Expressbuzz, Jan 13, 2011
Sachi Satpathy
At the 53rd meeting of National Development Council at New Delhi on May 29, 2007, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, “Orissa has set a target for providing assured irrigation to 35 per cent of agricultural land in all the blocks during the 11th Plan period. Moreover, there should be additional funding under AIBP (Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme) to augment irrigation infrastructure in the state”. However, the state government could neither achieve the said target nor keep away the sanctioned money from corrupt hands.
In its report for 2009, the CAG mentioned that by March 2009, only nine out of 33 projects under AIBP assistance were in the completion stage, leading to a cost overrun of `3,537.26 crore and time overrun of two to 12 years. The CAG in another evaluation report, which was tabled in Parliament on May 7, 2010, voiced serious concern over the slow progress of the irrigation projects for farmers in Orissa and mentioned that while the union government provided assistance and loan to the tune of `1,835 crore in the last 10 years to the Orissa government, the irrigation department, which is handled by the CM, could utilise only `370 crore. The track record of departments handled by the CM — whether it is water resources (massive corruption and inaction), forest and environment, works (identified as the most corrupt department in the state) or general administration (poor human resource utilisation and no action against the erring officials) — says a lot about the governance deficit syndrome in the state administration.
The plight of farmers in Orissa can be assessed from the National Sample Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) consumer expenditure survey (2007-08), which found that the monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) for the rural farmer household is the lowest for Orissa (`559), whereas Kerala (`1,383), Punjab (`1,273) and Haryana (`1,034) have the highest rural MPCE figures in the country. The poverty of farmers in Orissa is also clearly reflected in the number of farmer suicides in the last 11 years. According to the government of Orissa, a total of 3,509 farmers committed suicide during the last 11 years. The official record says that a total of 48,631 people committed suicide in Orissa between 1997 and 2008.
About 75 per cent of lift irrigation projects are defunct in the state. The other indicator such as electricity being used for agricultural activities has come down from 5.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent. The storage facilities for agricultural products are almost missing in the state, and farmers are not getting quality seeds on time.
The target of assured irrigation to at least 35 per cent of the total cultivated land is found to be ‘constant’ for the last 10 years. If at all there is any announcement on irrigation by the chief minister he keeps on saying “30-35 per cent of the total cultivated land”. The CM has reduced his number from 35 per cent to 30 per cent, recently, may be due to the reduction of cultivated land in the state over a period of time. When the target is the same for 10 years, the achievement must be a number between minus and a big zero. Added to that, there is a perception among the common people that “the present government generally comes up with the old official announcement in a new press release on repeated basis at certain time intervals”.
It is not only the paddy cultivators who suffer in the state; suicides by cotton cultivators are also increasing in the state. There are almost five lakh cotton growers in the state who are not getting any concrete support from the government. Cotton cultivation is being taken up in most of the backward districts such as Bolangir, Kalahandi, Rayagada, Ganjam, Boudh, Nuapara, Koraput, Angul, Gajapati, and Dhenkanal. However, government’s apathy towards these farmers has forced them to commit suicide or leave cotton cultivation forever. Like paddy cultivators, who are facing distress sale, cotton growers are facing a lot of problems in marketing their produce. Without any government support at the district level, these distressed farmers are forced to sell their produce at throwaway prices. So the plight of farmers has worsened due to continuous neglect and the recent crop damage due to rains has added to their woes. The farmers need continuous support from the government.
This is where Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has an edge over Naveen Patnaik. Patnaik is only talking about anti-corruption drive (but there has been no action on OHSDP scam, mining scam, Indira Awaz scam, coal scam, Vedanta university land scam) whereas Nitish has already started opening schools in property confiscated from corrupt officials. Nitish feels that he needs policy support, not money, from the Centre. In Orissa, the misguided CM has taken a wrong path and is wasting valuable time and mandate given to him by the people. Many policymakers believe that the ‘bottom up’ approach followed by Nitish Kumar (as against the ‘top down’ development approach of the present government in Orissa) will certainly become an accepted model for a poor state. Nitish rightly believes that his ‘bottom up’ approach will take care of micro problems, which ultimately helps to resolve the macro ones. Due to the governance deficit, Orissa, which is almost governed by the Orissa High Court, is going through the saga of the Lalu Prasad’s regime in Bihar that believed only in tall claims and no action.
sachisatpathy@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Shankar Acharya: New threats to growth
Business Standrad, Jan 13, 2011
Everyone knows about the “old” threats to sustained rapid growth in India, including poor infrastructure, dysfunctional labour markets, competitive populism, the weak record of human resource development, painfully slow reforms and the reduced dynamism of industrial countries, post-crisis. Despite these genuine handicaps, the resilience and recovery of the Indian economy in the face of the global financial and economic crisis was quite remarkable. At its trough in 2008-09, growth only slowed to 6.7 per cent, recovered to 7.4 per cent in 2009-10 and surged to nearly 9 per cent in the first half of 2010-11, with almost all forecasters now expecting full year growth at or above 8.5 per cent. The latest official estimates indicate that gross domestic investment stayed buoyant at 35 per cent of GDP in the first half of 2010-11, holding out the prospect of continued strong growth in 2011-12. And it has now become conventional wisdom to expect 8 per cent plus growth rates for the next decade or two as globalisation, “catch up” and favourable demographics continue to propel the Indian economy forward.
All this is true. But developments during 2010 have spawned new threats to sustained rapid growth. First, there is the return of the “twin deficits” problem after almost two decades during which one of them, the current account deficit (CAD) in the balance of payments, was muted. Second, the latter half of 2010 has seen the resurgence worldwide of energy and food inflation. Third, the proliferation of major scams and scandals (telecom 2G spectrum allocation, the Commonwealth Games, the Adarsh Housing Society, the Radia tapes and so on) has further weakened the government’s ability to take and execute decisions in all areas, including economic. Fourth, an activist environment ministry has sharpened the conflict between development and the environment, including through a number of high profile retrospective challenges to major investment projects. Last, but not least, economic reforms appear to have stalled completely. Some of these merit elaboration.
Return of twin deficits
The twin deficits of the late 1980s precipitated the external payments crisis of 1991. Since then the CAD has hovered around 1 per cent of GDP, with a three-year foray into positive territory in the early noughties. In the five years prior to the global crisis, 2003-08, the CAD averaged less than 0.5 per cent (Table). The collapse of world trade during 2008-09 saw the CAD rise sharply to 2.4 per cent of GDP and further to 2.9 per cent in 2009-10. Despite the restoration of (new) normalcy and the recovery of exports, the CAD has risen disconcertingly higher to 3.7 per cent of GDP in the first half of 2010-11, prompting RBI to voice significant concerns in its December 2010 Financial Stability Report: “The current account deficit is widening while capital flows continue to be dominated by volatile components. External sector ratios have deteriorated…”. The central bank omitted pointing out that the problem has been aggravated by its own 18-month old, unannounced (non-transparent?) switch to a policy of minimal currency market intervention, despite an unprecedentedly steep appreciation of the rupee in real terms. While CADs in the range of 3-4 per cent of GDP can probably be managed for a couple of years, they are unlikely to be sustainable indefinitely, given the predominantly domestic orientation of the India economy. And what can’t be sustained, won’t be! Something will give and it could well be growth.
Unlike the CAD, we have been used to high fiscal deficits since the mid-1980s. Interestingly, the most successful period of fiscal consolidation occurred during the five years 2003-08, which saw the combined (Centre and states) fiscal deficit reduce by more than half, down to 4 per cent of GDP by 2007-08 (see Figure). It is no coincidence that those were five years of low interest rates, an unprecedented increase in savings and investment, record high growth and low inflation. The populist burst of 2008-09 took the deficit back up to 8.5 per cent of GDP that year and even higher to 10 per cent in 2009-10. Given the global recession, such fiscal profligacy helped cushion India’s economic slowdown in the crisis. But the case for renewed consolidation had grown strong by late 2009 and the government announced a gentle three-year path for deficit reduction in the Budget for 2010-11. In fact, the budgeted, modest deficit reduction for the current year is likely to be met only because spectrum auction revenues have been three times higher than budgeted (an extra 1 per cent of GDP). And the revenue deficit (roughly equal to government dissavings) is unlikely to drop significantly below the high level of 2009-10. Absent such enormous one-off bonanzas, further deficit reduction next year (and beyond) will be difficult in the face of expanding entitlement programmes and higher subsidies, implying that interest rates are likely to remain high and act as a dampener to investment and growth.
Energy and food inflation
For several months now, rising oil prices have been putting pressure on India’s external payments, the government budget and the finances of the oil companies, which are obliged to sell most distillates (including diesel, kerosene and LPG) at subsidised prices. Even the recent freeing up of petrol prices is at risk. International institutions (such as the IMF and IEA) indicate that international oil prices are expected to harden further. Food inflation has spiked upwards in the last two months, thanks to a global surge in food prices and the unreformed structural weaknesses of Indian agriculture and marketing/distribution systems. All this threatens the already high levels of general inflation and is expected to trigger further policy interest rate increases by RBI. Higher interest rates will weaken investment and growth.
Other impediments to investment
The numerous scams and scandals that have dominated news media in the recent months have brought Parliament to a standstill and drained the limited capacity of an already weak government. As if this were not enough, a number of high profile rulings by the environment ministry have halted several major mining projects (notably in Orissa) and the Lavasa township project in Maharashtra, while raising significant issues with respect to India’s most successful private port, Mundhra, in Gujarat. From an investment/development perspective, the questioning of large, completed projects sends a seriously negative signal to investors at home and abroad. “Animal spirits” are bound to be damped, to the detriment of investment and growth.
Such setbacks would matter less if economic reforms were proceeding smoothly and helping increase the productivity of available resources. Unfortunately, reforms have been on a slow train since 2004. Now, with Parliament stalled and government in a defensive mode on a variety of scams, the train seems to have been shunted to a siding. The political landscape does not augur well for an early resuscitation of economic reforms. The recent history and dim prospects for the induction of the long-heralded Goods and Services Tax are a good example. This continued hiatus in reforms will inevitably take its toll on medium-term growth performance.
So, while it may be comforting to read in reputed foreign publications about India’s “transformative growth” to becoming the world’s third-largest economy by 2020 or 2025, the actual strengthening of anti-growth forces during 2010 raises some serious doubts about the nation’s long-term economic trajectory.
The author is honorary professor at ICRIER and former chief economic adviser to the Government of India. The views expressed are personal
Everyone knows about the “old” threats to sustained rapid growth in India, including poor infrastructure, dysfunctional labour markets, competitive populism, the weak record of human resource development, painfully slow reforms and the reduced dynamism of industrial countries, post-crisis. Despite these genuine handicaps, the resilience and recovery of the Indian economy in the face of the global financial and economic crisis was quite remarkable. At its trough in 2008-09, growth only slowed to 6.7 per cent, recovered to 7.4 per cent in 2009-10 and surged to nearly 9 per cent in the first half of 2010-11, with almost all forecasters now expecting full year growth at or above 8.5 per cent. The latest official estimates indicate that gross domestic investment stayed buoyant at 35 per cent of GDP in the first half of 2010-11, holding out the prospect of continued strong growth in 2011-12. And it has now become conventional wisdom to expect 8 per cent plus growth rates for the next decade or two as globalisation, “catch up” and favourable demographics continue to propel the Indian economy forward.
All this is true. But developments during 2010 have spawned new threats to sustained rapid growth. First, there is the return of the “twin deficits” problem after almost two decades during which one of them, the current account deficit (CAD) in the balance of payments, was muted. Second, the latter half of 2010 has seen the resurgence worldwide of energy and food inflation. Third, the proliferation of major scams and scandals (telecom 2G spectrum allocation, the Commonwealth Games, the Adarsh Housing Society, the Radia tapes and so on) has further weakened the government’s ability to take and execute decisions in all areas, including economic. Fourth, an activist environment ministry has sharpened the conflict between development and the environment, including through a number of high profile retrospective challenges to major investment projects. Last, but not least, economic reforms appear to have stalled completely. Some of these merit elaboration.
Return of twin deficits
The twin deficits of the late 1980s precipitated the external payments crisis of 1991. Since then the CAD has hovered around 1 per cent of GDP, with a three-year foray into positive territory in the early noughties. In the five years prior to the global crisis, 2003-08, the CAD averaged less than 0.5 per cent (Table). The collapse of world trade during 2008-09 saw the CAD rise sharply to 2.4 per cent of GDP and further to 2.9 per cent in 2009-10. Despite the restoration of (new) normalcy and the recovery of exports, the CAD has risen disconcertingly higher to 3.7 per cent of GDP in the first half of 2010-11, prompting RBI to voice significant concerns in its December 2010 Financial Stability Report: “The current account deficit is widening while capital flows continue to be dominated by volatile components. External sector ratios have deteriorated…”. The central bank omitted pointing out that the problem has been aggravated by its own 18-month old, unannounced (non-transparent?) switch to a policy of minimal currency market intervention, despite an unprecedentedly steep appreciation of the rupee in real terms. While CADs in the range of 3-4 per cent of GDP can probably be managed for a couple of years, they are unlikely to be sustainable indefinitely, given the predominantly domestic orientation of the India economy. And what can’t be sustained, won’t be! Something will give and it could well be growth.
Unlike the CAD, we have been used to high fiscal deficits since the mid-1980s. Interestingly, the most successful period of fiscal consolidation occurred during the five years 2003-08, which saw the combined (Centre and states) fiscal deficit reduce by more than half, down to 4 per cent of GDP by 2007-08 (see Figure). It is no coincidence that those were five years of low interest rates, an unprecedented increase in savings and investment, record high growth and low inflation. The populist burst of 2008-09 took the deficit back up to 8.5 per cent of GDP that year and even higher to 10 per cent in 2009-10. Given the global recession, such fiscal profligacy helped cushion India’s economic slowdown in the crisis. But the case for renewed consolidation had grown strong by late 2009 and the government announced a gentle three-year path for deficit reduction in the Budget for 2010-11. In fact, the budgeted, modest deficit reduction for the current year is likely to be met only because spectrum auction revenues have been three times higher than budgeted (an extra 1 per cent of GDP). And the revenue deficit (roughly equal to government dissavings) is unlikely to drop significantly below the high level of 2009-10. Absent such enormous one-off bonanzas, further deficit reduction next year (and beyond) will be difficult in the face of expanding entitlement programmes and higher subsidies, implying that interest rates are likely to remain high and act as a dampener to investment and growth.
