smartprep.in · YOJANA February 2011 1 Our Representatives : Ahmedabad: Amita Maru, Bangalore: B.K....

YOJANA February 2011 1

Our Representatives : Ahmedabad: Amita Maru, Bangalore: B.K. Kiranmai, Chennai: I. Vijayan, Guwahati: Anupoma Das, Hyderabad: V. Balakrishna, Kolkata: Antara Ghosh, Mumbai: Minakshi Banerjee, Thiruvananthapuram: VM Ahmad.

YOJANA seeks to carry the message of the Plan to all sections of the people and promote a more earnest discussion on problems of social and economic development. Although published by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Yojana is not restricted to expressing the official point of view. Yojana is published in Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

For new subscriptions, renewals, enquiries please contact : Business Manager (Circulation & Advt.), Publications Division, Min. of I&B, East Block-IV, Level-VII,R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110066, Tel.: 26100207, Telegram : Soochprakasan and Sales Emporia : Publications Division: *Soochna Bhavan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi -110003 (Ph 24365610) *Hall No.196, Old Secretariat, Delhi 110054(Ph 23890205) * 701, B Wing, 7th Floor, Kendriya Sadan, Belapur, Navi Mumbai 400614 (Ph 27570686)*8, Esplanade East, Kolkata-700069 (Ph 22488030) *’A’ Wing, Rajaji Bhawan, Basant Nagar, Chennai-600090 (Ph 24917673) *Press road, Near Govt. Press, Thiruvananthapuram-695001 (Ph 2330650) *Block No.4, 1st Floor, Gruhakalpa Complex, M G Road, Nampally, Hyderabad-500001 (Ph 24605383) *1st Floor, ‘F’ Wing, Kendriya Sadan, Koramangala, Bangalore-560034 (Ph 25537244) *Bihar State Co-operative Bank Building, Ashoka Rajpath, Patna-800004 (Ph 2683407) *Hall No 1, 2nd floor, Kendriya Bhawan, Sector-H, Aliganj, Lucknow-226024(Ph 2225455) *Ambica Complex, 1st Floor, above UCO Bank, Paldi, Ahmedabad-380007 (Ph 26588669) *KKB Road, New Colony, House No.7, Chenikuthi, Guwahati 781003 (Ph 2665090)

SUBSCRIPTION : 1 year Rs. 100, 2 years Rs. 180, 3 years Rs. 250. For neighbouring countries by Air Mail Rs. 530 yearly; for European and other countries Rs. 730 yearly.No. of Pages : 56

Disclaimer : l The views expressed in various articles are those of the authors’ and not necessarily of the government. l The readers are requested to verify the claims made in the advertisements regarding career guidance books/institutions. Yojana does not own responsibility

regarding the contents of the advertisements.

EDITORIAL OFFICE : Yojana Bhavan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi Tel.: 23096738, 23717910, (23096666, 23096690, 23096696- Extn. 2509, 2510, 2565, 2566, 2511). Tlgm.: Yojana. Business Manager (Hqs.) : Ph :24367260, 24365609, 24365610

February 2011 Vol 55

Chief Editor : Neeta Prasad

Editor : Manogyan R. Pal

Joint Director (Prod) : J.K. ChandraCover Design : Manjula Das

E-mail (Editorial) : [email protected] : [email protected]

Website : www.yojana.gov.in

Let noble thoughts come to us from every sideRig Veda

(Circulation) : pdjucir_ [email protected]


C O N T E N T S

FLAGGING THE RUPEE ..............................................................36 Naveen Jindal

NORTH EAST DIARY ...............................................................38

J&K WINDOW PANCHAYAT ELECTIONS IN J&K ............................................39 Kavita Suri

BEST PRACTICES ....................................................................41 THUMBS UP FOR THIS CASTE PANCHAYAT Usha Chowdhary

NATURAL RESOURCES AND VILLAGE INSTITUTIONS: A CRITICAL LINK ..........................................43 Sushant

SHODH YATRA ..........................................................................47

TIPS FOR RURAL HEALTH.........................................................50 M A Haque

GRASSROOTS LEVEL DEMOCRACY IN INDIA : AN ASSESSMENT...........................................................................5 Mathew C Kunnumkal

NEEDED-A NEW DEAL FOR PANCHAYATI RAJ ....................10 George Mathew

DO YOu KNOW? ......................................................................14

TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE SANITATION IN NORTH-EASTERN REGION ........................................................15 Agatha Sangma

A PLACE TO CONVERT NOISE TO VOICE ..............................20 G Palanithurai

WOMEN IN PANCHAYATS: A REVIEW ....................................24 Atonu Chatterjee

PROTECTION OF RURAL LIVELIHOODS ...............................28 Awanish Somkuwar

SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF LOCAL RESOURCES ...32 N Lalitha

2 YOJANA February 2011

YE-

5/11

/5


The year 2009 marked fifty years since Nagaur in Rajasthan saw the foundations of Panchayati Raj institutions being laid in India. Fifty long years in which this institution has grown from strength to strength, bringing a large

community of hitherto left-out people into the folds of governance. Fifty long years in which the common Indian from the remotest corner of the country has proved that he knows what is best for himself, his family and society, and that given a little support, he can think, decide and act for the collective good of his community. Fifty long years that have helped us rediscover the collective strength of the people at the grassroots after we almost lost it under the torturous period of subjugation by the British. Observing the year 2009-10 as the Year of the Gram Sabha was a reconfirmation of this strength of the people.

The Gram Sabha had been visualized as an institutionalized forum of villagers that would ensure that every voice in the village was heard, the needs and concerns of every quarter of the society was addressed and that the elected representatives of the panchayats performed their duties as expected of them. If we look at the last eighteen years since the 73rd constitutional amendment came through, we find a lot to be happy about. Regular and serious panchayat elections, an increasing representation of women and people from other marginalized sections of the society, many forceful voices rising from the grassroots, forcing the powers that be to sit up and take note, a host of innovative development initiatives that have come to fruition under the able stewardship of the people at the grassroots. In fact, in a bold move the India government has also decided to stitch the Gram Sabhas into the industrial fabric of the country. In bits and pieces at first and now regularly, the Gram Sabhas have been given the authority to decide if a particular industrial project should be located in the area where the Sabha operates. If an industrialist has to set up a project, he has to inform the Sabha, give them an opportunity to call a meeting, explain the details of the project and ask for their permission to buy land from the area. Only when the Sabha has approved the same can the project go through.

While all the above is true, it is also a fact that the true potential of the Gram Sabha as an instrument of participatory governance is yet to be realized. The incorporation of the marginalized sections of the society into active governance is facing multiple hindrances, issues of accountability are yet to be settled, a sense of ownership and belonging has not yet developed fully. The Gram Sabha is yet to become the powerful organ of people’s empowerment that it was meant to be.

In the current issue of Yojana, experts in the field bring to you their views on the issue. q


About the Issue


YE-

3/11

/3


R A S S R O O T S D E M O C R A C Y i s neither a new concept nor is it an expression of western political

thought operationalized in Indian soil. The origin of grassroots level democracy dates back to the Vedic Age and has been fairly well documented in ancient scriptures such as the Rig Veda, Aitareya Brahman, Panini’s Astadhyai, Kautilyas Arthasastra, inscriptions on Asokan Pillars and the writings of Buddhist and Jain scholars. The available literature clearly points to the fact that republics functioned and elected representatives participated in Janpadas (regional bodies) Paura Sabhas (City Councils) and Gram Sabhas (Village assemblies) in ancient India. People in republics

Grassroots Level Democracy in India : An Assessment

GRaM Sabha

Mathew C Kunnumkal

OVERViEW

The performance levels of the PRIs have been directly proportionate to levels of transfer

of 3 ‘F’s’ viz., Functions,

Functionaries and Funds

were funct ioning through a decision by majority which was regarded as inviolable and not to be overridden. Issues which required more deliberations and serious thinking were referred to a special committee elected from among the members of the assembly.

Under the British Rule local self government did not make much progress. These panchayat institutions were unable to function effectively due to organizational and fiscal maladies. However with the emergence of Gandhiji on the political arena, grass root level democracy slowly started regaining importance. Gandhiji’s advocacy of village democracy brought the issue to centre stage and laid the foundations for grass root level democracy in modern

G

The author is Director General, National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad


India. In his article (Harijan, 26 July, 1942) on Village Swaraj, Gandhiji had envisaged a village as a complete Republic, independent of its neighbor for its vital wants, yet interdependent, for many others in which dependence is a necessity. These views got reflected in the non-justiciable part of the Constitution in the Directive Principles of State Policy, as Article 40.

Soon after Independence, both the Community Development Programme and National Extension Service were launched to address rural reconstruction efforts. The focus of these programmes was on improving agriculture and rural development and bringing about socio economic transformation among the rural people. The Balwantrai Committee which was appointed to study the Community Development Programme and National Extension Service stated that the community needs to be involved in planning, decision making and implementation process. However Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) across the country faced resistance from bureaucracy, lacked capacity and were often captured by certain elitist sections of the community. T h e r e a f t e r A s h o k M e h t a Committee appointed in 1978 described the post 1959 period in three phases; a) Ascendancy

1959-64; b) Stagnation -1965-69; c) Decline - 1969-1977. The Committee recommended that the district should be the basic unit for planning, coordination and resource allocation and should be supported by technical expertise. The GVK Rao Committee (1985) was of the opinion that PRIs need to play an important role in rural development programmes thus building up a gradual momentum in favour of the local self government institutions. In 1986 the Committee for the Concept Paper on Panchayati Raj Institutions recommended that these inst i tut ions need constitutional backing. The gram sabha was identified as the base of decentralized democracy and PRI as units of self–government promoting people’s participation. Although this was opposed by the Sarkaria Commission the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced the 64th Constitutional amendment bill in 1989. As the Bill was defeated in the Rajya Sabha, it was introduced again in 1992 and was passed as the 73rd Constituted Amendment. This Act is a landmark legislation which has brought empowerment of the Panchayat Raj Institutions and has ensured the transfer of power from the State to the panchayat raj institutions to be exercised by the people.

“India lives in its villages” is the oft quoted statement of the Father of the Nation. In reality however the people of India were far distanced from the seat of power and the Government at the Centre and in the States. The greatest strength of grass root democracy reflected through the Panchayat Raj Institutions is its proximity to the people. It is an important step towards the realization of Gandhiji’s dream of ‘vi l lage swaraj’”. Grass root level democracy has a tremendous potential for establishing a people centred delivery system which is essential for sustainable development. The village assemblies/Gram Sabhas can emerge as a platform for expression of people’s needs and aspirations. This in turn will help to effectively utilize the local resources and pave the way for need based development which would br ing v i s ib le benefit to the local community. These institutions also provide opportunities for the marginalized and socially excluded groups to participate in decision making. Fundamental requirements for personal advancement such as access to health care and education can be better provided by judicious assessment of needs and allocation of resources. With the people being actually involved in decision


making the scope for corruption and misuse of resources and authority get reduced. Close monitoring and social audit are possible for taking corrective action which was not possible in the erstwhile top down approach that was in vogue. The vesting of powers of taxation with the Gram Panchayats has enabled them to increase their resource base for accelerating development. At the panchayat level, there can be very imaginative and pragmatic pooling of resources and convergence of schemes which will bring larger good to the community. Micro level planning which was virtually absent hitherto enables to translate people’s aspirations into need based programmes.

Since the Panchayat Raj Institutions are still in the early stages of development they are yet to overcome several weaknesses which have not enabled them to reach their full potential. First and foremost, the Gram Sabha which is considered as the life-line of PRIs by directly reflecting people’s views and voices has to see a much higher level of participation by the entire community. There has also to be much greater involvement and articulation of the needs of the entire community particularly the deprived sections. Secondly there is considerable discretion vested in the state Governments. PRIs

falls under the state subject and the legal language of ‘shall’ and ‘may’ and other connotations has led to various levels of conformity by the state Governments. It is seen that several non obligatory provisions, like the representation of legislators and members of parliament in PRIs, is affecting the true expression of village democracy. Adequate training and sustained handholding efforts are not extended to elected representatives. Hence there is a lack of professionalism in handling administrative, financial and other related issues. Devolution of three Fs – Funds, Functions and Functionaries which is imperative for effective public service delivery has not yet taken place in many states.

The District planning committee has been constituted. However its performance levels needs to be improved by making the District Panchayat Chairman as its head and reducing the role of in charge Ministers.

The weaknesses which are highlighted are structural. A greater amount of political will is essential to enable these bodies to function as true democratic institutions.

N o t w i t h s t a n d i n g t h e s e weaknesses it is very heartening to note that in many parts of the country the Panchayat Raj Inst i tut ions has emerged as

powerful vehicles for social transformation. Some examples of best practices are stated below:

1) K a r n a t a k a h a s v e r y i n n o v a t i v e l y u s e d t h e Panchayat Raj system to improve revenue realization in the power sector. Under the Participatory Rural Energy Services in Karnataka, Gram Panchayat (GP) members w e r e t r a i n e d t o o f f e r electricity support services and transfer best practices for water farming and electricity management.

2) Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) is concerned with improving access in rural areas of Orissa (ILO). IRAP comprises a set of planning tools for use at Gram Panchayat level to identify and prioritize interventions to improve accessibility. The process responds to the access needs of rural people and interventions to either improve mobil i ty ( roads , t racks , bridges, transport services) or bring the services and goods closer to the people (markets, schools, health centers, water supplies).

3) Indira Kranthi Pathakam (IKP) in Andhra Pradesh has evolved a strategy for enabling the Village Organizations in 700 Gram Panchayats in 259


Mandals to facilitate all the poor households to secure their Rights and Entitlements under MGNREGA fully and also to ensure that the Employment G u a r a n t e e S c h e m e investments are secured to develop the lands belonging to the poor. The strategy is to position a team of Community Resource Persons in select Gram Panchayats to provide grass root level support to the Village Organisations. It is expected that these 700 Gram Panchayats will emerge as EGS Model Villages for demonstrating a framework for implementing NREGS in a manner that all the Rights and Entitlements guaranteed to the wage seekers are fulfilled in letter and spirit.

4) In Uttar Pradesh Mid Day Meal programme is managed by the Gram Panchayats. Information on menu, the quantity of ingredients needed for feeding 100 children and funds received for the programmes are disseminated through the Gram Panchayats through wall writings, etc.. The funds for the programme are deposited in a separate account in village fund so that account of expenditure can be maintained. Food items are supplied on a monthly

basis in advance. A committee has been constituted at gram panchayat level to supervise day-to-day cooking at school level with Gram Pradhan, and representat ion from parents. This intervention has improved the quality and delivery of the Mid Day Meal Programme.

5) Understanding the actual cause of the heavy school drop outs among tribal children, Vellamunda Panchayat in Wayanad district has used its resources imaginatively to arrest the drop out rate and increase retention of children in the schools. It hired five jeeps and launched its own ‘transport service’ to ferry the children to and from the school and introduced a free breakfast and noon meal scheme to retain the children in the 18 schools within the panchayat limits as part of six projects costing Rs.22 lakh annually.

The decentralized governance system ushered in through the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments in 1993-94 have not been able to pick up the required momentum on account of several challenges confronting the PRIs. Some of the challenges are listed below:

1. Constitution of certain types of Committees not in line with

the spirit of PRIs especially for several donor driven programmes, is moving away from the objectives enshrined in the Constitution. Similarly, the strengths of Self Help Groups need to be integrated for improving the capability of the Panchayats.

