| CHARU BAHRI, Indiaspend.org

All of 16 years old, a court-wearycase is nearing its denouement:On November 5, the Supreme

Court reserved its judgement on the in-famous Salman Khan poaching case.

In 1998, Salman, one of India’s mostfamous Bollywood stars, was accusedof hunting and killing a blackbuck andtwo chinkaras, a type of gazelle. Suspectpartners in crime include fellow celebritiesSaif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu andNeelam, all of whom have made visitsto the Jodhpur sessions court in thedesert state of Rajasthan.

But for all the wide-eyed attention and nationalheadlines that the stars attracted overthe years, the chinkara faded from publicview. Now, as IndiaSpend has learned,the wide-eyed, fragile-looking gazelle isat the heart of a data controversy that,if deciphered, could tell us if it is fatedto survive or die out.

Is the chinkara, helped by the gov-ernment and traditional protectors, flour-ishing or—pushed by growing townsand hunted by feral dogs—hurtling to-wards extinction?

The answer depends on whose datayou examine.

The Rajasthan forest department’schinkara census shows an 11% rise inthe animal’s numbers over three yearsto 2013, while counting done by biologistDr Sumit Dookia, who has spent about15 years studying the chinkara, shows a43% decline in its numbers in six repre-sentative sample sites.

Chinkara sightings are most frequentnear villages of the Bishnoiand of other communitiespracticing non-violence

against animals, such as the Charans,Jains, Jats, Meghwals, Rajpurohits andSidhs. Fewer chinkara are seen nearMuslim and Rajput villages.

Successive forest department censusesput out wildly fluctuating figures ofchinkara numbers. The census peggedthe number of chinkara inside protectedareas at 5,251 in 2012 and at 4,085 ayear later. The chinkara population inthe protected Desert National Park plum-meted from 2,705 to 1,779 over the

same period. The office of the ChiefConservator of Forests, Wildlife, Jodhpur,attributes this 20% fluctuation to thehigher number of waterholes wherechinkara were counted in 2012: 110water holes versus 66. Water pipelineleakages had formed extra waterholeswhich the herds visited. The state’sforest department relies on these tradi-tional waterhole-based counts.

At best, done well, the waterhole-census method can generate surrogatesof chinkara – extrapolations from ob-served animals – and can provide popu-lation trends over years. At worst, themethod can lead to inaccurate census

data.This is what Dr Dookia thinks is hap-

pening. He started to study the chinkaraat three sites in the districts of Jodhpurand Nagaur in 1999, while pursuing hisdoctorate in zoology. Between 2006and 2009, he received support from theRufford Small Grants Foundation, UK,for three more studies on the chinkara,allowing him to expand sites to six andtrain volunteers in what is regarded as amore scientific method of counting largeanimals over a large area: The line-transect method, which involves countinganimals along fixed lines and estimatingtheir density from raw counts and prob-ability.

In 2014, a collaborative survey onthe chinkara, great Indian bustard andother desert species in Thar, conductedby the Wildlife Institute of India and Ra-jasthan Forest Department, did use avehicle-based line transect method forcounting these species’ numbers acrossa large landscape (25,000 sq km). r Duttadescribed the method as “scientific, ro-bust and widely used for wildlife surveysto generate accurate population num-

bers”. Its added advantage over thetraditional waterhole-based censusmethod is that it accounts for thefraction of animals that are not de-tected, he said.

In 2010, Dr Dookia joined GuruGobind Singh Indraprastha University,New Delhi. In 2012, he received aYoung Scientist Fellowship from theDepartment of Science & Technology,Government of India, as well as

funding to continue studying the chinkarain his six chosen sites.

Fourteen years of data on chinkaranumbers in three sites and eight yearsof data on their numbers in three moresites tell a very different story to gov-ernment census data. All six sites haveexperienced a decline in chinkara num-bers, varying from 32% to 54%.

The chinkara is listed as “LowerRisk/Conservation Dependant” in theInternational Union for Conservation ofNature’s Red Data List (2014) of threat-ened species, and as an endangeredspecies in Schedule I of India’s Wildlife(Protection) Act of 1972.