Energy and food inflation
For several months now, rising oil prices have been putting pressure on India’s external payments, the government budget and the finances of the oil companies, which are obliged to sell most distillates (including diesel, kerosene and LPG) at subsidised prices. Even the recent freeing up of petrol prices is at risk. International institutions (such as the IMF and IEA) indicate that international oil prices are expected to harden further. Food inflation has spiked upwards in the last two months, thanks to a global surge in food prices and the unreformed structural weaknesses of Indian agriculture and marketing/distribution systems. All this threatens the already high levels of general inflation and is expected to trigger further policy interest rate increases by RBI. Higher interest rates will weaken investment and growth.
Other impediments to investment
The numerous scams and scandals that have dominated news media in the recent months have brought Parliament to a standstill and drained the limited capacity of an already weak government. As if this were not enough, a number of high profile rulings by the environment ministry have halted several major mining projects (notably in Orissa) and the Lavasa township project in Maharashtra, while raising significant issues with respect to India’s most successful private port, Mundhra, in Gujarat. From an investment/development perspective, the questioning of large, completed projects sends a seriously negative signal to investors at home and abroad. “Animal spirits” are bound to be damped, to the detriment of investment and growth.
Such setbacks would matter less if economic reforms were proceeding smoothly and helping increase the productivity of available resources. Unfortunately, reforms have been on a slow train since 2004. Now, with Parliament stalled and government in a defensive mode on a variety of scams, the train seems to have been shunted to a siding. The political landscape does not augur well for an early resuscitation of economic reforms. The recent history and dim prospects for the induction of the long-heralded Goods and Services Tax are a good example. This continued hiatus in reforms will inevitably take its toll on medium-term growth performance.
So, while it may be comforting to read in reputed foreign publications about India’s “transformative growth” to becoming the world’s third-largest economy by 2020 or 2025, the actual strengthening of anti-growth forces during 2010 raises some serious doubts about the nation’s long-term economic trajectory.
The author is honorary professor at ICRIER and former chief economic adviser to the Government of India. The views expressed are personal
Monday, January 10, 2011
The most dangerous fundamentalism
Note: Vedanta's vechicles tranasport alumina/coal to/from Jharsuguda through NH201 Bhawanipatan, Biswanathpur frpm/to Lanjigarh road, but I am not clear how Muniguda-Bissam Cuttack-Rayagada road is affected by Vedanta's heavy vehicles. Lanjigarh to Muniguda, Therubali to Bissamcuttack, and Bissamcuttack to Muniguda should not be affected by Vedanta unless Vedanta has some other interests. This should be scrutinized for neutrality of the article.
Expressbuzz, Jan 10, 2011
Felix Padel
The road from Rayagada north to Bissamcuttack and the Kalahandi border is in a state of rampant disrepair. A smashed lorry lies overturned in a ditch — one of countless accidents in recent years. At least two policemen are among the last five years’ hundreds of fatalities, both run down by lorries serving Vedanta — an inspector in Lanjigarh, and a constable in Rayagada. Vedanta vehicles carrying bauxite, coal, oil and machinery to Lanjigarh have trashed this road so thoroughly that normal vehicles take long detours to avoid sections between Therubali and Bissamcuttack, and Bissamcuttack to Muniguda. Yet it has to be said, this road is as green as any in the country for the moment, winding through a maze of rice fields, mango groves, forests and hills, with long sections shaded by stately mango and other massive trees.
But never fear! World Bank to the rescue, with multi-billion loans for renovating key roads in Orissa that will facilitate the mining industry and its export of ore. The widening of dozens of roads has already led to the cutting of hundreds of ancient trees that lined them, and if it continues unchecked, will cause the death of thousands more. The north-south road from Rayagada to Ambadola is said to involve a loan of `122 crore. In each town it passes, houses and trees will go.
In Bissamcuttack alone, are several trees I’ve known and loved for a quarter of a century, including two vast boro gocho (banyan trees): one has blessed hundreds of marriages in women’s pujas; the other has been for many years a shrine of Brahma-Vishnu Mahadev, at which 24-hour bhajans (osto prohoro) are performed at frequent intervals throughout the year. To comprehend what’s happening here, we must take a hard look at the history of Orissa’s loans. Why is it among the most indebted states in India? To create an infrastructure for the mining industry: the state government has taken foreign loans to pay for mega-dams, coal mines, railways and roads. All have to be paid back with interest. This is what gave the World Bank leverage to force through the first electricity-privatisation of any state — a process involving huge, well-documented scams.
The same thing is happening in Jharkhand and other states. How do high growth rates fit with patterns of debt? Who’s really deciding the financial policy of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal? The agenda is already set by economists such as Jeff Sachs, adviser to the Planning Commission, who has defined India’s challenge as converting “a densely populated subcontinent of subsistence farmers into a modern and largely urban society” (Common Wealth p.219). Today’s missionaries are the developers, and their agenda is set in Washington and London. Neoliberal economics is ‘the most dangerous fundamentalism’ — a closed system of dogma backed by the banks. Critics have pointed out the contradictions: no ‘developed country’ ever got rich by opening up to the ‘free market’ — quite the reverse.
Wherever roads are widened, the timber and liquor mafias follow. Among the first users of roads into the Niyamgiri range, overseen by the Dongria Kondh Development Agency and funded by the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna, was the timber mafia. First to die on the new road to Lanjigarh was Sukru Majhi, an activist against the refinery. Locals say it was no accident.
Residents in the Kalinganagar and Posco areas link new roads such as the Common Corridor being built for Tata and a new road towards Dhinkia with the invasion of liquor shops spreading alcoholism and debt. Damanjodi, cited as ‘good development’, has massive alcoholism in the town and surrounding villages, as well as over 500 sex workers. Closing illegal liquor shops has been a prime demand of adivasi activists.
As for liquor, mahua is a sacred drink for adivasis, and one of the world’s best when distilled properly. British administrators interfered with this, alternately making its manufacture illegal and placing a heavy tax on it. For over 100 years, liquor shops have spread indebtedness — among the prime mechanisms for the alienation of tribal lands, as shown in Gopinath Mohanty’s novels and countless other sources. In effect mahua is a ‘low-caste’ drink that respectable people in a town will not drink. With good reason, since you can’t get good quality in a town. In non-tribal dukaans, mahua is spiked with battery fluid or worse.
A irony here: indigenous drinks despised and misused, while fake ‘foreign liquor’ sells at over 10 times the price. But where’s the taste of nature in an Indian whisky or beer? Scottish distilleries are a source of pride and employment throughout remote parts of Scotland, giving a taste of malt and peat, and advertising factory tours to show off their high standards. Where’s this relationship with the grain gone in Indian brands? What grain? Grown where? Distilled how? By whom? The ‘taste of nature’ is still strong in rum and Maharashtran wine, where the source in sugarcane and grapes is there for the tasting. If the alcohol business in India were taken in hand, there are wonderful drinks that come fresh from nature. Their traditions are bound up with adivasi landscapes in the countryside. When the mafia controls them, quality goes.
The corporate invasion of adivasi landscapes involves corruption at every level, including culture and history. Ashoka’s Kalinga war killed 1,00,000, enslaved 1,50,000 and killed many through famine and disease. Today’s mining companies re-enact those atrocities. Historical irony cannot get blacker than calling a massive steel complex on tribal land Kalinganagar.
felixorisa@yahoo.com
Expressbuzz, Jan 10, 2011
Felix Padel
The road from Rayagada north to Bissamcuttack and the Kalahandi border is in a state of rampant disrepair. A smashed lorry lies overturned in a ditch — one of countless accidents in recent years. At least two policemen are among the last five years’ hundreds of fatalities, both run down by lorries serving Vedanta — an inspector in Lanjigarh, and a constable in Rayagada. Vedanta vehicles carrying bauxite, coal, oil and machinery to Lanjigarh have trashed this road so thoroughly that normal vehicles take long detours to avoid sections between Therubali and Bissamcuttack, and Bissamcuttack to Muniguda. Yet it has to be said, this road is as green as any in the country for the moment, winding through a maze of rice fields, mango groves, forests and hills, with long sections shaded by stately mango and other massive trees.
But never fear! World Bank to the rescue, with multi-billion loans for renovating key roads in Orissa that will facilitate the mining industry and its export of ore. The widening of dozens of roads has already led to the cutting of hundreds of ancient trees that lined them, and if it continues unchecked, will cause the death of thousands more. The north-south road from Rayagada to Ambadola is said to involve a loan of `122 crore. In each town it passes, houses and trees will go.
In Bissamcuttack alone, are several trees I’ve known and loved for a quarter of a century, including two vast boro gocho (banyan trees): one has blessed hundreds of marriages in women’s pujas; the other has been for many years a shrine of Brahma-Vishnu Mahadev, at which 24-hour bhajans (osto prohoro) are performed at frequent intervals throughout the year. To comprehend what’s happening here, we must take a hard look at the history of Orissa’s loans. Why is it among the most indebted states in India? To create an infrastructure for the mining industry: the state government has taken foreign loans to pay for mega-dams, coal mines, railways and roads. All have to be paid back with interest. This is what gave the World Bank leverage to force through the first electricity-privatisation of any state — a process involving huge, well-documented scams.
The same thing is happening in Jharkhand and other states. How do high growth rates fit with patterns of debt? Who’s really deciding the financial policy of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal? The agenda is already set by economists such as Jeff Sachs, adviser to the Planning Commission, who has defined India’s challenge as converting “a densely populated subcontinent of subsistence farmers into a modern and largely urban society” (Common Wealth p.219). Today’s missionaries are the developers, and their agenda is set in Washington and London. Neoliberal economics is ‘the most dangerous fundamentalism’ — a closed system of dogma backed by the banks. Critics have pointed out the contradictions: no ‘developed country’ ever got rich by opening up to the ‘free market’ — quite the reverse.
Wherever roads are widened, the timber and liquor mafias follow. Among the first users of roads into the Niyamgiri range, overseen by the Dongria Kondh Development Agency and funded by the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna, was the timber mafia. First to die on the new road to Lanjigarh was Sukru Majhi, an activist against the refinery. Locals say it was no accident.
Residents in the Kalinganagar and Posco areas link new roads such as the Common Corridor being built for Tata and a new road towards Dhinkia with the invasion of liquor shops spreading alcoholism and debt. Damanjodi, cited as ‘good development’, has massive alcoholism in the town and surrounding villages, as well as over 500 sex workers. Closing illegal liquor shops has been a prime demand of adivasi activists.
As for liquor, mahua is a sacred drink for adivasis, and one of the world’s best when distilled properly. British administrators interfered with this, alternately making its manufacture illegal and placing a heavy tax on it. For over 100 years, liquor shops have spread indebtedness — among the prime mechanisms for the alienation of tribal lands, as shown in Gopinath Mohanty’s novels and countless other sources. In effect mahua is a ‘low-caste’ drink that respectable people in a town will not drink. With good reason, since you can’t get good quality in a town. In non-tribal dukaans, mahua is spiked with battery fluid or worse.
A irony here: indigenous drinks despised and misused, while fake ‘foreign liquor’ sells at over 10 times the price. But where’s the taste of nature in an Indian whisky or beer? Scottish distilleries are a source of pride and employment throughout remote parts of Scotland, giving a taste of malt and peat, and advertising factory tours to show off their high standards. Where’s this relationship with the grain gone in Indian brands? What grain? Grown where? Distilled how? By whom? The ‘taste of nature’ is still strong in rum and Maharashtran wine, where the source in sugarcane and grapes is there for the tasting. If the alcohol business in India were taken in hand, there are wonderful drinks that come fresh from nature. Their traditions are bound up with adivasi landscapes in the countryside. When the mafia controls them, quality goes.
The corporate invasion of adivasi landscapes involves corruption at every level, including culture and history. Ashoka’s Kalinga war killed 1,00,000, enslaved 1,50,000 and killed many through famine and disease. Today’s mining companies re-enact those atrocities. Historical irony cannot get blacker than calling a massive steel complex on tribal land Kalinganagar.
felixorisa@yahoo.com
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
MANY COLOURS HIDDEN IN THE SHADOW OF A MOUNTAIN
The Telegraph, Nov 23, 2010
A visit to Vedanta’s refinery in Lanjigarh makes Uddalak Mukherjee ponder some of the challenges that confront India’s development model
In August 2010, the Union minister of environment and forests denied permission to Vedanta Aluminium Limited to mine bauxite from Niyamgiri. Two years earlier, in a controversial judgment, the Supreme Court had permitted operations at VAL’s refinery in Lanjigarh and directed the company to invest five per cent of its profits or Rs 10 crore (whichever amount was greater) in development works within 50 kilometres of the project area. Subsequently, a special purpose vehicle — the Lanjigarh Project Area Development Foundation — was created with a corpus of Rs 20 crore to develop this block located in Orissa’s Kalahandi.
As someone interested in the complexities spawned by development, I was keen to examine VAL’s welfare activities in Lanjigarh. My objective, however, was not to see whether VAL had violated environmental norms. What I wanted to explore, instead, was whether the development that VAL claimed to have brought about was more inclusive and effective than the programmes undertaken by the State. Also, how had the tribal community, such as the Dongria Kondhs, and the people of Lanjigarh responded to VAL’s initiatives?
Before travelling to Lanjigarh, I got in touch with a VAL official and informed him about my intent to do a story. The response was prompt and warm, and, in a way, expected. After the spate of recent setbacks — the freeze order on mining has been followed by the Orissa High Court declaring illegal the government land on which Vedanta had proposed to set up a university in Puri — the company was keen to demonstrate how Lanjigarh had benefited from its corporate social responsibility projects. In a matter of hours, my travel itinerary had been made, a comfortable accommodation arranged and the places that VAL thought I should visit identified. From a journalistic point of view, the arrangement was far from ideal. There was the possibility that I would be shown only VAL’s version of the truth. Yet, I consented to the proposal for two reasons. Given the paucity of time, I had to depend on the logistics, thoughtfully provided by my host, to gain access to the trouble spot and, hopefully, the truth. My stay in Lanjigarh would also give me an opportunity to experience how institutions — the State, civil society or large corporations — try and influence neutral attempts to discern the truth.