2. An organic linkage between g r a m s a b h a a n d g r a m panchayat is yet to be forged. Consequently resolutions p a s s e d i n G r a m s a b h a generally do not get reflected in the identified needs of Gram Panchayat, both in terms of human resource and infrastructure development.

3. In many states GPs do not constitute viable administrative units due to their geographical areas and physical distances from potential growth centres and sheer inaccessibility due to lack of proper infrastructure such as roads and connectivity. Delimitations on the basis of population distances and access need to be done in some States.

4. The higher outlays and number of programmes require a much higher level of capability and professionalism for delivering the desired results.

5. Physical infrastructure also needs to be substantially improved at the Panchayat


level for data maintenance, record keeping etc.

Despite these challenges, the PRIs have been playing a role as institutions of local governance in the changing scenario of rural development. Some of the positive trends are as follows:

1. P R I s a r e i n c r e a s i n g l y recognized as the best available alternative to implement s e v e r a l d e v e l o p m e n t a l programs and of late GPs are made to play a pivotal role in the planning and implementation process. Direct funding is also being made available for speedy implementation of programmes.

2. Since various Ministries and donor agencies have started adopting the ‘Saturation approach’ in developmental programmes by extending the delivery to the last man, PRI institutions have started to play an enlarged role in identification, planning and implementation.

3. Social audits at PRI level have shown that people’s p a r t i c i p a t i o n i s b o t h qualitatively and effectively resolving local problems.

4. Performance of the PRIs is evaluated both by national and international agencies (Google) and they are given

awards, which has led to increased motivation on part of PRIs. Due to this, over the years, one comes across several performing GPs who are recognized as Beacon Panchayats and role models for others. They have been successful in converging both human and financial resources and have been successful in promoting social and economic equity.

To conclude, grass root level democracy has come to stay in India through the instrumentality of 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment. While on the one side of the spectrum there are very active and strong PR Institutions, at the other end we have a large number of PRIs which a re not in a position to perform effectively. The performance levels of the PRIs have been directly proportionate to levels of transfer of 3 ‘F’s’ viz., Functions, Functionaries and Funds. Since the devolution of the powers and functions are within the ambit of the State Government and the Act does not make it mandatory for full-fledged transfer of powers, the PRIs have not developed uniformly across the country. With the implementation of more rural development programmes through the PRIs and increase in the budgetary outlays (e.g.,

MGNREGA – 40,000 crores, NSAP 3000 crores) the resource base of the PRIs has increased.

The challenges to translate these schemes very effectively at the ground level for the benefit of the common people have also brought pressure on the PRIs to play their role more effectively. The efforts made by institutions such as the National Institute of Rural Development and the State Institutes of Rural Development and other agencies for capacity development of the functionaries is also showing positive results, in terms of improved delivery by the PRIs. Increased participation of women in PR institutions resulting from higher percentages of reservation is slowly changing the face of PRIs. More acceptable and sustainable developmental trends are emerging through the interventions of PR Institutions with more participation of women elected representatives.

The establishment of Self Help Groups in many States, the participation of NGOs and CBOs working together with the PR Institutions is a promising trend which, if guided properly, can improve the delivery of governing systems at the grass root level. q

(E-mail : gemathew@ yahoo.co.in [email protected])


O THE people o f India let us ensure maximum democracy a n d m a x i m u m devolution. Let there

be an end to the power brokers. Let us give power to the people. These were the words of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on 15 May 1989 when he introduced the first ever amendment (64th) to the Constitution to give constitutional status to the panchayats. More than twenty years have passed. We have amended the constitution and created the new generation of panchayati raj. But has power been devolved to the people? Where do we stand today?

It is universally accepted that the parliament or state assemblies constitute the super structure of democracy and the local governments, which are nearer to the people, are the base. In

Needed-A New Deal for Panchayati Raj

GRaM Sabha

George Mathew

ViEW POiNT

The shortcomings that the panchayats face today call for a new deal. Only

then they can open a new chapter for the eight hundred

million people living in our villages

order to give power to the people, strong vibrant local governments (panchayats and municipalities) are a necessary sine qua non. It took more than 110 years after the Ripon resolution (1882) gave the status of self-government for local bodies and 84 years after Gandhiji began to champion the cause of Gram Swaraj, for panchayats to get constitutional status on 24 April 1993 through the 73rd (Constitution) Amendment Act, thereby becoming the “institutions of self-government.”

When the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha passed the two amendments to the Constitution (73rd and 74th) on 22 and 23 December 1992, it was hailed as “historic” and beginning of a silent revolution. By all accounts it was a radical piece of legislation in form and content. Where does it stand now after about 18 years?

T

The author is Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi


To begin with, this period has not been altogether disappointing. Given the severe social and political constraints – social inequality, caste system, patriarchy, feudal setting, illiteracy, uneven developments – within which it had to function, the new pachayati raj had set in motion a silent social revolution that would transform India.

Today elections to the local self-government institutions every five years have become a norm although in the initial years almost all the states irrespective of the party in power had defied the constitutional provision with all the power at their command. As the civil society organizations took the initiative to fight the anti-constitutional approach of the states by filing public interest litigations (PILs), the judiciary at different levels effectively intervened.

Constitutional bodies like the State Election Commission, State Finance Commission etc., in all states are now firmly in place. The SECs have taken up the panchayat elections seriously giving a lot of credibility to the grassroots level democratic process. In some states like Bihar, UP, Uttaranchal, Maharashtra and Gujarat, SECs have gone a step further. Taking the cue from the Supreme Court order of May 3, 2002 relating to the Right to Information of electors regarding criminal antecedents, assets and l iabil i t ies of the candidates, the State Election

Commissioners have issued orders in conformity with the Supreme Court Order. After all, the voters in the panchayats and municipalities also have their right to get the information about the candidates.

We have also witnessed a steady progress as far as the inclusion of excluded sections of our population in the decision making process from village to the district level is concerned. Women have got the maximum mileage. Today more than 10 lakh women are elected to these bodies every five years and more than three times that number are contesting elections. This is not a mean achievement in a hierarchical and male dominated society like ours. The common refrain that it is the men folk in the families who control the women elected members may be partly true but studies show that the situation is rapidly changing. One-third of all the panchayats and municipalities at various levels have women presidents. As years go by, the number of women getting elected from general constituencies is also increasing. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are equally securing their due share in the local bodies.

As local self-government bodies have come into existence throughout the country, their functioning has come under scrutiny. A congenial climate for taking governance to the doorsteps of the people is slowly being

created. A major achievement of this process is that patronage and clientelism are slowly shifting from traditional castes and families to political parties and ideologies.

Many states, taking advantage of the prevailing situation, have gone for innovative and creative experiments in local governance, planning and rural development. The people’s participation in local plan in Kerala is an illustrative case in point.

B y c r e a t i n g a s e p a r a t e Ministry of Panchayati Raj, the UPA government has taken the correct and much needed step. The Ministry has done exceptionally well in its first five year term to keep the banner of panchayati raj aloft. The seven round tables the ministry organized in 2004, the activity mapping it initiated, the charter of demands prepared by the panchayat representatives for presenting to the Prime Minister and President of the Congress party on 24 April, 2008, and the documents the Union Minister signed with 22 Chief Ministers were very special. All this has come after a long slumber of 11 years.

However, as a close observer of the working of panchayats during this period, I find serious shortcomings as well. The fact that the local government system in this country, which was inaugurated with great enthusiasm, is facing enormous problems and powerful


enemies are a matter of serious concern. The intensity of the negative forces varies from state to state because panchayat is a state subject. Many state governments are riding roughshod over the local government institutions.

A t a d e e p e r l e v e l , t h e negative forces are feudalism and patriarchy. So long as these remain the organizing principles of rural society, little good can be expected from self-governing panchayats. For, they will only give more power to those who are already powerful in social and economic terms. Control over the instrumentalities of self-government will further strengthen their hands. “Out” groups of one kind or another, especially the poor and women, may well come to feel the weight of oppression more than before. For them, decentralized governance could turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing.

A section of our bureaucracy is not at all happy to see panchayats emerge as institutions of self-government. Our administrative culture is to retain the powers of the line departments and not to give power to the people. In 1995, I conducted a study at Shadnagar in Andhra Pradesh where Jawaharlal Nehru had inaugurated the first panchayat in South India on October 11, 1959. When I asked the reason for the failure of panchayati raj, an old guard said: “the officials worked against giving power to the non-officials and especially the

people’s representatives from the villages. In this, they were hand in glove with state level politicians” (The Hindu, 7 July 1995). In order to sabotage the new generation of panchayats, they create parallel bodies which have devastating impact on democratically elected local bodies.

In a socially stratified society like ours, even today in the rural areas the landlords and upper caste people control everything. Except in a couple of states land reforms have been implemented on paper. Studies show that if we take a typical village panchayat of about 8,000 population, 70 per cent people have no land, and the 30 per cent control everything from gram sabha meetings to panchayats and influence assembly and parliament elections including NREGS implementation. The gram sevak to BDO and other officials happily work with the leaders of the 30 per cent village landowners. In such villages about 15-20 per cent people are the Scheduled Castes and they do not own land. In such situations, elected panchayats function for name sake. It is the landlords who get elected as mukhia/sarpanch/president. If Dalits, courageous women, people with idealism question their actions or when get elected and try to bring changes through the panchayats, they are at the receiving end of the landlords or upper castes ire. The bloodbath caused by grassroots democracy since 1994 is horrendous. Leela Devi of Madurai, Dhoola Ratnam

of East Godavari, Sukhia Bhai of Betul, Madhya Pradesh, Murugesan and Mookan of Melavalavu, Tamil Nadu and many others have become martyrs because of their passion to devolve power to the people. But the government prefers to sweep these tragedies under the carpet or refuse to recognize what it means for the oppressed when panchayats are at work.

The power-brokers about whom Rajiv Gandhi spoke continue to hold sway. They appear in various ways as contractors, middlemen, lobbyists, mafia and so on. They always prefer centralised corridors of power and not decentralization. The contractors are omnipresent. The much acclaimed NREGS which is to be implemented by panchayats has banned contractors. But the collusion between officials and contractors has given sizeable space to the latter.

There are numerous elaborate mechanisms at Central and State levels to ensure accountability and efficient utilisation of public funds. There are time tested institutional mechanisms for audit. So also vigilance committees sponsored by the government and supported by civil society organisations. At another level, India has the unique distinction of creating a constitutional forum for direct democracy - the Gram Sabha - with special powers for overseeing the local development and expenditure. The concept of `social audit’ has emerged from these innovative steps. All these are not working the way they are expected to.


The shortcomings that the panchayats face today call for a new deal which is the need of the hour. Only then they can open a new chapter for the eight hundred million people living in our villages.l This new deal should make

panchayats institutions of local government as envisaged by the Constitution.

l It must ensure ways and means to make panchayats and municipalities (the district and below), the third tier of government in the country. Thus we can say goodbye to the Collector Raj and bring in District Governments.

l It must ensure autonomy to implement the policies and programmes to eradicate

poverty in this country at the earliest but not later than 20 years so that by 2025 poverty line becomes totally irrelevant for India.

l Since we have a federal system, the governments and political parties must show the political will to give power to the people at the centre and state levels; cosmetic actions will not work.

I feel that the new Ministry of Panchayati Raj should have been the Minis t ry of Local Government bringing the urban and rural under one umbrella. Now with a powerful Ministry of Rural Development and two ministries looking after Urban Affairs, very little is left for

the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to do. Moreover, one Cabinet minister is in charge of the two ministries since May 2009. A full time cabinet minister of Panchayati Raj is a felt need today because of the enormous tasks ahead.

I would like to underline the fact that if we slacken our efforts to keep the institutions of local self government at the centre stage and as a top agenda of the policy makers and practitioners, the best chance we got through the 73rd and 74th Amendments will be in peril. Let us move forward with a strong commitment for decentralized governance. There is a long way to travel. q

(E-mail : [email protected])

YE-

2/11

/2


DO yOu KNOW?

What is WikiLeaks ?

WikiLeaks is an international w e b s i t e t h a t p u b l i s h e s anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organisational or religious documents. This website WikiLeaks.org was launched on 4th October 2006. The website was unveiled and published its first document in December 2006, claiming a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks founders are a mix of journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. Julian Assange an Australian internet activist is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards a more traditional publication model and no longer accepts either user comments or edits. WikiLeaks also develops and adapts technologies to support these activities.

Where is WikiLeaks located ?

The WikiLeaks Headquarters has surprised everybody with i t s ex t raord inary loca t ion and conditions.The Turkey-based WikiLeaks office was constructed during the cold war, and reconstructed by the Pionen company in 2008. This could be the most strong and ‘wonderful’ office that’s established in the past

WIKILEAKSten years. Though the offices of social networking service Facebook and Search engine giant Google were already in hot discussions – the WikiLeaks Bunker pictures shows how powerful and unique an office can be.

Some astonishing facts about Bahnhof AB office interior where WikiLeaks data is safely stored:l Originally built in cold war

years to survive nuclear attack

l It is buried deep under a granite mountain

l There is only one entry and exit

l Generators of German U-Boat submarines work as a backup power

l Fish tanks, fountains and plants are beautifying the ambience

Who are the people behind WikiLeaks ?

WikiLeaks claim it has a volunteer group of about 1,400 people, but these numbers have expanded. The group basically includes journalists, software programmers, network engineers, mathematicians and others.

How does WikiLeaks function ?

WikiLeaks has combined high-end security technologies with journalism. Like other media outlets conducting investigative journalism, WikiLeaks accepts (but does not solicit) anonymous sources of information. When information

comes in, journalists analyse the material, verify it and write a news piece about it describing its significance to society. WikiLeaks then publishes both the news story and the original material in order to enable readers to analyse the story in the context of the original source material themselves. If the main site wikiLeaks.org is not functional then WikiLeaks also currently has 1426 up-to-date sites .

W h a t i s t h e s t a t u s o f Wikileaks ?

The legal status of WikiLeaks is complex. Assange considers WikiLeaks a whistleblower protection intermediary. Rather than leaking directly to the press, and fearing exposure and retribution, whistleblowers can leak to WikiLeaks, which then leaks to the press for them. Its servers are located throughout Europe and are accessible from any uncensored web connection. The group has located i ts headquarters in Sweden because it has one of the world’s strongest shield laws to protect confidential source-journalist relationships. WikiLeaks has stated that they “do not solicit any information”. However, Assange used his speech during the Hack In The Box conference in Malaysia to ask the crowd of hackers and security researchers to help find documents on its “Most Wanted Leaks of 2009” list.


ACK OF adequate sanitation is a pressing cha l lenge in bo th rural and urban India. San i t a t ion- re la ted

diseases take a heavy toll of lives, especially children’s lives, loss of productivity and income. Inadequate sanitation leads to indignity of open defecation especially for women and young girls.

