K Jha with a total annual compensation of $104.5
million for the year 2008 was ranked second in the list.
While, Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram S Pandit with a total
compensation of $38.2 million for 2008 was ranked 14th and Dinesh C
Paliwal, Harman International Industries Vice-Chairman, President, and
CEO with an aggregate compensation of $30.4 million secured the 25th
position.
The list was topped by Aubrey K McClendon Chairman and CEO of
Chesapeake Energy, whose total compensation amounted to a whopping
$112.5 million.
The top five highest paid men in the world include Aubrey K McClendon
of Chesapeake Energy ($112.5 million), Sanjay Jha of Motorola ($104.5
million), Lawrence Ellison of Oracle ($84.5 million), Richard Adkerson
of Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold ($72.3 million) and Bob R Simpson of
XTO Energy ($53.5 million).
Others in the list include Robert A Iger of Walt Disney (6th), Lloyd C
Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (7th), Kenneth I Chenault of American
Express (8th), Jon Winkelried of Goldman Sachs (9th) and Gary D Cohn
of Goldman Sachs (10th).
Interestingly, there is a huge difference between the compensation
package of the highest paid men and women across the world.
While, the highest paid man is Aubrey K McClendon with a total
compensation of $112.5 million for 2008, Oracle President Safra Catz,
who was the highest paid woman executive received a pay package of
just $42.4 million.
"Aubrey K McClendon, the highest-paid male executive, is making more
than 2-and-a-half times what Safra Catz, the highest-paid woman, is
paid," Fortune said.
The chart was prepared by looking at companies with more than $1
billion in revenues.
The total compensation in this case includes annualised base salary,
discretionary and performance-based bonus payouts, the grant-date fair
value of new stock and option awards and other compensation. Besides,
other compensation also includes severance payments.
Sid Harth
RD Ministry to Set up One Rural Self Employment Training Institute in
each district
18:21 IST
Ministry of Rural Development has embarked upon a major initiative to
set up one Rural Self Employment Training Institute (RSETI) in each
district of the country. 110 proposals have been approved so far. In
order to review the progress of the setting up Rural Self Employment
Training Institutes (RSETIs), a meeting of the National Level Steering
Committee was held under the Chairpersonship of Dr. Rita Sharma,
Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development here today. The meeting was
attended by the representatives from Planning Commission, Ministry of
Finance, Reserve Bank of India, National Agricultural Bank for Rural
Development (NABARD), States, Public Sector Banks, National Institute
of Rural Development (NIRD), Bankers Institutes of Rural Development
(BIRD), Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute
(RUDSETI), and senior officers from the Ministry of Rural
Development.
All the issues related to the operationalization of RSETIs were
discussed in the meeting of the National Level Steering Committee. The
Committee has been constituted to give policy directions to all
stakeholders involved in the establishment of RSETIs and also
periodically monitor the progress of RSETIs. Secretary, Department of
Rural Development termed the establishment of RSETIs as one of the
most innovative initiatives of the Government of India to provide
training to the Rural Below Poverty Line (BPL) persons and ensure wage
employment / self-employment to them. Public Sector Banks have also
been associated in this scheme by the Ministry of Rural Development to
ensure credit linkage to the people who are trained by the RSETIs.
Ministry of Rural Development would provide assistance to
establishment of 200 RSETIs throughout the country in the current
financial year.
Sid Harth
September 18, 2009
Employment guarantee or slave labour?
Jean Drèze
Workers desilting a water channel in Vanarangudi, Tamil Nadu under the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Photo: M. Srinath
The delays in NREGA wage payments are not just operational hurdles —
they reflect a deliberate attack on the scheme.
Reports of prolonged delays in NREGA wage payments have been pouring
in from all over the country in recent months. The reports are truly
alarming, with delays of several months becoming the norm in entire
districts and even States. Worse, there are worksites where labourers
have lost hope of being paid at all (we found some in Khunti district,
Jharkhand). This is not very different from slave labour.
