JAI ... namaskaar....kind attention plzzz....vinayak sen wala profile kiskaa hai....ham nahi jaantey...but chahe to jiskaa profile hai wo khud use ho raha hai...yaa aaplogo ko use kar raha hai...acctually vinaayak sen kaa sympathyser apne desh kaa bhakt ho hee nahi sakta.....aapko shayad maaloom ho ke vinaayak per deshsdroh kaa aarop hai...aaur supreme court tak ne usko zamaanat nahi dee hai....so plz aap gumraah mat ho....aaur judiciary ko apna kaam karne dijiye...aap tai maaniye ke abhee bhee is desh mae 100 doshi bhale hee bach jaayein but 1 nirdosh ko saza nahi ho saktee....mai fir kehta hu aapka yeh so called frnd yaa to khud gumraah hai yaa aaplogo ko gumraah karne kaa prayaas kar raha hai chhattisgarh mae rahne ke kaaran ham naxaliyo ko behtar jaantey hai...aaur vinaayak per lage aarop bahut hee sangeen hain...uspe raham karna bharat ke saath droh karna hai...aaur chuki maamla court mae hai so court kee awmaanaa bhee....dhanyabaad.
Mrityunjay - ........bhai sahab apne baat shuru ki hai to uska jawab bhi aap sun len.. Dr. Binayak Sen agar desh ki nazar men apradhi hai .. to mera nam us desh se kat dijiye.. Jisne apna pura jeevan garibon ki seva me lagaya woh isliye kharab ho jata hai ki uspar naxaliyon ka sath dene ka arop hai...
aur wo log jo din raat garibon ka khoon pi rahe hain..
desh ke humran bane baithe hain.. wo deshbhakt hain..
aisi deshbhakti apko hi mubarak ho..
JAI - ....aadarniya bhai saahab....sen ke dedication pe koi question mark nahi hai.....uske tailent pe bhee koi shako-shubaha nahi hai kisi ke....but yahi kaafee nahi hota...is maandand pe to aap OSAMA-BIN-LAADEN ko bhee naayak kaa darzaa de sakte hain....hai naa????sawaal itnee hee hai ke aapko loktantra aaur unkee paramparaao kaa samman karnaa hee hota hai...at least ek sabse kam buree padhati ke roop mae hee sahee.....democracy kaa koi vikalp nahi hai...aaur naxali kitne gareebo ke maseeha hai...wo SALWA-JUDUM ne saabit kar diyaa hai.....mera nivedan bas itna hai ke yadi waastava mae aapke pass JANAADHAR hai....to usko saabit karne kaa CHUNAAV hee ekmaatra tareeka hai......aaur sansdiya pranaalee hee ekmaatra raasta.....thats all.
Mrityunjay - ..na to main naxali hoon, na hi unse samvedna rakhta hun, par ek patrakar hone aur rational insan hone ke nate (agar tum man sako to) itna jaroor kah sakta hun ki salwa judum ne sach men yah sabit kar diiya hai ki naxal hi garibon ke/adivasion ke sath hain.. wahaan ki sarkar nahin. kyunki jo salwa judum sarkar ne chalaya.. unhen wahan ke logon ne apne ghar/gaon se bhaga diya hai.
jahan tak rahi loktantra ki baat.. to ek loktantrik sarkar kamse kam yah nahin karti jo wahan ki sarkar apni hi janta ke sath kar rahi hai. is loktantra ne kuch hi logon ka bhala kiya hai usme main aur tum shamil hain.. baki 60-70 % janta jis tabahi ke daur se gujar rahi hai.. uska tumhe koi andaja nahin hai.. tum chahte bhi nahin kunki tumhari ankhon par woh nasha sawar hai jo har tript admi ke ankhon me hoti hai.
jahan tak rahi osama bin laden ki baat.. aisa tark tum jaise sampradayik charitra ke log hi dete hain.. tumne narendra modi ka nam laden ki jagah par kyun nahin liya.
narendra modi laden se jyada desh ke liye ghatak hai.
Showing posts with label Matters of States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matters of States. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
‘Prohibiting the use of agricultural land for industries is ultimately self-defeating’
Q: What are your views on farmland acquisition for industry and the Singur-Nandigram controversy?
Amartya Sen: That is a very complicated question and has many aspects. Let me separate them out.
First of all, the need for industrial priority in West Bengal, which is a big long-term question and an extremely important issue.
It is sometimes underestimated the extent to which Bengal has been de-industrialised. Bengal was one of the major industrial centres in the world, not only in India. In European writings, Bengal has again and again come up as being one of the most prosperous areas in the world as an industrial base. The kind of reputation that some parts of Italy gained later.
It is often said that historically, Calcutta was founded 300 years ago by Job Charnock but it is also true that there was an urban settlement based on trade and industry, apart from agriculture, in this area. This we see not only from Indian records but also from the writings of Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder. The Europeans were aware of that.Very near from Calcutta, there were industrial areas of huge prosperity. There is also mention in the writings of Fa Hien who came here in 401 and spent 10 years. He went back by boat. He took the boat from Tamralipta, which is very close to Calcutta. Effectively, it was greater Calcutta. So this has been a trading and industrial area for a very long time.
When Charnock came and the Battle of Plassey happened, there was not only English but the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Flemish and the Danish merchants. They were all interested in the industrial products of this area. Under the British, there was de-industrialisation of classical industry but new industries came in the form, for example, of jute. But gradually that went off after Independence and there was further de-industrialisation.
The policy of the Communist Party itself was not well thought-out. The industrial agitation may have given the workers a little bit more rights, but they lost many more rights by the industries withdrawing out of Calcutta.Jyotibabu was aware of the problem and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has tried to carry the understanding forward by trying to make it possible to have a big industrial base here. And it is extremely important.
It is also very important to recognise that production of industrial goods was based on the banks of the Hooghly and the Ganges, which are fertile areas anyway. So to say that ‘this is fertile agriculture land and you should not have industry here’ not only goes against the policy of the West Bengal government but also against the 2,000-year history of Bengal.
This is where industry was based because even though the land may be very fertile, industrial production could generate many times more than the value of the product produced by agriculture. The locations of great industry, be it Manchester or Lancashire, these were all on heavily fertile land. Industry has always competed against agriculture because the shared land was convenient for industry for trade and transportation.
Q: What about land acquisition?
Sen: I think some mistakes were made and the government should admit it and to some extent the government has admitted it.
Singur’s location could be questioned because there were some other locations one could have thought of like Kharagpur. But one of the difficulties is that Calcutta has such a huge attraction that it is very much easier to attract engineers and managers to an industrial base near Calcutta for the Tatas than in Kharagpur. And this is a dominant factor. Because Calcutta has such reputation.
I recently wrote in a book edited by Gopal Gandhi on Gandhi and Bengal about Gandhi’s relationship with Bengal. Interestingly, the first day he arrived in Calcutta in 1896, he went to see a play. In his stay of six days, he went to see another play. So here is a Gujarati arriving here, but he is so interested in the cultural life of Calcutta that he goes to see two plays in six days. So you just can’t say that because it is fertile land, you cannot allow managers and industrialists to be based in Calcutta and they have to be based in district towns. So the locational decision of Singur was probably not wrong.
Q: What are your views on the compensation paid for land?
Sen: The government paid much higher price than the value of the land in the free market. From that point of view, it was fair. Had there been no industry, they would have got the best value for the land. (Had the land not been taken for industry, the price they got would have been considered the best value, Sen explained.)
Where there is a mistake in the government’s thinking, and I think it is a big mistake of a tactical kind, is not to recognise that if this land were available for industry in general, and not just for the Tatas, the value of the land would have been much greater. While the compensation paid is greater than the value of the land seen as agricultural land, the compensation paid by the government is less than what the value would have been had it been free for competition with industries. If you are part of the market economy, then you have to take into account what the value of the land would have been had it been freely available for industry. So there is an issue to be addressed. I think it is a mistake, an honest mistake and it can be corrected in the future.
Nandigram is a much more complex issue. There is a question whether that kind of operation was needed, whether it was the right place. But I have not studied it in the way I have studied Singur. So I won’t comment.
Q: What, according to you, are the other issues here?
Sen: It is now very important for both the government and the Opposition to avoid violence. There is never a case for violence. The government’s policing has been in some cases over-strong. I understand that some Opposition parties have now created ‘free regions’ where they would not allow anyone to come in. That is also violent activity. It is not in line with Indian tradition of non-violence. The government and the Opposition have to recognise that. It is possible that in the past, the violence committed by the government was greater, but from what I hear, it is possible the opposite might be the case now.
Whichever way it may be, we don’t have to judge. But it is extremely important that in a free country, any people can come in and go out from any place they like and you cannot establish restriction of movement either by the government or the Opposition. This is a subject for rational discussion, which has become so impossible as everything is politicised now. Ultimately, those who want to prevent industrialisation of Bengal do not look enough at the interest of the people of the state. They may intend well, but they are not serving the interest of Bengal’s working class or peasantry. The prosperity of the peasantry in the world always depends on the number of peasants going down. That is the standard experience in the world.It is not that historically agricultural production goes up so much that they become hugely rich on that basis. Bengal has done very well in terms of agriculture compared to other states. But that has not made Bengal immensely prosperous. In countries like Australia, the US or Canada, where agriculture has prospered, only a very tiny population is involved in agriculture. Most people move out to industry. Industry has to be convenient, has to be absorbing.When people move out of agriculture, total production does not go down. So per capita income increases. For the prosperity of industry, agriculture and the economy, you do need industrialisation. Those in effect preventing that, either by politically making it impossible for an industrialist to feel comfortable in Bengal or making it difficult to buy land for industry, do not serve the interest of the poor well.
The Communist Party made a mistake earlier when it drove industries out by union action, which was intended to create benefits for workers but ended up making the workers having no job. Second time it is happening now, not from the Communist Party but from the Opposition, preventing industrialisation, which is not in the interest of Bengal in general and the poor in particular. So if Bengal is to regain what it used to be — being one of the richest in the world — industrialisation has to happen.Prohibiting the use of agricultural land for industries is ultimately self-defeating.
Q: Why not develop other areas in Bengal where land is less fertile and build infrastructure so that industry goes there?
Sen: You have to bring industry everywhere. But there is no way in which you will be able to avoid industrialisation around Calcutta, any more than you could have avoided it in London, Lancashire, Manchester, Berlin, Paris, Pittsburgh. You will find industry will come up where there are advantages of production, taking into account also the locational preferences of managers, engineers, technical experts as well as unskilled labour.
But we should not make the mistake of thinking that somehow while you are trying to attract business based on the market that the government can say: ‘I want you to go to Siliguri and that is where you are going to be.’ That is not the way the market economy works. The market economy has many imperfections, on which I have written extensively. But it also creates job and income and if the income goes up, government revenues go up, so there is money available for education and healthcare and other things.
So in order to do that, you have to give the market economy the operational rational of choosing one location over another, depending on their market-based calculation. You cannot be governed by the market but nor can you ignore the logic of the market if you want to use the market as one of the instruments in advancing the country. So the whole idea of thinking in highly bureaucratic terms that ‘I want it in Siliguri and Bankura but not here’, that is not going to work. That is not the way industry functions in a market economy.
By Amartya Sen
(Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in conversation with Sambit Saha of The Telegraph on land acquisition for industrialisation, one of the most important issues facing Bengal and large parts of the country.)
Amartya Sen: That is a very complicated question and has many aspects. Let me separate them out.
First of all, the need for industrial priority in West Bengal, which is a big long-term question and an extremely important issue.
It is sometimes underestimated the extent to which Bengal has been de-industrialised. Bengal was one of the major industrial centres in the world, not only in India. In European writings, Bengal has again and again come up as being one of the most prosperous areas in the world as an industrial base. The kind of reputation that some parts of Italy gained later.
It is often said that historically, Calcutta was founded 300 years ago by Job Charnock but it is also true that there was an urban settlement based on trade and industry, apart from agriculture, in this area. This we see not only from Indian records but also from the writings of Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder. The Europeans were aware of that.Very near from Calcutta, there were industrial areas of huge prosperity. There is also mention in the writings of Fa Hien who came here in 401 and spent 10 years. He went back by boat. He took the boat from Tamralipta, which is very close to Calcutta. Effectively, it was greater Calcutta. So this has been a trading and industrial area for a very long time.