Despite the fact that India has impressive development indictors like growth of over 8%, a dynamic industry and a vibrant democratic governance system, one third of its population has to still bear the shame of defecating in the open. The challenge that India, with its large population, size & different hydro-geological regions faces in the area of sanitation is unique and unparalleled in the world. The

Towards Sustainable Sanitation in North-Eastern Region

RuRal SaNiTaTiON

Agatha Sangma

OVERViEW

The secret of the phenomenal

success in Sikkim has been the top priority given by the political and administrative

leadership of the state

Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India has taken on this enormous challenge by pledging to provide sanitation facilities in all rural areas through its flagship programme “Total Sanitation Campaign” (TSC). TSC has been successful in changing the rural sanitation coverage from a mere 21% as per 2001 Census to 67% of households in the current year with over 22,618 PRIs becoming open defecation free “Nirmal Grams”.

TSC has resu l ted in the construction of 7.07 Crore Individual Household Latrines (IHHL), 10.33 lakh school toilets, 3,47,077 Anganwadi Toilets, 19,509 community sani tary complexes with a total project outlay of Rs. 17,885 Crore. The Department has set the target to

L

The author is Minister of State, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt of india


provide universal toilet coverage in rural areas by 2015.

Recognizing the enormous economic, health and social benefits that sustainable sanitation brings to the rural communities TSC is being implemented in all the eight North Eastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. While overall the North Eastern region scores fairly well on the rural sanitation map as compared to other states there are wide variations in the sanitation coverage.

S i k k i m h a s m a d e t h e commendab le ach ievemen t of becoming the first “Open Defecation Free” Nirmal State of India. The secret of the phenomenal success in Sikkim has been the top priority given by the political and administrative leadership of the state and decentralized mechanism of implementation by active involvement of local governance

State-wise percentage physical performance is given below

S.N. State IHHL-BPL%

IHHL APL%

IHHL TOTAL%

San. Comp%

School Toilets%

Toilets for Anganwadi%

1 Arunachal Pradesh 36.77 59.53 39.88 18.55 97.16 87.572 Assam 39.79 20.96 33.32 9.95 92.41 62.643 Manipur 13.24 28.84 17.29 55.7 73.51 75.14 Meghalaya 33.83 49.7 38.33 25.17 33.12 21.835 Mizoram 66.38 88.86 70.3 87.86 100 59.116 Nagaland 39.03 19.32 36.11 64.73 61.74 61.377 Sikkim 100 100 100 100 100 1008 Tripura 94.32 80.96 90.7 71.68 67.2 91.55

46.60 32.28 42.15 69.17 79.18 68.24

Case Study of Bal Panchayat–Young Sanitation Champions

An Ideal Example of Grassroot Democracy and Equity

under BAC WOK Sikkip, Sikkim

Rights come with responsibilities. BAC Sikkip launched the concept of Bal Panchayat in the month of February 2010 in 12 Schools. Setting an example before the adult members of the Gram Panchayat (village council), children of schools under BAC Sikkip are running a parallel self-government body, asserting their right to education, health, entertainment and leisure.

The village children have constituted the Bal Panchayat through a general election under the supervision of school authorities. Besides the President, the Bal Panchayat has ‘ministers’ for education, health, environment, cultural affairs, sports, etc. These ministers are charged with the responsibilities of ensuring the well-being of the children by bringing to the notice of the elders and authorities concerned, the specific problems and needs of the children.

A Self Help Drive was organised by the Block Administrative Centre for moving towards better toilets and better hygiene at Sanganath Secondary School, one of the remotest Gram Panchayat Unit. In the construction drive of the toilets, material component was used from the fund provided by the Government and the labour component was covered totally through participatory mode by school students, teachers, community, Panchayat and Block Officials. This ultimately built a sense of ownership of the asset created in their area which was missing earlier.

systems, local communities, Women’s Self Help Groups and Youth Groups. Having obtained

the “Nirmal State” status Sikkim is now planning to take up next generation sanitation activities


like Menstrual Hygiene and Solid & Liquid Waste Management (SLWM). The Government of Sikkim is collaborating with Indian Green Services, an NGO to take up a pilot project on Solid & Liquid Waste Management (SLWM).

Tr ipura i s ano the r s t a t e which has made commendable achievement in achieving over 90% sanitation coverage. TSC is implemented as a comprehensive concept, which includes waste disposal, food hygiene, personal, domestic as well as environmental hygiene.

In Manipur, while coverage of school sanitation is good, progress in IHHL coverage has been rather slow. The major concern in the state is that owing to the hilly terrain the leach pit toilets are difficult to construct and Ecosanitation

is proposed to be promoted in the state under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

In Meghalaya there has been intensive campaigning on access and usage of toilets under TSC in all the 7 Districts. TSC is implemented through the District Water and Sanitation Mission and Village Water and Sanitation Committee. The state has been able to upscale the TSC by building effective partnerships with Water and Sanitation Programme-South Asia. The state has made the recommendation that to scale up TSC , population figures from 2011 census and revised BPL figures need to be considered for assessing progress on TSC, integration of sanitation with other development programmes through convergence with other

departments like Education and Health.

In Mizoram, TSC was initiated in 2002 and is being implemented in all the districts. Efforts are being made to convert the dry pit latrines to pour flush latrines. While sanitation coverage received attention in the state, a hygiene behavior such as hand washing was not focused upon. The unique feature of the state is that TSC is implemented with support from local NGO’s particularly fo r d ra inage c l ean ing and maintenance.

Nagaland has initiated TSC only in 2005 and currently the Campaign is being implemented in 9 out of 11 districts in the State. IEC activities in the state have been intensified to accelerate sanitation coverage The State suggested nurturing strong social capital, increase the involvement of women for behavior change & IEC and initiating Campaigns on sanitation with the involvement of local leaders and MLAs and making a clear time-frame for achieving TSC goals.

The overall progress in TSC in Arunachal Pradesh has been slow. Major challenges in the state are remoteness of habitations, difficult mountain terrain beyond the reach of road connectivity and low income of people. Moreover, transition from wiping with straws and cloth to use of safe sanitation

Success Story of Total Sanitation Campaign Implementation in South Tripura

Rural Sanitary Marts have been set up and managed by women SHGS in all the 11 blocks of the district for production of sanitary materials like squatting plates, mosaic pan/siphon etc. A number of smaller production units/ manufacturing centers at Gram Panchayat level and ward/para level have been set up for ensuring 100 percent achievement in time.

Rajibnagar and Ratanmani, two Gram Panchayats of Satchand Block and West Jalefa and Bankul Mahamani GPs jointly under Satcand and Rupaicharri block achieved full coverage of sanitation. The 1st three GPs in the District making 100% coverage of targeted families were also awarded by the Chief Minister. Awards consisted of additional allocation of development fund to the block as well as to the Gram Panchayats. This really acted on the morale and boosted the enthusiasm of the implementing agencies of RD programmes in the District.


and washing with water requires time. So far, 16 Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the state have won the Nirmal Gram Panchayat award and continue to maintain the NGP status without any slippages. The state has proposed introduction of special package to popularize Ecosanitation models in selected districts, State, and incentive for APL families also, as the gap between Above Poverty Line (APL) and Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in Arunachal Pradesh are marginal.

In Assam “Kaccha toilets” are a major challenge. Efforts are underway to convert “Kaccha toilets” into safe ones. Provision o f san i t a t ion fac i l i t i e s fo r Anganwadis is also problematic due to space constraints and their location in private buildings. In four districts of Assam there are Village Council Development Committee (VCDC) instead of the PRI and in 2 hilly Districts there is a Member of Autonomous Council making it difficult to implement TSC.

Policy/implementation issues

Recognizing that the North East States, particularly the poor performing ones have specific issues that need special attention to upscale TSC, the Government of India has taken several initiatives. Some of the policy initiatives and the issues of concern for

sanitation promotion in North Eastern region are :

1. As per policy of Govt. of India, 10% funds are allocated for North Eastern States. In the current financial year, TSC allocation is Rs. 1580 cr. of which Rs. 158 Crore is reserved for NE states.

2. An additional incentive of Rs 2000 is given by Central Government to BPL for IHHL in the North East and Hilly states (as against Rs. 1500 in other cases) while the state and beneficiary contributions remain the same i .e . Rs . 700/- and Rs. 300/- respectively.

3. Additional incentive is given by Centra l Government for construction of school toilets (38,500/-for Hilly and Difficult Areas as against Rs. 35,000/- in other cases). and for construction of Anganwadi toilets (Rs. 10,000/--for Hilly and Difficult Areas as against Rs. 8,000/- in other cases).

4. Sus ta inab le t echno logy options in sanitation keeping in view the special geo-phys ica l fea tu re o f the Nor th Eas t region need to be cons idered whi le implementing sani tat ion projects in these states . Many of the states have suggested initiating pilot projects of technologies like Ecosanitation particularly

in those hilly areas where leach pit toilets are difficult to construct.

5. The G.O.I. has set up several institutions like WSSO, Block Resource Centres (BRC), State Water and Sanitation Mission (SWSM), District Water Sanitation, Health Committees (DWHSC) and increased the number of Key Resource Centre (KRC) which would be providing support to states to undertake capacity building and IEC activities to accelera te sani ta t ion promotion and address the challenges being faced in sanitation promotion.

6. Many states are also prone to disasters, particularly floods in Assam which impact the sanitation facilities in these areas. Technologies and response mechanism to address these needs to be focused upon.

7. For those North Eastern states where toilet coverage has almost reached a peak, viz. Sikkim, Tripura there is a need for developing a post “Nirmal State policy” which should include capacity building on next generation sanitation activities l ike Solid and Liquid Waste Management, Ecosanitation, Menstrual H y g i e n e M a n a g e m e n t etc. q



Gandhi’s Vision of Democracy : His Will and last Testament

Every panchayat of five adult men or women being villagers or village-minded shall form a unit. Two such contiguous panchayats shall form a working party under a leader elected from among themselves. When there are one hundred such panchayats, the fifty first grade leaders shall elect from among themselves a second-grade leader and so on, the first-grade leaders meanwhile working under the second-grade leader. Parallel groups of two1 hundred panchayats shall continue to be formed till they cover the whole of India, each succeeding group of panchayats electing a second-grade leader after the manner of the first. All second-grade leaders shall serve jointly for the whole of India and severally for their respective areas.

The second-grade leaders may elect, when ever they deem necessary, from among themselves a chief who will, during pleasure, regulate and command all the groups.(As the final formation of provinces or districts is still in a state of flux, no attempt has been made to divide this group of servants into provincial or district councils and jurisdiction over the whole of India has been vested in the group or groups that may have been formed at any given time. It should be noted that this body of servants derive their authority or power from service ungrudgingly and wisely done to their master, the whole of India.)2

1. Every worker shall be a habitual wearer of khadi made from self-spun yarn or certified by the A. I. S. A. and must be a teetotaller. If a Hindu, he must have abjured untouchability in any shape or form in his own person or in his family and must be a believer in the ideal of inter-communal unity, equal respect and regard for all religions and equality of opportunity and status for all irrespective of race, creed or sex.

2. He shall come in personal contact with every villager within his jurisdiction.3. He shall enrol and train workers from amongst the villagers and keep a register of all these.4. He shall keep a record of his work from day to day.5. He shall organize the villages so as to make them self contained and self-supporting through their

agriculture and handicrafts.6. He shall educate the village folk in sanitation and hygiene and take all measures for prevention of ill

health and disease among them.7. He shall organize the education of the village folk from birth to death along the lines of Nayee Talim, in

accordance with the policy laid down by the Hindustani Talimi Sangh.8. He shall see that those whose names are missing on the statutory voters, roll are duly entered therein.9. He shall encourage those who have not yet acquired the legal qualification, to acquire it for getting the

right of franchise.10. For the above purposes and others to be added from time to time, he shall train and fit himself in accordance

with the rules laid down by the Sangh for the due performance of duty.The Sangh shall affiliate the following autonomous bodies:1. A.I.S.A.2. A.I.V.I.A.3. Hindustani Talimi Sangh4. Harijan Sevak Sangh5. Goseva SanghFINANCE The Sangh shall raise finances for the fulfilment of its mission from among the villagers and others, special stress being laid on collection of poor man’s pice.


R A M S A B H A i s equiva lent to Lok S a b h a a n d R a j y a Sabha as long as it is able to exercise

the powers conferred on it by the Act of Panchayati Raj. It is a constitutional body with tremendous potential. Yet, even after fifteen years of its existence, we do not find substantial impact of Gram Sabha in the rural polity, society and development. It does not mean that Gram Sabha has sunk into oblivion. It does exist and is certainly functioning. But it is not functioning in the way it was expected to. Hence, time and again we are faced with the question as to why this institution is falling short of expectation.

L o c a l b o d i e s p r o v i d e opportunity to people to work for

A Place to Convert Noise to Voice

GRaM Sabha

G Palanithurai

OPiNiON

To make Gram Sabha more

effective, the whole Panchayati Raj system has to be

strengthened. The Gram Panchayat

should be empowered enough to be able to carry out the decisions

taken by the Gram Sabha

the welfare of their communities, thereby participating in the process of governance and d e v e l o p m e n t . T h e y h e l p change the character of the democracy from representative to participatory. Through the institution of the Gram Sabha, the centre is connected to the community at the grassroots , which is essential for making governance meaningful. The Gram Sabha is a powerful instrument to achieve social equality and to convert the noise of the people to voice of the people. It is an instrument that can make it possible to eliminate power brokers from the development space, provide opportunity to the poor to claim their entitlements, ensure accountable governance at the state and central levels and achieve growth that is truly

G

The author is Professor, Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj Studies,Department of Political Science and Development Administration, Gandhigram Rural University, Tamil Nadu


inclusive. It needs to be analyzed how effectively the Gram Sabha has enacted these roles during the past fifteen years.

Backdrop

The India society and polity are unique and paradoxical to many of the established notions o f democracy, gove rnance and administration. Ours is a hierarchical society based on the caste system; it is patriarchal in nature and feudal in character. Societies normally witnesses a high level of conflict based on caste, religion, region, culture and language, which are antithetical to representative democracy. Yet, despite such immense diversity, our democracy is active and vibrant- at least quantitatively, if not qualitatively. Qualitatively there is a lot to be desired. Over a period of time since independence all responsibilities of the society have been taken over by the government through its departments and the street bureaucracy . Yet they have not been able to satisfy even the basic needs of the people. The governance process distanced common men and women from the government. This was noted by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Parliament when he said, “A wide chasm separated the largest body of the electorate from a small member of its elected representatives. This gap has

been occupied by the power brokers, the middlemen and vested interests……. with the passage of these bills the panchayats would emerge as a firm building block of administration and development….. as an instrument in the consolidation of democracy at the grassroots.” (Rajiv Gandhi, 1989) The quality of democracy, development, governance and administration substantially relate to the quality of participation of people in the process of politics, governance and development. It was to make this qualitative difference to our democracy that we attempted to design a vibrant rural body that would make the process of development participatory at the grassroots level. Though the prescribed process was devolutionary, the ultimate aim was to achieve a vibrant, strong and active participatory democracy in India through a process of functional evolution of the newly created local bodies. It was expected that by making the rural local bodies more vibrant, the top heavy- bottom weak model of democracy would change into bottom strong and thereby top strong model of democracy. The foundation of this evolutionary process was to rest upon the Gram Sabha.