An overnight journey to Kesinga and a difficult, but enchanting, three-hour road trip brought me to VAL’s guest house in Lanjigarh. Soon enough, a sleek power-point presentation was organized to share the details of the CSR activities — 50 childcare centres catering to the educational and nutritional needs of 1,500 children; 400 anganwadis in Kalahandi and 600 in neighbouring Rayagada; an adult literacy programme covering 118 adults in the nearby Rehabilitation Colony; a state-of-the-art English medium school, the only one in Lanjigarh; mobile health units that provide healthcare to 115 villages (malarial cases, I was told, have come down from 80 to 20 per cent in Lanjigarh, while the malaria mortality rate has declined to 0.8 per cent from 1.1 per cent) ; livelihood programmes such as leaf-plate making, pineapple and bamboo farming to augment the income of Dongria Kondhs; electrification drives that have lit up 11 villages comprising 700 households in Lanjigarh (the electrification drive under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Bidyutikaran Yojana has managed to bring electricity to only two villages in Lanjigarh).
These programmes may be localized, and are certainly inadequate to address the district’s overall backwardness. But given the State’s indifference, the people in this remote area have been forced to rely on whatever little VAL is providing. The State’s failure in this aspect is borne out by chilling data. Kalahandi is among India’s 10 most backward districts. The Food Security Atlas of Rural Orissa 2008 states that in 2005-06, the infant mortality rate stood at 119 per 1,000 live births, the highest in the world; the district also has the highest malaria mortality in the region; according to the last census, the literacy rate is 45.94 per cent; the Orissa Monitoring Report by a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council revealed that of the Rs 56.6 crore allocated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the district has spent only Rs 11.9 crore; Kalahandi also has 5,625 days of pending unemployment allowance. The last two facts indicate that even when funds are available, the absence of an effective delivery mechanism has impaired State welfare programmes.
To see how people have responded to what VAL claims to be equitable development, I was taken to a couple of places the next day. The first, Phuldumer, a village on the lower slopes of Niyamgiri, was where I met the spirited Katli Majhi, a Dongria Kondh woman, and her friends. Thirteen families reside in this picturesque village that has not received a single day’s work under the MNREGA and whose residents are illiterate. In a local dialect, the women parroted what I had been told the night before. Thanks to VAL’s livelihood programmes, they now depended less on cultivating lentils, mustard, turmeric and more on the income generated by leaf-making. Each family earned approximately Rs 3,000 every month, and possessed bank accounts. The women agreed that these days, they ate, dressed and lived better but seemed unsure whether their prosperity had made them equal to men. After all, unlike the men — most of whom had gone to the local haat on the day of my visit — they cannot dress in the manner they like or work at the refinery. While iniquitous social relationships remain unchanged, what has altered is their tie with the surrounding mountain and the jungle. The first taste of material comfort has reduced their dependence, and perhaps respect, for the natural world.
The residents of Niyamgiri Vedanta Nagar, which I visited next, appeared equally mesmerized by the seductive powers of development. The Lanjigarh refinery has displaced six tribal-dominated villages — Kinari, Borbhatta, Kothadwar, Sindhbahal, Narayanpur and Rengapeli — and nearly 120-odd families have been rehabilitated in Niyamgiri Vedanta Nagar, Most of the residents I spoke to seemed content with the compensation. Large portions of the money, they said, had been spent in procuring consumer products like television sets and motorbikes. The men worked in the refinery, but they could not tell me whether they were permanent employees, what they did or whether they were entitled to employee benefits. Some women now worked in self-help groups and the children were receiving an ‘English’ education. An education, a house, a vehicle — each of these is an important marker of respect and equality in the eyes of the residents.
Evidently, the exposure to a different economy had shifted their cultural and ethical moorings. Despite their tribal roots, very few of the colony’s residents sported the brass jewellery or tattoos that I had seen in Phuldumer. They loathed farming, dismissed the allegations of VAL posing a threat to Niyamgiri’s environment as a “conspiracy of NGOs”, and swore that they can let go of the mountain but not the refinery.
But a great number of people are battling to save the mountain, and it was time to hear what they had to say. Meeting them proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. For the first time during my brief stay, my hosts seemed to be irked when I demanded that I be taken to meet those agitating against VAL. Yet when I attempted to set up a meeting with two men who were leading the agitation against Vedanta, they declined to meet me. They informed me over the phone that villagers near the refinery had tracked my movements with the Vedanta team, thereby strengthening the suspicion that I was disinterested in independent inquiry. They relented much later, and a clandestine meeting was set up in Bhawanipatna. A night’s journey brought me to Bhawanipatna, and early next morning, I found myself talking to two members from Green Kalahandi and the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samity. Not surprisingly, they tore into most of the facts that Vedanta had touted as evidence of development. Phuldumer was only one of the 112 villages inhabited by the Dongria Kondhs, and many of the villages — especially the ones situated on the higher slopes in Rayagada — were battling the company’s incursions into their lives. Two years back, pollutants emitted from the refinery had reached Bhawanipatna and two deaths had been reported as a result of the contamination in the Bansadhara waters (VAL, which has signed a MoU with the Institute of Mineral and Materials Technology, claims that a zero discharge system is in place in Lanjigarh). The men also accused the local administration of colluding with VAL to terrorize protesters. The police, they said, had imprisoned five women in Chattrapur village after implicating them in false charges of theft and only one FIR could be filed against the company in the last seven years. However, the two activists were forced to concede that if VAL were to be ousted, the people would have no choice but to depend on the crumbs thrown intermittently at them by the State.
Much of what I saw in Lanjigarh was consistent with what I had seen during my travels elsewhere in an India threatened with a painful transition. After failing to provide the most rudimentary facilities for health, education and employment to marginalized communities, the State is now increasingly depending on private enterprise such as VAL to bring welfare to the people. However, in the process, it has also bartered its monitoring role, thereby increasing the possibility of irregularities on the part of private corporations. The Saxena committee report, which was examined by the Forest Advisory Committee and the Union minister before the latter stalled VAL’s plans, alleges that the company is guilty of flouting environmental norms. In India, it is often alleged that even the law sides with the affluent. But before congratulating the MOEF for its unprecedented act of putting the interests of tribes over those of big business, one must pause and reflect how, in Niyamgiri’s case, both “in principle” forest clearance and environmental approval had been given by the FAC earlier. Had there been a lapse in the FAC’s 2007 assessment? And if VAL is indeed guilty of wrongdoing, should not the earlier lapse be investigated?
Another disturbing feature is the complete breakdown of dialogue between VAL and its opponents. Without dialogue there can be no democracy. Lanjigarh’s vitiated atmosphere is a reminder that the need for dialogue can be replaced by a willingness to speak the language of violence. Company officials complained bitterly that activists often burnt down vehicles carrying essential supplies. On their part, VAL’s opponents point out how the murder of Adasi Mahi, a Dongria Kondh who had deposed before the Saxena committee, remains unresolved. It this lack of trust that sharpens the need to co-opt and exploit the media. The subtle attempts by VAL’s officials to thwart my visit to the villages surrounding the refinery and the initial hostility exhibited by the two men I met in Bhawanipatna point to the shrinking ground for objective enquiry. The media ought to resist the encroachment of this critical space more vigorously to protect its credibility.
I had visited Lanjigarh in the hope of finding some answers, but I returned with two questions that troubled me particularly. The Dongria Kondhs in Rayagada continue to resist VAL in the name of protecting the fragile environment, and their community rights and customs. But the tribal women in Phuldumer seemed to have unquestioningly embraced the markers of modernity and development. Is India’s development model equipped to include such seemingly contradictory needs?
Second, informed choice is integral to a democracy. But the ineptness of the State has made the equipment needed for informed choice — particularly education and awareness — a rarity among marginalized communities. The tribal voice — cleverly appropriated by politicians, corporations, civil rights activists and the media — is as complex and layered as the outlook towards development. Is the State willing to address this complexity and thus make tribal people equal partners in the process of change?
Two days after the Centre vetoed VAL’s plan to mine Niyamgiri, Rahul Gandhi declared himself a sipahi of the tribal people. After Lanjigarh, I often wonder whether he knows that he leads an army of the mute.
A visit to Vedanta’s refinery in Lanjigarh makes Uddalak Mukherjee ponder some of the challenges that confront India’s development model
In August 2010, the Union minister of environment and forests denied permission to Vedanta Aluminium Limited to mine bauxite from Niyamgiri. Two years earlier, in a controversial judgment, the Supreme Court had permitted operations at VAL’s refinery in Lanjigarh and directed the company to invest five per cent of its profits or Rs 10 crore (whichever amount was greater) in development works within 50 kilometres of the project area. Subsequently, a special purpose vehicle — the Lanjigarh Project Area Development Foundation — was created with a corpus of Rs 20 crore to develop this block located in Orissa’s Kalahandi.
As someone interested in the complexities spawned by development, I was keen to examine VAL’s welfare activities in Lanjigarh. My objective, however, was not to see whether VAL had violated environmental norms. What I wanted to explore, instead, was whether the development that VAL claimed to have brought about was more inclusive and effective than the programmes undertaken by the State. Also, how had the tribal community, such as the Dongria Kondhs, and the people of Lanjigarh responded to VAL’s initiatives?
Before travelling to Lanjigarh, I got in touch with a VAL official and informed him about my intent to do a story. The response was prompt and warm, and, in a way, expected. After the spate of recent setbacks — the freeze order on mining has been followed by the Orissa High Court declaring illegal the government land on which Vedanta had proposed to set up a university in Puri — the company was keen to demonstrate how Lanjigarh had benefited from its corporate social responsibility projects. In a matter of hours, my travel itinerary had been made, a comfortable accommodation arranged and the places that VAL thought I should visit identified. From a journalistic point of view, the arrangement was far from ideal. There was the possibility that I would be shown only VAL’s version of the truth. Yet, I consented to the proposal for two reasons. Given the paucity of time, I had to depend on the logistics, thoughtfully provided by my host, to gain access to the trouble spot and, hopefully, the truth. My stay in Lanjigarh would also give me an opportunity to experience how institutions — the State, civil society or large corporations — try and influence neutral attempts to discern the truth.
An overnight journey to Kesinga and a difficult, but enchanting, three-hour road trip brought me to VAL’s guest house in Lanjigarh. Soon enough, a sleek power-point presentation was organized to share the details of the CSR activities — 50 childcare centres catering to the educational and nutritional needs of 1,500 children; 400 anganwadis in Kalahandi and 600 in neighbouring Rayagada; an adult literacy programme covering 118 adults in the nearby Rehabilitation Colony; a state-of-the-art English medium school, the only one in Lanjigarh; mobile health units that provide healthcare to 115 villages (malarial cases, I was told, have come down from 80 to 20 per cent in Lanjigarh, while the malaria mortality rate has declined to 0.8 per cent from 1.1 per cent) ; livelihood programmes such as leaf-plate making, pineapple and bamboo farming to augment the income of Dongria Kondhs; electrification drives that have lit up 11 villages comprising 700 households in Lanjigarh (the electrification drive under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Bidyutikaran Yojana has managed to bring electricity to only two villages in Lanjigarh).
These programmes may be localized, and are certainly inadequate to address the district’s overall backwardness. But given the State’s indifference, the people in this remote area have been forced to rely on whatever little VAL is providing. The State’s failure in this aspect is borne out by chilling data. Kalahandi is among India’s 10 most backward districts. The Food Security Atlas of Rural Orissa 2008 states that in 2005-06, the infant mortality rate stood at 119 per 1,000 live births, the highest in the world; the district also has the highest malaria mortality in the region; according to the last census, the literacy rate is 45.94 per cent; the Orissa Monitoring Report by a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council revealed that of the Rs 56.6 crore allocated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the district has spent only Rs 11.9 crore; Kalahandi also has 5,625 days of pending unemployment allowance. The last two facts indicate that even when funds are available, the absence of an effective delivery mechanism has impaired State welfare programmes.
To see how people have responded to what VAL claims to be equitable development, I was taken to a couple of places the next day. The first, Phuldumer, a village on the lower slopes of Niyamgiri, was where I met the spirited Katli Majhi, a Dongria Kondh woman, and her friends. Thirteen families reside in this picturesque village that has not received a single day’s work under the MNREGA and whose residents are illiterate. In a local dialect, the women parroted what I had been told the night before. Thanks to VAL’s livelihood programmes, they now depended less on cultivating lentils, mustard, turmeric and more on the income generated by leaf-making. Each family earned approximately Rs 3,000 every month, and possessed bank accounts. The women agreed that these days, they ate, dressed and lived better but seemed unsure whether their prosperity had made them equal to men. After all, unlike the men — most of whom had gone to the local haat on the day of my visit — they cannot dress in the manner they like or work at the refinery. While iniquitous social relationships remain unchanged, what has altered is their tie with the surrounding mountain and the jungle. The first taste of material comfort has reduced their dependence, and perhaps respect, for the natural world.
The residents of Niyamgiri Vedanta Nagar, which I visited next, appeared equally mesmerized by the seductive powers of development. The Lanjigarh refinery has displaced six tribal-dominated villages — Kinari, Borbhatta, Kothadwar, Sindhbahal, Narayanpur and Rengapeli — and nearly 120-odd families have been rehabilitated in Niyamgiri Vedanta Nagar, Most of the residents I spoke to seemed content with the compensation. Large portions of the money, they said, had been spent in procuring consumer products like television sets and motorbikes. The men worked in the refinery, but they could not tell me whether they were permanent employees, what they did or whether they were entitled to employee benefits. Some women now worked in self-help groups and the children were receiving an ‘English’ education. An education, a house, a vehicle — each of these is an important marker of respect and equality in the eyes of the residents.
Evidently, the exposure to a different economy had shifted their cultural and ethical moorings. Despite their tribal roots, very few of the colony’s residents sported the brass jewellery or tattoos that I had seen in Phuldumer. They loathed farming, dismissed the allegations of VAL posing a threat to Niyamgiri’s environment as a “conspiracy of NGOs”, and swore that they can let go of the mountain but not the refinery.
But a great number of people are battling to save the mountain, and it was time to hear what they had to say. Meeting them proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. For the first time during my brief stay, my hosts seemed to be irked when I demanded that I be taken to meet those agitating against VAL. Yet when I attempted to set up a meeting with two men who were leading the agitation against Vedanta, they declined to meet me. They informed me over the phone that villagers near the refinery had tracked my movements with the Vedanta team, thereby strengthening the suspicion that I was disinterested in independent inquiry. They relented much later, and a clandestine meeting was set up in Bhawanipatna. A night’s journey brought me to Bhawanipatna, and early next morning, I found myself talking to two members from Green Kalahandi and the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samity. Not surprisingly, they tore into most of the facts that Vedanta had touted as evidence of development. Phuldumer was only one of the 112 villages inhabited by the Dongria Kondhs, and many of the villages — especially the ones situated on the higher slopes in Rayagada — were battling the company’s incursions into their lives. Two years back, pollutants emitted from the refinery had reached Bhawanipatna and two deaths had been reported as a result of the contamination in the Bansadhara waters (VAL, which has signed a MoU with the Institute of Mineral and Materials Technology, claims that a zero discharge system is in place in Lanjigarh). The men also accused the local administration of colluding with VAL to terrorize protesters. The police, they said, had imprisoned five women in Chattrapur village after implicating them in false charges of theft and only one FIR could be filed against the company in the last seven years. However, the two activists were forced to concede that if VAL were to be ousted, the people would have no choice but to depend on the crumbs thrown intermittently at them by the State.