When Charnock came and the Battle of Plassey happened, there was not only English but the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Flemish and the Danish merchants. They were all interested in the industrial products of this area. Under the British, there was de-industrialisation of classical industry but new industries came in the form, for example, of jute. But gradually that went off after Independence and there was further de-industrialisation.
The policy of the Communist Party itself was not well thought-out. The industrial agitation may have given the workers a little bit more rights, but they lost many more rights by the industries withdrawing out of Calcutta.Jyotibabu was aware of the problem and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has tried to carry the understanding forward by trying to make it possible to have a big industrial base here. And it is extremely important.
It is also very important to recognise that production of industrial goods was based on the banks of the Hooghly and the Ganges, which are fertile areas anyway. So to say that ‘this is fertile agriculture land and you should not have industry here’ not only goes against the policy of the West Bengal government but also against the 2,000-year history of Bengal.
This is where industry was based because even though the land may be very fertile, industrial production could generate many times more than the value of the product produced by agriculture. The locations of great industry, be it Manchester or Lancashire, these were all on heavily fertile land. Industry has always competed against agriculture because the shared land was convenient for industry for trade and transportation.
Q: What about land acquisition?
Sen: I think some mistakes were made and the government should admit it and to some extent the government has admitted it.
Singur’s location could be questioned because there were some other locations one could have thought of like Kharagpur. But one of the difficulties is that Calcutta has such a huge attraction that it is very much easier to attract engineers and managers to an industrial base near Calcutta for the Tatas than in Kharagpur. And this is a dominant factor. Because Calcutta has such reputation.
I recently wrote in a book edited by Gopal Gandhi on Gandhi and Bengal about Gandhi’s relationship with Bengal. Interestingly, the first day he arrived in Calcutta in 1896, he went to see a play. In his stay of six days, he went to see another play. So here is a Gujarati arriving here, but he is so interested in the cultural life of Calcutta that he goes to see two plays in six days. So you just can’t say that because it is fertile land, you cannot allow managers and industrialists to be based in Calcutta and they have to be based in district towns. So the locational decision of Singur was probably not wrong.
Q: What are your views on the compensation paid for land?
Sen: The government paid much higher price than the value of the land in the free market. From that point of view, it was fair. Had there been no industry, they would have got the best value for the land. (Had the land not been taken for industry, the price they got would have been considered the best value, Sen explained.)
Where there is a mistake in the government’s thinking, and I think it is a big mistake of a tactical kind, is not to recognise that if this land were available for industry in general, and not just for the Tatas, the value of the land would have been much greater. While the compensation paid is greater than the value of the land seen as agricultural land, the compensation paid by the government is less than what the value would have been had it been free for competition with industries. If you are part of the market economy, then you have to take into account what the value of the land would have been had it been freely available for industry. So there is an issue to be addressed. I think it is a mistake, an honest mistake and it can be corrected in the future.
Nandigram is a much more complex issue. There is a question whether that kind of operation was needed, whether it was the right place. But I have not studied it in the way I have studied Singur. So I won’t comment.
Q: What, according to you, are the other issues here?
Sen: It is now very important for both the government and the Opposition to avoid violence. There is never a case for violence. The government’s policing has been in some cases over-strong. I understand that some Opposition parties have now created ‘free regions’ where they would not allow anyone to come in. That is also violent activity. It is not in line with Indian tradition of non-violence. The government and the Opposition have to recognise that. It is possible that in the past, the violence committed by the government was greater, but from what I hear, it is possible the opposite might be the case now.
Whichever way it may be, we don’t have to judge. But it is extremely important that in a free country, any people can come in and go out from any place they like and you cannot establish restriction of movement either by the government or the Opposition. This is a subject for rational discussion, which has become so impossible as everything is politicised now. Ultimately, those who want to prevent industrialisation of Bengal do not look enough at the interest of the people of the state. They may intend well, but they are not serving the interest of Bengal’s working class or peasantry. The prosperity of the peasantry in the world always depends on the number of peasants going down. That is the standard experience in the world.It is not that historically agricultural production goes up so much that they become hugely rich on that basis. Bengal has done very well in terms of agriculture compared to other states. But that has not made Bengal immensely prosperous. In countries like Australia, the US or Canada, where agriculture has prospered, only a very tiny population is involved in agriculture. Most people move out to industry. Industry has to be convenient, has to be absorbing.When people move out of agriculture, total production does not go down. So per capita income increases. For the prosperity of industry, agriculture and the economy, you do need industrialisation. Those in effect preventing that, either by politically making it impossible for an industrialist to feel comfortable in Bengal or making it difficult to buy land for industry, do not serve the interest of the poor well.
The Communist Party made a mistake earlier when it drove industries out by union action, which was intended to create benefits for workers but ended up making the workers having no job. Second time it is happening now, not from the Communist Party but from the Opposition, preventing industrialisation, which is not in the interest of Bengal in general and the poor in particular. So if Bengal is to regain what it used to be — being one of the richest in the world — industrialisation has to happen.Prohibiting the use of agricultural land for industries is ultimately self-defeating.
Q: Why not develop other areas in Bengal where land is less fertile and build infrastructure so that industry goes there?
Sen: You have to bring industry everywhere. But there is no way in which you will be able to avoid industrialisation around Calcutta, any more than you could have avoided it in London, Lancashire, Manchester, Berlin, Paris, Pittsburgh. You will find industry will come up where there are advantages of production, taking into account also the locational preferences of managers, engineers, technical experts as well as unskilled labour.
But we should not make the mistake of thinking that somehow while you are trying to attract business based on the market that the government can say: ‘I want you to go to Siliguri and that is where you are going to be.’ That is not the way the market economy works. The market economy has many imperfections, on which I have written extensively. But it also creates job and income and if the income goes up, government revenues go up, so there is money available for education and healthcare and other things.
So in order to do that, you have to give the market economy the operational rational of choosing one location over another, depending on their market-based calculation. You cannot be governed by the market but nor can you ignore the logic of the market if you want to use the market as one of the instruments in advancing the country. So the whole idea of thinking in highly bureaucratic terms that ‘I want it in Siliguri and Bankura but not here’, that is not going to work. That is not the way industry functions in a market economy.
By Amartya Sen
(Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in conversation with Sambit Saha of The Telegraph on land acquisition for industrialisation, one of the most important issues facing Bengal and large parts of the country.)
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
Over one million people affected in Bihar floods
Over one million people are reeling under floods in Bihar as all major rivers are in spate with surface communication between Bhagalpur and Kahalgaon, where the national thermal powerplant is situated, been snapped.
State Water Resources Department said most of the rivers, includingPunpun, Bagmati, Kosi and Adhwara Group, were maintaining risingtrends and some of these rivers had crossed the danger mark in someplaces.Water Resources Minister Ramashray Prasad Singh held a high-levelmeeting with senior officials of the department and ask them to takeprecautionary measures to ensure all vital embankments are protected.
According to an initial estimate, around one million people spreadover the districts of Bhagalpur, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Saharsa andSupaul continued to reel under the impact of flood.A Bhagalpur report quoting official sources said train services on Bhagalpur-Kahalgaon loop section were suspended following fissure in arail bridge near Lailakmakhwa village.
Road communication was also disrupted as the water of swollen Jaruaovertopped the road at Puraina between Bhagalpur and Jagdishpur.
Sources said the state government had sought Rs 15,000 crore from theCentre.
State Water Resources Department said most of the rivers, includingPunpun, Bagmati, Kosi and Adhwara Group, were maintaining risingtrends and some of these rivers had crossed the danger mark in someplaces.Water Resources Minister Ramashray Prasad Singh held a high-levelmeeting with senior officials of the department and ask them to takeprecautionary measures to ensure all vital embankments are protected.
According to an initial estimate, around one million people spreadover the districts of Bhagalpur, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Saharsa andSupaul continued to reel under the impact of flood.A Bhagalpur report quoting official sources said train services on Bhagalpur-Kahalgaon loop section were suspended following fissure in arail bridge near Lailakmakhwa village.
Road communication was also disrupted as the water of swollen Jaruaovertopped the road at Puraina between Bhagalpur and Jagdishpur.
Sources said the state government had sought Rs 15,000 crore from theCentre.
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
Madhya Pradesh: Water Becoming Reason Of `Civil War'
Mandideep is a big industrial area just near the capital Bhopal and not in some other remote place of the state. The state government has not left any stone unturned to nurture the capitalists in this area. But, when it came to providing drinking water to the common people working in these big industries, the government almost turned Nelson's eye towards the issue. In a locality where drinking water is supplied just once in ten days, it is natural that the people would run helter-shelter to collect water. Among the 16 existing tube wells, water levels in four have gone down drastically while others are marred by power supply problem. It is dangerous to assume that a good rainfall or Monsoon will help us in resolving water crisis. We need to review and critically examine behavior and values towards the use of Water.
A dangerous indication is lurking in Mandideep and this indication is regarding collective right on water. The Mandideep Municipality had demanded drinking water share from the Betwa Barrage near the industrial area, but the Water Resources Department made it clear that only the industrial units have rights on the water of the Barrage. Owing to rampant exploitation of groundwater and bad management, the water level in the entire area has gone down by four meters, but in government records, it is yet considered a water-secure area. The reason being that even if the residents don't get enough drinking water, the water utility in the area is 40 litres per person per day, not to mention that 37 litres of this water is used by the industry.The matter of surprise is that before the onset of summer, the water resources minister had proclaimed at Ratlam on February 24, 2007 that since the monsoon last year was good, the state would not face any water crisis this season. This makes it clear that the government does not attach any importance to management of water but only depends on the amount of rain during a particular monsoon. But this government attitude is very dangerous for the society because the way the environment has been harmed and the way it is being manifested in global warming, even good monsoon would not be able to help.
Rampant stop dams were constructed across the state in the name of water conservation and still dams are being constructed, but the president of the Harda Municipality, the councilors and the local people demolished a dam on the Ajnal River on May 4, 2007 as due to the dam the water distribution system was hugely affected leading to lowering of water level near the Birjakhedi Pump House and people stopped getting drinking water. Owing to destruction of forests, urbanization and bad management of water, the rivers in Madhya Pradesh have started drying up and thus the dependence on groundwater had increased multiple times. The government is also working in a contradictory manner. On one hand the government made provision of Rs 90 crores in the 11th five year plan to increase the groundwater level and on another it has decided to spend more Rs 180 crores for exploitation of groundwater.
As per the present economic and industrialization policy, the state government has shown a commitment to provide power and water in subsidized rate. But as far as the common people are concerned, they would have to be always dependent on tankers for water supply. This year the government would be spending Rs nine crores on providing 30000 tankers of drinking water, but the common people have already privately spent Rs 3.5 crores on fulfilling their own drinking and domestic water demands.
The most basic need of life is water, without which it is difficult to maintain one's entity and because it is the biggest need of life, it has become a commodity of profit in the market. Also, government has allowed the markets to take benefit of the situation. On one side the industrial units are exploiting water excessively and rampantly and on other hand the multinational and even the domestic companies are using 41 litres of water to produce one litre of cold drink.Ironically, the state government that swears by the teachings of Babas, Swamis and encourages Yoga education does not believe in the traditional methodologies of water and environment conservation. However, the executive chief of the state and the ministers certainly make foreign `study' tours along with the bureaucrats. The situations that are developing owing to scarcity of water in the state are really worrying.
It is said that the next world war would be fought for water, but there is a need to change this thought. Actually, water would lead to civil war. In the year 2005, as many as 2007 cases of clashes due to water were registered, the figure rose to 303 in 2006 and by now in 2007, already 587 cases have been registered. This year even the people's representatives of local civic bodies in Shivpuri, Harda and Indore came out on streets to protest state government's policies. According to the latest figures of Central Ground Water Board (government agency monitoring/analyzing ground water situation), groundwater levels in 22 districts have decreased by two to four meters while in 14 districts the drop is more than four meters. But we are yet digging deeper into earth for water as a result of which the issue of quality of water is becoming very important.