Design of Gram Sabha

The successful execution of any work depends on the

precision of the instrument being used. Thus the design of the Gram Sabha is crucial to the success of scheme of panchayati raj. Even before the 73rd constitutional amendment came, there were several participatory decision making bodies at the grassroots in many communities for example, the Oor Sabhas functioning in the villages of Tamil Nadu. They are traditional institutions with limited functions at the community level, and are acceptable to the local communities. These institutions are headed by traditional leaders who are sometimes elected. They have an unwritten conventional framework of rules. In the Oor Sabha, the ultimate authority lies with its stakeholders. They are answerable to themselves and rely on their own resources. Every stakeholder knows the role of the Oor Sabha. They have extreme role clarity. No external agency is involved either in their decision making or in the implementation of the decisions. If an evaluation is made on their functional efficacy and efficiency, one would f ind them to be excellent in terms of attendance, participation, decision making and implementation of decisions. How and why this traditional institution performs well and why is a constitutional body not able to perform as traditional institutions? This is the point one has to analyse.


Conception and Operation

In order to achieve participatory governance at grassroots level, Article 243 A of part 1X of the constitution of India places the Gram Sabha at the centre of Panchayati Raj by giving constitutional recognition to it. The Gram Sabha is an age old institution. But it was not democratic and inclusive at all times and places. Yet, it held the promise of effectiveness, vibrancy, responsiveness and accountability and was therefore incorporated in the constitution and also in the panchayati raj Acts of states. The state governments have operationalised the provisions of panchayati raj, and the Gram Sabhas have come into being. Their performance in different states is being evaluated and they are being brought out in the form of reports and monographs. From the reports one can broadly classify that there are five types of functions and twenty one matters or subjects earmarked for Gram Sabha transactions. But in terms of effectiveness, there is still a lot to be desired.

Without going into details of how and where the Gram Sabha has measured less that was expected of it, a comparison with the Oor Sabha indicates faulty or weak design as one possible reason for the less than expected performance. The traditional Oor Sabha deal with about eleven

subjects, and they have been functioning well. They have their own records, people have more faith in them than on the Gram Sabha. The rules, regulations, f u n c t i o n s , i m p l e m e n t a t i o n mechanisms of the Oor Sabha vary from village to village, and are based on the specific needs and priorities of its own people with no interference of any sort from any outside agency. The constitutional Gram Sabha is however, a prototype, and the same across the state. It does not take into account the specific needs to people coming under it. Since the character, culture, practices, needs vary from place to place within a state or even within a district, a grassroots level institution should be able to take these variations into account. So designing of the institution is of

utmost importance. Normally one cannot expect that every one in a community will participate in the Gram Sabha meeting. Those who can spare time and those who are really the beneficiaries of the decisions would normally participate. If this happens one can be satisfied. But if neither people with leisure nor the beneficiaries participate, it obviously indicates something wrong in the designing of the institutions. Further the decisions taken in the institutions – that is the Gram Sabha - have to be carried out or implemented by the concerned agencies otherwise the decision has no meaning. But in many of the states, neither the panchayats have the resources to fulfill the demands of the people nor have the line departments worked towards implementing the same. As a result, the decisions

In Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu, a large number of community organisations are functioning effectively and looking after some of the community affairs, mostly water bodies. These organisations take care of water tanks, ponds and ooranies with the corpus fund. Repair of water tanks by Public Works Department usually takes a long time, resulting in wastage of water. To overcome this problem the community organisations use the corpus money to carry out the repairs. Each organisation has a general council. The leader of the general council manages the corpus. The district administration does not disturb the functioning of these traditional councils as they are doing useful work for the community. In many of the places these councils are very vibrant and democratic, and they work with the constitutional panchayats and carry out effectively the development works. On the contrary in many places these councils are undemocratic and do not get along with the constitutional panchayats.


taken by the Gram Sabha do not get implemented and it has been reduced to a place for collecting petitions from the members. Neither the office bearers nor the members perceive the Gram Sabha as an institution that can help them in any way. To make Gram Sabha more effective, the whole Panchayati Raj system has to be strengthened. The Gram Panchayat should be empowered enough in every way to be able to carry out the decisions taken by the Gram Sabha. At least the panchayat leader should have the power, authority and effectiveness to get the government departments

to meet the genuine demands of the people and help solve their problems.

Conclusion

l To make Gram Sabha more effective, one has to consider the following options:

l P r i m a r i l y w h a t c o u l d be achieved at the village panchayat level should be given as powers to Gram Sabha;

l What ever Gram Sabha decides within the framework of powers conferred on it have to be executed and for this

resource base has to be created at panchayat level;

l Role clarity is very important. The powers given to Gram Sabha should be known to the people without ambiguity;

l Mobilization of people for Gram Sabha has to be done more effectively

l The chairperson of Gram Sabha should create interest for the members so that they attend meetings regularly. Opportunity should to be given to all segments of the society. Patient hearing of the voices of the people is essential.

l The chairperson should take pains to respond to the voices of the people;

l It should have flexibility of operation. The whole organization and conduct of meeting of Gram Sabha should be left to the people and it should not be driven from the above;

l Gram Sabha should have some value addition like making it an information Sabha, a discourse Sabha, a debating Sabha and so on. One has to think creatively to make Gram Sabha more active, vibrant and interesting. q


Nallukottai is a Gram Panchayat in Sivaganga district. It is one of the best Gram Panchayats and has bagged several awards for successful implementation of development schemes. The traditional panchayat leader here is also the leader of the Gram Panchayat. They have two Gram Sabhas. One is the Gram Sabha of the Panchayat and the other is the Oorsabha of the community. Both are functioning very well. When a question was raised to the community leader regarding the role of the two sabhas, his reply was that the Gram Sabha, created through the Panchayat Act was tied up with officials. The Oorsabha on the other hand was tied up with community. The Gram Sabha gets directions from the Collector through the Gram Panchayat whereas the Oorsabha is convened periodically according to the people’s convenience. Agenda is decided by the people. No supervision from above. No observer. No rigid rules. No paper work. Oorsabha is need based. Whatever is decided here gets implemented whereas the decisions of Gram Sabha are often not implemented. The Oorsabha of the community is vested with powers with all flexibility. The Gram Sabha of the Gram Panchayat does not have power, yet it has got rigidity. This was the observation of the leader of the traditional panchayat, who also happened to be the chairman of the Oorsabha in this village.


N N O D O M I N I 1993 saw history in the making. After a protracted exercise, in the summer of 1993

(24th April 1993) Presidential assent was accorded to the 73rd constitutional amendment bill which inter alia ensured the entry of women into rural local self governing units i.e. the panchayats, both as members and as functionaries. This was considered a gigantic step towards empowerment of women. The 73rd constitutional amendment spelt a sea change in the arena of women’s representation in PRI. It brought in a total departure from the erstwhile system of token nomination or co-option of one or two women in panchayats as advised by B. R. Mehta Committee (1957) and Ashok Mehta Committee (1978).

Women in Panchayats: A Review

GRaM Sabha

Atonu Chatterjee

OPiNiON

Gradual gendering of local democracy

is opening up a new vista in the

rural areas. Women are increasingly

getting a chance to shape grassroots

level politics which previously was

controlled by local power cliques

Further, it also partially complied with the recommendation of the Committee on the status of Women which, way back in 1974 mentioned that earnest efforts should be taken for “… establishment of statutory women’s panchayats at the village level with autonomy and resources of their own for the management and administration of welfare and development programmes for women and children, as a transition measure, to break through the traditional attitudes that inhibit most women from articulating their problems and participating actively in the existing local bodies” (as cited in India Panchyati Raj Report 2001).

This step was recently followed up by another significant decision. On June 4, 2009 the President in her speech in the joint session of Parliament, wished to have more

A

The author is a member of the West Bengal Civil Service, currently posted as GM, WBIDC. He is also a Guest Faculty at the Rural Development and Management Department of Kalyani University.


seats reserved for women in the panchayats so that the multiple deprivations of class, caste and gender suffered by women can be tackled head on ! The Government took up the cue. Similar demands in Bihar, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh added strength to the concept. On August 27, 2009 the Indian cabinet approved a proposal for enhancing the reservation of directly elected seats for women from one third to fifty percent in all the tiers through an amendment of Article 243(D) (3) of the Constitution. Article 243 D(3) enumerates that ‘Not less than one third (including the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in every panchayat shall be reserved for women and such seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in a panchayat’. Along with this, rotational reservation of at least one third of the total number of offices of Chairpersons at all levels of panchayat was ensured through Article 243D(4). The proposed amendment seeks to replace this phrase of “not less than one third’ with the words ‘not less than half’.

Once this move is implemented, the number of women members will go up to 4.4 million from the present three million. As per the official version this provision will apply to the total number of seats

filled by direct election, offices of chairpersons and seats and offices of chairpersons reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram, hill areas of Manipur and tribal areas of Assam and Tripura will remain outside the ambit of the amendment.

On 30th March 2010, the Government of West Bengal ‘principally agreed’ to put this arrangement into practice during the next panchayat general election of the state scheduled in 2013, while Rajasthan, Kerala and Gujrat have already implemented it during their panchayat general election of 2010. Tripura went a step further. It not only amended its own panchayat act to this effect, but also brought its urban local bodies within this ambit through Tripura Muncipal (fourth amendment) bill.

Performance of women in PRIs

General Observations

l Despite several stumbling blocks women PRI members have generally performed well throughout the country. Several surveys indicate this. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj of the Government of India has also conducted one, with by far the largest sample size. Culling the observations from all the sources certain common points emerge-

l Participation of women in the Gram Sabha meetings

increases when the Prodhan is a woman. This corroborates the general perception that poli t ical communication improves when the citizen and the leader are of the same sex. (The Impact of Reservation in the Panchayati Raj- Evidence from a nationwide randomized experiment-Raghobendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Daflo-Nov-2003.)

l Since women panchayat representatives consistently demand for adequate supply of drinking water, housing and social welfare programmes, expenditure on these counts are relatively higher in women headed panchayats.

l Women headed panchayats score brownie points in construction of roads, upkeep of drinking water facilities and administering government loan schemes. However their performance is not as effective in ensuring irrigation avenues.

l Women headed panchayats generally take more interests in negotiating social evils like child marriage, indiscriminate sale of liquor, witch-hunting and such other problems.

Problems

Certain major hindrances can also be identified in the path of functioning of the women members and functionaries . (Empowerment of Women: Waiting for Godot?-Atonu Chatterjee &


Apurba Mukhopadhyay in Indian Political thought and Movements- edited by H.Bhattacharyya et al. K.P.Bagchi& Company 2007)

l Dual responsibility: Women traditionally burdened with domestic work face difficulties in balancing the official work with their home.

l Lack of security: Sometimes due to lack of security women members fail to visit remote areas in odd hours or attend meetings in far away places. Gradual criminalization of politics also is arresting their participation.

l Lack of information and knowledge about government programmes especially for women and child development poses problems. Again limited exposure to formal education breeds information gap and dependency on second hand knowledge. Consequently political lineage determines the distribution of benefits of different schemes.

l Communication problem hinders performance as most of the correspondences,, rules and regulations are in English.

l Due to lack of exposure and experience women members face difficulty in asserting themselves. The fact that majority of women enter politics through reservation and kinship arrangement only accentuates this problem.

Owing to rotational policy women can scarcely continue their relationship with politics. There are three points to be noted in this kind of rotational reservation. First a very small percentage of first time women members/ pradhans get elected for the second / third time. The following table amply clarifies this.

Secondly, as all these seats were previously held by male members, they often manage to fix these up in favour of one of their women relatives. Hence we find that most women representatives scarcely had previous experience of being associated with political or social organizations and majority of them got elected to the seats to which their family members were previously elected. Thus we find that 41.7% of the female prodhans and 41.8% of the female ward members drew their motivation for contesting panchayat election from their spouse. The Community groups like Mahila Mondals, Self-Help Groups motivated 23.3% of women to take a plunge and political parties come a poor third motivating only 6.9% of the women representatives and that too only in the states of West Bengal, Sikkim, Tripura and Kerala.

Thirdly, women candidates are scarcely nominated from unreserved seats. In rural local bodies only 10.8% of the women get elected from unreserved seats. For male contestants however this figure is 49%. (“Study on Elected Women Representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions” - Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India,2008)

Thus this rotational aspect of reservation begets a short-term gain mindset, leading to a lack of accountability among the PRI members. Women who have got in simply through family connections are also not effective in asserting themselves and bringing about meaningful change. The process also entails a huge wastage of resources on the part of state governments as with every election they have to start the process of training and other related activities ab initio for the women members.

These are issues that need to be sorted out if the participation of women is to be made effective in the real sense.

The Scene in West Bengal

In terms of reservation of seats for women in panchayats, West Bengal took certain steps even

Table-1 Comparison of the male and female contestantsSl.No 1st time 2nd time 3rd time

Male Prodhan 62.7% 24.5% 12.8%Female Prodhan 84.6% 12% 3.4%Male members 79.8% 14.7% 5.5%Female members 90.8% 7.9% 1.4%


prior to the implementation of the constitutional amendment. The state adopted this reservation of seats for women, SCs and STs through Section 15(a)(ii) of the West Bengal Panchayat (Amendment) Act 1992, prior to the implementation of the constitutional amendment.

Women members got elected a s c h a i r p e r s o n s w i t h o u t reservation, from 1993 itself (reservation of chairpersons was implemented from 1998 panchayat election)

Fur the r by v i r tue o f an amendment of West Bengal Panchayat Act 1973 in 1997, the reservation of office-bearers was extended to the posts which are second in command in the respective tiers of panchayats namely of Upaprodhan (Sec 9) in the Gram Panchayat , Sahakari Sabhapati (Sec 98) in the Pachayat Samity (PS) or intermediary level and Sahakari Sabhadhipati (Sec 143) in the Zilla Parishad (ZP)or the apex level.

Another interesting feature emerged afterwards. Panchayat Samity and Zilla Parishad in West Bengal operate through t en work-spec i f i c - s t and ing committees (Sthayee Samities). The state government through an executive request (memo no-2757 dated 23/11/1994) made it desirable that half of the elected m e m b e r s o f ‘ S i s h u - o - N a r i Unnayan, Janakalyan-o-Tran Sthayee Samity’, (the standing committee dealing with women, child development and social welfare programmes) shall be women and that the posts of chairpersons of this committee in both the tiers be earmarked for women. WB Panchayat Act (Sec 32A) extended this principle to the Gram Panchayat level by

constituting Upa-Samities and half of the members as well chairperson of the upa-samity dealing with women and child welfare has been reserved for women. ( West Bengal Panchayat (Amendment) Act 2003)

Kultikri : Rubbing shoulders with history -

An all women panchayat was constituted in Kultikri gram panchayat in the then Midnapore district (Midnapore district of West Bengal was bifurcated in 2002 and now Kultikri falls i n We s t M i d n a p o r e u n d e r Sankrail block, Jhargram sub-division) in 1993 and the trend has continued in subsequent panchayat elections held in 1998, 2003 and 2008. The performance

Comparison of Female representative in PRI of West Bengal 1988 & 1993

Position in 1988 Position in 1993

Tiers of PRI Total seats in

1988

Won Total % of Fem. Rep

Total seats in

1993

Elected Fem rep.

% of Fem. RepNominated Elected

Gram Panchayat 49828 4588 223 4811 9.6 61011 21489 35.2

Panchayat samity 8621 386 61 447 5.1 9453 3182 33.6

Zilla Parishad 631 107 26 133 20.8 656 224 34.1

(Kultikri: An all woman Panchayat –Jaytilak Guha Roy in Public Administration in India: Case Studies edited by M.C.Gupta et al. Gyan Publishing House 1999.)