Panjim I SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2014 I

IVindiaUnlimited

Editor-in-chief: R F Fernandes. Group Editor: Sujay Gupta. Regd Office: St Tome Road, Panjim, Goa. Office: No. F/4 ‘A’ Wing, Campal Trade Centre, Campal, Panjim 403001. Tel: (0832) 6518500, 2224202, 2228083. Fax: 2225622. Email: review@herald-goa.com

Drowning Out TheChinkara’s Sneeze

The wide- eyed, fragile-

looking gazelle, the

chinkara has over the

years faded from public

view, but they are at the

heart of a data contro-

versy that could tell if it is

fated to survive or die out

(Indiaspend.org is a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit)

| PRACHI SALVE, Indiaspend.org

The rape of a 26-year-old woman ina Delhi taxi run by Uber has led toa furore on the mainstream and so-

cial media and led to a ban on four taxi-booking companies, including Uber.

The latest in a series of widely-publicisedrapes raises many questions, on the func-tioning of the state, legal action andsexual assaults in India.

It appears that the pub-licity around rape has en-couraged more women to report rape.Over the last five years, there has been a57% rise in reported rapes. Many rapesgo unreported.

Statistics from the National CrimeRecords Bureau (NCRB) showcase thegood and not-so-good news. Reportedrapes in 2013 were at an all-time high at31,807, and conviction rates for rapesover five years have also risen.

At 27.1% in 2013, the conviction ratefor rapes in India is higher than someWestern countriesas a Time magazine re-

port pointed out. “That’s thanks to theefforts of a lot of good people—police,lawyers, victims and their families—work-ing heroically with limited resources,” thereport said.

It is also clear that Delhi is not the rapecapital of the world or even India. Gwaliorin Madhya Pradesh has the highest inci-dence of rape in India with 22.8 rapesper lakh women. In 2013, Delhi was third

in the incidence of rape withRajasthan and MadhyaPradesh each having three

cities in the top 10. Delhi’s move up fromnumber 11 in 2012 to number 3 last year,perhaps, reflects an increased reportingof rape by women.

The most important point about rapein India is that it is—and has alwaysbeen—committed overwhelmingly bymen known to the victim, including fathers,brothers, relatives, neighbours, friendsand teachers. Over the last five years, thepercentage of rapes committed by suchmen has always accounted for at least93% of all rapes reported in India.

With 22.8 rapes per lakh wome,

Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh

accounts for the highest

incidence of rape in India

Gwalior, India’s rapecapital, Delhi is no. 3

| A STAFF WRITER, Indiaspend.org

Mumbai’s citizens may be gen-erally vexed with their megapo-lis’s growing traffic, pollution

and crime, but it has actually done rea-sonably well in one aspect—infrastruc-ture projects under a national scheme.

Mumbai has completed 13 of 26projects, valued at Rs2,873.4 crore, financedby the Centre under theJawaharlal Nehru National Urban Re-newal Mission (JNNURM). It is fourthamong all cities with completed proj-ects—Bangalore has the highest num-ber of completed projects, with 24 of38.

The completed Mumbai projectsinclude: an underground tunnel fromthe Malabar Hill reservoir in southMumbai to Cross Maidan (3.6 km), themiddle Vaitarna water supply projectfor Mumbai and an underground tunnel

12-km long, for water supply fromMaroshi (in Andheri in north west) toRuparel College (Matunga in the southcentral Mumbai).

These projects, of course, are onlya fraction of what the city requires.Among the critical projects expectedto cost more than Rs 18,660 crore area new metro line and another sealink

from Sewri on the easternseaboard to Nhava Shevaon the mainland. These

projects have made no headway be-cause there are no funds available.Greater Mumbai (Mumbai and suburbanMumbai) has a population of 12.4 mil-lion, but the urban agglomeration ofMumbai stretches into the neighboringdistricts of Thane, Palghar and Raigadand now accommodates an estimated26 million people. The infrastructurecosts to link all these people to theirworkplaces are likely to be enormous.

The JNNURM is just a start.