Bhopal is considered the worst endemic city for gastroenteritis in the country and in 22 districts the amount of fluorides in water is above permissible limits. As per a study, 16000 children in Seoni district and 120 villages in Guna district are affected the flourosis. Children do not get clean drinking water in about 30118 schools.
As per the Public Health Engineering Department of the state government, out of the 8192 water taps and other schemes supplying surface water, 1507 schemes are not working while as many as 9988 handpumps have also been closed down due to lack of water. What more could be expected from the state when as many as 24517 human settlements are such where the government has not been able to provide the minimum need of water. Most of these settlements are three to five km away from water sources.
In reality, the problems of livelihood and employment are marring the lives of more than three crore people in state and now they are not even getting enough water. In such situation the state government would have to remember that it should not allow the limits of the basic needs and basic rights of people to become so restricted that people get suffocated. Scarcity of water is not something that the people would accept silently. This would lead to reactions. Presently, the struggle is divided, but the struggle would get unified and this would not be a communal or casteist, but in this case, the common people would be confronting the government.
By Sachin Kumar Jain
sachinwrites@gmail.com
A dangerous indication is lurking in Mandideep and this indication is regarding collective right on water. The Mandideep Municipality had demanded drinking water share from the Betwa Barrage near the industrial area, but the Water Resources Department made it clear that only the industrial units have rights on the water of the Barrage. Owing to rampant exploitation of groundwater and bad management, the water level in the entire area has gone down by four meters, but in government records, it is yet considered a water-secure area. The reason being that even if the residents don't get enough drinking water, the water utility in the area is 40 litres per person per day, not to mention that 37 litres of this water is used by the industry.The matter of surprise is that before the onset of summer, the water resources minister had proclaimed at Ratlam on February 24, 2007 that since the monsoon last year was good, the state would not face any water crisis this season. This makes it clear that the government does not attach any importance to management of water but only depends on the amount of rain during a particular monsoon. But this government attitude is very dangerous for the society because the way the environment has been harmed and the way it is being manifested in global warming, even good monsoon would not be able to help.
Rampant stop dams were constructed across the state in the name of water conservation and still dams are being constructed, but the president of the Harda Municipality, the councilors and the local people demolished a dam on the Ajnal River on May 4, 2007 as due to the dam the water distribution system was hugely affected leading to lowering of water level near the Birjakhedi Pump House and people stopped getting drinking water. Owing to destruction of forests, urbanization and bad management of water, the rivers in Madhya Pradesh have started drying up and thus the dependence on groundwater had increased multiple times. The government is also working in a contradictory manner. On one hand the government made provision of Rs 90 crores in the 11th five year plan to increase the groundwater level and on another it has decided to spend more Rs 180 crores for exploitation of groundwater.
As per the present economic and industrialization policy, the state government has shown a commitment to provide power and water in subsidized rate. But as far as the common people are concerned, they would have to be always dependent on tankers for water supply. This year the government would be spending Rs nine crores on providing 30000 tankers of drinking water, but the common people have already privately spent Rs 3.5 crores on fulfilling their own drinking and domestic water demands.
The most basic need of life is water, without which it is difficult to maintain one's entity and because it is the biggest need of life, it has become a commodity of profit in the market. Also, government has allowed the markets to take benefit of the situation. On one side the industrial units are exploiting water excessively and rampantly and on other hand the multinational and even the domestic companies are using 41 litres of water to produce one litre of cold drink.Ironically, the state government that swears by the teachings of Babas, Swamis and encourages Yoga education does not believe in the traditional methodologies of water and environment conservation. However, the executive chief of the state and the ministers certainly make foreign `study' tours along with the bureaucrats. The situations that are developing owing to scarcity of water in the state are really worrying.
It is said that the next world war would be fought for water, but there is a need to change this thought. Actually, water would lead to civil war. In the year 2005, as many as 2007 cases of clashes due to water were registered, the figure rose to 303 in 2006 and by now in 2007, already 587 cases have been registered. This year even the people's representatives of local civic bodies in Shivpuri, Harda and Indore came out on streets to protest state government's policies. According to the latest figures of Central Ground Water Board (government agency monitoring/analyzing ground water situation), groundwater levels in 22 districts have decreased by two to four meters while in 14 districts the drop is more than four meters. But we are yet digging deeper into earth for water as a result of which the issue of quality of water is becoming very important.
Bhopal is considered the worst endemic city for gastroenteritis in the country and in 22 districts the amount of fluorides in water is above permissible limits. As per a study, 16000 children in Seoni district and 120 villages in Guna district are affected the flourosis. Children do not get clean drinking water in about 30118 schools.
As per the Public Health Engineering Department of the state government, out of the 8192 water taps and other schemes supplying surface water, 1507 schemes are not working while as many as 9988 handpumps have also been closed down due to lack of water. What more could be expected from the state when as many as 24517 human settlements are such where the government has not been able to provide the minimum need of water. Most of these settlements are three to five km away from water sources.
In reality, the problems of livelihood and employment are marring the lives of more than three crore people in state and now they are not even getting enough water. In such situation the state government would have to remember that it should not allow the limits of the basic needs and basic rights of people to become so restricted that people get suffocated. Scarcity of water is not something that the people would accept silently. This would lead to reactions. Presently, the struggle is divided, but the struggle would get unified and this would not be a communal or casteist, but in this case, the common people would be confronting the government.
By Sachin Kumar Jain
sachinwrites@gmail.com
OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER
Ref-Vidarbha Farm Crisis Dated-30/06/2007
VIDARBHA FARM CRISIS SCENARIO AFTER ONE YEAR PRIME MINISTER PACKAGE- DEAR PRIME MINISTERJI : PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES
TO,
DR. MANMOHAN SINGHJI,
HON.BLE PRIME MINISTER,
PMO,NEW DELIHI-110011
REF- 1120 VIDARBHA FARMERS SUICIDES AS RELIEF PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES.
Dear sir,
Now it's after one year that you visited west vidarbha to under stand the Agrarian crisis in which more than 5000 farmers suicides reported since 2002 ,In fact before your visit Dr.S.W.Swaminathan as Chairman of National Commission for farmers NCF visited vidarbha in the month October-2005 then in the months of march-2006 team of expert from Planning Commission visited the vidarbha ,vidarbha farm crisis is the part of Indian Agararian crisis in which farmers are killing themselves and as per official record since 1995 more than 1,00,000(one lac)farmers mostly cotton growers or coffee growers are the main victims of economical collapse of rural system after we opted open trade and free economy ,your vidarbha visit was part of relief exercise to address this national issue of farmers suicides and experts have already prepared the relief package before your visit to vidarbha and you announced it on 1 st July 2006 ,we protested the relief package as our main demand of debt waiver and income base solution for the cash crop of the cotton farmers was missing but farmers but it was shown the dustbin .
Now we are informed that you are reviewing the relief package that you announced year before on 1 st july 2006 and we want update some of the facts to support our claim that relief package has been failed to address the basic issues of rural crisis in west vidarbha.
1.Record 1120 farmers suicides in last one year ,here is chronological account of farm suicides in vidarbha month wise and district wise
MONTH DISTRICT
FARM SUICIDES FARM SUICIDES
JULY-2006 YAVATMAL
90 283
AUGUST-2006 AMARAVATI
111 180
SEPTEMBER-2006 AKOLA
124 131
OCTOBER-2006 WASHIM
112 151
NOVEMBER-2006 BULDHANA
107 145
DECEMBER-2006 WARDHA
105 104
JAN-2007 NAGPUR
70 27
FEB-2007 BHANDARA
86 32
MARCH-2007 CHANDRAPUR
82 41
APRIL-2007 GADCHIROLI
90 12
MAY-2007 GONDIA
79 14
JUNE-2007
64
TOTAL TOTAL
1120 1120
Farm suicide is not the any way indicator of vidarbha agrarian crisis but we would like to draw your attention to Survey Report dated 15 th June, 2006 conducted by the Government of Maharashtra's Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swawlamban Mission at Amravati in connection with the Farmers' plight.
2.Sir, it is evident from the Survey Document that the farmers ' in extreme distress' as mentioned in the column 9 of the Survey Chart are 4,34,291 and the farmers families suffering from serious illness are 92,456.
Relief package failed to address the basic issue of vidarbha farmers that is credit and cost
RELIEF PACKAGE FAILURE DETAILS
1
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.710 CRORE TO THE BANK AS INTEREST WAIVER THAT HAS DRASTICALLY REDUCED NPA OF BANKS.
DISBUSEMENT - ADDITIONAL RS.840 CRORE CROP LOAN GIVEN TO THE COTTON FARMERS.
RESULT - THIS YEAR DEBT AMOUNT INCREASE AS NABARD FAILED INCREASE CROP LOAN CREDIT. TILL DATE ONLY 2LACS FARMERS HAVE BEEN GIVEN FRESH CROP LOAN AS AGAINST 8 LACS LAST YEAR.
2.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.2460 CRORE FOR MAJOR AND MICRO IRRIGATION PURPOSE
DISBUSEMENT - ONLY RS.231 CRORE RELEASED ON PAPER
RESULT - NO SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN AREA UNDER IRRIGATION IN FACT IT WAS ONLY 12000 ACRE AGAINST 80000 ACRE IN LAST RUBY SEASON
3
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS. 90 CRORE AID FOR OTGANAIC FARMING
DISBUSEMENT - NIL AMOUNT WAS GIVEN BY THE STATE
RESULT - AREA UNDER B.T. COTTON DOUBLE IN THIS SEASON
4.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RELIEF WIDOWS
DISBUSEMENT - PMO FAILED TO MONITOR THIS AID TOO
RESULT - OUT OF 120 SUICIDES 890 CASES WERE REJECTED BY ADMINISTRATION.
The detailed survey was conducted by the said Government Controlled Mission at Amravati under the guidance of Divisional Commissioner at Amravati, in the 8351 Villages of 6 Districts of Vidarbha comprising of Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Washim & Wardha in which 17,64,438 families were surveyed by the Mission.
On the basis of the in-depth study and analysis conducted by our organization, out of such a huge numbers of families from those surveyed villages, we would like to draw your immediate attention towards the column No. 8 & 9 pertaining to the farmers in extreme distress and farmers with serious illness as stated above. Hon'ble Sir, in majority of cases of farmers suicides, we came to know that there is no food or medicine available to them and this plight has continued to result the extreme step of suicide by the said farmer and / or its family members. Now, it is imperative on the part of the Union of India and State of Maharashtra that this known factors / points are to be attended to immediately so that these two class of farmers families i.e. the Farmers in Extreme Distress and Farmers Suffering from Serious Illness need to be attended immediately to remediate the plight of such farmers on the verge of committing suicides.
Farmers in Extreme Distress –
Identified Families : 4,34,291.
CAUSES IDENTIFIED :
After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we came to know that there was no food even sufficient for 2 days in the houses of such farmers. These unfortunate facts of non-availability of Food or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The Union of India through State of Maharashtra is providing food grain at the subsidized rate to the BPL families amongst the farm / landless labours. In order to stop the indirect hunger and starvation of these 4,34,291 Identified 'Families in Extreme Distress', most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless labourers (Col No. 9 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide 25 Kg of Food grain per month at the subsidized price @ Rs. 3 – 5 per kg under the PDS and/or any other special scheme to be announced at least for a period of 18 months now onwards. This will immediately result in providing direct food help to the 4,34,291 Identified Families in Extreme Distress and the indirect starvation of such families can be stopped so that the ultimate effect which is leading to the unfortunate suicide of the farmer family can be stopped, once the hunger and the indirect starvation of such families is attended to.
As per Maharashtra govt. official report that more than
95 000 farmers families suffering from serious illness and when we visited families and After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we also came to know that there was no medicine in the houses of such farmers where the family members are seriously ill or suffering from such diseases. The non-availability of medicine or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect sufferings due to illness, hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The State is providing medical / health services to BPL families at the subsidized rate amongst the farm / landless laborers. In order to stop the indirect plight due to serious illness coupled with hunger and starvation of these around 95,000 Identified Farmers Families with Serious Illness, most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless laborers (Col No. 8 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide Special BPL / Health Cards to such families so that they get the subsidized health care in Government run hospitals at par with the landless laborers or BPL families. This will immediately help in providing direct health care to the 92,456 Identified Families with Serious Illness and in Extreme Distress and which can help to stop the unfortunate suicide of the farmer families with serious illness.