Position of Women Office Bearers in 1993 election (before relevant reservation)

Tier As Chief of the Body As Deputy chief

Zilla Parishad Nil 2

Panchayat Samity 8 84

Gram Panchayat 186 567


U R A L I N D I A i s experiencing rapid socio-economic and cultural transformation w i t h i m p r o v e d

IT-enab led communica t ion services, surface connectivity and community-centric infrastructure. The unique legislation - Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, supplemented by a host of social security programmes has proved a catalyst in rural asset building. Livelihood interventions are increasingly contributing to rural economy in a big way. What the country urgently needs is a sustainable, people-centric implementation mechanism at grassroots level . Without this, well-designed programmes and well-intended technologies will fail to leave the desired impact. But who will do it ? The answer is simple. As

Protection of Rural Livelihoods

GRaM Sabha

Awanish Somkuwar

ViEW POiNT

Madhya Pradesh has already

shown the way by publishing major

Acts in tribal dialects like Gondi, Bhili and Korku.

These publications are read out in

compulsory Gram Sabha meetings

the Indian democracy shows signs of maturity, the institution of Gram Sabha can be the most trusted body for implementing programmes designed to secure livelihoods to the rural poor.

Improvement in quality of life greatly depends on good governance, which requires m e t i c u l o u s p l a n n i n g . T h e development planning of rural India largely remains top-driven in practice. Decentralized development planning involving panchayat raj institutions and the Gram Sabha can pave the way for participatory governance while addressing the sustainability issue. The benefits of ambitious r u r a l p o v e r t y a l l e v i a t i o n programmes can reach out to the needy only when Gram Sabha performs vibrantly. It can act as a

R

The author is Assistant Director - Public Relations, CM's Press Cell,Directorate of Public Relations, Government of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal.


learning platform of participatory governance.

Why Gram Sabha

T h e G r a m S a b h a i s a constitutionally mandated body en joy ing ex tens ive powers relating to planning, monitoring and implementing development initiatives. The Government of India observed 2009-10 as Gram Sabha Year expecting the states to awaken the Gram Sabha towards its mandated functions, duties and rights. No other agency at grassroots level can match the administrative and financial strengths of Gram Sabha. In some states like Madhya Pradesh, all development departments aiming at improving rural livelihoods and assets have transferred extensive administrative and financial powers to Gram Sabha.

Article 243(B) of the Constitution defines the Gram Sabha as a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls relating to a village comprised within the area of the panchayat. With regard to its powers and authority, Article 243(A) of the Constitution says that the Gram Sabha may exercise such powers and perform such functions at the village level as Legislature of a State.

The 73rd Cons t i tu t iona l Amendment proved a milestone in the history of democratic decentralization of India. Thanks to it, panchayat raj institutions are able to address even complicated village governance issues. The 73rd Amendment provides for establishment of Gram Sabha for

each village. The state governments have endowed panchayats with such powers and authority that enable them to function as institutions of self-government.

The role of Gram Sabha has gained greater importance in the era of decentralized governance. The Gram Sabha is expected to own the responsibility of implementing m a j o r r u r a l d e v e l o p m e n t programmes and enforcing radical laws l ike MNREGA, Forest Rights Act, Right to Information Act, Gram Nyayalaya Act or the forthcoming legislation on food security. With increasing focus on social protection, sustainable rural livelihoods and effective management of village resources, the role of Gram Sabha assumes a vital role.

Ending Rural Poverty - Gram Sabha’s Role

The most pressing challenge before the country today is to eradicate rural poverty, which continues to assume new dimensions. A recent study by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative presents a distressing scenario. The magnitude of poverty in eight Indian states namely Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Orissa and West Bengal has been measured higher than the most chronically affected poor nations of sub Saharan Africa. Interestingly these eight states contribute significantly to India’s fast growing economy. The multi dimensional view of poverty in

these states takes into account the multiple deprivation of rural poor from basic services, rights and entitlements. There is a continuous debate about the exactness and accuracy of data on the number of poor and the extent of poverty. The most realistic approach to improving rural livelihoods is to mobilize local resources and build capacity of the rural poor. In this context, a Gram Sabha awakened to its duties and rights can address deprivation ensuring easy access to basic services.

Rural India is witnessing a lot of economic interventions for improving livelihoods of the poor. Economic enterprise exhibited by Self Help Groups, job-oriented trainings to rural youths, expansion of agri-business, interference of rural technologies, creation of community assets through MNREGA, specific social sector initiatives by community based organizations are contributing to economic buoyancy in rural areas. The panchayat raj institutions are also executing infrastructure development programmes creating livelihood opportunities at local levels. In fact, it is perhaps for the first time in the post independence era that we have started assigning so much of importance to rural l ivelihoods and adopting an integrated approach towards it.

The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) promises to address the needs of 6.5 crore poor rural households and proposes to bring substantial changes in


the lives of the rural poor. As the Mission document says, its focus is on people-led and people-centric organizations. It provides for a demand driven approach for release of funds on receipt of state level action plans. About one crore rural youths are to be covered under the Mission. The question is that such an ambitious target can be achieved only with the active support and cooperation of Gram Sabha. The village, block level and zila panchayats can deal with operations, but understanding at Gram Sabha level must prevail.

The Mission further seeks to improve livelihood options by strengthening SHGs. This is going to make a fundamental difference and is a very welcome step as it ensures involvement of the people. In order to optimize the impact, the phenomenon of SHG formation needs to be understood by the Gram Sabha, whose adult members are the members of SHGs. Many SHGs and their products die out for want of marketing facilities. The SHGs can survive only when they have sound financial base. Inter-loaning for consumption needs and petty requirements cannot help sustain the SHGs. The Gram Sabha has to take up responsibility of building a favourable atmosphere for survival of SHGs. Buy rural products as they come from fellow villagers. This spirit should be the core theme of advocacy, which Gram Sabha must take up.

The Gram Sabha is a powerful body. The inna te wisdom of its members regarding their understanding of poverty and

rational utilization of resources can be a very effective tool for fighting poverty sustainably. The DFID-UK Govt. aided Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project has adopted the Gram Sabha approach to poverty alleviation in 3000 remote tribal villages. The project initially decided to work on the rural wisdom-based poverty alleviation strategies designed and suggested by the Gram Sabha. It was a bottom up approach. Capacity building of Gram Sabha was taken up on a massive scale to enable the members to utilize the project money transferred to Village Fund. The positive outcome is that the poor tribal families have taken innovative ways of addressing poverty. For example, more than 600 Village Relief Funds are operative, meeting out emergency situations. Anybody in dire need can approach the committee members managing the Village Relief Fund and get money. The money is returned to the Village Relief Fund on convenient terms. This simple mechanism has given a severe jolt to the age-old money lending system in 600 villages.

Unquestionably, decentralized planning and implementation of rural development agenda cannot be done effectively without involving the Gram Sabha. There are certain fundamental processes that need support of the Gram Sabha like well-being ranking, participatory planning and decision making, selection of actual beneficiaries, human communications on social issues, village level monitoring

network, social auditing etc. These are the pre-conditions on which depend the performance of ambitious rural development progammes designed to mitigate poverty.

Capacity building of Gram Sabha is a major task before the states. While Gram Sabha has the innate ability to perform assigned tasks, they need to learn the use of administrative apparatus in the larger interest of people. The learnings and wisdom gained from working with a Gram Sabha need replication elsewhere. India must take up an agenda for capacity building of Gram Sabha so that they can reach out to people effectively. Orientation of Gram Sabha towards development issues, constitutional mandate, rights and entitlements, utilization of human and natural resources, revenue generation and financial literacy etc. must continue. The capacity building agenda must incorporate legal literacy. Legal understanding quickens the development processes. The Gram Sabha can take up the uphill task of spreading legal literacy among the rural masses. Madhya Pradesh has already shown the way by publishing major Acts in tribal dialects like Gondi, Bhili and Korku. These publications are read out in compulsory Gram Sabha meetings.

Harnessing the strength of the Gram Sabha is the only effective option for achieving the objectives of development and inclusive growth. q



graph of the panchayat, though not spectacular, i s more or less satisfactory. Scanning the performance of MGNREGA in Kultikri we find that job card was issued to 1610 families who had applied for it. In the financial year 2010-11 and upto December 8, 2010, fifteen days of work was provided to 46% of the households which demanded work and on an average, wage payments were made to the workers within 16-30 days. Two households also got work for more than one hundred days. There was no incident of claim for unemployment allowance in the financial year. The GP has been able to complete 26 projects of rural connectivity and 58 projects of water conservation in this financial year till the cut-off date. Problem however lurks in 55 unfinished projects which not only d is turb the internal logistics but also eat up the benefits accruing from the

completed ones. The situation is more menacing since majority of the unfinished projects (21 for wate r conserva t ion , 30 of rural connect ivi ty and 4 of land development) have a direct bearing on the livelihood of the common people. The material to wage ratio of 29:47 is over all good. This distinct tilt towards wage component adheres to the fundamental tenets of the programme. (http://www.nregapaschimmedinipur.com/index_fi les/Sankrai l .htmand http://164.100.112.66/netnrega/ReportCard.aspx)

The Gram Panchayat has also taken efforts this year to upgrade the existing Primary Health Centre with the assistance of Zilla Parishad at a total cost of Rs 74.18 lakhs. Previously it also has achieved the status of Nirmal Gram in 2003 by adopting all round sanitation programme and did a remarkable job in adult literacy campaign in the 1990s. In

fact a general attempt on the part of the Gram Panchayat is always on to develop the area.

Gradual gendering of local democracy is opening up a new vista in the rural areas. Women are increas ingly get t ing a chance to shape grassroots level politics which previously was controlled by local power cliques. Jean Dreze &Amartya Sen in ‘India-Economic Development and Social Opportunity (1995)’ opined that “It is not merely that more justice must be received by women but also that social justice can be achieved through the active agency of women…. The emancipation of women is an integral part of social progress, not just a woman’s issue.” The existent social patriarchy and the party bureaucracy need to realize this, and the sooner they perceive this the brighter will be the smile on the face of women! q


YOJANAForthcoming

IssuesMarch 2011

This will be a Special Issue on the Union Budget

April 2011 Social Justice and Human Rights

March 2011&

April 2011


EDUCING POVERTY a n d h u n g e r a r e t h e f u n d a m e n t a l cha l l enges f ac ing developing countries.

Despite India’s recent high economic growth rate, around 350 million people are still living on less than one dollar a day. About 72% of India’s poor are living in rural areas, primarily dependent on agriculture and natural resources for their sustenance. Acknowledging the rural distress, the Indian Government has declared the development of rural areas a top national priority (National Common Minimum Programme of the GOI, 2004). The most critical elements here are the access to and equitable management of local resources in a viable and sustainable way.

Sustainable Management of Local Resources

SElF hElP GROuPS

N Lalitha

aNalySiS

Effective local resource

management can be achieved through synergy of various

stakeholders – NGOs, SHGs,

banks, technical institutions and the

government

‘Sustainable development’ extends the traditional concept of economic development in two directions. The concept has a future focus; it aims at ensuring a pattern of development that will not damage the reasonably foreseeable interests and needs of future generations. Second, it entails to focus not only economic goals but also social and environmental well being. The aim of sustainable development is to ‘de couple’ economic growth from adverse effects on the environment.

A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stress and shock, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future while not undermining the natural resource base” (DIFD). In this context the following aspects deserve special mention.

R

The author is Professor & Head, Department of Rural Development, Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram. Tamil Nadu


l To support planning and p r o m o t i o n o f r a t i o n a l u s e , c o n s e r v a t i o n a n d improvement of natura l r e s o u r c e s e s s e n t i a l t o continuous and self sustaining livelihood opportunities

l To support and stimulate new innovative initiatives aimed at improving the stock, quality and productivity of the resource base and livelihood opportunities

l To e m p o w e r t h e l o c a l communit ies to become equal and self reliant partners in sus ta inab le resource management

SHG movement and Rural Development:

The SHG movement has taken off on a huge scale in Indian villages and has become the approach of numerous rural development projects of Indian Government and banks. With 500 SHGs in 1992 to more than 68 lakh SHGs linked to banking system over the last 18 years, the growth of SHGs is astounding. However only those groups which initiate entrepreneurial activities - resource based and demand based activities- seem to be treading towards sustainable development. While SHGs can promote sustainable development of local resources, local resource-based activities are primordial for sustainability of SHGs.

SHG movement had its origin in the context of non-access to credit facilities from commercial bank for the marginalized section at the grassroots, particularly the women who are otherwise careful in their spending, diligent in their saving habits, prudent enough to understand the productive links with various agencies and above all, have the responding capacity to the emerging needs of the consumers and the market. The cascading effect of the savings and credit operations is witnessed in the emergence of a strong SHG base in rural areas, capable of addressing their own credit needs under the guidance of reputed and well tested NGOs and also capable of gradually moving into higher order business operations as micro entrepreneurs.

But the SHGs are also faced with the problem of stiff competition from Multi National Corporations (MNCs) and corporate retailers. The MNCs who have wel l recognized the potential of these SHGs, lured them away from their original field of micro credit and micro-enterprises into the field of marketing of the products of MNCs, thus paving the way for supplanting them from their avocation of producing items with traditional skills and also resulting in non utilization of local resources .

Role of NGOs in nurturing SHGs

To make the resource-based activities successful and effective,

the role of NGOs has significant importance in terms of identification of the location, resources, pre- promotional activities, selection of potential activities, entrepreneurial training, monitoring and follow up mechanism. NGOs play a catalytic role in training the SHGs to convert the local resources into finished goods.

Management of local resources through SHGs:

K a n n i w a d i v i l l a g e i n Reddiarchatram block of Dindigul district is rich in banana cultivation. The SHGs of the area are given one-month training in conversion of banana waste into handmade paper at Sevagram, and in screen painting by the M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation. After harvest these SHGs produce hand made paper, greetings card, envelops, and writing pads out of banana and cotton waste. The process uses solar energy and no harmful chemicals. Machinery worth Rs 7 lakhs were procured through SHG Bank Linkage loan and grants from MSSRF. The members, all of whom belong to scheduled caste, have been successfully running the enterprise since 2001.

In Athur block of Dindigul district the SHGs are trained by Gandhigram Trust to set up vermi composting units. Vermi compost is in great demand for farming and the manure fetches Rs.6 to Rs.7 per k.g.


Local medicinal plants constitute valuable resource for livelihood security. The region between Kodai Hills and Sirumalai, Dindigul district has tremendous potential for cultivation of medicinal plants and herbs. The Ministry of Micro , Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) , Government of India has sanctioned a project to Lakshmi Seva Sangham (LSS) through Khadi and Village industries Commission (KVIC) Mumbai at a cost of Rs one crore under “Scheme of Funds for Regeneration o f Tr a d i t i o n a l i n d u s t r i e s (SFURTI)” with the objective of developing cluster based Siddha and Ayurvedic industries. The scheme is implemented in Athur, Nilakottai and Kodaikanal blocks of Dindigul district and Andipatti block of Theni district. The major beneficiaries are collectors of herbs, barks, seeds and roots, who are mostly tribals. Under the scheme the tribals are encouraged to involve themselves in value addition products and shift their focus to planned collection of natural medicinal plants without destroying resources of forest . Farmers are exposed to large scale cultivation of medicinal plants, a viable alternative commercial proposition with assured income. The SHGs are roped in by providing infrastructural facilities such as drying lands, godowns and semi processing units. A cluster development co-ordination

committee has been formed and an action plan chalked out for implementation and monitoring.

