Ignorance is bliss! Here in the suburbs, we don't get to see it directly, but it is very much there in the background. People who were donating earlier are now in need of social services themselves.
This morning I was at the palace grounds, a maidan, where a golfer goes to hit some balls for practice. I suppose the numbers of golfers in India is very minuscule, but that does not make me one of the dirty rich! Anyway that is another subject.
When I take the help of a swing coach, I find that more people are gradually involved in the process. An able bodied person will place a ball for you to hit. Another older man who sells you the you the balls for a fee, brings small bucket of water and offers to clean the clubs. I do not need them but they are there to help and they are happy with a small tip! I can accept the older man doing this, but an younger man performing this useless, unnecessary job disturbs me!
Similarly it is a common sight that if one person is working, be it the telephone, electrical or the water works and so on, there will be another four or five around him. One to supervise, another talking to someone in the dept on his cellphone, two more waiting to take turns on a job which can be entrusted to one. The list is endless.
Why we carp at rather than celebrate falling numbers of poor in the country
B G Verghese
India remains a poor country. No doubt about that. Its human development indices are a shame. We know that. How do we measure poverty? Opinions vary, but there is agreement that the bar was set too low at Rs 32 per day per capita, adjusted for inflation, under the old Tendulkar formula. The revised Rangarajan formula remains work-in-progress and has yet to be announced. The question, however, remains – has poverty declined?
The latest National Sample Survey report says that poverty levels in India declined .... (This is hotly contested as seen in my earlier blog !) This is a commendable achievement, but still leaves some 270 million poor and millions just hovering above that line and likely to fall below it in a year of severe flood, drought or other calamity.
There is therefore no cause for celebration, but rather for greater effort. Yet there is reason for comfort, especially as the decline in poverty levels has been manifest in some of the more backward states such as Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. (I understand many Biharis who were working in Bangalore are missing. They have gone back!)
However, political critics have damned the NSS report ........ Measuring a trend is a necessary and worthwhile exercise. To cavil at that is to betray poverty of thought and political pettiness.
The problem is that all too many critics trade emotionally and ideologically in poverty. They fear that if poverty goes down or if the “oppressed masses” are liberated they might be out of business and face a sharp fall in their political and social stock. So a perverse survival instinct drives them to exaggerate poverty in order to stay in business. Such poverty of thought is manifest in many fields and poses a public danger as such attitudes constitute a national depressor, affecting both morale and endeavour.
(We know that this is true! It is obvious that the netas do not want their chelas to get out of this dependency! Many netas are known to go to temples to pray. I suspect as they offer money they pray for an opportunity to help the poor. While it is noble, there is a belief that this will also assure them a place in heaven! If gods grant them their wishes and create more poor, it is a win-win situation! They would now have a large band of followers on earth and later go to heaven!
Why blame only the netas, even the well-heeled do not care about solving this problem of poverty.
Where will they get their drivers and maids! Unless of course as Sachi calls it, the 'Tsunami of the Jobless' hits their well protected gated communities some day!)
As usual, the discussion on the NSS report produced its own crop of absurdities. Three Congress-UPA stalwarts argued that a man could have a filling meal in Delhi and Mumbai at Rs 5 and Re 1, respectively. The debate then goes overboard instead of being caricatured and dismissed for the nonsense it is. (Need one comment on these sick people!)
The discourse on poverty has another dimension. This revolves around whether falling poverty levels have been brought about by greater growth or by rights based, pro-poor state-funded programmes such as food subsidies, MGNREGA and RTE. Here the argument is between the growth-first and welfare-first schools, now elevated to a global level by the Amartya Sen-Jagdish Bhagwati debate. The truth most likely lies between the two extremes and is not an altogether either-or choice. As in most things, balance is important. .......................
Meanwhile, word came of tribal children in Attapady in Palghat district dying of malnutrition in a state like Kerala which boasts the highest HDI in India, standing comparison with the best in the world. Likewise in the adjacent Silent Valley, home to other tribal communities. .......... Sadly, the entire tribal question has been placed outside and beyond the poverty framework. Poverty of thinking on this issue is staggering. Real issues remain un-debated while trivia and electoral politics reign. .....
Then I find this on the same day in the same TOI paper!
CAG finds holes in enforcing MNREGA
Sunitha Rao R TNN
Bangalore: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA),..is no longer attractive in rural Karnataka. A CAG report on the scheme’s performance during 2007-12 says the demand for jobs dipped by nearly 20 lakh between 2009 and 2012. ....
Besides, the report says, the scheme focused on taking up more new works rather than completing ones already taken up. The number of works completed fell from 63% in 2010-11 to 14% in 2011-12.
The report also points out errors in the scheme’s management information system.
Brought smiles too For its flaws has all helped many, MNREGA rural poor. The impact assessment audit says the family income of 63% of the labourers went up. About 60% felt relief from hunger; 51% could send their children to school. For 35% of the labourers, debt payment became possible. The healthcare needs of 37% were met.
CAG Report Says Funds Were Misused
Over 3.49 lakh job cards and the names of 8.23 lakh workers were deleted from MNREGA records due to wrong entries. But by then, the government had already spent over Rs 25 crore towards wages for deleted job cards and individuals. Maintenance of basic records and erroneous entries led to misuse of funds, observes the CAG report.
.. An audit scrutiny of the muster rolls showed that names of 40,859 workers in the registers did not correspond with the names in the job cards.
ONE WORKER IN MANY TALUKS! ... According to MNREGA data, 15,377 workers in 29 districts were marked present in more than one muster roll on the same day in 4,672 cases. A payment of Rs 2.83 crore was made to them. The data in these cases is fraudulent.
..There were also instances of cutting and overwriting in 127 muster rolls. .. hinting at misappropriation of funds, the report says. It was tabled in the assembly on Tuesday.
ABOUT MNREGA The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was notified and enacted in 2005 with the objective of enhancing livelihood and employment security for unskilled rural labourers. As per the act, the government should provide 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a year to every registered household whose adult members volunteer to take up manual work. In Karnataka, it began in five districts in 2005 and in 2008 was extended to all districts.
Then there is this article about Food Security Bill smartly juxtaposed with an ad for a super car!
I agree with the article, let us not starve our children! Whatever the leakage in the scheme!
SABINA ALKIRE
The expenditure on providing food security will add minimally to India’s public spending which is less than what even lower middle income Asian countries spend on social protectionJob creation has not kept pace with the rising population. The UPA has been absorbed in furthering a broader sharing of the national cake through subsidies. It has neither had the time nor inclination to increase the size of the cake.
550 million under the age of 25
GDP rate below 5%
Net addition to employment up by only 2.7 million between 2004-05 and 2009-10
Areas of concern
Investment by corporate sector down from 17.3% of the GDP in 2007-08 to 10.6% in 2011-12
Sharp fall in corporate investment. About 256 major projects involving a cost of Rs 7.5 lakh crore has to be taken up by the Cabinet Committee on Investment for expediting clearances, even then there is no guarantee the projects will start as many are mired in land acquisition problems and resistance by activists.
Labour law reforms not initiated
"Casualisation" of employment generation is not a healthy sign since income levels of this segment are too low to generate spending surplus needed to drive high rate of growt
So what happened to talks of encouraging people to have less children? One way of having a bigger slice of cake. Is it all given up? Or we still harping on the demographic dividend?
|
Comments