Much of what I saw in Lanjigarh was consistent with what I had seen during my travels elsewhere in an India threatened with a painful transition. After failing to provide the most rudimentary facilities for health, education and employment to marginalized communities, the State is now increasingly depending on private enterprise such as VAL to bring welfare to the people. However, in the process, it has also bartered its monitoring role, thereby increasing the possibility of irregularities on the part of private corporations. The Saxena committee report, which was examined by the Forest Advisory Committee and the Union minister before the latter stalled VAL’s plans, alleges that the company is guilty of flouting environmental norms. In India, it is often alleged that even the law sides with the affluent. But before congratulating the MOEF for its unprecedented act of putting the interests of tribes over those of big business, one must pause and reflect how, in Niyamgiri’s case, both “in principle” forest clearance and environmental approval had been given by the FAC earlier. Had there been a lapse in the FAC’s 2007 assessment? And if VAL is indeed guilty of wrongdoing, should not the earlier lapse be investigated?
Another disturbing feature is the complete breakdown of dialogue between VAL and its opponents. Without dialogue there can be no democracy. Lanjigarh’s vitiated atmosphere is a reminder that the need for dialogue can be replaced by a willingness to speak the language of violence. Company officials complained bitterly that activists often burnt down vehicles carrying essential supplies. On their part, VAL’s opponents point out how the murder of Adasi Mahi, a Dongria Kondh who had deposed before the Saxena committee, remains unresolved. It this lack of trust that sharpens the need to co-opt and exploit the media. The subtle attempts by VAL’s officials to thwart my visit to the villages surrounding the refinery and the initial hostility exhibited by the two men I met in Bhawanipatna point to the shrinking ground for objective enquiry. The media ought to resist the encroachment of this critical space more vigorously to protect its credibility.
I had visited Lanjigarh in the hope of finding some answers, but I returned with two questions that troubled me particularly. The Dongria Kondhs in Rayagada continue to resist VAL in the name of protecting the fragile environment, and their community rights and customs. But the tribal women in Phuldumer seemed to have unquestioningly embraced the markers of modernity and development. Is India’s development model equipped to include such seemingly contradictory needs?
Second, informed choice is integral to a democracy. But the ineptness of the State has made the equipment needed for informed choice — particularly education and awareness — a rarity among marginalized communities. The tribal voice — cleverly appropriated by politicians, corporations, civil rights activists and the media — is as complex and layered as the outlook towards development. Is the State willing to address this complexity and thus make tribal people equal partners in the process of change?
Two days after the Centre vetoed VAL’s plan to mine Niyamgiri, Rahul Gandhi declared himself a sipahi of the tribal people. After Lanjigarh, I often wonder whether he knows that he leads an army of the mute.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Land largesse for corporate 'univs'
Business Standard, Nov 18., 2010
When the Orissa High Court on Tuesday described the Vedanta Group’s acquisition of 6,892 acres for its university project in Puri “illegal and void”, the judges were merely articulating a widespread concern.
In fact, when Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) recently got 110 acres from the Madhya Pradesh government for its foray into education, it raised many eyebrows. Ditto with Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), to which 70 acres had been allotted by the Punjab government on a 99-year lease at Rs1 an acre, annually.
For Vedanta University, the Anil Agarwal Foundation had acquired about 4,500 acres of the 6,892 acres allotted to it. “It’s a good revenue model and an attractive business proposition for many business houses. They get land — a resource that will be scarce a few years down the line — at throwaway prices. If they are serious about giving back to society, why don't they purchase land at market rates? The Infosys Technologies training campus in Mysore is also built over acres of donated land,” said Premchand Palety, director, Centre for Forecasting & Research (C-fore), New Delhi.
Infosys Technologies’ Global Education Centre (GEC- II is located at its 337-acre Mysore campus. Infosys spent over Rs2,000 crore to set up the centre, of which Rs1,700 crore was spent on education- and training-related infrastructure.
Industry players said a fairly good engineering institute can be set up on 10 acres. While a good management institute needs no more than 5 acres and a medical college requires 25-30 acres. “So, why does one require hundreds and thousands of acres to set up an education institute or training centre?” asks Palety.
While the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, is spread over 67 acres in Vastrapur, Gujarat, IIM-Bangalore is spread over 100 acres.
Some academicians say if the country’s premier institutes can make do with less land, there is no reason why corporate universities need so much of it. This only shows a kind of land grab, as in the case of special economic zones, where around 40 per cent of land acquired belonged to tribals.
“In the name of setting up education institutes, most of these business houses are setting up technical institutes, and not universities. Only technical education assures quick returns along with a ready pool of takers,” says the director of a Bangalore-based management institute.
Consultants advising private companies on their education ventures agree. “Setting up a technical institute is the easiest, as the initial investment required is low and the returns quick. Mostly, the initial cost is covered at most within eight years. That’s why most business houses aren’t interested in setting up a multi-disciplinary university,” said a Delhi-based consultant, who is advising at least a dozen companies on their education ventures.
He adds that many of these businessmen opt for land in states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Rajasthan, as governments there are ready to give cheap land in the name of development.
However, officials at the All-India Council for Technical Education, the country’s technical and management education regulatory body, disagree. AICTE says it is confident that corporate houses will improve the education scenario. Possibly, this is why it is working on a proposal wherein companies formed under Section 25 of the Companies Act may be considered to run technical colleges.
“We believe that institutions run by business houses are more professionally managed than others. So, their request for more land is not the issue. One cannot invest a lot of money to purchase land and then set up the institute, too. We also believe they would be more transparent,” said an AICTE official.
As ISB Dean Ajit Rangnekar says, “An educational institution’s life-span does not cover years or decades, but centuries. A hundred years from now, 70 acres may limit the campus. Every major university in the world faces a severe shortage of space because the initial estimates of land were grossly inadequate.”
Most companies don’t agree with the land-grab comparison, either. Sunil Bharti Mittal-promoted Bharti Enterprises, which runs Satya Bharti Schools in partnership with state governments and a few vocational courses, plans to set up a university. “Even the thought of equating the setting up of education institutes to a way of land grabbing is bad. It’s not land for commercial use, but to create temples of tomorrow,” said Rajan Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman & managing director, Bharti Enterprises.
Amitabh Jhingan, partner and education leader at Ernst & Young, agrees. “The corporate world needs some amount of support. Land is not a large proportion of the entire exercise, anyway. The cost of setting up an institute is the highest. Besides, there can’t be a possible alternate use to the land.”
Bakul Dholakia, who has been heading the Adani Group's Institute of Infrastructure & Management in Gujarat, says if the land allotted for an education site is not being put to use properly, it can amount to land grabbing. “If you liberalise education, the demand for land for education may go up. In that case, such a situation may arise. But that is certainly not happening in the near future,” said Dholakia.
Many companies, however, are spending on the prevailing land prices instead of depending on government grants. For example, Shiv Nadar, promoter of the $5.5-billion enterprise HCL, is planning a university over 286 acres on the outskirts of Delhi and has invested in the land on his own, says an official from the Shiv Nadar Foundation.
Azim Premji University, which is being set up by the Azim Premji Foundation on 50 acres in Sarjapur near Bangalore, is buying land directly from the owners.
When the Orissa High Court on Tuesday described the Vedanta Group’s acquisition of 6,892 acres for its university project in Puri “illegal and void”, the judges were merely articulating a widespread concern.
In fact, when Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) recently got 110 acres from the Madhya Pradesh government for its foray into education, it raised many eyebrows. Ditto with Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), to which 70 acres had been allotted by the Punjab government on a 99-year lease at Rs1 an acre, annually.
Infosys Technologies’ Global Education Centre (GEC- II is located at its 337-acre Mysore campus. Infosys spent over Rs2,000 crore to set up the centre, of which Rs1,700 crore was spent on education- and training-related infrastructure.
Industry players said a fairly good engineering institute can be set up on 10 acres. While a good management institute needs no more than 5 acres and a medical college requires 25-30 acres. “So, why does one require hundreds and thousands of acres to set up an education institute or training centre?” asks Palety.
While the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, is spread over 67 acres in Vastrapur, Gujarat, IIM-Bangalore is spread over 100 acres.
Some academicians say if the country’s premier institutes can make do with less land, there is no reason why corporate universities need so much of it. This only shows a kind of land grab, as in the case of special economic zones, where around 40 per cent of land acquired belonged to tribals.
“In the name of setting up education institutes, most of these business houses are setting up technical institutes, and not universities. Only technical education assures quick returns along with a ready pool of takers,” says the director of a Bangalore-based management institute.
Consultants advising private companies on their education ventures agree. “Setting up a technical institute is the easiest, as the initial investment required is low and the returns quick. Mostly, the initial cost is covered at most within eight years. That’s why most business houses aren’t interested in setting up a multi-disciplinary university,” said a Delhi-based consultant, who is advising at least a dozen companies on their education ventures.
He adds that many of these businessmen opt for land in states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Rajasthan, as governments there are ready to give cheap land in the name of development.
However, officials at the All-India Council for Technical Education, the country’s technical and management education regulatory body, disagree. AICTE says it is confident that corporate houses will improve the education scenario. Possibly, this is why it is working on a proposal wherein companies formed under Section 25 of the Companies Act may be considered to run technical colleges.
“We believe that institutions run by business houses are more professionally managed than others. So, their request for more land is not the issue. One cannot invest a lot of money to purchase land and then set up the institute, too. We also believe they would be more transparent,” said an AICTE official.
As ISB Dean Ajit Rangnekar says, “An educational institution’s life-span does not cover years or decades, but centuries. A hundred years from now, 70 acres may limit the campus. Every major university in the world faces a severe shortage of space because the initial estimates of land were grossly inadequate.”
Most companies don’t agree with the land-grab comparison, either. Sunil Bharti Mittal-promoted Bharti Enterprises, which runs Satya Bharti Schools in partnership with state governments and a few vocational courses, plans to set up a university. “Even the thought of equating the setting up of education institutes to a way of land grabbing is bad. It’s not land for commercial use, but to create temples of tomorrow,” said Rajan Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman & managing director, Bharti Enterprises.
Amitabh Jhingan, partner and education leader at Ernst & Young, agrees. “The corporate world needs some amount of support. Land is not a large proportion of the entire exercise, anyway. The cost of setting up an institute is the highest. Besides, there can’t be a possible alternate use to the land.”
Bakul Dholakia, who has been heading the Adani Group's Institute of Infrastructure & Management in Gujarat, says if the land allotted for an education site is not being put to use properly, it can amount to land grabbing. “If you liberalise education, the demand for land for education may go up. In that case, such a situation may arise. But that is certainly not happening in the near future,” said Dholakia.
Many companies, however, are spending on the prevailing land prices instead of depending on government grants. For example, Shiv Nadar, promoter of the $5.5-billion enterprise HCL, is planning a university over 286 acres on the outskirts of Delhi and has invested in the land on his own, says an official from the Shiv Nadar Foundation.
Azim Premji University, which is being set up by the Azim Premji Foundation on 50 acres in Sarjapur near Bangalore, is buying land directly from the owners.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
No starvation death in India in last 3 years, says minister
Tehelka, Nov 12, 2010
BY Bijay Kumar Singh
Delhi
Delhi
There have been reports that as many as 150 persons including children reportedly died in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh in the last year. However, Minister of State for Agriculture KV Thomas in his reply to Parliament earlier this week claimed there were no starvation deaths in the country during the last year.
“No state government, Union Territory administration has reported any incidence of starvation death during last three years,” he said in Parliament last week.
Reacting to Thomas’ claim, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Tarun Vijay claimed that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance party at the Centre was covering up starvation deaths.
“It is not true. It is a statement which does not reflect ground reality. The minister seems to be unconcerned. In the last two years, many cases of starvation have been reported in Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput belt of Orissa, and Uttar Pradesh. Even the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) report in 2008-09 reported starvation deaths in India,” he said.
Bijo Francis, spokesperson, Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), agreed. “I have to say Professor Thomas is living in Mars to have such an opinion. We at the AHRC in the past three years have reported several cases of starvation deaths in India. In all these cases, the UN Rapporteur on Right to Food has written to the government of India calling for action,” he said.
“The Congress party of which Professor Thomas is part has made use of cases reported by the AHRC for its election campaign in states like Uttar Pradesh. However, he could be technically correct that ‘no state has reported instances of starvation’ to the central government, as they call it in bureaucratic jargon,” he added.
He raised some other points. “Beyond all this, does the central government require a state government to seek its support to address malnutrition in the country? Because a state government has not informed about the issue to the central government, does it absolve the central government from its constitutional and mandate to address the issue?” he asked.
Jamini Kumar Srivastava, spokesperson, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), too, said that state governments not responding to notices from the NHRC was a cover-up.
“Taking suo motu cognizance of the media report carried on the February 24, 2010, which alleged that chronic hunger has lead to death of 50 persons in Balangir district of Orissa, NHRC issued notice to the chief secretary, government of Orissa, but still we have not received any reply from Orissa government,” he said.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Stop bashing Centre, start helping poor
Expressbuzz, Oct 13, 2010
Orissa has shown negative trends in most of the development parameters because of the poor execution track record of government schemes and mismanagement of funds over a period of time. One will be surprised to note the recent death toll, which has crossed more than 200 due to the spread of cholera in one of the poverty ridden districts of Orissa. Examining the implementation of development schemes in Orissa, one will invariably end up with serious doubts about the capability of the present government in reaching out to the poor in the true spirit. The recent report of the State Plan Advisers on implementation of flagship programmes and other centrally sponsored schemes in Orissa will provide a shocking picture of the execution of government schemes in the state.