41 SHGs have been formed under this scheme. About 500 families get livelihood support through collection of medicinal p lan ts , cu l t iva t ion , semi – processing and marketing. The successful experience of SHGs in Athur block is worth quoting here. The raw materials for the LSS are purchased only from SHGs. During the year 2008-2009 an amount of Rs 17,00,000/- worth of raw materials were purchased from the members. It is nearly 20 % of the total purchase. The SHGs supply firewood, cow dung and milk to LSS, in addition to the medicinal plants for manufacture of Siddha and Ayurveda medicines. The members get loan under Direct Linkage Programmes at 10% interest rate and buy milch cattle and supply the milk to LSS. As part of marketing promotional assistance, Gandhdigram Sales Representatives (GSR) have been appointed. Each GSR has opened an account in Canara Bank , Gandhigram and applied for loan of Rs 10000/- towards initial investment. The cheque is issued in the name of LSS from where the GSR takes the products for sale. One group has started a canteen in LSS which is being run profitably. Out of the profits the group members have purchased 4½ acres of plots in the nearby area

(900Sq. for each) for construction of houses.

The SHG Federat ion has purchased a land in their name in Andipatti block of Theni district and handed over to SFURTI for the construction of Common Facility Centre. An oil ghani with 7.5 Hp motor, semi – automatic oil filling machine and cap sealing machines, pill making machine worth 15 lakhs were also purchased and installed. It is planned to purchase and install micro pulvarizers with which the SHG members can powder the dried medicinal leaves.

Other examples of SHGs managing local resources and providing people with means of livelihood include the silk and cotton ginning unit at T Subbulapuram in Theni district, where members are engaged in weaving and cotton pillow and bed production and have accumulated savings amount of Rs1,25,000, or the neem oil extraction unit at Subbulapuram where the Angalaeswari SHG members, with support from Gandhigram Trust, are engaged in extraction of neem oil, powdering of neem cake and marketing of neem soaps and detergent.

The explosive growth of Chennai, by the arrival of MNCs has eaten away into the rural spaces of Kanchipuram district. There is the displacement of the village people and closure of their


traditional occupation. Paranur village is a classic example where the location of a few MNCs has encroached upon the pasture land thereby affecting the animal husbandry activities in the area. The Osuramman SHG in this village is now involved in sale of milk packets. Milk in bulk is procured from Hatsun Dairy in the area, and sold to customers as per demand.

S i m i l a r l y , t h e Va i g a i SHG in Walajabad block of Kanchipuram distr ict have undertaken banana cultivation as a profitable venture seven years ago and have accumulated a savings fund of Rs.53500/-. The group procured the necessary funds from various loan schemes and leased in three acres of land for Rs.50,000/- for one year. The profit they made was shared equally and was ploughed back in small business activities like cloth business, , auto maintenance, saree sales.

The factors which led to the success of the group were that the activity is based on local resources, Vaigai is a single caste group ; all the members belong to the farming community and each member possessed land of half acre to three acres; the funds for investment was available through the micro enterprise loan of Hand In Hand; proximity to Chengalpet town is an additional advantage and hence there is no problem of marketing.

I n O t h u k a d u v i l l a g e o f O t h u k a d u p a n c h a y a t , Kancheepuram district there are eight groups functioning under the able leadership of a woman social worker. The group promoted kitchen garden activities in the backyard of the members’ houses and cultivated brinjal, ladyfinger and palaks. The activity was selected based on the local resource availability and local soil and climate conditions. Moreover the marketing of the product is easy as the ‘greens’ have high demand in the markets of nearby cities like Kancheepuram, Chennai, Pa l lavaram and Tambaram. Thanks to the bank assistance, the groups could mobilize financial resources for investment under Revolving fund and Economic Assistance under SGSY . One of the groups - Mother Teresa Group got Manimekalai award for the best performance from the State Government.

Here again the group succeeded since the activity is based on local resources, demand for the product is assured, there is effective leadership, individual effort, support from NGO, availability

O m s h a k t h i S H G i n Thimmasamudhram panchayat, K a n c h i p u r a m d i s t r i c t i s producing areca nut products. They make trays and cups of areca nut leaves in different shapes and sizes. These ‘use

and throw’ products are of great demand in hotels, bakeries and marriage functions. The group participated in SARAS 2007 held in connection with International Trade Fair in 2007 organized by CAPART, Ministry of Rural Development at Delhi.

From the foregoing analysis a broad generalization emerges that credit alone is not enough for starting new livelihood enterprises based on local resources. Skill training, technology up-gradation and marketing assistance are also just as important. It is the integrated strategy and not the minimalist strategy which has enabled the SHGs to manage the local resources effectively.These experiments also prove that wherever NGOs/SHPIs have taken conscious efforts and steps to create better awareness and improve the knowledge, practices and skills of SHGs and where the members have been able to exercise informed choices and constitute a cohesive, dynamic and homogeneous group, the group has managed the local resources towards sustainability. Effective local resource management can be achieved through synergy of various stakeholders – NGOs, SHGs, banks, technical institutions and the government for policy support. q



N JULY 2010, India joined the ranks of the major currencies o f t h e w o r l d b y adopting a symbol

for the rupee–an elegant blend of Devanagari and English alphabets with attributes of the tricolour represented in the two lines at the top and white space in between. The Indian rupee symbolises the strength of our economic system and our rising financial prowess, acknowledged and admired the world over.

A t a t ime when we a re celebrating the growth of our e c o n o m y, t h e s y m b o l a n d substance of what the Indian rupee represents is undermined by an irrational policy of our government. The Indian rupee, a perfectly legal form of currency through the entire length and

Flagging the Rupee

ECONOMy

Naveen Jindal

OPiNiON

The new rupee icon includes a symbol of equality. The

time has come for us to reduce the artificial divide

between my rupee and their rupee. In

India, we accept the INR anytime,

anywhere

breadth of our country becomes unusable in a certain area–the protected environs of duty free shops at our international airports, where the memorable phrase–“show me the money” acquires a whole new meaning. If you are an Indian national feel free to buy what you want. Of course, terms and conditions apply–you can spend a maximum of Rs 5,000 in Indian currency. But if you are a foreign national and the billing assistant asks–cash or card–please don’t make the mistake of offering Indian rupees–they are unacceptable. You can shop till you drop, but pick up a credit card or foreign currency to pay for the purchase.

Is there another nation that disregards its own currency as we reject the rupee in our territory? I think not. At international

I

The author is Hon’ble Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha )

`


airports, prices are marked in local currencies and paid for in local currencies. Among the great and small nations, we are the only nation that gives short shrift to our own currency and refuse to accept the rupee as a form of payment. It defies common sense.

For foreign tourists Incredible India turns into incredulous India when after a memorable stay in our country they are told the rupees they used throughout their stay are not good enough at the airport duty free shop. Imagine the irritation of travellers who have se t as ide a few hours and a few thousand rupees to take back tangible memories of India. The Indian currency in their hand cannot pay for the goods they buy. They have to change their Indian rupees into foreign exchange by paying a commission, a double whammy since they would have paid it to convert their foreign exchange into Indian rupees at the time of arrival. Instead of being able to spend it freely at the point of departure, they have to convert it before spending it.

How does i t serve us–in economic terms or in terms of perception of being seen as a warm and hospitable country if the foreign traveller decides against shopping because she cannot use the Indian rupees in her wallet? What is the policy

compu l s ion beh ind such a practice? When foreign tourist and business travellers spend money in India, on their stay, food and shopping, it flows into our economy. Why does the colour of money become an issue in the hands of a foreign national at an international airport? An Indian rupee is being spent in India. What is the harm in that?

At a time when we are building state-of-the-art airports with facilities and services comparable to the best in the world, this law is outdated. India is likely to emerge as an important hub in the years to come and i t makes enormous economic sense to take this one simple step to make the entire visiting experience a pleasant one for tourists and business travellers. There are many international airports that are marketed as the ultimate shopping destination for travellers. We are not in the same league yet but if we want to get there, we should review our policies. If we don’t change our attitude we will lose an important source of revenue, as sales at some of the best duty free shops run into billions of dollars, sorry, thousands of crores of rupees annually.

India i s a t r i l l ion dol lar economy, growing a t c lose to nine per cent with foreign

exchange reserves of almost 300 billion dollars. The strength of the Indian economy is for all to see and experience. As a country confident of our economic ability and our financial muscle we should allow the use of Indian rupees at duty free shops. This step will be in line with our recent adoption of the rupee symbol; it will increase the visibility of our currency and enhance its distinctive identity.

W h e n S h e r S h a h S u r i introduced the first rupee in the early part of the 16th century, he could not have imagined that five hundred years later, our currency would not hold sway in some parts of our sovereign territory. It took me five years of relentless letter writing to all stakeholders and decision makers–the ministry of finance, the ministry of tourism and the Reserve Bank of India to get Indian citizens to use Indian rupees at airport duty free shops. That change of policy was notified in September 2005. I hope I don’t have to wait that long to get this discriminatory policy struck off the rule book.

The new rupee icon includes a symbol of equality. The time has come for us to reduce the artificial divide between my rupee and their rupee. In India, we accept the INR anytime, anywhere. q



North east diary RuRAL JOBS SCHEME IN MIzORAM

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been adopted as a community work by the well-knit, classless society in Mizoram. Unlike in other States, people in Mizoram do not apply for jobs; it is the village council or local

administration which sends out invitations to each household to send at least one job holder to execute the work in their village or area.

The village council, an elected body, has been created under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and exercises control at the grassroots level. However, dissolution of some of these councils falling within the jurisdiction of the capital city of Aizwal is on the cards now with its transition towards governance through a municipal body. The first election to its 19 wards was held recently.

In villages, however, the councils are evolving the development process with greater ingenuity, particularly after the introduction of MNREGS which has given them the leeway to club a number of schemes.

A case in point is Sakeiram---Tiger Land. Sake means tiger in Mizo language and Ram stands for land as in the case of Mizoram---land of the Mizos. More than 700 men and women of all ages are collectively cutting a 6km pathway in the mountains with the objective of setting up an althogether new locality in Serchhip district. The village council has issued a call and the job card holders responded as if they were taking up a community work. Of course, the wage rate is Rs. 110 per person day.

It sure is a multipurpose road suggestive of a unique model of convergence of various schemes taken up with the idea of not only linking Thensal village with the main road but also to facilitate construction of a AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) hospital, ring in a new mode of agriculture and give a fillip to horticulture and floriculture.

Several programmes are thus clubbed, but primary importance is attached to construction of roads, MGNREGS doubles up even with Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) as the hilly terrains are still inaccessible.

Horticulture and floriculture are among the schemes permitted under the MGNREGS to develop the land of BPL and Scheduled Tribes households. This is being used to wean them away from jhum cultivation which typifies the shifting cultivation.

To save ecology, the government recently launched a New Land Use Policy (NLUP) with the promise to provide at least two hectares to 1.2 lakh families over the next three years. The government also intends to provide help to develop their land for tilling purpose. With people living on the higher slopes of the mountain, water is a major problem despite several rivers crisscrossing the State. MGNREGS has come in handy for taking up water conservation schemes. It is being combined with other structures for setting up reservoirs. q


ITH THE objective of transferring power to the grassroots level by involving more a n d m o r e p e o p l e

in governance, the Jammu and Kashmir government is holding panchayat elections in the state by february end this year. The last panchayat elections in the state were held in 2001 and panchayats were dissolved in 2006 when their five year term ended.

Panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir have been postponed in the past due to various reasons including unrest in the state, updation/revision of electoral rolls and weather conditions. The state has 2,700 panchayats out of which elections were held in about 1,900 in 2001.

The state Government is losing Rs 400 crore per month of the central grant in the absence of panchayats since 2006. The State would, however, request the centre

Panchayat Elections in J&K

J&K WiNDOW

Kavita Suri

accounted for 71,765 electorates. The figure for Leh and Bandipora are awaited. Thus the total number of voters for the state stands at 45.37 lakh (45,37,283) but the election department is expecting the figure to touch around 47.4 lakh after the inclusion of figures for the districts of Bandipora and Leh.

Within 33 per cent reserved cons t i tuenc ies fo r women , reservation has been given to SC and ST women. According to official figures released by the election department, out of a total of 13,760 panch constituencies in 10 districts of Jammu province, 4726 segments have been reserved for women. The men will contest the remaining 9034 constituencies. The seats reserved for SCs (both men and women) have been pegged at 1996 while STs would have 2183 reserved segments.

Jammu district has a maximum of 655 panch constituencies reserved for SC, both men and women, while Samba and Kathua accounted for

W

(The writer is Assistant Director, Department of Lifelong Learning, University of Jammu, J &K)

to compensate it for the funds of previous years once the panchayats are set up.

An approximate 47.4 lakh voters will be eligible to exercise their right to franchise in the panchayat elections. Jammu district has the highest number of voters (5,66,273) while Srinagar district has lowest number of 15061 voters in the state. Kathua district has 3,27,733 voters while Samba district has 1,76,231. Udhampur accounted for 2,79,075 voters while Reasi had 1,60,810. Twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri would now have 2,47,119 and 3,16,527 voters respectively. Ramban has 1,48,690 voters, Kishtwar 1,23,346 and Doda 2,13,375. In Kashmir valley, Baramulla district has highest number of 4,37,431 voters followed by 4,19,668 in Anantnag, 3,35,604 in Budgam and 3,30,905 in Kupwara. Ganderbal has 1.21 lakh voters, Pulwama 2,63,398, Kulgam 1,93,044 and Shopian 2,43,044. Kargil district in Ladakh region


190 and 367 seats respectively. Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban will have 152, 45 and 35 seats reserved for SCs while Udhampur and Reasi districts have 332 and 92 seats for SCs. In Rajouri, SCs have 128 seats while no reservation has been given to them in Poonch district.

The STs have highest number of 640 seats reserved in Rajouri and 592 in Poonch districts including the women reservation. Jammu district has 84 ST constituencies while Samba and Kathua districts have 24 and 122 respectively. In Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts, 123, 112 and 118 seats have been reserved for STs while Udhampur and Reasi have 124 and 248 Panch segments for STs respectively.

J a m m u d i s t r i c t h a s t h e highest number of 2166 panch constituencies. Of them, 748 have been reserved for women - 222 SC 26 ST and 500 general category. Of 1418 seats for men, 433 have been reserved for SCs, 54 for STs and 931 for general categories. Rajouri district has second highest number of 295 panchayats and 2028 panch constituencies, 705 of which have been reserved for women(, 466 general candidates, 204 for STs and 35 for SCs.), leaving 1323 for men( 93 for SCs, 436 for STs and 794 for general categories).

Samba district has 100 panchayats and 726 panch constituencies. Of them, 251 segments have been reserved for women (61 SCs, four STs and 186 open) while 475 seats belongto men that include 129 for SCs, 20 for STs and rest 326 for general categories. Kathua district accounted for 244 panchayats and 1644 panch constituencies. A total

of 567 seats have been reserved for women (128 SCs, 42 STs and 397 open) and 1077 for men including 239 for SCs, 80 for STs while 758 seats have been kept open.