FARMERS WANTS RURAL SYSTEM RESTORATION
Drop in income and sudden increase in input cost of cultivation couple with high cost being paid to health care ,education and maintaining daily livelihood has very difficult to farming society. farmers needs restoration civil and social system in order that they need profitable farming couple with free health care and education.
dear prime minister you are kindly requested to look in to these aspects and arrange to provide the relief address .
thanking you,
yours faith fully
Kishor tiwari
President
Vidarbha jna andolan samiti
vidarbha@gmail.com
andolan.blogspot.com
contact-094222108846
VIDARBHA FARM CRISIS SCENARIO AFTER ONE YEAR PRIME MINISTER PACKAGE- DEAR PRIME MINISTERJI : PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES
TO,
DR. MANMOHAN SINGHJI,
HON.BLE PRIME MINISTER,
PMO,NEW DELIHI-110011
REF- 1120 VIDARBHA FARMERS SUICIDES AS RELIEF PACKAGE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE AGRARIAN ISSUES.
Dear sir,
Now it's after one year that you visited west vidarbha to under stand the Agrarian crisis in which more than 5000 farmers suicides reported since 2002 ,In fact before your visit Dr.S.W.Swaminathan as Chairman of National Commission for farmers NCF visited vidarbha in the month October-2005 then in the months of march-2006 team of expert from Planning Commission visited the vidarbha ,vidarbha farm crisis is the part of Indian Agararian crisis in which farmers are killing themselves and as per official record since 1995 more than 1,00,000(one lac)farmers mostly cotton growers or coffee growers are the main victims of economical collapse of rural system after we opted open trade and free economy ,your vidarbha visit was part of relief exercise to address this national issue of farmers suicides and experts have already prepared the relief package before your visit to vidarbha and you announced it on 1 st July 2006 ,we protested the relief package as our main demand of debt waiver and income base solution for the cash crop of the cotton farmers was missing but farmers but it was shown the dustbin .
Now we are informed that you are reviewing the relief package that you announced year before on 1 st july 2006 and we want update some of the facts to support our claim that relief package has been failed to address the basic issues of rural crisis in west vidarbha.
1.Record 1120 farmers suicides in last one year ,here is chronological account of farm suicides in vidarbha month wise and district wise
MONTH DISTRICT
FARM SUICIDES FARM SUICIDES
JULY-2006 YAVATMAL
90 283
AUGUST-2006 AMARAVATI
111 180
SEPTEMBER-2006 AKOLA
124 131
OCTOBER-2006 WASHIM
112 151
NOVEMBER-2006 BULDHANA
107 145
DECEMBER-2006 WARDHA
105 104
JAN-2007 NAGPUR
70 27
FEB-2007 BHANDARA
86 32
MARCH-2007 CHANDRAPUR
82 41
APRIL-2007 GADCHIROLI
90 12
MAY-2007 GONDIA
79 14
JUNE-2007
64
TOTAL TOTAL
1120 1120
Farm suicide is not the any way indicator of vidarbha agrarian crisis but we would like to draw your attention to Survey Report dated 15 th June, 2006 conducted by the Government of Maharashtra's Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swawlamban Mission at Amravati in connection with the Farmers' plight.
2.Sir, it is evident from the Survey Document that the farmers ' in extreme distress' as mentioned in the column 9 of the Survey Chart are 4,34,291 and the farmers families suffering from serious illness are 92,456.
Relief package failed to address the basic issue of vidarbha farmers that is credit and cost
RELIEF PACKAGE FAILURE DETAILS
1
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.710 CRORE TO THE BANK AS INTEREST WAIVER THAT HAS DRASTICALLY REDUCED NPA OF BANKS.
DISBUSEMENT - ADDITIONAL RS.840 CRORE CROP LOAN GIVEN TO THE COTTON FARMERS.
RESULT - THIS YEAR DEBT AMOUNT INCREASE AS NABARD FAILED INCREASE CROP LOAN CREDIT. TILL DATE ONLY 2LACS FARMERS HAVE BEEN GIVEN FRESH CROP LOAN AS AGAINST 8 LACS LAST YEAR.
2.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS.2460 CRORE FOR MAJOR AND MICRO IRRIGATION PURPOSE
DISBUSEMENT - ONLY RS.231 CRORE RELEASED ON PAPER
RESULT - NO SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN AREA UNDER IRRIGATION IN FACT IT WAS ONLY 12000 ACRE AGAINST 80000 ACRE IN LAST RUBY SEASON
3
RELIEF AMOUNT - RS. 90 CRORE AID FOR OTGANAIC FARMING
DISBUSEMENT - NIL AMOUNT WAS GIVEN BY THE STATE
RESULT - AREA UNDER B.T. COTTON DOUBLE IN THIS SEASON
4.
RELIEF AMOUNT - RELIEF WIDOWS
DISBUSEMENT - PMO FAILED TO MONITOR THIS AID TOO
RESULT - OUT OF 120 SUICIDES 890 CASES WERE REJECTED BY ADMINISTRATION.
The detailed survey was conducted by the said Government Controlled Mission at Amravati under the guidance of Divisional Commissioner at Amravati, in the 8351 Villages of 6 Districts of Vidarbha comprising of Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Washim & Wardha in which 17,64,438 families were surveyed by the Mission.
On the basis of the in-depth study and analysis conducted by our organization, out of such a huge numbers of families from those surveyed villages, we would like to draw your immediate attention towards the column No. 8 & 9 pertaining to the farmers in extreme distress and farmers with serious illness as stated above. Hon'ble Sir, in majority of cases of farmers suicides, we came to know that there is no food or medicine available to them and this plight has continued to result the extreme step of suicide by the said farmer and / or its family members. Now, it is imperative on the part of the Union of India and State of Maharashtra that this known factors / points are to be attended to immediately so that these two class of farmers families i.e. the Farmers in Extreme Distress and Farmers Suffering from Serious Illness need to be attended immediately to remediate the plight of such farmers on the verge of committing suicides.
Farmers in Extreme Distress –
Identified Families : 4,34,291.
CAUSES IDENTIFIED :
After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we came to know that there was no food even sufficient for 2 days in the houses of such farmers. These unfortunate facts of non-availability of Food or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The Union of India through State of Maharashtra is providing food grain at the subsidized rate to the BPL families amongst the farm / landless labours. In order to stop the indirect hunger and starvation of these 4,34,291 Identified 'Families in Extreme Distress', most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless labourers (Col No. 9 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide 25 Kg of Food grain per month at the subsidized price @ Rs. 3 – 5 per kg under the PDS and/or any other special scheme to be announced at least for a period of 18 months now onwards. This will immediately result in providing direct food help to the 4,34,291 Identified Families in Extreme Distress and the indirect starvation of such families can be stopped so that the ultimate effect which is leading to the unfortunate suicide of the farmer family can be stopped, once the hunger and the indirect starvation of such families is attended to.
As per Maharashtra govt. official report that more than
95 000 farmers families suffering from serious illness and when we visited families and After visiting the families of the farmers which committed suicides, we also came to know that there was no medicine in the houses of such farmers where the family members are seriously ill or suffering from such diseases. The non-availability of medicine or money to buy food grain and / or the medicine, resulted in the ultimate sad and unfortunate incident of suicide by the said farmers who were unable to face the agony and distress of such unfortunate plight of indirect sufferings due to illness, hunger and ultimate starvation of the family members including small children and old parents. The State is providing medical / health services to BPL families at the subsidized rate amongst the farm / landless laborers. In order to stop the indirect plight due to serious illness coupled with hunger and starvation of these around 95,000 Identified Farmers Families with Serious Illness, most of them are small farmers of which the economic condition is not above the landless laborers (Col No. 8 of the Survey Chart), State of Maharashtra to provide Special BPL / Health Cards to such families so that they get the subsidized health care in Government run hospitals at par with the landless laborers or BPL families. This will immediately help in providing direct health care to the 92,456 Identified Families with Serious Illness and in Extreme Distress and which can help to stop the unfortunate suicide of the farmer families with serious illness.
FARMERS WANTS RURAL SYSTEM RESTORATION
Drop in income and sudden increase in input cost of cultivation couple with high cost being paid to health care ,education and maintaining daily livelihood has very difficult to farming society. farmers needs restoration civil and social system in order that they need profitable farming couple with free health care and education.
dear prime minister you are kindly requested to look in to these aspects and arrange to provide the relief address .
thanking you,
yours faith fully
Kishor tiwari
President
Vidarbha jna andolan samiti
vidarbha@gmail.com
andolan.blogspot.com
contact-094222108846
Harsud; three years hence but saga of the sufferings, never ends ..
The story of sufferings of people of Harsud, one of the 250 villages in the State of Madhya Pradesh which got submerged due to Indira Sagar Dam project, is unending and probably this millenniums most inhumane and undemocratic displacement story. June 30 2007, it will three years hence when the people of Harsud were 'displaced by force' not by will. Till date many of them wait for adequate compensation. Many are unemployed and striving hard to earn their sustenance. Probably their lives have got stuck in the 'files' in 'corridors of powers' of the State Government. The state of affairs is such that out of 5600 families which were resettled in the new Harsud only 1600 families still remain. Fifty families are dalits. Where have the rest gone? Nobody knows. What happened to the children, their education, and health no one has a clue in the State?
Who matters for the state in present situation? If 100 medical students or doctors march on the roads of New Delhi, then Parliament, Media, Corporate starts jumping, but 6000 tribals sitting on Dharna in Bhopal under heavy rains for demanding their fundamental right does not matter for the Government. The Political and State leadership did not go to meet these people at all.
The Harsud got submerged in June 2004. This historic town was established in the year 1815 by the then King Harshvardhan. Before it got submerged it was a Tehsil which was surrounded by villages. People settled here, had means of employment be it their own business, or labour or farming but after their displaced after submergence, they live on state's false promises, with a hope it they may get fulfilled someday.
It may be difficult to locate a town similar to new Harsud in Madhya Pradesh wherein people have built in pucca houses but hardly have anything to eat. All the money they had, they had spent on constructing their homes. Uma Bharti, who was then the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, had announced that new Harsud will be 'an ideal town', with all the facilities. But reality is far from grim. The land here was made up of hard rocks and it was extremely difficult to construct houses on the same. It took huge effort to dig the rocky land for the foundation which was needed to build the house over it. People had to spend all they had in order to construct their shelter. Builders, cement, sand and construction material dealers minted money, to an extent that prices of building material shot up. Iron rods which are normally priced at Rs 2300 per quintal, were sold at Rs 4000 per quintal while sand which is normally priced at Rs 1000 - 1500 was sold at double the price. All the money they had received as compensation was spent only in constructing houses.
It was painful to see one's own houses getting submerged while they were forced to settle on these barren hard rocky plains. Today, they have a pucca house but only that nothing else. State was able to convince the judiciary that, they have been able to rehabilitate the displaced people. Photographs of the pucca houses were good evidence in the court.
Present revenue records of the state will tell you that new Harsud is developing progressively. But the reality is exactly opposite and grim. Economy and employment are correlated when people have no means of employment how can an economy flourish. New harsud contrary to old one does not have any bus stand, no vegetable wholesale market, and neither any bank which can help the people get loan i.e. nothing which can give the people any employment opportunity. In name of development concrete gutters, damaged roads, there is nothing much.
Dr Ashok Srivastava, a valiant fighter, fighting for rights of those who got displaced say that concrete roads and sewage lines are there as state wanted to show the court that development has been done. But then what? "Old Harsud was a complete economic zone in itself, it had a big wholesale market for farmers, about 200 villages used to cater to the same and almost everyone had a job. But it is exactly the opposite in new Harsud. Except concrete sewage lies, houses and government offices there is nothing. Arundhati Roy, a famous writer had said at the time when Harsud was getting submerged what kind of development is that wherein the name of progress human rights of one's own nation's people get violated.