According to the report, Orissa has failed to utilise almost half of the funds released by the end of 2009-10 financial year in the MEGRA. The government of Orissa could spend only Rs 312 crore as against Rs 655 crore released by the central government in the above period and almost 80,000 job cards have also not been issued because of inter-departmental conflict and complication. The state is also not able to move forward in the Indira Awaas Yojana scheme due to inordinate delay in finalising the IAY list by the state government. The non-awarding of road works in Naxalite prone districts adds a more complex problem to these tribal dominated areas, causing serious difficulties for the dwellers in obtaining medical and other benefits.
Although children’s nutrition is a major concern, the state government so far failed to evaluate the Mid-Day Meal scheme by any third party as there are large-scale allegations of poor execution of the scheme by SHGs.
It is further shocking to find that state machinery is very slow in implementing the JNNRUM in terms of finalisation of tenders for the Rs 811.98 crore approved grant for the same. It is only recently the government started city bus services in the capital city as a fulfilment of an objective of the project. Under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, works have been accomplished only in 6,266 villages out of 87,826 villages approved under the scheme.
The implementation of National Rural Health Mission in Orissa is in a mess though huge money has been pumped into the programme. The state has not been able to start mobile medical units in any of the districts and most of the Community Health Centres are not having round-the-clock services. The static nature of the Orissa’s rank in the composite development index over a period of time shows the poor execution of education programmes. The three undivided KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) districts of Orissa have got special plan funding since 2002-03 without showing any visible impact in the life of the poor. With hundred per cent central funding, almost Rs 1,557.50 crore have been released so far by the central government. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has also raised serious allegations against the state government. There is a serious issue of diversion of funds from one programme to another. It is found that “in eight test checked units, Rs 2.16 crore was diverted from NREGS to MPLADS during February 2006 to March 2009”.
The per capita development expenditure and per capita social sector expenditure in Orissa is much lower than the national average. The financial management of the state government is also equally horrible without following an outcome budget mechanism as suggested by 12th finance commission to measure economic efficiency and effectiveness. This mechanism can very well indicate whether the same outcome can be achieved at lower cost and the same cost can produce better results. Further, due to the appeasement policy followed by the state government in the headship of statutory corporation, cooperatives and rural banks, the average return of income is decreasing in the state and there is no attempt by government to deploy good human resources for these ailing bodies. As a result, the high cost of borrowed funds will continue to burden investment with low financial return.
Recent economic surveys also say a volume about the trailing development trends of the state in many fronts. Just taking an example of agriculture status in the state, the survey found that share of power consumption for agriculture has declined from 3.1 per cent in 2000-01 to 1.3 per cent in 2008-09, annual agriculture growth is a meagre 1.33 per cent. This policy approach is clearly reflected in the increase of farmer suicides in the state in recent years and Orissa being in the top among all states in diverting forest land for mining activities as so far, the government of Orissa has been able to transform almost 15,386 hectares of forest land, causing a serious problem to the livelihood of the lakhs of tribals in the state.
Looking at the above facts, the state’s present vision of ‘Centre bashing’ can be only seen as a tool to divert people’s attention from large scale corruption and poor execution of development schemes in the state during last 11 years. However, the existing approach will be counter-productive if the state continues to move without doing its homework properly and is always blaming the Centre for its own failure as from the above points, it is found that the state has failed miserably in executing the pro-poor programmes, thanks to inefficient and corrupt, present and former bureaucrats who have been given a free hand by the chief minister in the design and execution of implementation plans.
(The writer works for an UN agency. The views expressed above are personal. E-mail: sachisatpathy@yahoo.com)
Orissa has shown negative trends in most of the development parameters because of the poor execution track record of government schemes and mismanagement of funds over a period of time. One will be surprised to note the recent death toll, which has crossed more than 200 due to the spread of cholera in one of the poverty ridden districts of Orissa. Examining the implementation of development schemes in Orissa, one will invariably end up with serious doubts about the capability of the present government in reaching out to the poor in the true spirit. The recent report of the State Plan Advisers on implementation of flagship programmes and other centrally sponsored schemes in Orissa will provide a shocking picture of the execution of government schemes in the state.
According to the report, Orissa has failed to utilise almost half of the funds released by the end of 2009-10 financial year in the MEGRA. The government of Orissa could spend only Rs 312 crore as against Rs 655 crore released by the central government in the above period and almost 80,000 job cards have also not been issued because of inter-departmental conflict and complication. The state is also not able to move forward in the Indira Awaas Yojana scheme due to inordinate delay in finalising the IAY list by the state government. The non-awarding of road works in Naxalite prone districts adds a more complex problem to these tribal dominated areas, causing serious difficulties for the dwellers in obtaining medical and other benefits.
Although children’s nutrition is a major concern, the state government so far failed to evaluate the Mid-Day Meal scheme by any third party as there are large-scale allegations of poor execution of the scheme by SHGs.
It is further shocking to find that state machinery is very slow in implementing the JNNRUM in terms of finalisation of tenders for the Rs 811.98 crore approved grant for the same. It is only recently the government started city bus services in the capital city as a fulfilment of an objective of the project. Under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, works have been accomplished only in 6,266 villages out of 87,826 villages approved under the scheme.
The implementation of National Rural Health Mission in Orissa is in a mess though huge money has been pumped into the programme. The state has not been able to start mobile medical units in any of the districts and most of the Community Health Centres are not having round-the-clock services. The static nature of the Orissa’s rank in the composite development index over a period of time shows the poor execution of education programmes. The three undivided KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) districts of Orissa have got special plan funding since 2002-03 without showing any visible impact in the life of the poor. With hundred per cent central funding, almost Rs 1,557.50 crore have been released so far by the central government. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has also raised serious allegations against the state government. There is a serious issue of diversion of funds from one programme to another. It is found that “in eight test checked units, Rs 2.16 crore was diverted from NREGS to MPLADS during February 2006 to March 2009”.
The per capita development expenditure and per capita social sector expenditure in Orissa is much lower than the national average. The financial management of the state government is also equally horrible without following an outcome budget mechanism as suggested by 12th finance commission to measure economic efficiency and effectiveness. This mechanism can very well indicate whether the same outcome can be achieved at lower cost and the same cost can produce better results. Further, due to the appeasement policy followed by the state government in the headship of statutory corporation, cooperatives and rural banks, the average return of income is decreasing in the state and there is no attempt by government to deploy good human resources for these ailing bodies. As a result, the high cost of borrowed funds will continue to burden investment with low financial return.
Recent economic surveys also say a volume about the trailing development trends of the state in many fronts. Just taking an example of agriculture status in the state, the survey found that share of power consumption for agriculture has declined from 3.1 per cent in 2000-01 to 1.3 per cent in 2008-09, annual agriculture growth is a meagre 1.33 per cent. This policy approach is clearly reflected in the increase of farmer suicides in the state in recent years and Orissa being in the top among all states in diverting forest land for mining activities as so far, the government of Orissa has been able to transform almost 15,386 hectares of forest land, causing a serious problem to the livelihood of the lakhs of tribals in the state.
Looking at the above facts, the state’s present vision of ‘Centre bashing’ can be only seen as a tool to divert people’s attention from large scale corruption and poor execution of development schemes in the state during last 11 years. However, the existing approach will be counter-productive if the state continues to move without doing its homework properly and is always blaming the Centre for its own failure as from the above points, it is found that the state has failed miserably in executing the pro-poor programmes, thanks to inefficient and corrupt, present and former bureaucrats who have been given a free hand by the chief minister in the design and execution of implementation plans.
(The writer works for an UN agency. The views expressed above are personal. E-mail: sachisatpathy@yahoo.com)
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Pretty Prose And Guns From Cloud Cuckoo Land
OUTLOOK, Oc.t 1, 2010
Arundhati’s diatribes against the Indian State ignore the freedom it offers
Balbir K. PunjIt’s difficult not to admire the perseverance and passion of Arundhati Roy, writer and born rebel. More so when she packages her attacks on the basics of the country—she projects the Indian State as an enemy of the people—in beautiful English prose. In her 18-page essay, The Trickledown Revolution (Sept 20), she wails: “Sometimes it seems very much as though those who have a radical vision for a newer, better world do not have the steel it takes to resist the military onslaught, and those who have the steel do not have the vision.” So, after denouncing corporations as the devil incarnate, the Indian State as a lackey of these capitalists, and describing the government’s operation to curb the violence in the Maoist-affected areas as “a war on the people”, and giving everyone else, including the Maoists, a dressing down, Arundhati plays god for all anti-nationals—from Kashmir to Manipur to Dantewada—who have waged war against civil society.
But she wears a distorted lens. Look at the descriptions she provides us. The policemen, she wants to convince us, are themselves at war with the government—for they got their jobs by paying heavy bribes—and the officers are making merry while sending the boys to die. You think even commandants have lost their lives leading the ranks against the Maoists or other extremist groups? Perish the thought. All she can discern in this spectrum is that police personnel are “poor khaki trash, cannon fodder in the Rich Man’s war”. And what does she think of the killings by the Maoists? Bad, but this is the Janus-faced morality of “revolutionary violence...that we can expect more of in a war zone in which tactics trump rectitude and make the world a worse place”. Bravo, Che Guevara of the 21st century! She has all the statistics on how well the security forces are armed. As for the Maoists, their resistance of this “war” is conducted using a few arms snatched from the police. Obviously, she has not heard or read about their links to arms-smuggling rings and terrorist groups in Pakistan and Nepal, and about their extortionist demands from local businessmen, industrialists and contractors.
Obviously, too, there is no meeting point between Arundhati’s vision and the way we, ordinary people not so blessed with the gift of words, see the Maoist and other revolts, whether in Manipur, Nagaland, Kashmir or Assam. Having debunked our system, she has no problem sympathising with the Maoists. “The Maoists do not believe that the present system can deliver justice. The thing is that an increasing number of people are beginning to agree with them.” According to her, the democracy we have is not “genuine” because “ordinary people” cannot even hope for justice. And how is the Indian State an enemy of the people and “waging war on the poor”? Industrialisation, for her, is the new capitalism-imperialism in action. Just as the old colonialists grabbed the resources of Asia and Africa to fatten themselves, the new capitalists are grabbing the resources that belong to the poor—their water, trees, forests, mineral-rich land—to make profits. Therefore, she prescribes an Arcadia—no mining, no interference with the flow of rivers, no dams, no displacement of people to make way for infrastructure, no tampering with nature. How distorted this vision is can be seen in many of her examples.
Why should you mine bauxite? Mining bauxite is dangerous—because aluminium is made using enormous quantities of power and that means further damage to the environment. And, says Arundhati, what is aluminium used for? To make weapons, so that the poor can be kept suppressed using the very things they own—the bauxite buried in Niyamgiri. No mention of the fact that aluminium is a major component in airplanes, cars, engines, domestic utensils for the poor, a hundred other things.
Not only is her rural Arcadia a myth, it is dangerous too. It may be that tribals could once have made a living out of the forests. But for centuries, they have lived on the margins, even before this recent spell of industrialisation. When the rest of India was enjoying great prosperity in the middle ages, the tribals remained poor. And Arundhati says the wisdom of sustainable lifestyles will come from the tribals!
Nor is the modern state all that cruel, “waging war against its own poor”. No one claims that it is a perfect state, or that democracy means justice overnight. Democracy by itself does not guarantee justice and growth. It only provides the framework within which different groups can peacefully struggle for their advancement and for justice.
Arundhati is also wrong when she characterises the Indian media as a handmaiden of corporations. If that were so, Outlook, which is owned by a business house, would not have published her denunciation of the Indian State as a tool for exploitation by business. Big business houses and many successful businessmen—Ramalinga Raju of Satyam, for instance—have been exposed in the media. Furthermore, the media itself works to resist business pressure and political corruption. It is the media that has fought against corruption, even within itself—like with the recent paid news virus. When the struggle against Tata Motors began at Singur, it was this very media that Arundhati decries that gave it full exposure.
Farmers are genuinely agitated at being denied a fair share of the benefits from entrepreneurs who use their land. But the problem does not need a war in order to be solved. Governments in India have to seek the people’s mandate every five years. Governments in the states and at the Centre have been removed by the collective exercise of the vote. Leading businessmen have lost elections very often. If governments are under the thumb of Big Business, many regulations on business that exist today would not have been there.
However, there’s no formula to make democracy completely tamper-proof. Medha Patkar and Arundhati fought against the damming of the Narmada. But the people of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh did not agree with what they said against the dams. These agitations, however, highlighted one genuine problem—rehabilitation of the displaced. Governments are now obliged to demonstrate rehabilitation package in advance, before projects are sanctioned. That’s how democracy works.
India’s poverty—or that of other countries—is not the result of the emergence of corporations. It has been there for centuries. Europe was, till the 19th century, desperately poor. Industrialisation and empire-building brought wealth and democratic pressures forced the rich to share that wealth and today, in most of Europe, there is a welfare state. Look at the high standard of living in the Scandinavian countries, which never had colonies to begin with. It was technology and democracy that brought about this change—not guns.
Activists like Arundhati who hold up daily the statistical reality of 70 per cent of the people living below the poverty line ignore the reality that this poverty is not the result of any deprivation now. India’s population has almost quadrupled since independence; yet, the average lifespan has improved, the levels of maternal and infant deaths have gone down, though they are still high enough to cause concern, the level of literacy has improved, especially female literacy.
Poverty is central to public discourse in India. There is a plethora of schemes aimed at poverty alleviation. Of course, given the imperfections of the system, and corruption, they do not always give the desired results. Some state governments may have a poor record in PDS, for instance. But the bjp government in Chhattisgarh has shown how pds can be run efficiently. Similarly, in Gujarat, thousands of small check-dams have come up under Narendra Modi’s government, always a target for attack by activists like Arundhati.
While Arundhati and others decry the building of infrastructure like expressways, railways, ports, airports, power grids and so on, they ignore how employment—skilled and semi-skilled—is being created in these areas. Even five-star hotels and tourism generate jobs.
Activists who decry industrialisation have no answer when you ask them how the burgeoning population will find jobs if enterprises do not come forward to take risks and invest widely. The tribes in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kalahandi, whom Arundhati extols for their “wisdom” in sustainable livelihood, are the ones who suffer most where there are no alternative jobs. Mines and industries have brought modern education, healthcare and technology, even though not in adequate quantities.
The 600 million users of mobile phones in India, many among the lowest income groups, like repairmen, vegetable vendors, fishermen—in fact, some 200 million people in rural areas alone—uphold the benefits of technology that have come only through industrialisation. The 40 lakh self-help groups in the country, each comprising 15 to 20 poor village women, are a declaration to activists like Arundhati that their apology for armed struggle against the state is regressive and can only harm the poor they claim to support.