Doda district will now have 232 panchayats and 1428 panch segments. It will have 481 seats reserved for women including 45 SC, 39 STs and 397 open. For men, there will be 947 constituencies, which would include 107 for SCs, 84 for STs and 756 for open categories. Kishtwar district will now account for 134 panchayats and 838 panch constituencies. Of 838 seats, 284 have been reserved for women (242 open, 31 STs and 11 SCs) while 554 seats will be for men with 34 reserved for SCs, 81 for STs and 439 for general categories.

Newly carved out Ramban district has lowest number of 124 panchayats and 832 panch constituencies. It will have 287 seats reserved for women, 236 for open categories, 41 for STs and 10 for SC. Of 545 seats for male, 25 for SCs, 77 for STs and 443 for open categories. Udhampur district accounted for 204 panchayats and 1544 panch segments. It will have 1006 seats reserved for men including 229 for SCs, 87 for STs and 690 for general categories. The women quota comprised 538 seats with 398 open, 37 for STs and 103 for SCs.

Reasi has only 147 panchayats and 1014 panch constituencies. It will have 353 seats reserved for women (35 SCs, 94 STs and 224 open) while the men wil l be able to contest 661 seats, of which 57 have been reserved for SCs, 154 for STs

and 450 for open categories. The border district of Poonch has 189 numbers of panchayats and 1540 constituencies. It has 512 seats reserved for women including 190 for STs and 322 for open categories. Of 1028 seats of males, 402 are reserved for STs and 626 for general categories.

The elections to panchayats will be held on the pattern of Assembly polls to save time. Under the Assembly scheduled, about 22 days time is kept between issuance of notification for a phase of the election and date of the polling. The time was much more in the panchayat election scheduled. The elections would start from plain areas as there will be snowfall in upper reaches during January and February. Polling in mountainous areas will be held in March when weather starts improving. Security arrangements for Panchayat elections are to be made from existing strength of CRPF and police. The elections would be spread over 10 to 12 phases. More than two lakh employees would be required for its conduct. Ballot boxes would be used in these elections, and not EVMs.

While people are upbeat about these forthcoming elections, the political parties like Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers P a r t y ( J K N P P ) a n d P e o p l e Democratic Party (PDP) have criticized these elections as these are being held in the state on a non-party basis. The JKNPP has demanded that the elections should be held on a party basis as has been done in other states of the country. q

(E-mail:[email protected])


HE “JATI Panchayat” or caste panchayat in Jalore district in western Rajasthan holds a lot of influence

over the local people. This influence it leverages to impose a ‘moral’ way of life and lead the way for what it defines as ‘common good’. Sounds uncomfortably familiar to the numerous reports of other such panchayats in the country, which have not just ostracized young boys and girls for daring to love and marry outside the strict definitions of ‘gotra’ or ‘ family ties’ but also pronounced and implemented violent judgments with no legal basis whatsoever.

Mercifully this panchayat is different. There is difference of cultural context, social patterns and what is most important, the role the panchayat envisages for itself in strengthening the

positives in society. A “Mumkin Hai Committee” has been formed under a local NGO, VIKALP across sixteen villages of Aahor block of Jalore. This has brought together local women, school teachers, anganwadi workers, ASHA workers and youth of these villages on a common platform with the core objective of making the district free from domestic violence and girl foeticide. In a state like Rajasthan where female foeticide is prevalent in many areas, child marriage is rampant and the girl child is often denied education, the going for such a platform is bound to be difficult. The group has however taken up the challenge and is trying to create awareness about the rights of the girl child. Recently, the group took out a “Padyatra” across several villages like Kotda, Jethpura, Nosra and Gudarma to raise the issues of child marriage and girl foeticide.

Thumbs up for this Caste Panchayat

bEST PRaCTiCES

Usha Chowdhary

It is perhaps this transformation which is more enduring than any top-down

programme which seeks to impose

rather than co-opt the local people in

social change

T


The change of mindset in the area is apparent. What is more interesting is that this change is being seen in quarters which were till now entrenched in anti-girl child practices. 50 year old Ukaram Dewasi, of Dudiyan village in Aahore tehsil in Jalore is a ‘Panch’. Though initially hesitant, he was drawn into the activities and discussions of this committee which questioned much of what he believed, the social mores that were handed down over generations, mores that he never felt the need to question. Child marriage for instance, was an accepted part of life in the region and Ukaram did not really have a problem with it.

During discussion with the others, many issues opened up, taking Ukaram, on a journey into the unknown. The discussions which he was hesitant to join in initially, made him see how the growth and development of the region’s girl child depended on her getting an education and the opportunities that arise from it. The practice of early marriage was in direct confrontation with this growth. Over time, Ukaram could see this clearly and on his own raised it at one of the meetings with ‘Dewasi’ community, with the MLA of Sirohi region Odharam Ji Dewasi and Panch from other communities.

In this meet ing Ukaram presented his case in support of education of girls and voiced his opposition to child marriage.

He now completely believed in this cause. He was not parroting any jargon introduced by the group. His words sprung deep from his own conviction and a realization of how wrong his views had previously been. Ukaram stated categorically that child marriage adversely affects the lives of both the boy and the girl, preventing them from pursuing their education. This break in education affects the girls’ life more adversely. Then Ukaram took a quantum leap forward and called for a complete prohibition on child marriage, indeed a revolutionary statement, given the context and social practices that prevailed.

As expected, it was not well received initially but the power of his own conviction and the dint of his argument helped Ukaram carry the day. What is laudable is that the others in the group also took the step forward to not only question social mores but actually transform their own outlook and come out not only with a statement of support but a commitment to carry it forward.

After what was an expectedly prolonged debate, all members came to a common understanding and accepted the proposal of Ukaram Ji. They took the step to pass a resolution which stated “no parent would encourage child marriage in his own family”. “If any family allows the girl’s marriage before 18 years of age and boy’s marriage before 21 years

of age, the Dewasi community would impose a f ine worth Rs 50,000 on the concerned family”. In what is clearly of importance in the region, the resolution goes on to add “The guilty family will also have to make available at least two jute bags of wheat as pigeons food”,

In the case of Jalore district, it is one man who could see light, who transformed himself to open the way to a larger social transformation. The efforts of Vikalp in the region, the local forum ‘ Mumkin Hai’ which came together to first visualize and then take action towards a better deal for its girl children came to a fruition with this one man. If this can be done in one region, changing the perceptions of one person, surely the light can spread. It is perhaps this transformation which is more enduring than any top-down programme which seeks to impose rather than co-opt the local people in social change.

Ukaram himself is a happy man, a man at peace with his conscience. He is grateful for the platform that opened his eyes and made him aware of the “darker side of the child marriage” He is quite clear that he would put his energy in ensuring that no parent encourages what he terms as a “social evil which spoils the life of tender-aged boys and girl in the region”.

Charkha Features


NDIA IS home to more than a billion people, majority of whom are directly or indirectly dependent

upon agriculture. It also has the world’s largest cattle population. There is a heavy pressure on land and water resources across the country. The importance of managing Common Property Resources (CPRs) like water bodies, forest and pasture land, and the central role of village communi t ies in th is regard have formed a minor, though important part of the Indian Natural Resource Management (NRM) discourse and practice (Balachander and Raj 2006). Data indicates that sub-marginal and marginal tribal households accrue 35 to 36 percent of their income from forest produce (Ramamani 1988). One study

Natural Resources and Village Institutions: A Critical Link

FOREST RiGhTS

Sushant

aNalySiS

When given clear rights and responsibilities,

forest communities are proving they can work as allies with government and

NGOs to establish effective access

controls and install regulated forest-use

systems

estimates that CPRs contribute about US $5 billion a year to towards the income of poor households in India (Beck and Nesmith 2001).

During the last few decades, three broad types of community institutions engaged in forest protect ion and management have developed in various states of India (Sarin, 1996). The first type has emerged out of local initiative, primarily as a response to the hardships of scarcity faced by local villagers due to degradation of forest resources in their areas. Second type of community organizations engaged in forest management are those promoted by the forest departments. The third type is the one sponsored by local Government or NGO programmes to carry out a more general rural development mandate.

I

The author is pursuing PhD from Punjab University. This article is an abridged version of a paper presented by him at 2nd UNITAR’-Yale Conference on Environmental Governance and Democracy held at Yale University, USA.


Policy Init iat ives towards Decentralization

Communities in most parts of India have been demanding their rights over forests – in 1930, villages of Tehri Garwal protested against the reservation of forests; in 1970s and 1980s, villagers hugged the trees to protect them from being cut by the contractors in northern Uttar Pradesh, which is referred to as the Chipko Movement. India’s National Forest Policy, 1988 was the first proforest dwellers initiative that recognized the fact that the forests cannot be protected by “policing” alone, rather the village communities need to be involved in the task of forest protection. National Forest Policy, 1988 admitted the fact that it would be difficult to protect the forests without the collaboration of the local communities.

The Government of India enac ted the “Provis ions to the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act” or PESA Act in the year 1996. It is one of the progressive legislations for the tribal regions of India, entrusting self-governance and recognizing the traditional rights of indigenous communities over their natural resources through decentralization of government power to the ones at the bottom of the pyramid. As per PESA, the Gram Sabha is involved in approval of development plans and programmes, leading to a strong control of tribal communities over “community resources” –

land, forest and water. In its true interpretation, PESA significantly strengthens the position of tribal people through self governance of the ‘village republic’ through the Gram Sabha. It has enabled communities to take control of their livelihoods, conserve and manage natural resources and protect their traditional rights.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, commonly referred to as FRA, is a landmark in the struggle of forest dwellers to get legal recognition of their environmental rights over forests. It attempted not only to correct a “historic injustice” committed by the colonial and postcolonial rulers but also to vest in forest communities the primary role of sustaining forest ecosystems by restoring their rights as well as their environmental duties.

The new recognition of forest dwellers as “integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem” is a crucial policy reversal compared with previous forest laws, as the new law makes them the custodians of forests and their ecology. FRA definitely has converted key environmental interests of forest dwellers into environmental rights that could be enforced by courts.

Thus we can c lear ly see devolution of powers from JFM to PESA and further to FRA. JFM, though it professes to treat local communities as equal partners,

suffered from uneven power relationship, putting the authority of decision-making in the hands of the forest department. JFM failed to promote equitable and democratic participation of all sections. This intrinsic problem of unequal power relationship was taken care of in PESA. However, PESA was applicable only in Scheduled areas and not across the country. FRA, the most recent legislation towards decentralization of powers is applicable all across the country. At this point of time, the challenge t h a t l i e s a h e a d r e g a r d i n g institutions and management of natural resources pertains to the behaviour of institutions after the enactment of FRA, under which both individual and community rights in forests are provided for.

Institutional Dynamics

Nayak (2003) has analyzed that the single largest factor for ini t iat ion of community forest management (CFM) is the degrading resource base and its manifold consequences on local livelihoods and micro ecosystems. Several documents on community forestry in India indicate that forest protecting groups initiated active protection only when the loca l fores ts degraded , warranting immediate action. In order to establish effective access controls, membership in the management group needs to be well defined and the protected forest area clearly identified and demarcated.


As soon as some individuals moni tor o thers and impose sanctions, conflict will occur over rule interpretation, the facts of the event being sanctioned, and the appropriate level and type of punishment (Ostrom 1992, 55). Increase in value of resource through protection often leads to conflict between neighboring villages. Hechter (1987, 150-57) identifies several strategies that groups can adopt to increase effectiveness of monitoring, including (1) increasing visibility through architecture and the creation of public rituals, and (2) minimizing errors of interpretation by establishing clear-cut rules and recruiting participants who share similar views.

Pr inciples of democrat ic management and local governance ensure equality of members by meeting the needs of a variety of people and accommodating sub-group interests as well as context specific concerns. It also relies upon open debate, persuasion, compromise and thereby guarantees basic freedom to its members.

Every community institution is likely to face a situation of periodic conflict. A certain amount of conflict is inevitable as the institutions persuade their members to forsake some individual benefits or freedom for a larger, common goal.

Conflicts as part of the process of social change could be seen as a positive element so long as they do not completely disintegrate

the institutional arrangement and become a factor for resource destruction (Nayak 2002).

R e s i l i e n c e C a p a b i l i t y o f Institutions

Walker et al. (2002) describes resilience as capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks. The flexibility of an ecosystem is a consequence of its multiple feedback loops, which tend to bring the system back into balance whenever there is a deviation from the norm, due to changing environmental conditions.

A self-sufficient and successful forest management institution would not mean creating a closed system of forest management. The crafting of an institution never ends. It is critical for the ins t i tu t ions to be a l ive and resilient to the increased externalities and complexities (Pradhan 2006).

Indigenous institutions operate on the basis of “working rules”, which provide them flexibility to be situation specific, and hence socially relevant (Adams et al. 1997). There are inbuilt mechanisms which a l low f l ex ib i l i t y t o accommodate the situation specific requirements. If an institutional arrangement is too inflexible to cope with changing ecological conditions, it is unlikely to prosper and ultimately disintegrate. It

is, therefore, important that the depletion of a particular resource serves as a signal for change in management responses. It is not only the source condition, but also the changing social and economic conditions that call for new forms of adaptation.

The factors of resilience like institutional structure, rule system, adaptive mechanisms, broad based decision making, mechanisms for accountability and transparency, resource-user interactions, alliance building across communities and stake holders can guide an institution to perform consistently over a period of time and thereby lead to sustainability.

Way Ahead

One of the most important reasons why the indigenous institutions work is their social embeddedness (Aggarwal 2008). It makes people stick to the rules as trespassing them means trespassing the entire social system.

Consensus based ‘selection’ of management committee members of an institution in an open general body meeting may not be fully representative since traditionally disadvantaged groups including women, are commonly too inhibited to participate fully. A compromise solution in such cases can be that for each forest-related interest group, a representative may be elected by the respective disadvantaged group in smaller sub-group meetings. Such a tradition already exists in some areas, particularly among


the indigenous forest protection groups in the Indian states of Orissa and Bihar.

Very often, the subgroup most dependent on forests is also in the lower socio-economic bracket. The communi ty ins t i tu t ion must be able to ensure equal representation of the interests o f the mos t d i sadvan taged minor i t ies in negot ia t ing a partnership with the other side (forest department). Thus, the constitution of a representative and stable community institution capable of performing its forest management tasks need to be facilitated by an empowering and participatory process.

Community led protection initiatives often lead to a ‘rippling effect’ as when a few communities begin protecting some forests and closing access to others, their actions often encourage neighboring villages to take responsibi l i ty of protect ing adjacent forest tracts (Poffenberger 1996).

Inst i tut ions shape human behaviour through their impact on incentives. They play a critical role in sustainable management of natural resources through defining property rights. Insti tutions promote stability of expectations ex ante, and consistency in actions, ex post, from different actors (Agrawal and Gibson 1999). Hence, it is increasingly believed that “getting institutions right” is as important as and inextricable from “getting incentives right”, if

sustainable resource development is to be achieved (Barett et al. 2005).

The concept of incentives involves more than just financial rewards and penalties. Incentives are the positive and negative c h a n g e s i n o u t c o m e s t h a t individuals perceive as likely to result from particular actions taken within a set of working rules, combined with relevant individual, physical, and social variables that also impinge on outcomes.

