Are we putting the money where the mouth is?

It’s not long back we heard about problems faced by girl child and how they were killed even before they born. Even if they born, life is not easy in many parts of our nation. It is believed that, lack of awareness and educational level of society are the main culprits. In many states of India, gender ratio is skewed to such an extent that families started looking for bride from other states.

So, how do we expect our government will act? With extreme urgency right? Well, I can’t completely blame government for inaction. They acted; in fact, they came up with something called ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’ scheme. Keystones of this scheme is - implementation of ‘Pre-Conception & Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC & PNDT) Act’ and gender awareness campaign in 100 districts were Child Sex Ratio is very low.

In addition to that, “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) provides for… opening of schools in the neighbourhood to make access easier for girls… additional teachers including women teachers, free textbooks, free uniforms, separate toilets for girls, teachers’ sensitization programmes to promote girls participation, gender-sensitive teaching learning materials… scheme of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas as residential upper primary schools for girls belonging to SC/ST/Minority Communities, BPL families and girls in difficult circumstance”

For girls in secondary schools we have ‘Rashtriya Madyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education (NSIGSE), exemption from paying tuition fee in Kendriya Vidyalayas, and 33% reservation for girls in Navodaya Vidyalayas. I don’t know how many deserving candidates made use of these schemes.

Unfortunately, I am concerned about the amount allocated for ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao scheme’, its just 200 crores under 12th five-year plan. Just think about the gravity of issue and then think again about allocated amount. I am not saying that, allocating big amount will increase a program’s efficiency. But it’s too low to have any meaningful impact on 100 crisis districts of India.

I can only hope that government will open its eyes. Otherwise…

Sajeev

Reference

1.       GoI Press Release

Fakes are everywhere - PDS, LPG, you name it

It was only the other day I was talking about how PAHAL program helped government in closing more than 3 crore fake/duplicate/inactive accounts. First thought came to my mind while reading that article was, how this much fake accounts were created in the first place. How much money and effort might have spent on giving subsidies to these bogus uses.

Anyway, fakes doesn't stop at LPG accounts. As per the new government press release, based on 2011 census and family size estimates projected over 2015, a study (by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)) has estimated that, the number of excess ration cards made in five target States (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal) is close to 1.65 crore.

The good news is, state governments and UTs deleted over 1.2 crore fake ration cards from 2012 till now. Highest number of fake cards were deleted by West Bengal (62.43 lakh) followed by Karnataka (52.78 lakh).

In a country where people who committed crimes like rape, murder and forging fake degree certificates are easily getting elected to parliament and assembiles; were public money easily flows in to the pokets of ministers and their cliques some crore fakes entries in LPG and PDS registeres are not a big deal. However, this is not the situation any one of us wants.

Government's new plan to link everything with Aadhar and more computerization in storage, transportation and delivery will definitely help to weed out the fakes. But I wonder how many fakes are already entered in to our Aadhar system!!!

Sajeev

Reference

1. GoI Press Release

Dumping food grain in Massive quantities? Its Criminal

Punjab Agro Food grains Corporation (PAFC) and Markfed floated tenders for auctioning 1.93 lakh tonnes of food grain (whose market value - if it was fit for consumption - is around 294 crore) which is not fit for human consumption. These food grains are procured between 2010-11 to 2012-13 years.

These food grains are rotten due to its unscientific storage and delay in distribution. Just imagine how much food is wasted in a country where millions of hungry stomachs go to bed every day. Do these people, who are responsible - for procurement, storage, distribution (and of course works for government) - ever heard about starvations deaths in various parts of our country? In 2013 alone a single tribal village in Attapady (Palakkad, Kerala) lost 51 kids due to malnourishment. Did they ever heard about kids born (and many died)  because their mothers - when they were pregnant - were not fed enough? Did they ever know that many parts of our country is getting compared with Sub-Saharan Africa?

In MP alone [kids under 5 years] 40% of children were stunted and 60% were underweight; In Rajasthan the numbers are 24% and 44% respectively [NFHS 3].

Problems in storage are nothing new. We are facing this complication for a very long time. Same thing goes with dumping food grains. This is also happening here for a very long time. At one part of the country people are dying because of starvation and we are dumping food grains in oceans.

Even distributing freely, this much food would have helped thousands of people to sleep without huger atleast for a day.

This situation is not due to any financial problems faced by our central or state governments; but it's happening due the fact that, we don't care much about what happens to our agriculture produce. We don't care about people who are living in areas where noisy television channels don't go. We don't care because these deaths hardly matters to us - nothing more than a statistical entity in some reports.

When will this change? Or will this ever change?

Sajeev

PS:

As per 'World Food Program's' reports,

1. Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth.

