DailySouthAsian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: FRIDAY SPOTLIGHT: Development: Government Vs NGOs Text of speech by Dr Sandeep Pandey at 'India Today Conclave 2006' March 10, 2006 --------------
DEVELOPMENT: Government vs NGOs While India, by signing the Nuclear deal with the US, willing to accept a technology rejected by most of the developed nations of the world as a viable option of energy because of its costs and dangers involved with radiation, seeks to establish itself as a powerful nation in the global community, its Government, 58 years after independence, still fails to provide the most basic security to its citizens. The McDonalds and Pizza Huts offer a variety of exotic fast food for the class, created during the regime of New Economic Policy, which can afford any product in the international market, people living Below Poverty Line are denied their due quota of 35 kgs of food grains per month at subsidized rates because of massive siphoning off of grains by the food mafia in collusion with the politicians and officials, forcing people to live in extreme situations of poverty or even hunger. The example of a BPL ration card of Santu, resident of Chamarkheda, Bangalpur Village, in Hardoi District of Uttar Pradesh, a landless dalit who is also visually challenged, which shows not a single grain of food given to him over the last eight years, is not an exception but a norm. Last two years have witnessed over 40 starvation deaths in UP and farmers committing suicides in relatively prosperous states like Punjab and Andhra Pradesh because of their inability to repay loans, which are recent phenomenons in these regions of the country. Prabhawati and Shubhawati, whose husbands Nagina and Shivnath, respectively, belonging to Musahar families died in Kushinagar District of UP during the last 17 months appeared in a Public Hearing in Gorakhpur on 20th December, 2005 to narrate how their husbands died after a prolonged period of starvation. Most government loans, meant for the poor, end up in the hands of officials and middlemen, further jeopardizing the lives of poor. Inspite of an Employment Guarantee Act, there doesn't seem to be any guarantee. Contractors continue of maintain stranglehold over public works, machines are engaged, full and timely payment of wages still remains an illusive dream and muster rolls continue to be fabricated away from the eyes of the public, making a complete mockery of the Act. The food grains as part of the `Food for Work' programmes also do not reach the labourers. There is a big scam related to food grains meant for the poor going on in this country, which should be a matter of national shame, because it perpetually scuttles the poverty alleviation programmes. Recently, 22 trucks of food grains belonging to PDS meant for Kushinagar District, which were being diverted, were caught in neighbouring Deoria District by the District Magistrate of Kushinagar. Inspite of the DM having identified 12 officials and 8 contractors - most of them by their names - as culprits, no action has been taken against most of them. The resistance by bureaucracy to give up its control, lack of transparency and no possibility of democratic intervention by the people ensures the failure of poverty alleviation measures of the government. The number of ration cards meant for the poor in a village gets decided not by the Village Panchayats but by the Block level officials. Similarly, which public works have to be undertaken gets decided by the officials, often in collusion with contractots, and not by the people. Whereas the amount of water in our rivers and canals continues to deplete, instead of thinking of ways of conserving water and maintaining our water tables we are pushing ideas like `interlinking of rivers' mega projects which will only further facilitate commercial exploitation of water. The poor farmers are arm twisted to pay for using water from canals which have dried up long ago but we allow Coca Cola and Pepsi to indulge in massive exploitation of underground water from over 90 locations throughout the country. Receipts from 2005 of payments by famers of Heerupur Gutayya Village in Hardoi District of UP where the Irrigation department claims it has stopped giving water five years back because of shortage of water are examples of high handedness of the irrigation and revenue departments of the government. The farmers at Plachimada, Kerala and Mehdiganj, Varanasi are putting up valiant struggles to save their water being taken away everyday by the multinational corporations. Slowly, people are loosing control over natural resources which belonged to them since time immemorial, like water, land, forests and minerals. And now the latest blow is ban on common salt forcing people to buy iodised salt at five times more the cost, whereas the fact is that only a small area of the country is deficient in iodine. When tobacoo and soft drinks with high levels of pesticides in it are allowed to be freely sold in the market, what possible health hazard common salt poses is beyond comprehension? No other country in the world has made iodised salt compulsory. The New Economic Policy has pushed us in a direction where the poor seem to be becoming immaterial for the decision making class. The development priority for the well-off class seems to have completely overtaken the interests of the marginalized class as evident from telecom revolution, infrastructure development - where highways network meant only for 4 wheel motorized vehicles, pushing out all other vehicles used by majority of population from the road, are being created - and privatisation of most services meant for common people, which have actually excluded them. We have chosen a development model to create islands of prosperity and oceans of deprivation and this seems to be an internationally emerging scenario, irrespective of the place of the nation in the hierarchy according to Human Development Index. Is this the globalized world that we want to create? When the Government in the country does not act in the interest of the common people, the people will have to force the Government to become accountable to them. NGOs and Corporations have only marginal role to play. It is people's organizations which will have to assert their democratic rights seeking participation in the decision making process as well as creating a role for themselves in monitoring the implementation of policies. A relentless struggle needs to be carried on to free the system from the clutches of the politicians-bureaucracy-contractors-mafia nexus on one hand and corporations and international monetary agencies on the other, to transfer the control in the hands of the common people. In effect, we're talking of democratising our democracy through strong local people's movements. ----------------- Dr Sandeep Pandey [ Sandeep Pandey is a noted social activist, recepient of Ramon Magsaysay Award (2002) and National Convenor of NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF PEOPLE's MOVEMENTS NAPM. He can be contacted at: National Alliance of People's Movements & Asha Parivar, A-893, Indira Nagar, Lucknow- 226016, Ph: 0522-2347365, Mobile: 9415022772, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The great moral question of the twenty-first century is: If all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information, can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone -- if everyone can have everything, everywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone from anything? - Eben Moglen --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