Under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, workers must be
paid within 15 days. Failing that, they are entitled to compensation
under the Payment of Wages Act — up to Rs. 3,000 per aggrieved worker.
However, except in one isolated instance in Jharkhand, compensation
has never been paid.
Even small delays often cause enormous hardship to workers who live on
the margins of subsistence. How are they supposed to feed their
families as they wait day after day for their wages, clueless on how
long it will take and powerless to do anything about it? A recent
investigation of hunger deaths in Baran district, Rajasthan, found
that delays in NREGA wage payments were partly responsible for the
tragedy. Timely payment is, literally, a matter of life and death —
all the more so in a drought year.
It is often argued, especially by government officials, that the main
reason for the delays is the inability of banks and post offices to
handle mass payments of NREGA wages. There is a grain of truth in
this, but as a diagnosis of the problem, it is quite misleading.
First, the current “jam” in the banking system is the Central
government’s own doing. It reflects the hasty and top-down switch to
bank payments imposed about a year ago. As far back as October 2007,
members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council warned against
this and advocated a gradual transition starting with villages that
are relatively close to the nearest bank.
Secondly, the delays in banks and post offices are by no means
immutable. In fact, the main obstacle (opening millions of accounts in
a short time) is already behind us. In a few States like Rajasthan,
the volume of NREGA payments is certainly a continuing challenge. But
in most States, these would be quite manageable with suitable
arrangements on the part of banks and post offices. In Khunti, we
found that payments were easy to expedite with a little help from
trained volunteers who accompanied workers to the banks. In Andhra
Pradesh, there is a clear protocol for payments through post offices,
with strict timelines and constant monitoring. According to this
monitoring system, I am told, 70 per cent of the wages are paid within
15 days.
Thirdly, the delays are not confined to the banking system. Very
often, it takes more than 15 days for “payment orders” to be issued to
the banks by the implementing agencies (for example, the gram
panchayat). Thus there are lapses outside the banking system too. For
the local administration, blaming the banks is a convenient way of
passing the buck.
On closer examination, various hurdles appear to contribute to the
delays. These include delays in work measurement (themselves linked to
the tyrannical behaviour of the engineering staff), bottlenecks in the
flow of funds (sometimes bringing NREGA to a halt in entire blocks),
irresponsible record-keeping (such as non-maintenance of muster rolls
and job cards), and, yes, hurdles related to bank payments. But I
venture to suggest that behind these specific hurdles is a deeper
“backlash” against NREGA in many areas. With bank payments making it
much harder to embezzle NREGA funds, the whole programme is now seen
as a headache by many government functionaries: the workload remains
but the “inducements” do not. Aside from the possibility of foot-
dragging, slowing down wage payments is a convenient way of sabotaging
NREGA, because it makes workers themselves turn against the programme.
That was certainly the situation we found a few months ago in Khunti,
where workers had started deserting NREGA worksites. This backlash, I
surmise, is the real reason why massive delays have emerged around the
same time as the transition to bank payments. Seen in this light, the
delays are not just operational hurdles — they reflect a deliberate
attack on NREGA.
The Central and State governments, for their part, seem to be in
denial mode. In Delhi, the Ministry of Rural Development has a vague
awareness of the delays, but little to show by way of factual evidence
or remedial action. When the Ministry’s attention was drawn to the
morass of wage payments in Khunti district, the Deputy Commissioner
was asked to take action and certify that no wages were pending. She
sent the certificate (in writing) within a few days. It turned out to
be based on nothing more than empty assurances from the Block
Development Officers, who have no credible data on wage dues. A recent
social audit in Khunti showed that rampant delays persist to this day.
Ostriches are alive and well in Jharkhand.