Though Harsud is the latest example, but in name of progress, in our country after independence more than three crore people have been displaced from their own land and their own culture. All democratic methods of raising concern seem not to deter the state of Madhya Pradesh and NHDC, the company which is building these dams.
Narmada Bachho Andolan's Alok Agarwal shares that people in new harsud have not been given property rights of the land which is allotted to them, meaning that they cannot get any loan on the same. He adds that crime rate has been increasing in last three years. People do not have employment, poverty is rampant and people don't have anything to survive, hence crime rates have increased. It is not that only poor have got affected, even better off families are facing the impact but fact is that poor have the maximum brunt. Even the traders like Trilok Tripathi say that sales have come down as people don't have buying power.
Who will listen to Dalits ?
In the new harsud sector 7 is called dalit sector. It is here where fifty dalit families live in. Children are taking of their school bags and instead they have picked up shovels. Rahul, was studying in tenth class when harsud got submerged but now he has hanged his school bag. More than studies it was essential to get food for his family. Santosh who works as a laborer in harsud and is feeding his family recalls at in old harsud we never had a time when we had had to starve, as their was work at the agricultural farms, and we used to get some work always. But now neither we have any farming nor is there any work for us. We are just surviving, but when rains come we will not have any way of earning our livelihood.
Where is Employment Guarantee Scheme?
This new place for the rehabilitated is nothing but a box of problems and is difficult for community members here to manage just two meals a day. In situation like this why is government silent on getting people some work. What is the reason that state has not initiated an employment guarantee scheme here? Local people say that people here had protested strongly against the conditions prevalent here and corruption which was happening, the same had upset many important ministers like Kailash Vijayavarigya, Anoop Mishra, and the local member of legislative assembly Kunwar Vijay Shah. They are facing the brunt of the same protest. The people here are angry wit Jkunawar Vijay Shah who never spoke a single word for the people and against the displacement. That is the reason he was blessed with gift of Cabinet Ministership. Media has less presence here, no political leaders wants to raise his voice for their concern, as they feel that the vote bank here is not big enough to have an impact on elections. Though this year in fist time Municipal Corporation BJP had lost, but it does not see than they have learnt from their loss.
People are still stranded here.
Kalimachak River was a lifeline for harsud town. But after water levels increased in Indira Sagar dam, backwaters of Kalimachak only submerged Harsud. Though harsud now is depilated and is haunted. But still in ward number nine, Mohi rayat about 150 people of thirty tribal families are not willing to move from here. They till date have not received the compensation amount. Mohan Gaindala from these families tell us that as even after fulfilling all the requirements as laid down in the clause 4 as announced by the state government they still have not received the compensation. Among them is Poonam who is suffering from Tuberculosis shares that patwari and other government officials openly ask for bribes. 'If someone cannot enough to eat how can one afford to pay bribe. Mohan adds that we don't know where our compensation money has gone? There are many here who have not received their compensation yet. Either the state government officials or the powerful have eaten away the money which came as compensation for them.
State government officials including the officiating District Collector Sanjay Goyal do not have any answers'. Tribals communities staying here had previously got afflicted with Chickenguniya. In the last monsoon water had reached just near their huts, but there is no surety this time that water will remain till that place. Included in them there are ten such children who never have received polio vaccination anytime or for that matter neither any supplementary nutrition.
What does District Collector say?:
Khandwa District Collector Sanjay Goyal who is officiating says that district administration is trying its best. Brushing aside the issue of employment he said that somehow all of us, in any form will have to pay the price of development?
By Daya Shanker Mishra
Who matters for the state in present situation? If 100 medical students or doctors march on the roads of New Delhi, then Parliament, Media, Corporate starts jumping, but 6000 tribals sitting on Dharna in Bhopal under heavy rains for demanding their fundamental right does not matter for the Government. The Political and State leadership did not go to meet these people at all.
The Harsud got submerged in June 2004. This historic town was established in the year 1815 by the then King Harshvardhan. Before it got submerged it was a Tehsil which was surrounded by villages. People settled here, had means of employment be it their own business, or labour or farming but after their displaced after submergence, they live on state's false promises, with a hope it they may get fulfilled someday.
It may be difficult to locate a town similar to new Harsud in Madhya Pradesh wherein people have built in pucca houses but hardly have anything to eat. All the money they had, they had spent on constructing their homes. Uma Bharti, who was then the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, had announced that new Harsud will be 'an ideal town', with all the facilities. But reality is far from grim. The land here was made up of hard rocks and it was extremely difficult to construct houses on the same. It took huge effort to dig the rocky land for the foundation which was needed to build the house over it. People had to spend all they had in order to construct their shelter. Builders, cement, sand and construction material dealers minted money, to an extent that prices of building material shot up. Iron rods which are normally priced at Rs 2300 per quintal, were sold at Rs 4000 per quintal while sand which is normally priced at Rs 1000 - 1500 was sold at double the price. All the money they had received as compensation was spent only in constructing houses.
It was painful to see one's own houses getting submerged while they were forced to settle on these barren hard rocky plains. Today, they have a pucca house but only that nothing else. State was able to convince the judiciary that, they have been able to rehabilitate the displaced people. Photographs of the pucca houses were good evidence in the court.
Present revenue records of the state will tell you that new Harsud is developing progressively. But the reality is exactly opposite and grim. Economy and employment are correlated when people have no means of employment how can an economy flourish. New harsud contrary to old one does not have any bus stand, no vegetable wholesale market, and neither any bank which can help the people get loan i.e. nothing which can give the people any employment opportunity. In name of development concrete gutters, damaged roads, there is nothing much.
Dr Ashok Srivastava, a valiant fighter, fighting for rights of those who got displaced say that concrete roads and sewage lines are there as state wanted to show the court that development has been done. But then what? "Old Harsud was a complete economic zone in itself, it had a big wholesale market for farmers, about 200 villages used to cater to the same and almost everyone had a job. But it is exactly the opposite in new Harsud. Except concrete sewage lies, houses and government offices there is nothing. Arundhati Roy, a famous writer had said at the time when Harsud was getting submerged what kind of development is that wherein the name of progress human rights of one's own nation's people get violated.
Though Harsud is the latest example, but in name of progress, in our country after independence more than three crore people have been displaced from their own land and their own culture. All democratic methods of raising concern seem not to deter the state of Madhya Pradesh and NHDC, the company which is building these dams.
Narmada Bachho Andolan's Alok Agarwal shares that people in new harsud have not been given property rights of the land which is allotted to them, meaning that they cannot get any loan on the same. He adds that crime rate has been increasing in last three years. People do not have employment, poverty is rampant and people don't have anything to survive, hence crime rates have increased. It is not that only poor have got affected, even better off families are facing the impact but fact is that poor have the maximum brunt. Even the traders like Trilok Tripathi say that sales have come down as people don't have buying power.
Who will listen to Dalits ?
In the new harsud sector 7 is called dalit sector. It is here where fifty dalit families live in. Children are taking of their school bags and instead they have picked up shovels. Rahul, was studying in tenth class when harsud got submerged but now he has hanged his school bag. More than studies it was essential to get food for his family. Santosh who works as a laborer in harsud and is feeding his family recalls at in old harsud we never had a time when we had had to starve, as their was work at the agricultural farms, and we used to get some work always. But now neither we have any farming nor is there any work for us. We are just surviving, but when rains come we will not have any way of earning our livelihood.
Where is Employment Guarantee Scheme?
This new place for the rehabilitated is nothing but a box of problems and is difficult for community members here to manage just two meals a day. In situation like this why is government silent on getting people some work. What is the reason that state has not initiated an employment guarantee scheme here? Local people say that people here had protested strongly against the conditions prevalent here and corruption which was happening, the same had upset many important ministers like Kailash Vijayavarigya, Anoop Mishra, and the local member of legislative assembly Kunwar Vijay Shah. They are facing the brunt of the same protest. The people here are angry wit Jkunawar Vijay Shah who never spoke a single word for the people and against the displacement. That is the reason he was blessed with gift of Cabinet Ministership. Media has less presence here, no political leaders wants to raise his voice for their concern, as they feel that the vote bank here is not big enough to have an impact on elections. Though this year in fist time Municipal Corporation BJP had lost, but it does not see than they have learnt from their loss.
People are still stranded here.
Kalimachak River was a lifeline for harsud town. But after water levels increased in Indira Sagar dam, backwaters of Kalimachak only submerged Harsud. Though harsud now is depilated and is haunted. But still in ward number nine, Mohi rayat about 150 people of thirty tribal families are not willing to move from here. They till date have not received the compensation amount. Mohan Gaindala from these families tell us that as even after fulfilling all the requirements as laid down in the clause 4 as announced by the state government they still have not received the compensation. Among them is Poonam who is suffering from Tuberculosis shares that patwari and other government officials openly ask for bribes. 'If someone cannot enough to eat how can one afford to pay bribe. Mohan adds that we don't know where our compensation money has gone? There are many here who have not received their compensation yet. Either the state government officials or the powerful have eaten away the money which came as compensation for them.
State government officials including the officiating District Collector Sanjay Goyal do not have any answers'. Tribals communities staying here had previously got afflicted with Chickenguniya. In the last monsoon water had reached just near their huts, but there is no surety this time that water will remain till that place. Included in them there are ten such children who never have received polio vaccination anytime or for that matter neither any supplementary nutrition.
What does District Collector say?:
Khandwa District Collector Sanjay Goyal who is officiating says that district administration is trying its best. Brushing aside the issue of employment he said that somehow all of us, in any form will have to pay the price of development?