Though traffic, pollution and crime are problems

Mumbai is still dealing with, infrastructural projects

are doing reasonably well

| NAIM KERUWALA, Indiaspend.org

Gender budgeting was intro-duced in Maharashtra after agovernment resolution was

issued in 2006. The resolution man-dated that after meeting the expen-diture committed to by the municipalcorporation, 5% of the balance bekept reserved for the work done bywomen and child welfare committees.This is an extremely important stepas investing in gender equality notonly helps fight violence againstwomen, but also helps achieve de-velopmental goals such aspoverty al-leviation, livelihood enhancementand access to education.

Government of Maharashtra adopt-ed the principle that ‘Empowermentof women means development ofthe country’ in 1994 and publisheda ‘Women Policy’. A revised policy

was announced in 2001and the third edition ofthe policy has been published in2013. It is not a matter of debatethat these are very well-intendedpolicy documents but the real ques-tion is: do these policies ever getimplemented? Can the government“walk the talk”, as it were?

Mumbai is among the few citiesin the country that has adopted gen-der budgeting at the local level andconstituted a separate section in itsbudget. Though the government res-

olution was passed in 2006, MumbaiCorporation of Greater Mumbai(MCGM) introduced gender budgetingonly three years later in 2009-10. OnMCGM’s website, the gender budgetchapter can be viewed as a separatedocument though, and MCGM shouldbe lauded for its efforts. But arethese efforts enough to improve thequality of life of our Mahila Mum-baikars?

Let us not forget that over half ofMumbai’s 12.4 million populationlive in slums, which means that 3.1million women could be living there,a figure equivalent to the populationof Pune, the second most populatedcity in Maharashtra.

Here are some ofthe key features ofMumbai’s Gender

budget according to the 2014-15budget estimates:

• MCGM has budgeted aroundRs584 crore for the ‘Gender budget’in 2014-15.

• MCGM’s gender budget focuseson four aspects viz. economic andsocial, educational improvement,health &sanitation and developmentof children’s parks.

• MCGM to spend Rs 0.96 crorethrough a revolving fundon support

for 4,858 women in the slums ofMumbai. That is 0.16% of Mumbai’sfemale slum dwellers with a percapita support of approximately Rs164 per month.

• Construction of women’s toiletsat crowded places in Mumbai getsan allocation of Rs 1 crore whereastraining for self defence has been al-located Rs 2 crore.

• Almost 52% of Mumbai’s genderbudget (Rs 305.5 crore) is allocated

for maternal andchild care. Mum-bai’s infant mortal-ity rate—numberof baby deaths perthousand livebirths—stands at26, much lower

than the national average of 44.• Sanitation gets Rs 37.5 crore

under the gender budget with Rs33.5 crore allocated for building com-munity toilets, but it is not specifiedif these toilets are meant only forwomen.

• Scholarship for girl child hasbeen allocated Rs 46.71 crore.

• Administration costs amount toRs11.5 crore and software develop-ment for implementation of genderbudget initiatives costs Rs 0.2 crore.

In the year 2012-13, MCGM spentRs 62 per month per female slumdweller in Mumbai for their economic,social and educational bettermentand the provision of improved healthand sanitation services. In 2014-15,MCGM proposed to increase thisamount from Rs 62 to Rs157 permonth per female slum dweller.

All that this serves to show is thatan in-depth, multi-layered analysiswill be required to assess the impactof ‘Gender budget’ on the lives ofwomen in Mumbai and, through aparticipatory approach, present rec-ommendations to MCGM.

(Naim Keruwala is an assistant director

at Janwani, a Pune-based NGO working

towards the holistic & sustainable de-

velopment of Pune metropolitan region.)

Mumbai is among the

few cities in the country

that has adopted gender

budgeting at the local

level and constituted a

separate section in its

budget

How Indian Cities CanBudget For Women’s Needs

Photo: Dr. Sumit Dookia

Investing in gender equality not

only helps fight violence against

women, but also achieve

developmental goals such as

poverty alleviation, livelihood

enhancement and access to

education

Photo: Lalwani, Flickr

Some Good NewsOn Infrastructure

Photo: Bgopal for Dreamstime.com

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