Instead of addressing this emergency, the Ministry is lost in a maze
of confused proposals about “NREGA-2.” The real meaning of this term
became clear on August 20, 2009, when the Ministry was expected to
unfurl the NREGA-2 blueprint on the occasion of Rajiv Gandhi birth
anniversary. This blueprint boiled down to an architectural sketch
(hastily prepared by the School of Planning and Architecture) for
“Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras,” to be built in all gram panchayats as one
of the “core activities” under NREGA. This is a strange idea,
especially in a drought year — pucca buildings are not even on the
list of permissible works. Perhaps someone thought that putting the
Gandhi tag on NREGA across the country would please the political
bosses and help the ruling party reclaim the programme. The recent
rearrangement of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, with some
very able members being shown the door to make room for Congress MPs
and friends, was in the same genre. A better way of winning credit for
NREGA would be to make it work, starting with timely wage payments.
Insofar as the Centre has any answer to the problem, it seems to be
based on the “business correspondent” model, whereby bank agents will
go around villages to make cash payments recorded through hand-held
electronic gadgets. This solution, however, is based on a wrong
diagnosis — that the main problem is the distance that separates many
villages from the nearest bank. Distance is certainly an issue in some
areas but it has little to do with the delays. In any case, the need
of the hour in a drought situation are not futuristic experiments but
is immediate acceleration of payments.
Ending the delays is not a simple matter. The first point to note is
that, as things stand, there is no in-built alert in the event of
delays, let alone any in-built pressure to act. Programme Officers at
the block level typically have no data on delays in wage payments. The
workers, for their part, have no way of airing their grievances. This
is one aspect of the general lack of grievance redress provisions in
NREGA; or rather, of the sidelining of these provisions on the part of
Central and State governments — in this case by ignoring the
compensation clause. Activating this clause (along with Section 25 of
NREGA, which provides for penalties on anyone who does not do his or
her duty under the law) would be of great help in accelerating wage
payments.
Aside from this, other effective measures can be taken. Piece rate
work could be replaced with daily wage work in drought-affected areas,
to dispense with the cumbersome process of work measurement. In any
case, wages could be paid on the basis of attendance wherever work
measurement is not completed within, say, seven days. Buffer funds can
be provided to gram panchayats and post offices, to avoid bottlenecks
in the flow of funds. Clear timelines are required at every step of
the payment process, along with close coordination of the NREGA
machinery with banks and post offices. Job card entries need to be
made at the worksite, so that workers have proof that wages are due.
Partial advances, in cash at the worksite, could also be considered.
And, of course, wage payments need to be meticulously tracked.
These are just a few examples of possible steps to reduce delays in
wage payments. The first step, however, is to recognise the problem
and give it overwhelming priority. The absence of that is the big
stumbling block today.
(The author is Visiting Professor at Allahabad University and member
of the Central Employment Guarantee Council.)
Comments:
Having seen the debacle of NDA regime on the hollow promise of India
shining, the UPA-I, in order to project itself as more people-friendly
and with a genuine concern for an inclusive socio-economic
development, came out with an appealing idea of employment guarantee
for the rural poor as a legal entitlement, that began with an
enactment of law, the NREGA, to that effect to be followed by the
NREGS as an experimental pilot project covering 150 districts to be
subsequently extended to all the 600 and odd districts. Having sensed
its potential for electoral dividends, the NREGS was not only retained
by the UPA-II, but showcased as the social flagship scheme of rural
development. Now since beginning, the NREGS was inspired by the coarse
populist instincts, it could never become a genuine development
concern of the UPA. It is, therefore, not at all surprising that the
NREGS does encounter the same familiar politico-bureaucratic-
technocratic hurdles as do the other development programmes, non-
payment of wages or delayed payments to the NREGS rural labour workers
is just a small pointer to the future of this otherwise valuable
development programme, crucial even to empower the rural poor.