By Daya Shanker Mishra
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Govt tries to cleanse Dow investment of Bhopal stain
NEW DELHI: In a bid to clear Dow Chemicals, the American giant that took over Union Carbide in 2001, of civil liabilities in the Bhopal gas tragedy — said to be the worst industrial disaster in the world — the Centre is making a concerted effort for an out-of-court settlement with it. The victims of the tragedy may find this hard to believe, but documents with TOI show that the PMO, backed by finance and industry ministers and the vice chairman of the Planning Commission are trying to find ways to clear Dow Chemicals of any legal liability, so that the company agrees to invest in India. Key issues of the 1984 disaster remain unresolved. While direct victims of the poisonous gas leak have been compensated, toxic waste from the plant in a 7-hectare area is said to have contaminated Bhopal's ground water. While the case is going on at the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh HC, Union Carbide was bought over by Dow. With that, it would have taken over Carbide's civil liability. In the Jabalpur court case it is named as one of the respondents and the chemicals and fertiliser ministry has raised a demand of Rs 100 crore from Dow to clean up the contaminated factory site in Bhopal. Faced with this, as well as the prospect of higher demands if the court holds it responsible for the ground water contamination, Dow first offered in 2005 to invest in a giant petrochemicals hub, covering 250 sq km, and then showed its reluctance to do so, citing the potential risk to its investment should liability come on it from the Bhopal case. This is where, it appears, government machinery got whirring to allay Dow's fears by seeking to reach an out-of-court settlement and thus pave the way for the investment in the petrochemicals hub. Documents acquired through an RTI application show a series of rapid-fire moves.If settled out of court, Dow won't have any liability
NEW DELHI: Documents in TOI's possession show that an offer by Ratan Tata, who heads the Indo-US business council, to take up 'remediation' - in plain words, cleaning up - of the Union Carbide plant site has been picked up by the PMO and top ministries to find a way out for Dow. The problem with this, say activists, is that once settled out of court, Dow will no longer be responsible for compensating for the water contamination. In other words, while the site might be cleaned up with the help of Tata and other industrialists, the indirect victims of Carbide's cavalier factory management might be left high and dry. What do the documents show? They consist of several notes generated by the PMO, finance and industry ministers, the Planning Commission and the Cabinet Secretary. Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath wrote to the PMO in February 2007, ''While I would not like to comment on whether Dow Chemicals has a legal responsibility or not, as it is a matter for courts to decide, with a view to sending an appropriate signal to Dow Chemicals, which is exploring investing substantially in India, I would urge that a group under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary be formed to look into the matter in a holistic manner.'' He added," In a similar manner as was done with respect to the Enron Corporation with respect to Dabhol Power Corporation.'' In the Dabhol case, an out-of-court settlement was reached with its now defunct promoter, Enron. Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia wrote to the PM, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Kamal Nath in December 2006: ''Ministry of Industry has granted foreign collaboration approval for a technical collaboration between Dow and Reliance. This was greatly appreciated as a signal that Dow was not blacklisted. ''However, they have sought a statement from GoI in the court clarifying that GoI does not regard Dow as legally responsible for liabilities of Union Carbide. Similarly Shri Ratan Tata has written to the FM suggesting that we should launch an industry led intiative. Dow Chemicals indicated that they would be willing to contribute to such an effort voluntarily, but not under a cloud of legal liability.'' Ahluwalia goes on to advise: ''Cabinet secretary should be asked to try and resolve the issue in an inter-ministerial meeting including Ratan Tata or his representative.'' Earlier, Tata wrote to Ahluwalia in November 2006: ''Dow has mentioned in their letter that it is critical for them to have the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers withdraw their application for a financial deposit by Dow against remediation costs, as that application implies that the Government of India views Dow as liable in the Bhopal Gas Disaster case. This is obviously a key aspect and I want your assessment as to whether it is possible.'' He also wrote to Chidambaram. The finance minister concurred with Tata while writing in December 2006 to PMO: ''I think we should accept this offer and constitute a Site Remediation Trust under the chairmanship of Shri Ratan Tata and including executives from the private sector.'' Dow, in the meanwhile, was in touch with top officials in PMO, in which they got the advice to consult top lawyer and Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Documents show the legal advice given by Singhvi saying that Dow could not be held responsible for the disaster and also not be held liable for any alleged contamination and consequent cleaning up of the Bhopal site. This advice forms part of the PMO file. When contacted on the advice given, Singhvi said, ''I have been appearing as a senior counsel in this case for over 18 months. I was engaged by a leading solicitor firm. I am not in any manner engaged in any matter of the case except appearing at the Jabalpur High Court case and advising Dow on various legal aspects involved in those proceedings. I am not aware of anything else.'' Eventually, in April 2007, the cabinet secretary put up a note that says: ''It stands to reason that instead of continuing to agitate these issues (Dow's legal liability) in court for a protracted period, due consideration should be given to the prospect of settling these issues appropriately. An important aim is to remove uncertainties and pave the way for promoting investments in the sector.'' It adds that instead of leaving the matter to be settled by the court, the government should reconstitute the existing group of ministers (overseeing the work at Bhopal site) with an appropriate mandate.
30 Jun, 2007
Courtsey TIMES NEWS NETWORK
__._,_.___
NEW DELHI: Documents in TOI's possession show that an offer by Ratan Tata, who heads the Indo-US business council, to take up 'remediation' - in plain words, cleaning up - of the Union Carbide plant site has been picked up by the PMO and top ministries to find a way out for Dow. The problem with this, say activists, is that once settled out of court, Dow will no longer be responsible for compensating for the water contamination. In other words, while the site might be cleaned up with the help of Tata and other industrialists, the indirect victims of Carbide's cavalier factory management might be left high and dry. What do the documents show? They consist of several notes generated by the PMO, finance and industry ministers, the Planning Commission and the Cabinet Secretary. Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath wrote to the PMO in February 2007, ''While I would not like to comment on whether Dow Chemicals has a legal responsibility or not, as it is a matter for courts to decide, with a view to sending an appropriate signal to Dow Chemicals, which is exploring investing substantially in India, I would urge that a group under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary be formed to look into the matter in a holistic manner.'' He added," In a similar manner as was done with respect to the Enron Corporation with respect to Dabhol Power Corporation.'' In the Dabhol case, an out-of-court settlement was reached with its now defunct promoter, Enron. Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia wrote to the PM, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Kamal Nath in December 2006: ''Ministry of Industry has granted foreign collaboration approval for a technical collaboration between Dow and Reliance. This was greatly appreciated as a signal that Dow was not blacklisted. ''However, they have sought a statement from GoI in the court clarifying that GoI does not regard Dow as legally responsible for liabilities of Union Carbide. Similarly Shri Ratan Tata has written to the FM suggesting that we should launch an industry led intiative. Dow Chemicals indicated that they would be willing to contribute to such an effort voluntarily, but not under a cloud of legal liability.'' Ahluwalia goes on to advise: ''Cabinet secretary should be asked to try and resolve the issue in an inter-ministerial meeting including Ratan Tata or his representative.'' Earlier, Tata wrote to Ahluwalia in November 2006: ''Dow has mentioned in their letter that it is critical for them to have the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers withdraw their application for a financial deposit by Dow against remediation costs, as that application implies that the Government of India views Dow as liable in the Bhopal Gas Disaster case. This is obviously a key aspect and I want your assessment as to whether it is possible.'' He also wrote to Chidambaram. The finance minister concurred with Tata while writing in December 2006 to PMO: ''I think we should accept this offer and constitute a Site Remediation Trust under the chairmanship of Shri Ratan Tata and including executives from the private sector.'' Dow, in the meanwhile, was in touch with top officials in PMO, in which they got the advice to consult top lawyer and Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Documents show the legal advice given by Singhvi saying that Dow could not be held responsible for the disaster and also not be held liable for any alleged contamination and consequent cleaning up of the Bhopal site. This advice forms part of the PMO file. When contacted on the advice given, Singhvi said, ''I have been appearing as a senior counsel in this case for over 18 months. I was engaged by a leading solicitor firm. I am not in any manner engaged in any matter of the case except appearing at the Jabalpur High Court case and advising Dow on various legal aspects involved in those proceedings. I am not aware of anything else.'' Eventually, in April 2007, the cabinet secretary put up a note that says: ''It stands to reason that instead of continuing to agitate these issues (Dow's legal liability) in court for a protracted period, due consideration should be given to the prospect of settling these issues appropriately. An important aim is to remove uncertainties and pave the way for promoting investments in the sector.'' It adds that instead of leaving the matter to be settled by the court, the government should reconstitute the existing group of ministers (overseeing the work at Bhopal site) with an appropriate mandate.
30 Jun, 2007
Courtsey TIMES NEWS NETWORK
__._,_.___
The Changing Nature Of Centre-State Relations
IN the late seventies and early-eighties, there had been a massive upsurge in the demand for a re-ordering of centre-state relations, for greater fiscal autonomy for state governments through much larger non-discretionary devolution of resources from the centre to the states, and for a more authentic realisation of the federal spirit of the Constitution. This upsurge was led by the Left, but it had the support of most state governments and a large number of political parties, especially the regional parties. The Left governments of the time played a key role in this upsurge, and organised a number of conclaves, including the famous Srinagar conclave. The Left governments of the time, especially the West Bengal government, were facing acute fiscal difficulties. But these difficulties, far from deterring either the Left governments or other state governments, spurred them on to demand greater autonomy.
Matters today are vastly different. State governments, including the Left governments, are again facing acute fiscal crises. But there is hardly a murmur of protest. On the contrary, most state governments are vying with one another to be in the good books of the central government whose level of interference in state government affairs has reached unprecedented levels. The question naturally arises: why this difference between the two situations? The answer lies in the current triumph of neo-liberalism over our economy. The old struggle was over the fiscal resources at the command of state governments. Now, fiscal resources at the command of the state governments do not seem to matter much, as they vie with one another to attract private investment, and access external donors, always waiting in the wings with loans and "conditionalities", to supplement fiscal resources. "Conditionalities" in turn do not arouse much hostility since the current triumph of neo-liberalism makes them appear necessary and even desirable.
ADOPTION OF NEO-LIBERAL AGENDA
Neo-liberalism in short has brought about a re-ordering of centre-state relations. At the same time however a re-ordering of centre-state relations was a precondition for the triumph of neo-liberalism. In short we have here a dialectical process which was initiated with the adoption of "reforms" in 1991. Let us try and capture this process.
In 1990-91 the ratio of the total tax revenue of the centre (net of states' share) in Gross Domestic Product at factor cost was 8.4 per cent, while that of the tax revenue of the states and the Union Territories (including tax revenue transferred from the centre) was 8.8 per cent. In 2000-01 the corresponding ratios were 7.1 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively. Throughout the decade of the nineties in other words it is the centre that was slackening its tax effort while the states were maintaining theirs. But at the end of the decade virtually all the states were in dire fiscal straits. There were two basic reasons for this paradoxical situation: first, there was a decline in the relative magnitude of central transfers to the states; and secondly, there was a substantial increase in the interest rate charged on central loans, including Plan assistance, to the states. In most cases, the interest rate charged exceeded the nominal rate of growth of the Gross State Domestic Product of the states, which is a condition for entrapment in a debt-trap.
The centre did not just impose a fiscal crisis on the states. It also used the Finance Commission to enfeeble state governments, by imposing "conditionalities" upon them. The Eleventh Finance Commission started the process. While giving to the states what is legitimately their due under the Constitution, which after all is what the Finance Commission is set up to decide, it set out a number of "conditionalities" that had to be fulfilled before the states could access a part of the devolved resources. These "conditionalities" included power sector reforms which are not a matter for the Finance Commission at all; moreover these "conditionalities" had to be fulfilled to the satisfaction of the central government! A neo-liberal agenda was thus thrust upon the states through the illegitimate use of a Constitutional body, the right to appoint which had been usurped by the centre for a long time.
The Twelfth Finance Commission followed in the footsteps of the Eleventh. It made debt-relief to states "conditional" upon their passing Fiscal Responsibility legislation which put a 3 per cent ceiling on their fiscal deficit relative to GSDP (and similar other caps) to be achieved by a certain target date. The centre too had enacted a Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act placing a similar ceiling on its own fiscal deficit. This fiscal conservatism, which was a continuation of the doctrine of "sound finance" practiced during the colonial period, and which was invariably demanded by finance capital in its effort to push the State back from its role as an investor and provider of welfare services to the people, was thus imposed on the entire system, both the centre and the states, as a part of the generalised adoption of the neo-liberal agenda.
The shift to lower levels of deficit meant expenditure curtailment on the part of the states, and since committed expenditures, like interest payments, pensions and salaries (which increased in most states in the wake of pay revisions that sometimes preceded and sometimes succeeded central pay revisions), could not be curtailed, the axe invariably fell on plan outlays. This of course was exactly what the neo-liberal agenda demanded. As state governments increasingly became incapable of fulfilling their role of being an investor and provider of welfare services, they perforce had to rely on private, including external, agencies to play this role. For undertaking investment in social and economic infrastructure they had to entice private capital, and enter into Public-Private Partnership arrangements which the central government encouraged through "viability gap financing" (i.e. meeting a part of the project cost that the private investors were unwilling to meet). For undertaking investment in education and health, they had to approach agencies like DFID of the British government or the World Bank.
Of course, to the extent that these agencies gave loans, such loans were counted as part of fiscal deficit, and hence were subject to the "Fiscal Responsibility" ceilings; but the adding of a grant component to such loans made them irresistible from the point of view of the state governments, even though all such social sector schemes carried with them the "conditionality" of enhancing user charges that necessarily put a burden on the poor. And once the tendency to rely on the private sector and external donors had taken root, it became the preferred option for most state governments, since state government bureaucracies became increasingly infused with neo-liberal ideas acquired from their colleagues at the centre and from the several World Bank training programmes they were made to participate in.
BIZZARE SITUATION
The reliance on private investment and external donors gave rise to a bizarre situation. Since all the states were in a similar predicament, they desperately competed against each other to attract private investment or to climb on to the World Bank/DFID bandwagon. The defenders of capitalism usually locate its virtue in the fact of competition between the capitalists, which prevents them from extracting illegitimate monopoly gains. Here we had the very opposite situation: it is the state governments that were competing against one another to attract capitalists to invest on their respective soils, and, since substantial investments could be undertaken only by a few large capitalists, offering them larger and larger social "bribes" for doing so. The competition was not between capitalists but between state governments; the competition was not against monopolists but in favour of the monopolists. Neo-liberalism had triumphed.