We need to struggle, for a better life for all. But it can only be achieved through more technology, more enterprise and more democratic devolution of real power. Most of all, through the aspiration for a better life, not a throwback to the old one. The choice is between a functioning democracy (with all its warts) and Maoist anarchy. “If the Maoists ever come to power, the first person we (read Maoists) would hang would probably be you,” Arundhati writes. For once, she is right; the anarchists she extols have no use for dissent. But can one dream of Arcadia without free thought?
(The writer, a BJP MP, can be contacted at punjbalbir@gmail.com)
But she wears a distorted lens. Look at the descriptions she provides us. The policemen, she wants to convince us, are themselves at war with the government—for they got their jobs by paying heavy bribes—and the officers are making merry while sending the boys to die. You think even commandants have lost their lives leading the ranks against the Maoists or other extremist groups? Perish the thought. All she can discern in this spectrum is that police personnel are “poor khaki trash, cannon fodder in the Rich Man’s war”. And what does she think of the killings by the Maoists? Bad, but this is the Janus-faced morality of “revolutionary violence...that we can expect more of in a war zone in which tactics trump rectitude and make the world a worse place”. Bravo, Che Guevara of the 21st century! She has all the statistics on how well the security forces are armed. As for the Maoists, their resistance of this “war” is conducted using a few arms snatched from the police. Obviously, she has not heard or read about their links to arms-smuggling rings and terrorist groups in Pakistan and Nepal, and about their extortionist demands from local businessmen, industrialists and contractors.
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Why should you mine bauxite? Mining bauxite is dangerous—because aluminium is made using enormous quantities of power and that means further damage to the environment. And, says Arundhati, what is aluminium used for? To make weapons, so that the poor can be kept suppressed using the very things they own—the bauxite buried in Niyamgiri. No mention of the fact that aluminium is a major component in airplanes, cars, engines, domestic utensils for the poor, a hundred other things.
Not only is her rural Arcadia a myth, it is dangerous too. It may be that tribals could once have made a living out of the forests. But for centuries, they have lived on the margins, even before this recent spell of industrialisation. When the rest of India was enjoying great prosperity in the middle ages, the tribals remained poor. And Arundhati says the wisdom of sustainable lifestyles will come from the tribals!
Nor is the modern state all that cruel, “waging war against its own poor”. No one claims that it is a perfect state, or that democracy means justice overnight. Democracy by itself does not guarantee justice and growth. It only provides the framework within which different groups can peacefully struggle for their advancement and for justice.
Arundhati is also wrong when she characterises the Indian media as a handmaiden of corporations. If that were so, Outlook, which is owned by a business house, would not have published her denunciation of the Indian State as a tool for exploitation by business. Big business houses and many successful businessmen—Ramalinga Raju of Satyam, for instance—have been exposed in the media. Furthermore, the media itself works to resist business pressure and political corruption. It is the media that has fought against corruption, even within itself—like with the recent paid news virus. When the struggle against Tata Motors began at Singur, it was this very media that Arundhati decries that gave it full exposure.
Farmers are genuinely agitated at being denied a fair share of the benefits from entrepreneurs who use their land. But the problem does not need a war in order to be solved. Governments in India have to seek the people’s mandate every five years. Governments in the states and at the Centre have been removed by the collective exercise of the vote. Leading businessmen have lost elections very often. If governments are under the thumb of Big Business, many regulations on business that exist today would not have been there.
However, there’s no formula to make democracy completely tamper-proof. Medha Patkar and Arundhati fought against the damming of the Narmada. But the people of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh did not agree with what they said against the dams. These agitations, however, highlighted one genuine problem—rehabilitation of the displaced. Governments are now obliged to demonstrate rehabilitation package in advance, before projects are sanctioned. That’s how democracy works.
India’s poverty—or that of other countries—is not the result of the emergence of corporations. It has been there for centuries. Europe was, till the 19th century, desperately poor. Industrialisation and empire-building brought wealth and democratic pressures forced the rich to share that wealth and today, in most of Europe, there is a welfare state. Look at the high standard of living in the Scandinavian countries, which never had colonies to begin with. It was technology and democracy that brought about this change—not guns.
Activists like Arundhati who hold up daily the statistical reality of 70 per cent of the people living below the poverty line ignore the reality that this poverty is not the result of any deprivation now. India’s population has almost quadrupled since independence; yet, the average lifespan has improved, the levels of maternal and infant deaths have gone down, though they are still high enough to cause concern, the level of literacy has improved, especially female literacy.
Poverty is central to public discourse in India. There is a plethora of schemes aimed at poverty alleviation. Of course, given the imperfections of the system, and corruption, they do not always give the desired results. Some state governments may have a poor record in PDS, for instance. But the bjp government in Chhattisgarh has shown how pds can be run efficiently. Similarly, in Gujarat, thousands of small check-dams have come up under Narendra Modi’s government, always a target for attack by activists like Arundhati.
While Arundhati and others decry the building of infrastructure like expressways, railways, ports, airports, power grids and so on, they ignore how employment—skilled and semi-skilled—is being created in these areas. Even five-star hotels and tourism generate jobs.
Activists who decry industrialisation have no answer when you ask them how the burgeoning population will find jobs if enterprises do not come forward to take risks and invest widely. The tribes in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kalahandi, whom Arundhati extols for their “wisdom” in sustainable livelihood, are the ones who suffer most where there are no alternative jobs. Mines and industries have brought modern education, healthcare and technology, even though not in adequate quantities.
The 600 million users of mobile phones in India, many among the lowest income groups, like repairmen, vegetable vendors, fishermen—in fact, some 200 million people in rural areas alone—uphold the benefits of technology that have come only through industrialisation. The 40 lakh self-help groups in the country, each comprising 15 to 20 poor village women, are a declaration to activists like Arundhati that their apology for armed struggle against the state is regressive and can only harm the poor they claim to support.
We need to struggle, for a better life for all. But it can only be achieved through more technology, more enterprise and more democratic devolution of real power. Most of all, through the aspiration for a better life, not a throwback to the old one. The choice is between a functioning democracy (with all its warts) and Maoist anarchy. “If the Maoists ever come to power, the first person we (read Maoists) would hang would probably be you,” Arundhati writes. For once, she is right; the anarchists she extols have no use for dissent. But can one dream of Arcadia without free thought?
(The writer, a BJP MP, can be contacted at punjbalbir@gmail.com)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Fairtrade in India: India is warming up to fair trade. But the concept remains a niche market as companies are hesitant about taking it to the masses
Forbes, Business.in.com, July 21, 2010
ndian farmers have been selling their fair trade produce to developed markets for years by getting certified by the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO). Now the FLO wants to invert that model. It will introduce a fair trade label for the Indian market next year. The Spice Board of India is looking to follow suit with a fair trade label for the domestic spice market.
First, let’s understand what fair trade is. Fair trade is an organised movement that helps producers in developing countries get a premium for their products if they follow better social, labour and environmental standards.
More than $4 billion worth of fair trade products were sold internationally in 2008, up 22 percent since the previous year. While sales of products like fair trade tea, coffee, flowers, wine and beer have grown in double digits for the last several years, cultivation has outpaced demand, according to reports.
If the fair trade movement is implemented in India, it could open up a huge new market for fair trade farmers, giving them stability against foreign exchange fluctuation.
For the movement to be successful, however, it requires the customers to be sensitive about this. “The size of the market is very small because Indians are not really concerned about this,” says Arvind Singhal, chief executive of retail consulting company KSA Technopak. “Companies are trying to create fair trade brands for their own reasons but if the customer is not sensitive then this will have only a limited impact.”
The Indian market and other domestic markets in producing countries are increasingly important for the fair trade movement because they could each be larger than the European market, which is the largest market for fair trade products. For instance, take Chetna Organic Farmers Association, which works with 9,000 cotton farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Telangana in Andhra Pradesh, and Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi region of Orissa. It sells most of its cotton in Europe at a premium of Rs. 320 a quintal. But even now it is able to sell only half the produce; the rest gets sold in India without any premium.
It is no wonder then that Seth Petchers, chief executive of Shop for Change, a marketing and labelling organisation for domestic fair trade products, is trying to launch this movement in India. Shop for Change launched a range of fair trade clothes along with designer Anita Dongre’s prêt label AND. The collection featured an ad campaign that starred fair trade cotton farmers along with former Miss India, Gul Panag.
This collection was made with fair trade cotton from Chetna’s farmers in Orissa, who were paid Rs. 35 per kilo of cotton rather than the market price of Rs. 30 per kilo. The FLO also fixes a fair trade price, which includes a minimum price for the product and a fair trade premium. Says Reykia Fick, external relations co-ordinator, FLO, “On top of stable prices (usually the fair trade minimum price), producer organisations are paid a fair trade premium — additional funds to invest in social or economic development projects.”
Farmer members of Chetna, in Andhra Pradesh’s Karimnagar district, have used this premium along with an international grant to build a storage warehouse for their cotton. During the off-season, they rent out the warehouse as a marriage hall and distribute earnings for the co-operative. Another farmer group in Maharashtra’s Akola district has used the premium to build a school. In Kerala’s Kannur district, the premium is used to create a fund for distressed farmers. It has also allowed the community to set up solar sensing technology as a benign blockade warding wild elephants off the cashew nut trees. Their cashew produce is labelled Jumbo Cashews in the European market.
All of this may or may not result in a price premium for a consumer depending on whether a retailer chooses to crunch its margins. Increasingly, retailers have started selling fair trade products without a price premium for consumers. Dongre’s fair trade collection sold at the same price as her other clothes. Cadbury’s launched a fair trade version of its Dairy Milk chocolate internationally at the same price as the rest of its Dairy Milk chocolates.
In case of fair trade products “it is the imagery which is different rather than a product differentiation,” says Shital Mehta, COO of premium menswear brand, Van Heusen. Right now fair trade numbers are small. Companies want to portray themselves as fair employers but are just experimenting with a small percentage of their products. Will they ever get all their products under the fair trade umbrella?
That change will come when it becomes a civil society movement as it has in the West, says Tomy Mathews, founder of Fair Trade Alliance of Kerala. Mathews’ alliance has been supplying through the FLO for years and he says, “Attempts to create independent labels diverting from the uniform global message on global trade justice is doing disservice to the philosophy of fair trade. I don’t look fairly on [the] Spice Board initiative or the Shop for Change initiative. The moment you confuse market with different logos you’re already losing the game before it begins.”
Retailers that have included more equitable conditions for artisans and weavers, such as Fabindia and Anokhi, have done well here already and this movement can get extended to farmers as well, says Roopa Mehta, president of the Fair Trade Forum of India.
But there may still be some distance between promise and scale in the market. Devangshu Dutta, CEO of retail consulting company, Third EyeSight, says he sees a market developing for fair trade products, albeit slowly. “Things will change. But that change will have to come from the customer side. Currently, it is a very limited market but it could be a business proposition for a few companies.”
ndian farmers have been selling their fair trade produce to developed markets for years by getting certified by the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO). Now the FLO wants to invert that model. It will introduce a fair trade label for the Indian market next year. The Spice Board of India is looking to follow suit with a fair trade label for the domestic spice market.
First, let’s understand what fair trade is. Fair trade is an organised movement that helps producers in developing countries get a premium for their products if they follow better social, labour and environmental standards.
More than $4 billion worth of fair trade products were sold internationally in 2008, up 22 percent since the previous year. While sales of products like fair trade tea, coffee, flowers, wine and beer have grown in double digits for the last several years, cultivation has outpaced demand, according to reports.
If the fair trade movement is implemented in India, it could open up a huge new market for fair trade farmers, giving them stability against foreign exchange fluctuation.
For the movement to be successful, however, it requires the customers to be sensitive about this. “The size of the market is very small because Indians are not really concerned about this,” says Arvind Singhal, chief executive of retail consulting company KSA Technopak. “Companies are trying to create fair trade brands for their own reasons but if the customer is not sensitive then this will have only a limited impact.”
The Indian market and other domestic markets in producing countries are increasingly important for the fair trade movement because they could each be larger than the European market, which is the largest market for fair trade products. For instance, take Chetna Organic Farmers Association, which works with 9,000 cotton farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Telangana in Andhra Pradesh, and Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi region of Orissa. It sells most of its cotton in Europe at a premium of Rs. 320 a quintal. But even now it is able to sell only half the produce; the rest gets sold in India without any premium.
It is no wonder then that Seth Petchers, chief executive of Shop for Change, a marketing and labelling organisation for domestic fair trade products, is trying to launch this movement in India. Shop for Change launched a range of fair trade clothes along with designer Anita Dongre’s prêt label AND. The collection featured an ad campaign that starred fair trade cotton farmers along with former Miss India, Gul Panag.
This collection was made with fair trade cotton from Chetna’s farmers in Orissa, who were paid Rs. 35 per kilo of cotton rather than the market price of Rs. 30 per kilo. The FLO also fixes a fair trade price, which includes a minimum price for the product and a fair trade premium. Says Reykia Fick, external relations co-ordinator, FLO, “On top of stable prices (usually the fair trade minimum price), producer organisations are paid a fair trade premium — additional funds to invest in social or economic development projects.”
Farmer members of Chetna, in Andhra Pradesh’s Karimnagar district, have used this premium along with an international grant to build a storage warehouse for their cotton. During the off-season, they rent out the warehouse as a marriage hall and distribute earnings for the co-operative. Another farmer group in Maharashtra’s Akola district has used the premium to build a school. In Kerala’s Kannur district, the premium is used to create a fund for distressed farmers. It has also allowed the community to set up solar sensing technology as a benign blockade warding wild elephants off the cashew nut trees. Their cashew produce is labelled Jumbo Cashews in the European market.
All of this may or may not result in a price premium for a consumer depending on whether a retailer chooses to crunch its margins. Increasingly, retailers have started selling fair trade products without a price premium for consumers. Dongre’s fair trade collection sold at the same price as her other clothes. Cadbury’s launched a fair trade version of its Dairy Milk chocolate internationally at the same price as the rest of its Dairy Milk chocolates.
In case of fair trade products “it is the imagery which is different rather than a product differentiation,” says Shital Mehta, COO of premium menswear brand, Van Heusen. Right now fair trade numbers are small. Companies want to portray themselves as fair employers but are just experimenting with a small percentage of their products. Will they ever get all their products under the fair trade umbrella?