from: Jai Prakash Sharma
This is indeed an area where NGO-s have a serious role to play, not as
mere critics complicating the process further, but as enablers
expediting the process working in liaison with various agencies to
ease the processes through bottlenecks and eventually, work in unison
to eliminate these bottlenecks - Sreekrishnan Narayanan, Dubai, UAE
from: Sreekrishnan
The author is right in casting light on the discrepancies in the
payment of wages among many districts and states.NREGA, is one of
those life saving schemes which have sustained the lives of majority
of rural population.At a time of distress , due to the ongoing drought
in many parts of the country NREGA has much important role to
play .Many of our state governments have always been averse to schemes
of the central governments ,due to some political apprehensions. It is
not the lack of resources but the lack of will on the part of our
state actors to make such schemes effective has rendered NREGA
inefficient in many parts of rural India.Especially when most of our
rural people are going through a period of drought ,there shouldn't be
any delay in the payments.
from: Ramesh Babu
bademiyansubhanallah
Count puts poverty at 50%, riles govt
CITHARA PAUL
New Delhi, Sept. 20: At least half the country’s rural population
lives in poverty, a government-appointed expert panel has said, nearly
doubling the Planning Commission’s estimate that 28 per cent of Indian
villagers are poor.
The Centre, however, appears likely to go by the plan panel’s figures
rather than the N.C. Saxena committee’s higher count which, if
adopted, will enormously hike expenditure on anti-poverty schemes by
adding crores to the list of beneficiaries.
The irony is that the government itself had appointed the Saxena
committee to work out new criteria to decide which households lived
below the poverty line.
Asked about the possibility of implementing the Saxena report, handed
in last month, rural development minister C.P. Joshi said: “The Saxena
committee was not asked to count the poor but to develop a methodology
to identify the poor.’’
He added that the report was not binding on the government.
However, junking the panel’s figures would amount to rejecting the
suggested criteria too. For, the panel’s figures are based on the new
criteria it has suggested in its report, as well as data from state
governments and the food ministry.
The committee has suggested five exclusion criteria for the 2009 below-
poverty-line (BPL) survey: average per head spending over Rs 1,000 a
month in urban areas and Rs 700 in rural areas; or ownership of a
pucca house, or two-wheeler, or mechanised farm implement like a
tractor, or landholding above the district average.
The Planning Commission, however, went by a different cutoff for
average per head spending — Rs 356 a month in rural areas and Rs 539 a
month in urban areas. One other criterion it used was daily calorie
intake: 2,400 kilocalories in villages and 2,100 for urban areas.
Its figure of 28 per cent poor is the same as that obtained by using
the old BPL criteria, fixed during the previous survey in 2002, which
the Saxena panel was tasked to revise.
The Planning Commission has written to Saxena saying: “Fixing the BPL
percentage at 50 per cent will have tremendous financial implications
and once granted it cannot be reduced….’’
The Saxena committee has cited food ministry data, which mention 10.5
crore BPL cards in the country. This would already account for roughly
53 crore poor — nearly half the population — it says.
Saxena has found fault with the National Sample Survey Organisation’s
data, on which the plan panel’s calculations were based. The committee
factored in inflation too, but has not given the details of how this
was done.
One other reason for its higher count is that it compulsorily includes
in the BPL list all Primitive Tribal Groups and households headed by
single women or minors, those with a disabled person as the
breadwinner, destitute households, and families of bonded labourers.
Saxena, a former rural development secretary, and the plan panel
differ also on the state-wise poverty count. Whereas Saxena finds two
states with more than 80 per cent of their people eligible for BPL
status (see chart), the plan panel finds none with above 50 per cent
poor.
The Saxena committee says that though the official poverty count fell
from 56 per cent in 1973-74 to 28 per cent in 2004 going by the
government’s old BPL criteria, there has been no real decline in the
number of the poor.
Analysing the existing and old BPL lists, it says a large number of
poor families have been left out of poverty alleviation programmes
“and these must be the voiceless people living in remote hamlets”.
chhotemianinshallah
Why poverty and inequality are rising in India
September 21, 2009 14:08 IST
There is a strong state-wise dimension to India's poverty question,
and the first answers have to come from the governments of the
concerned states, writes T N Ninan.
Which country would a poor person like to live in? He has two options.
In Country A, the average income per head goes up by 1 per cent each
year, while that of the poor goes up by 1.25 per cent.