All these phenomena are amply evident in the case of Kerala. Even though Kerala is in some ways unique, having a cash crop economy hit by an acute crisis, having embraced neo-liberalism with unusual gusto, and having an unusually poor revenue-raising record during the previous administration, nonetheless its travails are similar to those of other states, only magnified. Its fiscal conservatism (it passed in 2003, before being asked to do so, Fiscal Responsibility legislation restricting the size of the fiscal deficit to 2 per cent of GSDP), together with its unwillingness to raise any additional revenue (the tax-GSDP ratio of Kerala has remained absolutely stagnant since 2002-03 while it has increased for all states taken together and also for other south Indian states), has resulted in such a drastic squeeze on its plan outlays that not more than 75 per cent of the tenth plan outlay will be realised. It has also led to significant dependence on foreign loans, which has entailed shortfalls in utilisation, cost and time over-runs, a devaluation of planning and a loss of administrative élan. What is more, public expenditure on education and health, which had sustained the famed "Kerala Model", has declined as a proportion of GSDP between 1999-2000 and 2005-06, as has the expenditure on social services and water supply and sanitation. The same is true, in varying degrees, of other states as well.
TOWARDS ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORY
What, it may be asked, can be done about this situation in a particular state, within the overall context of the neo-liberal policies being pursued by the centre? Apart from the fact that resistance on specific issues can be mobilised along with other states, e.g. on the "conditionalities" being imposed by the centre under JNNURM for a reduction in Stamp Duty, or on the curtailment of the central share in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to 50 per cent from 75, or for introducing a degree of flexibility on VAT rates, or on preventing cut-throat competition among states for attracting private investment, there is also scope for action within the state itself. Central to any such action is additional resource mobilization from the affluent sections, for which there is plenty of scope. If additional resources are mobilized, if these are used at least for improving the state of public education and health-care and on some measures of amelioration of peasant distress, and if the neo-liberal predilection of the bureaucracy is kept in check, then the beginnings of a movement for an alternative trajectory would have been made.
By Prabhat Patnaik
Matters today are vastly different. State governments, including the Left governments, are again facing acute fiscal crises. But there is hardly a murmur of protest. On the contrary, most state governments are vying with one another to be in the good books of the central government whose level of interference in state government affairs has reached unprecedented levels. The question naturally arises: why this difference between the two situations? The answer lies in the current triumph of neo-liberalism over our economy. The old struggle was over the fiscal resources at the command of state governments. Now, fiscal resources at the command of the state governments do not seem to matter much, as they vie with one another to attract private investment, and access external donors, always waiting in the wings with loans and "conditionalities", to supplement fiscal resources. "Conditionalities" in turn do not arouse much hostility since the current triumph of neo-liberalism makes them appear necessary and even desirable.
ADOPTION OF NEO-LIBERAL AGENDA
Neo-liberalism in short has brought about a re-ordering of centre-state relations. At the same time however a re-ordering of centre-state relations was a precondition for the triumph of neo-liberalism. In short we have here a dialectical process which was initiated with the adoption of "reforms" in 1991. Let us try and capture this process.
In 1990-91 the ratio of the total tax revenue of the centre (net of states' share) in Gross Domestic Product at factor cost was 8.4 per cent, while that of the tax revenue of the states and the Union Territories (including tax revenue transferred from the centre) was 8.8 per cent. In 2000-01 the corresponding ratios were 7.1 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively. Throughout the decade of the nineties in other words it is the centre that was slackening its tax effort while the states were maintaining theirs. But at the end of the decade virtually all the states were in dire fiscal straits. There were two basic reasons for this paradoxical situation: first, there was a decline in the relative magnitude of central transfers to the states; and secondly, there was a substantial increase in the interest rate charged on central loans, including Plan assistance, to the states. In most cases, the interest rate charged exceeded the nominal rate of growth of the Gross State Domestic Product of the states, which is a condition for entrapment in a debt-trap.
The centre did not just impose a fiscal crisis on the states. It also used the Finance Commission to enfeeble state governments, by imposing "conditionalities" upon them. The Eleventh Finance Commission started the process. While giving to the states what is legitimately their due under the Constitution, which after all is what the Finance Commission is set up to decide, it set out a number of "conditionalities" that had to be fulfilled before the states could access a part of the devolved resources. These "conditionalities" included power sector reforms which are not a matter for the Finance Commission at all; moreover these "conditionalities" had to be fulfilled to the satisfaction of the central government! A neo-liberal agenda was thus thrust upon the states through the illegitimate use of a Constitutional body, the right to appoint which had been usurped by the centre for a long time.
The Twelfth Finance Commission followed in the footsteps of the Eleventh. It made debt-relief to states "conditional" upon their passing Fiscal Responsibility legislation which put a 3 per cent ceiling on their fiscal deficit relative to GSDP (and similar other caps) to be achieved by a certain target date. The centre too had enacted a Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act placing a similar ceiling on its own fiscal deficit. This fiscal conservatism, which was a continuation of the doctrine of "sound finance" practiced during the colonial period, and which was invariably demanded by finance capital in its effort to push the State back from its role as an investor and provider of welfare services to the people, was thus imposed on the entire system, both the centre and the states, as a part of the generalised adoption of the neo-liberal agenda.
The shift to lower levels of deficit meant expenditure curtailment on the part of the states, and since committed expenditures, like interest payments, pensions and salaries (which increased in most states in the wake of pay revisions that sometimes preceded and sometimes succeeded central pay revisions), could not be curtailed, the axe invariably fell on plan outlays. This of course was exactly what the neo-liberal agenda demanded. As state governments increasingly became incapable of fulfilling their role of being an investor and provider of welfare services, they perforce had to rely on private, including external, agencies to play this role. For undertaking investment in social and economic infrastructure they had to entice private capital, and enter into Public-Private Partnership arrangements which the central government encouraged through "viability gap financing" (i.e. meeting a part of the project cost that the private investors were unwilling to meet). For undertaking investment in education and health, they had to approach agencies like DFID of the British government or the World Bank.
Of course, to the extent that these agencies gave loans, such loans were counted as part of fiscal deficit, and hence were subject to the "Fiscal Responsibility" ceilings; but the adding of a grant component to such loans made them irresistible from the point of view of the state governments, even though all such social sector schemes carried with them the "conditionality" of enhancing user charges that necessarily put a burden on the poor. And once the tendency to rely on the private sector and external donors had taken root, it became the preferred option for most state governments, since state government bureaucracies became increasingly infused with neo-liberal ideas acquired from their colleagues at the centre and from the several World Bank training programmes they were made to participate in.
BIZZARE SITUATION
The reliance on private investment and external donors gave rise to a bizarre situation. Since all the states were in a similar predicament, they desperately competed against each other to attract private investment or to climb on to the World Bank/DFID bandwagon. The defenders of capitalism usually locate its virtue in the fact of competition between the capitalists, which prevents them from extracting illegitimate monopoly gains. Here we had the very opposite situation: it is the state governments that were competing against one another to attract capitalists to invest on their respective soils, and, since substantial investments could be undertaken only by a few large capitalists, offering them larger and larger social "bribes" for doing so. The competition was not between capitalists but between state governments; the competition was not against monopolists but in favour of the monopolists. Neo-liberalism had triumphed.
All these phenomena are amply evident in the case of Kerala. Even though Kerala is in some ways unique, having a cash crop economy hit by an acute crisis, having embraced neo-liberalism with unusual gusto, and having an unusually poor revenue-raising record during the previous administration, nonetheless its travails are similar to those of other states, only magnified. Its fiscal conservatism (it passed in 2003, before being asked to do so, Fiscal Responsibility legislation restricting the size of the fiscal deficit to 2 per cent of GSDP), together with its unwillingness to raise any additional revenue (the tax-GSDP ratio of Kerala has remained absolutely stagnant since 2002-03 while it has increased for all states taken together and also for other south Indian states), has resulted in such a drastic squeeze on its plan outlays that not more than 75 per cent of the tenth plan outlay will be realised. It has also led to significant dependence on foreign loans, which has entailed shortfalls in utilisation, cost and time over-runs, a devaluation of planning and a loss of administrative élan. What is more, public expenditure on education and health, which had sustained the famed "Kerala Model", has declined as a proportion of GSDP between 1999-2000 and 2005-06, as has the expenditure on social services and water supply and sanitation. The same is true, in varying degrees, of other states as well.
TOWARDS ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORY
What, it may be asked, can be done about this situation in a particular state, within the overall context of the neo-liberal policies being pursued by the centre? Apart from the fact that resistance on specific issues can be mobilised along with other states, e.g. on the "conditionalities" being imposed by the centre under JNNURM for a reduction in Stamp Duty, or on the curtailment of the central share in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to 50 per cent from 75, or for introducing a degree of flexibility on VAT rates, or on preventing cut-throat competition among states for attracting private investment, there is also scope for action within the state itself. Central to any such action is additional resource mobilization from the affluent sections, for which there is plenty of scope. If additional resources are mobilized, if these are used at least for improving the state of public education and health-care and on some measures of amelioration of peasant distress, and if the neo-liberal predilection of the bureaucracy is kept in check, then the beginnings of a movement for an alternative trajectory would have been made.
By Prabhat Patnaik
The Changing Nature Of Centre-State Relations
IN the late seventies and early-eighties, there had been a massive upsurge in the demand for a re-ordering of centre-state relations, for greater fiscal autonomy for state governments through much larger non-discretionary devolution of resources from the centre to the states, and for a more authentic realisation of the federal spirit of the Constitution. This upsurge was led by the Left, but it had the support of most state governments and a large number of political parties, especially the regional parties. The Left governments of the time played a key role in this upsurge, and organised a number of conclaves, including the famous Srinagar conclave. The Left governments of the time, especially the West Bengal government, were facing acute fiscal difficulties. But these difficulties, far from deterring either the Left governments or other state governments, spurred them on to demand greater autonomy.
Matters today are vastly different. State governments, including the Left governments, are again facing acute fiscal crises. But there is hardly a murmur of protest. On the contrary, most state governments are vying with one another to be in the good books of the central government whose level of interference in state government affairs has reached unprecedented levels. The question naturally arises: why this difference between the two situations? The answer lies in the current triumph of neo-liberalism over our economy. The old struggle was over the fiscal resources at the command of state governments. Now, fiscal resources at the command of the state governments do not seem to matter much, as they vie with one another to attract private investment, and access external donors, always waiting in the wings with loans and "conditionalities", to supplement fiscal resources. "Conditionalities" in turn do not arouse much hostility since the current triumph of neo-liberalism makes them appear necessary and even desirable.
ADOPTION OF NEO-LIBERAL AGENDA
Neo-liberalism in short has brought about a re-ordering of centre-state relations. At the same time however a re-ordering of centre-state relations was a precondition for the triumph of neo-liberalism. In short we have here a dialectical process which was initiated with the adoption of "reforms" in 1991. Let us try and capture this process.
In 1990-91 the ratio of the total tax revenue of the centre (net of states' share) in Gross Domestic Product at factor cost was 8.4 per cent, while that of the tax revenue of the states and the Union Territories (including tax revenue transferred from the centre) was 8.8 per cent. In 2000-01 the corresponding ratios were 7.1 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively. Throughout the decade of the nineties in other words it is the centre that was slackening its tax effort while the states were maintaining theirs. But at the end of the decade virtually all the states were in dire fiscal straits. There were two basic reasons for this paradoxical situation: first, there was a decline in the relative magnitude of central transfers to the states; and secondly, there was a substantial increase in the interest rate charged on central loans, including Plan assistance, to the states. In most cases, the interest rate charged exceeded the nominal rate of growth of the Gross State Domestic Product of the states, which is a condition for entrapment in a debt-trap.
The centre did not just impose a fiscal crisis on the states. It also used the Finance Commission to enfeeble state governments, by imposing "conditionalities" upon them. The Eleventh Finance Commission started the process. While giving to the states what is legitimately their due under the Constitution, which after all is what the Finance Commission is set up to decide, it set out a number of "conditionalities" that had to be fulfilled before the states could access a part of the devolved resources. These "conditionalities" included power sector reforms which are not a matter for the Finance Commission at all; moreover these "conditionalities" had to be fulfilled to the satisfaction of the central government! A neo-liberal agenda was thus thrust upon the states through the illegitimate use of a Constitutional body, the right to appoint which had been usurped by the centre for a long time.
