HOW PERSISTENCE CAN BRING LARGE POLICY CHANGE ?
Hasrat Arjjumend
HOW PERSISTENCE CAN BRING LARGE POLICY CHANGE ?
Government of India has been running largest rural development program, which is known as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) enforced through parliament law promulgated in 2005. Under this program, majority of activities encompass Natural Resources Management, Ecological Restoration and Land & Water Conservation. For last many years the efforts are made to dovetail unspent funds of lot many other government schemes/programs and channelize such huge funds into NREGS works in rural areas ("Convergence").
NREGS has been operational in Rajasthan province since 2008. To improvise the implementation of NREGS in all rural areas of Rajasthan, the State Government of Rajasthan has launched new provincial scheme for Convergence and issued an order (which is attached herewith in Hindi language) regarding the Convergence of state's all other Rural Development schemes with NREGS. And, the name of this Convergence based new scheme has been tagged as "SHAAMLAAT PAHAL" (Commons Initiative).
Para 1.2 of this scheme's Order contains the words/phrases about its focus on 'Commons Development & Conservation'. Gram Panchayats (local village councils) will be the implementing agencies of this new scheme if the budget is upto 5 million rupees.
What is important in this new scheme (to be implemented in all 33 districts of Rajasthan province of India) is that first time any government scheme/program has been given name of 'Shaamlaat' (Commons or Common Property Resources), which no doubt gives exclusive impetus to the need of rejuvenating, restoring and reclaiming the village commons, which have otherwise been dilapidated, severely degraded, fragmented and destroyed by variety of factors. Rajasthan province has nearly 5% of geographical area (largest in India) under Commons due to the aridity and acute paucity of rainwaters. Adverse climatic conditions, less rainfall and xeric edaphic conditions have adversely affected these Commons, especially the rangelands, pasturelands, water bodies and scared groves. People's livelihoods and livestock are hard hit by the severely degrading Commons. This scheme would obviously contribute to securing the ecology of Commons and the dependent lives of rural poor majority.
How has this become possible, particularly when Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), in which I have been serving as Dean of its state-wide large scale trainings college in Rajasthan, had tried hard for several years in drafting State Commons Policy and pushing that to be accepted by Government's Cabinet? Though the State Commons Policy could not get through, but series of enabling orders were issued by Rajasthan Government in support of Commons' development, protection and restoration. Giving full tag name of the new full-fledged scheme/program as "Shaamlaat ........." and stressing on the activities encompassing 'development and conservation' of Commons and ecological restoration is pleasant surprise, apparently.
BUT, here I wish to share briefly the story behind this. In late 2014, from the platform of my College under FES, I advocated, lobbied and influenced several key government officers particularly in NREGS Commissionerate in Jaipur (capital city of Rajasthan), many academic institutions and big number of elected public representatives. During the advocacy and campaigning efforts, I pursued in my own style a good number of officers, key legislative members, public representatives, academicians, etc. Having discoursed for ecological restoration of pasturelands and rangelands in deserts and arid/semi-arid zones of Rajasthan, I contributed my inputs into the framing and naming this new Convergence scheme ("Shaamlaat Pahal" or 'Commons Initiative') of the Government of Rajasthan. Thus, it has finally been declared on 9 March 2015.
Through this innovative scheme/program, a huge quantum of unspent funds under dozens of other state government schemes/program can be streamlined to be spent on developing and conserving the common property resources covering 44672 villages of 9332 gram panchayats (village councils) of Rajasthan province. Our next task would now be to educate the local governance bodies (gram panchayats) to avail the benefits by better participatory planning and effective implementation of this Convergence scheme. For us, it is a clear message that we can achieve big in small bits & pieces of efforts, but, inevitably consistent.
HASRAT ARJJUMEND
MSc (EnvSc), MA (Public Admin), MRM (MPhil NRM), MBA, PhD (Biodiv Gov), PGDip (Env Law), Cert. Public Policy (ìpolicy)
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Dr. Arjjumend is currently the Dean at FES’ Rural College (Rajasthan Campus). He was Social-Impact Fellow 2008-10 in Mumbai and Commonwealth Fellow 2007 in England. He is recipient of prestigious UNESCO-Wenhui Award for Educational Innovation 2010 (Asia-Pacific), Chairman's Gold Medal (1997-98) for top ranking in MPhil Natural Resource Management (MRM) from Indian Institute of Forest Management (Govt. of India), Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Scholarship (USA) 2007, and S.J. Jindal Trust Scholarship 1990-91. He possesses 22+ years experience of research, field action, training, teaching and organizational management, dealing with various thrust areas in broad (inter)disciplines of Environment, Natural Resources, Governance, Development, and Indigenous Rights. He has over 110 publications of varied types including few books, contributions in books, research/ discussion papers & articles, reports, manuscripts, etc., and over 50 popular articles on development and environmental issues published in newspapers & magazines. He has acted as a leader of several people-centred initiatives and forums in North & Central India. He is visiting faculty to several universities & institutes. He is also member to some government committees & boards, and many national & international associations. He possesses working/study exposure to half of India’s provinces including Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and to Scandinavia, West Europe, Russia & Siberia, South Asia and South-East Asia.
Contact:
Tel: +91-8946944213, 9414013948 (Rajasthan), 9910188948, 9868993710 (New Delhi)
E-mail: harjj...@gmail.com, harjj...@yahoo.co.in, harjj...@grassrootsinstitute.in
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