In Country B, average income goes up by 3.5 per cent each year, but
that of the poor goes up by only 3 per cent. It is easy to see what
will happen over time in the two countries.
In A, inequality will reduce and everyone will become more equal. In
B, however, poverty will reduce much faster, even though the level of
inequality will increase. So which of these two countries would a poor
person choose?
That was a question posed at a conference in New Delhi [ Images ] last
week by Stuart Corbridge of the London [ Images ] School of
Economics.
It seemed evident to me that any poor person would choose Country B,
because he would primarily be interested in rapid improvement of his
own economic condition, even if that meant accepting increasing
inequality.
But most people at the conference (attended by government people and
NGOs, primarily) seemed to find that a difficult choice to make. It
went against the grain to say that poverty was more important than
equality.
Some speakers even dismissed it as a false choice. That is an arguable
point, for some rapidly growing countries have become more unequal,
while others that are growing less fast have become more equal.
According to a study that Prof Corbridge quoted, in roughly half the
countries the level of inequality has been coming down (i.e., they
have achieved 'pro-poor' growth).
That, however, is not true of the two fastest-growing economies in the
world, China and India. China's growing inequality has been a subject
of general agreement for several years.
Not so in the case of India, because a key statistical measure of
inequality (the Gini co-efficient, worked out using data from National
Sample Surveys) shows the level of inequality in India as being par
for the course.
That has now been questioned by Pranab Bardhan. Writing on this page
two weeks ago, Prof Bardhan said that, if one goes by NCAER data,
inequality levels in India are much higher than generally assumed.
And when it comes to inequality in asset ownership (including land),
India is much worse than China. Ditto when it comes to education, in
which India is one of the most unequal in the world.
Prof Bardhan argued that these kinds of inequality are growth-
retarding, so there is no trade-off between equity and efficiency.
The tricky thing is that India during the years of more rapid growth
has not seen poverty levels come down significantly faster, if at all
- though this comes with the qualification that there is no data for
the post-2003 period, which has seen the fastest growth so far.
Even in China, the poorest 10 per cent of the population have seen
very little improvement in their standards of living. In other words,
the rapid growth in these two countries is not even anti-poverty, let
alone being pro-equality.
The operative questions have to do with causes and correctives. Are
economic reforms and the greater role of markets responsible for
growth being anti-poor and anti-equality, or is it the failure of
governance in poverty-ridden states like Bihar and Jharkhand that is
the primary problem?
I would think it is the latter. There is a strong state-wise dimension
to India's poverty question, and the first answers have to come from
the governments of the concerned states. If Bihar falls behind while
Gujarat ploughs on ahead, both poverty and inequality will increase.
T N Ninan
chhotemianinshallah
Plan to restrict welfare schemes benefits to BPL families only in
Puducherry
PTI
Sunday, October 11, 2009 22:12 IST
Puducherry: The Puducherry government proposes to modify a number of
welfare measures to restrict the schemes to cover only families
belonging to `below poverty line` in the Union Territory.
Welfare minister M Kandasamy said that presently a number of freebies
implemented for all sections involved hefty expenditure. It was now
proposed to collect error proof details of actual BPL families so that
only the poorer sections are given benefits of welfare schemes like
free dhotis and saris, sugar and rice, he said.
He was speaking at the concluding day of the two-day training
programme for school teachers on `art of counselling` conducted by
State Women`s Commission here. The proposal was welcomed by all those
present.
Ohm Sakthi Segar MLA (AIADMK) who presided also welcomed the proposal
and said the government should ensure that poor families of all castes
and religions were covered under it. Kandasamy said money saved by
restricting freebies could be used to help unemployed youth start self
employment projects.
He said though Special Component Plan involving Rs283crore outlay was
meant basically to help Scheduled Castes through various welfare
measures, he was keen that all poorer sections be covered through this
plan.
S Kamalini, Women`s commission chairperson, said 12 training
programmes for school teachers on art of counseling had been held so
far in Puducherry and Karaikal regions.