The last two decades have witnessed a paradigm shif t in conservation and natural resource management away from state-centered control towards approaches in which local people play a much more active role (Shackleton et al. 2002, 1).

Conclusion

We have seen the devolution of power from state control to tribal centered laws and policies. In today’s time, the role of tribals in natural resource management of the country is strongly embedded in policy as well as in action. Such a scenario demands enhanced responsibilities on the shoulders of tribal community of India. These enhanced responsibilities are due to varied reasons ranging from impacts of climate change on biodiversity, pressure of mining industry (especially in states like Orissa), increasing population, etc. Any uninformed decision taken at a point, without keeping the larger scenario under consideration,

may have huge repercussions for that particular region. Such a dynamic environment demands strong democratic and proactive institutions to ensure equitable distribution of resources, strong in-bui l t conf l ic t reso lu t ion mechanisms, and clear mandates and legitimacy.

It has been observed that in all the three types of organisations, whether community-led, state-led, or NGO-led, a commitment from a large majority of the community appears to be strongly correlated with success. Commitment can be further supported through positive reinforcements in the form of incentives and recognition of efforts of members. Promoting incentives in an institution requires benchmarking of performance a n d c l e a r - c u t m o n i t o r i n g mechanisms.

When given clear rights and responsibilities, forest communities are proving they can work as allies with government and NGOs to establish effective access controls and install regulated forest-use systems. At this juncture, when a lot of decentralization has already taken place, it is worthwhile to support institutional network based on the historic experience of tribal communities in successfully managing the forest resource for centuries. Some amount of support by NGOs and state forest departments may be provided, but limited to facilitation of the process. q



Solar Mosquito Destroyer

ShODh yaTRa

ATHEWS K Mathew f rom Kalaket ty in Kottayam district of Kerala has come up with a very interesting

device- the solar mosquito trapper cum destroyer. This device makes use of the smell from the septic tank to attract the mosquitoes. Once the mosquitoes get trapped inside the device, the heat built up inside as a result of direct sunlight exposure, kills them.

Currently, Mathews K Mathew is the managing partner of the firm, Kine Technologies and Research India, based at Kanjirapally, Kottayam. Along with his two partners, his firm is involved in design, production and sale of solar mosquito destroyer.

It is apt that this innovation has been done in Kottayam as it is the first town in India selected by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India to be transformed into an Eco City.

M Genesis of innovation

Mathew had noticed that mosquitoes often tried to escape through a glass pane in his room, mistaking the transparent glass as open space. He had also noticed mosquitoes seeking out the moist and humid waste tank near the cowshed, entering it through the cracks in the concrete slab covering it. Using these facts he started experimenting with ways to trap the mosquitoes inside the tank. He covered the cracks in the concrete cover with glass painted with non –transparent material, leaving a small trapezoid shaped part of transparent glass to allow sunlight to entre. He then mounted a vertical, transparent glass tube over the trapezoid part, and covered the mouth with a wooden plank, leaving a one-inch hole at the centre for mosquitoes to enter. Attracted by the smell of gas coming out of the tank, mosquitoes would enter through the tube. When they encountered heat and light at the trapezoid glass piece they would be distressed and escape again through

The product has many unique

features which make it universal, cost effective and

a high quality solution which can be deployed

anywhere


the tube. When Mathew covered this exit point with a polythene bag, many mosquitoes got trapped in it and died.

He then set up the arrangement as a portable model and installed it in the tank of a rubber processing unit. This model had the same holes and trapezoid transparent patch in wooden plank (6 inch wide and 40 inch long) was able to trap not only a large number of mosquitoes but also of different types. He started concentrating on septic tanks as he considered them as the chief breeding ground of mosquitoes. For this he had to modify his design and made use of a 25 liter non-transparent colored jar with holes in it. The design had to be fine tuned over time to improve the efficiency of the device. He soon got publicity for his innovation and filed for patent. Since 2005, apart from commercializing this device, he has also built an indoor version and filed the patent for the two variants.

The solar mosquito trapper and Destroyer

This product is an outdoor unit, measuring only 25 cm × 20 cm × 25 cm and weighing 1.5 kg. It is installed near septic tanks and traps and kills mosquitoes at the source itself, away from the homes. The product is placed so as to have direct sunlight hitting its dome.

The basic components of the device include a polymer base housing, a transparent dome shaped “solar furnace” with two side wings to lead and collect the dead mosquitoes at the bottom, inner fine mesh layers, a central conical channel with trap hole, adapter system for the biogas inlet tube, control valve to calibrate the bio-gas and bio-gas exhaust tube.

Bio-gas from the septic tank flows through the metered gas inlet tube into the base of the housing from one end. This smell attracts the mosquitoes, which come into the base housing through the circular inlet provided in the base housing. They see the diffused sunlight coming out of the top dome and go upwards to investigate the source. The mosquitoes move up through the trap hole into the conical channel to reach the dome shaped roof area, which is actually the solar furnace. With the sunlight streaming in, the air gets heated up in this dome and mosquitoes try to escape downward into the two side wings. The greenhouse effect inside the chamber dehydrates and finally kills the mosquitoes. The two wings of the reservoir inside the solar furnace are designed to

collect the dead mosquitoes and this total unit can be taken out for emptying and cleaning.

The product has many unique features which make it universal, cost effective and a high quality solution which can be deployed anywhere. It is an eco-friendly self-sustaining device, which does not use any chemical or pesticide to destroy the mosquitoes. Once installed on site, this unit has no running cost or cost of consumable as applicable in conventional mosquito repellants. Also, requiring at least 30 minutes of direct sunlight a day (between 11.00 am to 4.00 pm), this outdoor unit is otherwise weather independent and requires no maintenance.

Applications

Millions of homes try to manage

The solar mosquito trapper and Destroyer


the menace of mosquitoes & flies ineffectively at home, while they breed and multiply outside near tanks, drainage and sewage units. An average mosquito can lay up to 300 eggs and has the ability to lay thousands in its lifespan. It makes sense, as far as possible, to trap and kill them outside.

Most of the indoor units and devices are partly efficient, generate toxins such as Allethrin. For average consumers many of these indoor units become costly to own, replenish and operate. Basic solutions such as mosquito nets only stop the mosquitoes but do not kill them and they move to other rooms. This low-cost, eco-friendly solution with no running or consumable cost is a universal

solution killing the pests at source effectively.

The product costing only Rs. 1400 can be fitted in place of the cowl at the top of the vent pipes of all septic tanks.

Partnering with his brother-in-law, Mathews has taken up a loan to commercialise the innovation. His preferred vendor is the industrial unit-Laxmi Plastic, located in SIDCO, Coimbatore who manufactures all the plastic components and sends them to their office in Kerala. He has started production since 2005. He plans to increase his sales and bring down the cost below Rs. 1000 to be able to sell to individuals on mass scale.

Mathews obtained a patent for this device in 2000. He has manufactured and supplied over 250 units under the trade name- “HAWKER” to private individuals, institutions, government schools and hospitals.

Mathews has also developed an indoor version called “Sleeper trap for mosquito destruction” for which the patent was filed in 2007 (483/CHE/ 2007). It is more of a system solution with a way of trapping the mosquitoes and allowing the user to sleep comfortably. The system uses the user’s body heat to draw away the mosquitoes and uses a fluorescent bulb at top as a source instead of sunlight. q

(E-mail : [email protected], www.nifindia.org)

YE-

4/11

/4


M O N G T H E multifarious problems that plague rural India, the problem of health is perhaps the most

important as it directly affects the quality of life of people. Even after so many years of independence we have not been able to provide safe drinking water and clean environment to our people. The bye products of daily life freely contaminate the water and air around us, leaving us vulnerable and susceptible to infections and diseases of various kinds. The abysmally poor rural health infrastructure makes the situation all the more worse. A National Rural Health Mission notwithstanding, delivery of health services in rural India continues to be very poor.

While it is absolutely essential to improve the rural health infrastructure in the country and

Tips for Rural Health

hEalTh

M A Haque

alTERNaTiVES

Similarly, efforts can be made to

improve nutrition and immunity through the

intake of foods that provide some special nutrients

ensure better services, it is equally important to improve the quality of life of people, thereby reducing their vulnerability to diseases. For example, if safe drinking water is made available, a number of infectious diseases can be controlled. Or if people are provided better dwelling units, sufferings on account of cold exposure, sunstroke etc. can be reduced. Also, malaria, filaria, elephantiasis, TB etc. can be controlled through improved sanitation.

Similarly, efforts can be made to improve nutrition and immunity through the intake of foods that provide some special nutrients. Let us take a fruit which is both cultivated and also grows in the wild - the wood apple. The fruit is rich in mucilage and tannins, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, sodium, Vitamins B and C and protein. It thus provides good

A

The author is Retd Director (Scientific), Ministry of Environment & Forests, Govt of India


nutri t ion, s trengthens l iver, heart and stomach. It can relieve constipation, gives relief from peptic ulcer and prevents heat-stroke and dehydration. Consumption of tender wood apple pulp can help in controlling dysentery and diarrhea.

Guava is another tree which grows almost all over the country. It is quite affordable, especially in the rural areas. Guava fruit is rich in essential minerals like calcium, copper, iron, phosphorous, potassium, sulfur and zinc. The fruit pulp has various vitamins, fatty acids, flavonoids and saponins, which can keep our body healthy and disease free. Guava is rich in fibres. It can prevent constipation, dysentery, ulcer etc. and also cancer of the digestive tract. Guava helps in controlling high blood pressure and high cholesterol. One particular feature of guava which is not well known is that it is very rich in Vitamin C. It may contain up to 180 mg of the vitamin per 100 g of the fruit. Thus, its consumption can provide resistance and immunity against a number of common health related problems, especially during winters.

Another common fruit is papaya. Papaya plants can be grown in almost every part of the country without much effort. Papaya fruit can be used unripe as well as ripe. Unripe fruit has high content of latex which aids digestion and is highly recommended for dyspeptic persons. It also checks unwanted bacteria in the digestive tract.

Ripe papaya fruit pulp is highly nutritious. It contains more carotene than any other fruit. Carotene content may go up to 2700 micro gram per 100 g of the pulp. That is why papaya is a rich source of Vitamin A. In the rural areas a large numbers of children go blind on account of insufficient intake of Vitamin A. Consumption of papaya can help fight this scourge. In addition, Beta carotene provides protection against cancer. Papaya pulp is rich in Vitamin C, potassium, sodium, calcium, iron and proteins. It makes the body healthy and disease resistant.

Another tree commonly present in the forests of the country is the jackfruit tree. The tree remains productive for decades. One tree produces hundreds of fruits every year. Even young fruits are harvested and used as vegetable and also for preparation of pickles, chips etc. Once ripe the fruit does not survive for long. Pulp of jackfruit, ripe or unripe, is highly nutritious. The unripe fruit is rich in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, Vitamin C, Riboflavin and Thiamine etc. Ripe fruit is sweet and carries a distinct flavor. It is rich in carotene, carbohydrate, calcium, potassium and Vitamin C. The seed is rich in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, carotene, Vitamin C, Riboflavin and Thiamine. In certain areas the seed is roasted or cooked as vegetable.

Another common fruit which grows extensively in the country is the Black Berry (Jamun). It is also grown as avenue tree, on

roadside and also close to dwelling units, especially in villages. Jamun pulp improves digestion and has diuretic properties, detoxifying the system. The pulp is a good source of Vitamin C, folic acid, carotene and fibre. It is rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron and phosphorous. Black Berry seed is extensively used in Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy to control diabetes.

Gooseberry (Amla) can cure a variety of nutritional deficiencies. Fruit pulp protects against anemia, constipation, cough, asthma, bronchitis, colic, peptic ulcer, diarrhea, dysentery etc. It also helps in case of heart problems, inflammation and leprosy. It provides strength to vital organs, improves eyesight and strengthens brain. It also has antibiotic properties. The pulp is extremely rich in Vitamin C and pectin. Pectin helps in reducing blood cholesterol. Tannins in the fruit protect the Vitamin C from getting denatured during processing. Gooseberry is an important ingredient for Ayurvedic and Unani medicines, hence, a profitable crop.

Another fruit which is cheap and nutritious is tamarind. Fruit pulp is rich in fibres, calcium, phosphorous, potassium, iron, Vitamin A and Vitamin C. It can help in strengthening body immunity against several day to day problems.

Lemon is another fruit which can help in protecting the rural population against several health


related problems. Lemon is rich in Vitamin C. But it is not known to most people that it contains high concentration of potassium. Potassium is helpful for people suffering from heart problems. Lemon removes toxic substances from gall bladder and liver.

Fig is another fruit which, though expensive, is also nutritious. Fig was discovered in archaeological remains from 5000 BC. The Bible mentions fig at 57 places. Qur’an too mentions the fruit. Fig contains carbohydrates, proteins, calcium, phosphorous, potassium, sodium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Niacin, Riboflavin, Thiamine etc besides substantial quantity of fibres. Fig is particularly useful for growing children and women as it provides calcium.

Pomegranate is another fruit which aids the functioning of kidney and liver. It helps fight TB. Pomegranate contains large quantities of Vitamins B1 and B2, niacin, calcium and phosphorous. R e c e n t r e s e a r c h e s s h o w pomegranate fruit and its juice helps people with prostate cancer.

Coconut is another nutritious fruit. Both tender coconut water and the fruit pulp are useful. Coconut water is highly nutritious, good for heart, liver and kidney. It rehydrates the body with five essential electrolytes. Coconut contains monolaurin which is also present in mother’s milk.

There are various other fruits like oranges, mango, litchi, apple, banana etc. which are nutritious.

But, people do not consume them regularly as part of their daily food. In past people in the rural areas consumed unpolished rice, whole wheat flour, coarse grains etc. Habits have changed today and people now consume polished rice, refined flour (maida) etc. The result is nutritional deficiencies and problems like constipation, piles etc. Similarly, in rural areas and small towns there was a tradition of preparing fresh spices by grinding the ingredients on day to day basis. Now, packaged ground spices are replacing them. Such products may be adulterated, ruining the intrinsic value of the substance. There is need to create awareness on these issues so that people in rural areas may remain healthy. q

(E-mail:[email protected])

S U B S C R I P T I O N CO U P O N(For New Membership/Renewal/Change in Address

I want to subscribe to_________________________________________(Journal’s name & language) for

1 yr. for Rs. 100/- 2 yrs for Rs. 180/- 3 yrs. for Rs. 250/- DD/IPO/MO No. ________________________________________________Date____________________

Name (in block letters)

Address

PIN

Note: For Renewal/change in address-please quote your Subscription No.Please allow 8 to 10 weeks for the despatch of the 1st issue.

Please send DD/IPO/MO to Business Manager Publication Division, East Block, Level-VII,

R. K. Puram,New Delhi-110066. Tel. : 26105590, 26100207,

Fax : 26175516Also ensure that it is drawn in favour of ADG (I/C)Publication Division, Ministry of Information and

Broadcasting, New Delhi.

smartprep.in · YOJANA February 2011 1 Our Representatives : Ahmedabad: Amita Maru, Bangalore: B.K....

Documents

Transcript of smartprep.in · YOJANA February 2011 1 Our Representatives : Ahmedabad: Amita Maru, Bangalore: B.K....