That change will come when it becomes a civil society movement as it has in the West, says Tomy Mathews, founder of Fair Trade Alliance of Kerala. Mathews’ alliance has been supplying through the FLO for years and he says, “Attempts to create independent labels diverting from the uniform global message on global trade justice is doing disservice to the philosophy of fair trade. I don’t look fairly on [the] Spice Board initiative or the Shop for Change initiative. The moment you confuse market with different logos you’re already losing the game before it begins.”
Retailers that have included more equitable conditions for artisans and weavers, such as Fabindia and Anokhi, have done well here already and this movement can get extended to farmers as well, says Roopa Mehta, president of the Fair Trade Forum of India.
But there may still be some distance between promise and scale in the market. Devangshu Dutta, CEO of retail consulting company, Third EyeSight, says he sees a market developing for fair trade products, albeit slowly. “Things will change. But that change will have to come from the customer side. Currently, it is a very limited market but it could be a business proposition for a few companies.”
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Forgotten people
FRONTLINE, Luly 13, 2010
PRAFULLA DAS in Bhubaneswar
Inflation has impacted the lives of lakhs of tribal families living in the backward regions of Orissa like never before.
AS the sun rises over the green-clad hills in Pipalsahi hamlet under Tikabali block of Orissa's Kandhamal district, Bipra Mallick and his wife, Ambati Mallick, wake up and worry about their day's income and expenditure. How will they sustain the family of six when the prices of essential commodities are rising by the day? Bipra's family has been eligible for 25 kilogrammes of rice at Rs.2 a kg under the below poverty line (BPL) ration card scheme since 2008. Since this is not sufficient for the whole month, he buys more low-quality rice from the market at Rs.16 or Rs.17 a kg.
There is extreme poverty, food scarcity and lack of job opportunities in the area. That was why Bipra sent away two of his young sons to work in a coir manufacturing unit in far-off Kerala about a month ago. The couple, their two daughters, the youngest son and Bipra's widowed mother subsist on the daily wage he earns.
Bipra is a landless agricultural labourer for most part of the year. He also gets work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But since he does not get work on a daily basis and since labour-intensive work, such as building infrastructure, is not undertaken all through the year, he struggles to make ends meet. The rainy season is the worst part of the year for the Mallicks and the other families living in the hamlet as no construction work is undertaken in those months. The hamlet has one pucca house and a few dwelling units provided to BPL families under the Indira Awas Yojana.
Bipra's family is not the only one affected by inflation and price rise. Inflation has impacted the lives of millions of poor tribal people living in the backward interior regions of Orissa like never before.
Prasanta Bindhani, a 30-year-old tribal youth of Kambadanga village situated along the Phulbani-Tikabali road finds it difficult to meet the day-to-day needs of his three-member family as he does not possess a BPL card and does not own landed property. In addition to this, he has to find money to buy medicines for his daughter whenever she has an attack of malaria, which is endemic in the region.
Three years ago, Prasanta had applied for a BPL card to avail himself of rice at Rs.2 a kg. But the card has not been issued to him till date. The local sarpanch told him that the authorities had stopped issuing new BPL cards for the past several months.
Rajendra Kumar Gurgi, a sharecropper in Bedasunga village located a few kilometres from the Tikabali block headquarters town, was working in the fields near his home when this correspondent met him. He also does not possess a BPL card, which would have helped him cope with price rise. “I have serious problems in meeting the daily needs of the family. Moreover, lack of irrigation facilities in the region is affecting my agricultural operations,” he said.
Sixty-year-old Patras Mallick accuses the Naveen Patnaik government of thriving on “false promises”. He and his family have been living in a tent in Shanti Nagar, a rehabilitation colony for the victims of the anti-Christian riots of 2008, at Nandagiri village near G. Udaygiri town. Fifty-eight families had fled their villages during the communal violence that broke out in the aftermath of the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmanananda Saraswati. Eleven families, including that of Patras Mallick, are yet to be given land and financial help to build a dwelling unit in Shanti Nagar.
The residents of Shanti Nagar complained that the price rise had affected them badly. “The situation is so bad that whenever work is not available in the neighbourhood we are unable to travel out to get work as daily wagers because we don't have money to buy bus tickets,” a resident said.
Price rise has dealt a severe blow to the 58 families living in the colony particularly because the government has not provided them any land for cultivation. Also, they are not covered under the NREGS or any other employment generation scheme.
In fact, Kandhamal presents a classic example of poverty amidst plenty. It is said to be the richest district in the State as far as forest resources are concerned. But poverty in the tribal-dominated forested region seems to be a deep-rooted malady.
With very little cultivable land and with the virtual absence of irrigation facilities, the tribal people of Kandhamal face severe shortages of food and income. The business community of Kandhamal mainly consists of people from other districts of the State such as Ganjam, Nayagarh and Puri. These traders pay only a small amount to the tribal and non-tribal farmers for their produce, depriving them of an adequate good income.
In 2008, when the district hit the headlines in the wake of widespread anti-Christian riots, it was also identified as an “extremely food insecure” district of Orissa. The “Food Security Atlas of Rural Orissa”, which was prepared by World Food Programme (WFP) in association with the New Delhi-based Institute of Human Development (IHD), said that the rate of food insecurity was higher in Kandhamal than in the districts coming under the backward KBK (Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput) region of the State. Kandhamal has not been included in the KBK region, which receives Central funds under various developmental projects.
The state of uncertainty that has gripped the tribal populations in Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri, Sundargarh and Keonjhar districts as a result of the lack of development in every sphere has not spared Kandhamal.
The situation in the region has remained unchanged basically because of a lack of employment opportunities and the dismal functioning of the public distribution system. The administration has failed to issue BPL cards to a large number of poverty-stricken families, adding to the misery of hundreds of tribal families.
The visit to the interior villages and the interaction with the residents made one thing clear: Those in authority who shed crocodile tears for the tribal people and the other economically backward communities are unaware of the ground realities in the tribal areas.
Faced with utter neglect, the tribal people are becoming more and more inclined towards the Maoist ideology. The civil administration seems to be virtually absent in the interior areas of the tribal-dominated regions. The Police Department is, however, more active as the forces are fighting the Maoists.
It is high time bureaucrats running the different departments of the State government started visiting the districts that are far away from Bhubaneswar to oversee the implementation of the anti-poverty schemes of the State and Central governments.
PRAFULLA DAS in Bhubaneswar
Inflation has impacted the lives of lakhs of tribal families living in the backward regions of Orissa like never before.
AS the sun rises over the green-clad hills in Pipalsahi hamlet under Tikabali block of Orissa's Kandhamal district, Bipra Mallick and his wife, Ambati Mallick, wake up and worry about their day's income and expenditure. How will they sustain the family of six when the prices of essential commodities are rising by the day? Bipra's family has been eligible for 25 kilogrammes of rice at Rs.2 a kg under the below poverty line (BPL) ration card scheme since 2008. Since this is not sufficient for the whole month, he buys more low-quality rice from the market at Rs.16 or Rs.17 a kg.
There is extreme poverty, food scarcity and lack of job opportunities in the area. That was why Bipra sent away two of his young sons to work in a coir manufacturing unit in far-off Kerala about a month ago. The couple, their two daughters, the youngest son and Bipra's widowed mother subsist on the daily wage he earns.
Bipra is a landless agricultural labourer for most part of the year. He also gets work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But since he does not get work on a daily basis and since labour-intensive work, such as building infrastructure, is not undertaken all through the year, he struggles to make ends meet. The rainy season is the worst part of the year for the Mallicks and the other families living in the hamlet as no construction work is undertaken in those months. The hamlet has one pucca house and a few dwelling units provided to BPL families under the Indira Awas Yojana.
Bipra's family is not the only one affected by inflation and price rise. Inflation has impacted the lives of millions of poor tribal people living in the backward interior regions of Orissa like never before.
Prasanta Bindhani, a 30-year-old tribal youth of Kambadanga village situated along the Phulbani-Tikabali road finds it difficult to meet the day-to-day needs of his three-member family as he does not possess a BPL card and does not own landed property. In addition to this, he has to find money to buy medicines for his daughter whenever she has an attack of malaria, which is endemic in the region.
Three years ago, Prasanta had applied for a BPL card to avail himself of rice at Rs.2 a kg. But the card has not been issued to him till date. The local sarpanch told him that the authorities had stopped issuing new BPL cards for the past several months.
Rajendra Kumar Gurgi, a sharecropper in Bedasunga village located a few kilometres from the Tikabali block headquarters town, was working in the fields near his home when this correspondent met him. He also does not possess a BPL card, which would have helped him cope with price rise. “I have serious problems in meeting the daily needs of the family. Moreover, lack of irrigation facilities in the region is affecting my agricultural operations,” he said.
Sixty-year-old Patras Mallick accuses the Naveen Patnaik government of thriving on “false promises”. He and his family have been living in a tent in Shanti Nagar, a rehabilitation colony for the victims of the anti-Christian riots of 2008, at Nandagiri village near G. Udaygiri town. Fifty-eight families had fled their villages during the communal violence that broke out in the aftermath of the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmanananda Saraswati. Eleven families, including that of Patras Mallick, are yet to be given land and financial help to build a dwelling unit in Shanti Nagar.
The residents of Shanti Nagar complained that the price rise had affected them badly. “The situation is so bad that whenever work is not available in the neighbourhood we are unable to travel out to get work as daily wagers because we don't have money to buy bus tickets,” a resident said.
Price rise has dealt a severe blow to the 58 families living in the colony particularly because the government has not provided them any land for cultivation. Also, they are not covered under the NREGS or any other employment generation scheme.
In fact, Kandhamal presents a classic example of poverty amidst plenty. It is said to be the richest district in the State as far as forest resources are concerned. But poverty in the tribal-dominated forested region seems to be a deep-rooted malady.
With very little cultivable land and with the virtual absence of irrigation facilities, the tribal people of Kandhamal face severe shortages of food and income. The business community of Kandhamal mainly consists of people from other districts of the State such as Ganjam, Nayagarh and Puri. These traders pay only a small amount to the tribal and non-tribal farmers for their produce, depriving them of an adequate good income.
In 2008, when the district hit the headlines in the wake of widespread anti-Christian riots, it was also identified as an “extremely food insecure” district of Orissa. The “Food Security Atlas of Rural Orissa”, which was prepared by World Food Programme (WFP) in association with the New Delhi-based Institute of Human Development (IHD), said that the rate of food insecurity was higher in Kandhamal than in the districts coming under the backward KBK (Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput) region of the State. Kandhamal has not been included in the KBK region, which receives Central funds under various developmental projects.
The state of uncertainty that has gripped the tribal populations in Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri, Sundargarh and Keonjhar districts as a result of the lack of development in every sphere has not spared Kandhamal.
The situation in the region has remained unchanged basically because of a lack of employment opportunities and the dismal functioning of the public distribution system. The administration has failed to issue BPL cards to a large number of poverty-stricken families, adding to the misery of hundreds of tribal families.
The visit to the interior villages and the interaction with the residents made one thing clear: Those in authority who shed crocodile tears for the tribal people and the other economically backward communities are unaware of the ground realities in the tribal areas.
Faced with utter neglect, the tribal people are becoming more and more inclined towards the Maoist ideology. The civil administration seems to be virtually absent in the interior areas of the tribal-dominated regions. The Police Department is, however, more active as the forces are fighting the Maoists.
It is high time bureaucrats running the different departments of the State government started visiting the districts that are far away from Bhubaneswar to oversee the implementation of the anti-poverty schemes of the State and Central governments.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Why Orissa as a state can't develop?
merinews, July 3, 2010
CJ: A.S.Dash
Since the formation of the state in 1936, the state government has given utmost priority exclusively to the coastal Orissa region ignoring more than half of the population of the state inhibited in app. 73% of land area.
It has been many years since the Government. of India has been pumping thousands of Crores as special budget for the welfare of these districts of Western and Southern Orissa through scheme like KBK. Then how is it that after so many years of huge money inflow into these districts there is no change in statistics? Who is accountable for this mishap? Is the Chief functionary of the state not responsible for this?”
Orissa, one of the poorest of states in the Indian union, is inhabited by more than 24% of tribal population concentrated mostly in North-Western, Western and Southern part of the state. Due to the negligence of all successive state governments, the development of these three patches are far behind the Coastal Orissa tract by any parameter even though these regions are full of minerals and natural resources.
In two occasions, during 1936 and 1948, these tribal dominated Western and Southern regions amalgamated into then Orissa division (precisely the present Coastal Orissa) from erstwhile Central and Madras presidency of British ruled India respectively to form Orissa state in the line of linguistic similarities. But, reality is, till now the native people residing in these regions don’t know how to speak the state official language Odiya, which is practiced in Coastal Orissa districts in particular. Vast region of Western Orissa communicate in variants of Sambalpuri language (also termed as Kosli by some) and with numerous tribal languages practiced by the indigenous tribal population. This leads to poor enrolment in school which encourages Odiya as the medium of education and thus a high school dropout rate is seen in these regions. Students are forced to learn Odiya language in school which is different than what they practice in day to day life.
The differentiation between the then Orissa Division (Coastal Orissa) and the newly added Western and Southern regions is well maintained by all successive state Governments, while allocating funds and in developmental works.
Inhabited by app.50% of the state population (17,899,735 as per 2001 Census) and spread in 28.73% of total land of the state (44,355.4 Sq Km), this Coastal Orissa tract is given utmost priority by all the successive state governments and have been enjoying all sorts of developmental works in the name of Orissa. Where as a vast land with more than 71.27% of the total land area of Orissa state (109,992 Sq Km), and with a population of little above half of the state population is depriving basic needs.
It is pity that present state government too, has done nothing to minimize the gap between the coastal and the rest of Orissa in its decade long rule; but increasing it by concentrating every developmental activity in and around the state capital Bhubaneswar. During this government’s tenure, all the national institutes for higher studies and research sanctioned by the central government are established or proposed to establish in and around Bhubaneswar. Due to this capital centric attitude, common masses refer the Chief Minister Nabin Pattnaik as the Mayor of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation than the CM of the state.
In recent development except for the Central University, all the educational and research institutes of national repute, such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), etc awarded by Central Government for the entire state are located in and around Bhubaneswar. This has brought a distinction for Bhubaneswar as the only city in India to have an IIT, AIIMS and NISER at one location.