The Twelfth Finance Commission followed in the footsteps of the Eleventh. It made debt-relief to states "conditional" upon their passing Fiscal Responsibility legislation which put a 3 per cent ceiling on their fiscal deficit relative to GSDP (and similar other caps) to be achieved by a certain target date. The centre too had enacted a Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act placing a similar ceiling on its own fiscal deficit. This fiscal conservatism, which was a continuation of the doctrine of "sound finance" practiced during the colonial period, and which was invariably demanded by finance capital in its effort to push the State back from its role as an investor and provider of welfare services to the people, was thus imposed on the entire system, both the centre and the states, as a part of the generalised adoption of the neo-liberal agenda.
The shift to lower levels of deficit meant expenditure curtailment on the part of the states, and since committed expenditures, like interest payments, pensions and salaries (which increased in most states in the wake of pay revisions that sometimes preceded and sometimes succeeded central pay revisions), could not be curtailed, the axe invariably fell on plan outlays. This of course was exactly what the neo-liberal agenda demanded. As state governments increasingly became incapable of fulfilling their role of being an investor and provider of welfare services, they perforce had to rely on private, including external, agencies to play this role. For undertaking investment in social and economic infrastructure they had to entice private capital, and enter into Public-Private Partnership arrangements which the central government encouraged through "viability gap financing" (i.e. meeting a part of the project cost that the private investors were unwilling to meet). For undertaking investment in education and health, they had to approach agencies like DFID of the British government or the World Bank.
Of course, to the extent that these agencies gave loans, such loans were counted as part of fiscal deficit, and hence were subject to the "Fiscal Responsibility" ceilings; but the adding of a grant component to such loans made them irresistible from the point of view of the state governments, even though all such social sector schemes carried with them the "conditionality" of enhancing user charges that necessarily put a burden on the poor. And once the tendency to rely on the private sector and external donors had taken root, it became the preferred option for most state governments, since state government bureaucracies became increasingly infused with neo-liberal ideas acquired from their colleagues at the centre and from the several World Bank training programmes they were made to participate in.
BIZZARE SITUATION
The reliance on private investment and external donors gave rise to a bizarre situation. Since all the states were in a similar predicament, they desperately competed against each other to attract private investment or to climb on to the World Bank/DFID bandwagon. The defenders of capitalism usually locate its virtue in the fact of competition between the capitalists, which prevents them from extracting illegitimate monopoly gains. Here we had the very opposite situation: it is the state governments that were competing against one another to attract capitalists to invest on their respective soils, and, since substantial investments could be undertaken only by a few large capitalists, offering them larger and larger social "bribes" for doing so. The competition was not between capitalists but between state governments; the competition was not against monopolists but in favour of the monopolists. Neo-liberalism had triumphed.
All these phenomena are amply evident in the case of Kerala. Even though Kerala is in some ways unique, having a cash crop economy hit by an acute crisis, having embraced neo-liberalism with unusual gusto, and having an unusually poor revenue-raising record during the previous administration, nonetheless its travails are similar to those of other states, only magnified. Its fiscal conservatism (it passed in 2003, before being asked to do so, Fiscal Responsibility legislation restricting the size of the fiscal deficit to 2 per cent of GSDP), together with its unwillingness to raise any additional revenue (the tax-GSDP ratio of Kerala has remained absolutely stagnant since 2002-03 while it has increased for all states taken together and also for other south Indian states), has resulted in such a drastic squeeze on its plan outlays that not more than 75 per cent of the tenth plan outlay will be realised. It has also led to significant dependence on foreign loans, which has entailed shortfalls in utilisation, cost and time over-runs, a devaluation of planning and a loss of administrative élan. What is more, public expenditure on education and health, which had sustained the famed "Kerala Model", has declined as a proportion of GSDP between 1999-2000 and 2005-06, as has the expenditure on social services and water supply and sanitation. The same is true, in varying degrees, of other states as well.
TOWARDS ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORY
What, it may be asked, can be done about this situation in a particular state, within the overall context of the neo-liberal policies being pursued by the centre? Apart from the fact that resistance on specific issues can be mobilised along with other states, e.g. on the "conditionalities" being imposed by the centre under JNNURM for a reduction in Stamp Duty, or on the curtailment of the central share in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to 50 per cent from 75, or for introducing a degree of flexibility on VAT rates, or on preventing cut-throat competition among states for attracting private investment, there is also scope for action within the state itself. Central to any such action is additional resource mobilization from the affluent sections, for which there is plenty of scope. If additional resources are mobilized, if these are used at least for improving the state of public education and health-care and on some measures of amelioration of peasant distress, and if the neo-liberal predilection of the bureaucracy is kept in check, then the beginnings of a movement for an alternative trajectory would have been made.
By Prabhat Patnaik
Matters today are vastly different. State governments, including the Left governments, are again facing acute fiscal crises. But there is hardly a murmur of protest. On the contrary, most state governments are vying with one another to be in the good books of the central government whose level of interference in state government affairs has reached unprecedented levels. The question naturally arises: why this difference between the two situations? The answer lies in the current triumph of neo-liberalism over our economy. The old struggle was over the fiscal resources at the command of state governments. Now, fiscal resources at the command of the state governments do not seem to matter much, as they vie with one another to attract private investment, and access external donors, always waiting in the wings with loans and "conditionalities", to supplement fiscal resources. "Conditionalities" in turn do not arouse much hostility since the current triumph of neo-liberalism makes them appear necessary and even desirable.
ADOPTION OF NEO-LIBERAL AGENDA
Neo-liberalism in short has brought about a re-ordering of centre-state relations. At the same time however a re-ordering of centre-state relations was a precondition for the triumph of neo-liberalism. In short we have here a dialectical process which was initiated with the adoption of "reforms" in 1991. Let us try and capture this process.
In 1990-91 the ratio of the total tax revenue of the centre (net of states' share) in Gross Domestic Product at factor cost was 8.4 per cent, while that of the tax revenue of the states and the Union Territories (including tax revenue transferred from the centre) was 8.8 per cent. In 2000-01 the corresponding ratios were 7.1 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively. Throughout the decade of the nineties in other words it is the centre that was slackening its tax effort while the states were maintaining theirs. But at the end of the decade virtually all the states were in dire fiscal straits. There were two basic reasons for this paradoxical situation: first, there was a decline in the relative magnitude of central transfers to the states; and secondly, there was a substantial increase in the interest rate charged on central loans, including Plan assistance, to the states. In most cases, the interest rate charged exceeded the nominal rate of growth of the Gross State Domestic Product of the states, which is a condition for entrapment in a debt-trap.
The centre did not just impose a fiscal crisis on the states. It also used the Finance Commission to enfeeble state governments, by imposing "conditionalities" upon them. The Eleventh Finance Commission started the process. While giving to the states what is legitimately their due under the Constitution, which after all is what the Finance Commission is set up to decide, it set out a number of "conditionalities" that had to be fulfilled before the states could access a part of the devolved resources. These "conditionalities" included power sector reforms which are not a matter for the Finance Commission at all; moreover these "conditionalities" had to be fulfilled to the satisfaction of the central government! A neo-liberal agenda was thus thrust upon the states through the illegitimate use of a Constitutional body, the right to appoint which had been usurped by the centre for a long time.
The Twelfth Finance Commission followed in the footsteps of the Eleventh. It made debt-relief to states "conditional" upon their passing Fiscal Responsibility legislation which put a 3 per cent ceiling on their fiscal deficit relative to GSDP (and similar other caps) to be achieved by a certain target date. The centre too had enacted a Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act placing a similar ceiling on its own fiscal deficit. This fiscal conservatism, which was a continuation of the doctrine of "sound finance" practiced during the colonial period, and which was invariably demanded by finance capital in its effort to push the State back from its role as an investor and provider of welfare services to the people, was thus imposed on the entire system, both the centre and the states, as a part of the generalised adoption of the neo-liberal agenda.
The shift to lower levels of deficit meant expenditure curtailment on the part of the states, and since committed expenditures, like interest payments, pensions and salaries (which increased in most states in the wake of pay revisions that sometimes preceded and sometimes succeeded central pay revisions), could not be curtailed, the axe invariably fell on plan outlays. This of course was exactly what the neo-liberal agenda demanded. As state governments increasingly became incapable of fulfilling their role of being an investor and provider of welfare services, they perforce had to rely on private, including external, agencies to play this role. For undertaking investment in social and economic infrastructure they had to entice private capital, and enter into Public-Private Partnership arrangements which the central government encouraged through "viability gap financing" (i.e. meeting a part of the project cost that the private investors were unwilling to meet). For undertaking investment in education and health, they had to approach agencies like DFID of the British government or the World Bank.
Of course, to the extent that these agencies gave loans, such loans were counted as part of fiscal deficit, and hence were subject to the "Fiscal Responsibility" ceilings; but the adding of a grant component to such loans made them irresistible from the point of view of the state governments, even though all such social sector schemes carried with them the "conditionality" of enhancing user charges that necessarily put a burden on the poor. And once the tendency to rely on the private sector and external donors had taken root, it became the preferred option for most state governments, since state government bureaucracies became increasingly infused with neo-liberal ideas acquired from their colleagues at the centre and from the several World Bank training programmes they were made to participate in.
BIZZARE SITUATION
The reliance on private investment and external donors gave rise to a bizarre situation. Since all the states were in a similar predicament, they desperately competed against each other to attract private investment or to climb on to the World Bank/DFID bandwagon. The defenders of capitalism usually locate its virtue in the fact of competition between the capitalists, which prevents them from extracting illegitimate monopoly gains. Here we had the very opposite situation: it is the state governments that were competing against one another to attract capitalists to invest on their respective soils, and, since substantial investments could be undertaken only by a few large capitalists, offering them larger and larger social "bribes" for doing so. The competition was not between capitalists but between state governments; the competition was not against monopolists but in favour of the monopolists. Neo-liberalism had triumphed.
All these phenomena are amply evident in the case of Kerala. Even though Kerala is in some ways unique, having a cash crop economy hit by an acute crisis, having embraced neo-liberalism with unusual gusto, and having an unusually poor revenue-raising record during the previous administration, nonetheless its travails are similar to those of other states, only magnified. Its fiscal conservatism (it passed in 2003, before being asked to do so, Fiscal Responsibility legislation restricting the size of the fiscal deficit to 2 per cent of GSDP), together with its unwillingness to raise any additional revenue (the tax-GSDP ratio of Kerala has remained absolutely stagnant since 2002-03 while it has increased for all states taken together and also for other south Indian states), has resulted in such a drastic squeeze on its plan outlays that not more than 75 per cent of the tenth plan outlay will be realised. It has also led to significant dependence on foreign loans, which has entailed shortfalls in utilisation, cost and time over-runs, a devaluation of planning and a loss of administrative élan. What is more, public expenditure on education and health, which had sustained the famed "Kerala Model", has declined as a proportion of GSDP between 1999-2000 and 2005-06, as has the expenditure on social services and water supply and sanitation. The same is true, in varying degrees, of other states as well.
TOWARDS ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORY
What, it may be asked, can be done about this situation in a particular state, within the overall context of the neo-liberal policies being pursued by the centre? Apart from the fact that resistance on specific issues can be mobilised along with other states, e.g. on the "conditionalities" being imposed by the centre under JNNURM for a reduction in Stamp Duty, or on the curtailment of the central share in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to 50 per cent from 75, or for introducing a degree of flexibility on VAT rates, or on preventing cut-throat competition among states for attracting private investment, there is also scope for action within the state itself. Central to any such action is additional resource mobilization from the affluent sections, for which there is plenty of scope. If additional resources are mobilized, if these are used at least for improving the state of public education and health-care and on some measures of amelioration of peasant distress, and if the neo-liberal predilection of the bureaucracy is kept in check, then the beginnings of a movement for an alternative trajectory would have been made.
By Prabhat Patnaik
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