2. The vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished.

3. Asia is the continent with the most hungry people - two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.

4. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.

5. Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.

6. One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.

7. One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.

8. If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.

References

1. Punjab to auction2 lakh tonne rotten wheat - TOI

2. India topsmalnutrition chart in South Asia - TOI

3. A Year AfterChild Deaths, Kerala's Attapady Still Struggles with Malnutrition - NDTV

4.Hunger Statistics- World Food Program

The Ivory Throne - The Matrilineal Society of Kerala

I always wondered how my state – Kerala –  was matrilineal and then switched to patrilineal. Review of book – ‘The Ivory Throne – Chronicles of the house of Travancore’ - on Caravan magazine by ‘Manu Pillai’ did answer a lot of questions I earlier had on this subject. However, I admit that the reason provided for why Kerala society was matrilineal earlier is not answered quite satisfactory.

Some excerpts from the book review (pasted verbatim),

“Scholar K. Saradamoni points out…Nair women always had the security of the homes they were born in throughout their lives and were not dependent on their husbands”

“Sexual freedom was also remarkable so that while polygamy was happily recognised in other parts of India, in Kerala women were allowed polyandry. Nair women could, if they wished, entertain more than one husband and, in the event of difficulties, were free to divorce without any social stigma”

“The marriage… was simply called sambandham, or relationship... terminable at will.”

“The bond between brother and sister was considered more sacrosanct than that between husband and wife.”

“Every Maharajah, in other words, had a Brahmin for a grandfather and a Nair for a grandson, both of whom were commoners; the Nair’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather came from different rungs of the social hierarchy”

“The procedure to enter into a sambandham was rather easy and simply involved the man handing the woman a piece of cloth before an oil lamp”

“This late [Cochin]Rajah’s wife already had a daughter from a previous husband, (indicating that even princes married widows or divorcees) and this girl, even at the highest social station in the court of Cochin, could keep two men at the same time. Similarly, the author C.V. Raman Pillai wedded his late wife’s sister, for whom it was the fourth marriage in a line that included two dead husbands and one divorce.”

“Traditional Kerala society never frowned at all this for the simple reason that such sexual relations were not taboo. It was customary and made perfect sense within the historical and economic context of the land. But what did happen by the nineteenth century was the impact of Christian missionaries with their prudish Victorian notions of decency and morality, aided by the colonial enterprise to “civilise” India.”

“This was also the time when Nair men were out studying at the new English colleges and schools, exposed to these foreign opinions...”

“Hitherto local practices affected no Malayali as odd. But now he had to face derogatory comments about their repulsive “backwardness”. “And it became worse,” Saradamoni tells us, “when sambandham was equated to concubinage and the women to mistresses and the children called bastards.”

“In 1912, Travancore gave its first boost to nuclear families, modelled on the patriarchal style … allowed men to bequeath part of their self-acquired property or money to wives and children instead of the taravad, or matrilineal joint family”

“By 1923 the call was final: matriliny should be abolished and individual partition was to be the weapon of choice.”

“between 1897 and 1907 alone an average of 487 suits were brought to court by nephews against the managing senior uncles of their taravads”

“in April 1925 the Legislative Council passed a bill terminating matriliny, permitting partition of property, “legalising” all sambandhams, and essentially inaugurating the age of the patriarchal family in Travancore”

“It was sent to the Maharani for her assent and on 13 April she signed the historic Nair Regulation of 1925, giving matrilineal kinship the unique distinction of being the only system of inheritance and family in the world to be abolished by law.”

“Similar Acts were passed for the Ezhava and Vellala communities also, sections of which were matrilineal. The Government of Madras would follow her lead in 1933 and do the same in Malabar, while Cochin would issue corresponding orders by 1938.”

I believe this is a good book to read on this subject.

Sajeev

Reference

1. What Led to the End of Kerala’s Matrilineal Society? – The Caravan Magazine

PAHAL Scheme in ‘Guinness Book of World Records’

Launched in 2014 November, this government program aims to sell LPG cylinders at market rate to households and then subsidy will be deposited back to their bank accounts. As of Oct 3, 2015, 14.62 crore households are members in this scheme.

Early avatar of PAHAL was launched by previous government under a different name. Unfortunately, they had to drop it later as its implementation was proved to be a disaster. Under its current implementation – the largest cash transfer scheme in the world – PAHAL helped the government a lot.  After all, this drive enabled GoI to identify and close around 3.34 crore fake/duplicate/inactive accounts. Blocking these accounts itself resulted in a savings of 14, 672 crore a year.

Hope that the government will display same efficiency while implementing other schemes as well.

Reference

1. GoI Press Release