Rest Orissa Coastal Orissa
1. NIT, Rourkela, Dist. Sundargarh 1. IIT, Bhubaneswar
2. Central University, Koraput 2. IIT – Kharagpur, Bhubaneswar Branch
3. Indian Institute of Handloom Technology, (IIHT), Bargarh 3. National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubanneswar
4. Food Craft Institute, Balangir 4. AIIMS like Institute, Bhubaneswar
5. IIIT, Bhubaneswar
6. National University, Bhubaneswar (proposed)
7. IIIT, Berhampur (Work on progess)
8. Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management (IITTM), Bubaneswar
9. Institute of Minerals and Material Technology, Bhubaneswar
10. Indian Institute of Mass Communications,(IIMC), Dhenkanal
11. Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack
12. Biju Pattanaik National Steel Institute (BPNSI), Puri
13. Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology (CIPET), Bhubaneswar
14. Eastern Regional Language Centre for CILL, Bhubaneswar
15. Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar
16. Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar
17. Regional Medical Research Centre, (RMRC), Bhubaneswar
18. Central Fisheries Institute, Kousalyaganga, Bhubaneswar
19. Regional Research Laboratory,Bhubaneswar
20. National Research Centre for Women in Agriculture (NRCWA), Bhubaneswar
21. Ocean Science and Technology Cell (OSTC), Berhampur
22. National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (NIRTAR), Cuttack
23. National Institute of Design (NID), Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
24. NIFT, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
If you consider the allotment of health facilities in the state the picture of disparities done towards the rest of the tribal regions of the state gets crystal clear. There is just one state run Medical College, viz, VSS Medical College & Hospital, Burla in Sambalpur for the entire Western Orissa, there are state run SCB Medical college in twin cities of Bhubaneswar - Cuttack , MKCG Medical College in Berhampur, a city just 179 Km from Bhubaneswar by Road and 165 Km by train.
Mahandi Coal Field Ltd. (MCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd, a Central Government entity which has operation in Western as well as Central Orissa, is too establishing a Medical College Hospital in Talcher Town, 150 Km from state Capital Bhubaneswar, with state government’s active persuasion. The defense dept has proposed to set up a medical college in Baleswar, another town in Coastal Orissa with a distance of 198 Km by Road from Bhubaneswar.
State government has recently proposed to upgrade Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar to a Medical College with a hoping budget of 32.5 Crores. It is also been proposed to set up Government. Medical College & Hospital in Baleswar where as the state government is trying to establish 3 Private Medical Colleges in backward tribal dominated Western Orissa in PPP mode since last 15 years through Western Orissa Development Council (WODC) with a financial grant of 5 Crores each. There is no progress seen in establishing these Medical colleges in these backward regions of Orissa.
So, a question instantly arises in mind, “Why private Medical College & Hospital for poor tribal region of Western Orissa, who can’t afford a full meal a day and central and state funded Government. Medical Colleges & Hospitals for Coastal Orissa?” Is this not pure discrimination?
Central and State sponsored Medical Institutions in Orissa
Rest Orissa Coastal Orissa
1. VSS Medical College, Burla, Sambalpur 1. SCB Medical college, Cuttack
2. Medical College under Central University, Koraput 2. SCB Dental College, Cuttack
3. MKCG Medical College, Berhampur
4. Capital Medical College, Bhubaneswar
5. AIIMS, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
6.ESI Medical College and Hospital, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
7. Medical College under National Innovative University, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
8. ECO Railway Medical College, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
9. Medical College by MCL, Talcher, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd
10. Medical College, Balasore (Proposed by State Government.)
11. Medical College, Balasore (proposed by Defence dept)
Points to notice that Balangir, Kalahandi, in this back ward Western Orissa, many times have created news in national media for starvation deaths. Low-income people in these backward districts can hardly afford the cost of good health care even for their children who suffer from early death, under nutrition and anemia. As against the State figure of 65 infant deaths per 1000 life births, district like Kalahandi in the Western Orissa had 119 infant deaths.
Prevalence of undernourishment among children is also high in these tribal dominating districts. The health situation is really gloomy if we look at maternal death rates. Women in these households work hard at home, in the fields, bear children and do not get the medical attention while giving birth to children.
Occurrence of malaria remains a threat to the people in the tribal areas. As many as 158 blocks in tribal districts, which contribute 70 per cent of the malarial cases, suffer the worst. Sometimes outbreak of mysterious diseases in these regions takes a heavy toll of life. Poverty and deprivation leave very little money with people to spend on the treatment of diseases and illness.
The state government is earning maximum revenue from these under developed tribal belts through mining and industries. When the industries are exploiting and polluting the region, are opening health care units and educational facilities in Coastal Orissa with state government’s active persuasion. The recent Vedanta group promoted World Class University in Puri- Konark Road with a budget of 15,000 Cr and in an area of 6,000 Acre sets the perfect example. Vedanta Industries Ltd has established two Aluminum plants in Western Orissa, the refinery unit and captive power plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi District and smelter plant with captive power plant at Jharsuguda, where as it is opening its 100 bed capacity burn and trauma care unit in Bhubaneswar, which i
Hundreds of crores rupees received from central government in the name of KBK has become a source of exploitation for the state government. The head quarter of the KBK scheme is at the state capital Bhubaneswar, far away from the problems people are facing in their every day life. This century of exploitation by all successive state government since the formation of the state in 1936, towards these tribal pockets has forced them to shout for a separate state of Kosal comprising 11 districts and a sub-division of Western Orissa. Also, the Maoist guerillas are spreading in rest tribal districts in rapid speed taking advantage of this. These entire exploitation stories remind the colonial era and raise some fundamental questions about democratic rights in India.
CJ: A.S.Dash
Since the formation of the state in 1936, the state government has given utmost priority exclusively to the coastal Orissa region ignoring more than half of the population of the state inhibited in app. 73% of land area.
The Government of India’s National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) in a report has released the well-being index of India. The same tell about the quality of life in India. This report has mentioned that six districts of Orissa being in the list of worst twenty districts of India. Rayagada district ranks the worst in India followed by Kandhamal, Nuapada, Bolangir, Koraput and Bargarh, all in Western and Southern part of the state, are ranked at 4,9,10 & 19 from the bottom respectively.
It has been many years since the Government. of India has been pumping thousands of Crores as special budget for the welfare of these districts of Western and Southern Orissa through scheme like KBK. Then how is it that after so many years of huge money inflow into these districts there is no change in statistics? Who is accountable for this mishap? Is the Chief functionary of the state not responsible for this?”
Orissa, one of the poorest of states in the Indian union, is inhabited by more than 24% of tribal population concentrated mostly in North-Western, Western and Southern part of the state. Due to the negligence of all successive state governments, the development of these three patches are far behind the Coastal Orissa tract by any parameter even though these regions are full of minerals and natural resources.
In two occasions, during 1936 and 1948, these tribal dominated Western and Southern regions amalgamated into then Orissa division (precisely the present Coastal Orissa) from erstwhile Central and Madras presidency of British ruled India respectively to form Orissa state in the line of linguistic similarities. But, reality is, till now the native people residing in these regions don’t know how to speak the state official language Odiya, which is practiced in Coastal Orissa districts in particular. Vast region of Western Orissa communicate in variants of Sambalpuri language (also termed as Kosli by some) and with numerous tribal languages practiced by the indigenous tribal population. This leads to poor enrolment in school which encourages Odiya as the medium of education and thus a high school dropout rate is seen in these regions. Students are forced to learn Odiya language in school which is different than what they practice in day to day life.
The differentiation between the then Orissa Division (Coastal Orissa) and the newly added Western and Southern regions is well maintained by all successive state Governments, while allocating funds and in developmental works.
Inhabited by app.50% of the state population (17,899,735 as per 2001 Census) and spread in 28.73% of total land of the state (44,355.4 Sq Km), this Coastal Orissa tract is given utmost priority by all the successive state governments and have been enjoying all sorts of developmental works in the name of Orissa. Where as a vast land with more than 71.27% of the total land area of Orissa state (109,992 Sq Km), and with a population of little above half of the state population is depriving basic needs.
It is pity that present state government too, has done nothing to minimize the gap between the coastal and the rest of Orissa in its decade long rule; but increasing it by concentrating every developmental activity in and around the state capital Bhubaneswar. During this government’s tenure, all the national institutes for higher studies and research sanctioned by the central government are established or proposed to establish in and around Bhubaneswar. Due to this capital centric attitude, common masses refer the Chief Minister Nabin Pattnaik as the Mayor of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation than the CM of the state.
In recent development except for the Central University, all the educational and research institutes of national repute, such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), etc awarded by Central Government for the entire state are located in and around Bhubaneswar. This has brought a distinction for Bhubaneswar as the only city in India to have an IIT, AIIMS and NISER at one location.
Central Government has also proposed to establish a National Innovative University (World Class), National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), ESI Medical College and Hospital, Railway Medical College in Bhubaneswar, and another IIIT in Berhampur in Coastl Orissa, neglecting the rest state.
Existing and proposed Central funded National Institutes and Universities in Orissa:
Existing and proposed Central funded National Institutes and Universities in Orissa:
Rest Orissa Coastal Orissa
1. NIT, Rourkela, Dist. Sundargarh 1. IIT, Bhubaneswar
2. Central University, Koraput 2. IIT – Kharagpur, Bhubaneswar Branch
3. Indian Institute of Handloom Technology, (IIHT), Bargarh 3. National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubanneswar
4. Food Craft Institute, Balangir 4. AIIMS like Institute, Bhubaneswar
5. IIIT, Bhubaneswar
6. National University, Bhubaneswar (proposed)
7. IIIT, Berhampur (Work on progess)
8. Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management (IITTM), Bubaneswar
9. Institute of Minerals and Material Technology, Bhubaneswar
10. Indian Institute of Mass Communications,(IIMC), Dhenkanal
11. Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack
12. Biju Pattanaik National Steel Institute (BPNSI), Puri
13. Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology (CIPET), Bhubaneswar
14. Eastern Regional Language Centre for CILL, Bhubaneswar
15. Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar
16. Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar
17. Regional Medical Research Centre, (RMRC), Bhubaneswar
18. Central Fisheries Institute, Kousalyaganga, Bhubaneswar
19. Regional Research Laboratory,Bhubaneswar
20. National Research Centre for Women in Agriculture (NRCWA), Bhubaneswar
21. Ocean Science and Technology Cell (OSTC), Berhampur
22. National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (NIRTAR), Cuttack
23. National Institute of Design (NID), Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
24. NIFT, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
If you consider the allotment of health facilities in the state the picture of disparities done towards the rest of the tribal regions of the state gets crystal clear. There is just one state run Medical College, viz, VSS Medical College & Hospital, Burla in Sambalpur for the entire Western Orissa, there are state run SCB Medical college in twin cities of Bhubaneswar - Cuttack , MKCG Medical College in Berhampur, a city just 179 Km from Bhubaneswar by Road and 165 Km by train.
Mahandi Coal Field Ltd. (MCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd, a Central Government entity which has operation in Western as well as Central Orissa, is too establishing a Medical College Hospital in Talcher Town, 150 Km from state Capital Bhubaneswar, with state government’s active persuasion. The defense dept has proposed to set up a medical college in Baleswar, another town in Coastal Orissa with a distance of 198 Km by Road from Bhubaneswar.
State government has recently proposed to upgrade Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar to a Medical College with a hoping budget of 32.5 Crores. It is also been proposed to set up Government. Medical College & Hospital in Baleswar where as the state government is trying to establish 3 Private Medical Colleges in backward tribal dominated Western Orissa in PPP mode since last 15 years through Western Orissa Development Council (WODC) with a financial grant of 5 Crores each. There is no progress seen in establishing these Medical colleges in these backward regions of Orissa.
So, a question instantly arises in mind, “Why private Medical College & Hospital for poor tribal region of Western Orissa, who can’t afford a full meal a day and central and state funded Government. Medical Colleges & Hospitals for Coastal Orissa?” Is this not pure discrimination?
Central and State sponsored Medical Institutions in Orissa
Rest Orissa Coastal Orissa
1. VSS Medical College, Burla, Sambalpur 1. SCB Medical college, Cuttack
2. Medical College under Central University, Koraput 2. SCB Dental College, Cuttack
3. MKCG Medical College, Berhampur
4. Capital Medical College, Bhubaneswar
5. AIIMS, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
6.ESI Medical College and Hospital, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
7. Medical College under National Innovative University, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
8. ECO Railway Medical College, Bhubaneswar (Proposed)
9. Medical College by MCL, Talcher, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd
10. Medical College, Balasore (Proposed by State Government.)
11. Medical College, Balasore (proposed by Defence dept)
Points to notice that Balangir, Kalahandi, in this back ward Western Orissa, many times have created news in national media for starvation deaths. Low-income people in these backward districts can hardly afford the cost of good health care even for their children who suffer from early death, under nutrition and anemia. As against the State figure of 65 infant deaths per 1000 life births, district like Kalahandi in the Western Orissa had 119 infant deaths.
Prevalence of undernourishment among children is also high in these tribal dominating districts. The health situation is really gloomy if we look at maternal death rates. Women in these households work hard at home, in the fields, bear children and do not get the medical attention while giving birth to children.
Occurrence of malaria remains a threat to the people in the tribal areas. As many as 158 blocks in tribal districts, which contribute 70 per cent of the malarial cases, suffer the worst. Sometimes outbreak of mysterious diseases in these regions takes a heavy toll of life. Poverty and deprivation leave very little money with people to spend on the treatment of diseases and illness.
The state government is earning maximum revenue from these under developed tribal belts through mining and industries. When the industries are exploiting and polluting the region, are opening health care units and educational facilities in Coastal Orissa with state government’s active persuasion. The recent Vedanta group promoted World Class University in Puri- Konark Road with a budget of 15,000 Cr and in an area of 6,000 Acre sets the perfect example. Vedanta Industries Ltd has established two Aluminum plants in Western Orissa, the refinery unit and captive power plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi District and smelter plant with captive power plant at Jharsuguda, where as it is opening its 100 bed capacity burn and trauma care unit in Bhubaneswar, which i
s at a distance of 400 Km from Jharsuguda and more than 450 Km from Lanjigarh.
Hundreds of crores rupees received from central government in the name of KBK has become a source of exploitation for the state government. The head quarter of the KBK scheme is at the state capital Bhubaneswar, far away from the problems people are facing in their every day life. This century of exploitation by all successive state government since the formation of the state in 1936, towards these tribal pockets has forced them to shout for a separate state of Kosal comprising 11 districts and a sub-division of Western Orissa. Also, the Maoist guerillas are spreading in rest tribal districts in rapid speed taking advantage of this. These entire exploitation stories remind the colonial era and raise some fundamental questions about democratic rights in India.
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