National Population Policy

National Population Policy

As per the latest World Population Prospects released by United Nations (revision 2015), the   estimated   population   of   India   will   be    1419   million    approximately    whereas    China’s population will be approximately 1409 million, by 2022. In spite of the perceptible decline in Total Fertility Rate (TFR) from 3.6 in 1991 to 2.3 in 2013, India is yet to achieve replacement level of 2.1. Twenty four states/UTs have already achieved replacement level of TFR by 2013, while states like UP and Bihar with large population base still have TFR of 3.1 and 3.4 respectively. The other states like Jharkhand (TFR 2.7), Rajasthan (TFR 2.8), Madhya Pradesh (TFR 2.9), and Chhattisgarh (TFR 2.6) continue to have higher levels of fertility and contribute to the growth of population.

The National Population Policy 2000, is uniformly applicable to the whole country. In pursuance of this policy, Government has taken a number of measures under Family Planning Programme and as a result, Population Growth Rate in India has reduced substantially which is evident from the following:-        

i.         The percentage decadal growth rate of the country has declined significantly from 21.5% for the period 1991-2001 to 17.7% during 2001-2011.

ii.     Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was 3.2 at the time when National Population Policy, 2000 was adopted and the same has declined to 2.3 as per Sample registration Survey (SRS) 2013 conducted by the Registrar General of India.

As the existing NPP-2000 is uniformly applicable to all irrespective of religions and communities etc., therefore no proposal is under consideration of the Government to formulate new uniform population policy. The steps taken by the Government under various measures/programme are given below:-

Steps/Measures to Control the Population Growth of India by

the Government of India

 On-going interventions:

·        More emphasis on Spacing methods like IUCD.

·        Availability of Fixed Day Static Services at all facilities.

·        A rational human resource development plan is in place for provision of IUCD, minilap and NSV to empower the facilities (DH, CHC, PHC, SHC) with at least one provider each for each of the services and Sub Centres with ANMs trained in IUD insertion.

·        Quality care in Family Planning services by establishing Quality Assurance Committees at state and   district levels.

·        Improving contraceptives supply management up to peripheral facilities.

·        Demand generation activities in the form of display of posters, billboards and other audio and video materials in the various facilities.

·        National Family Planning Indemnity Scheme’ (NFPIS) under which clients are insured in the eventualities of deaths, complications and failures following sterilization and the providers/ accredited institutions are indemnified against litigations in those eventualities.

·        Compensation scheme for sterilization acceptors - under the scheme MoHFW provides compensation for loss of wages to the beneficiary and also to the service provider (& team) for conducting sterilisations. 

·        Increasing male participation and promotion of Non Scalpel Vasectomy.

·        Emphasis on Miniap Tubectomy services because of its logistical simplicity and requirement of only MBBS doctors and not post graduate gynecologists/surgeons.

·        Accreditation of more private/NGO facilities to increase the provider base for family planning services under PPP.

·        Strong political will and advocacy at the highest level, especially, in States with high fertility rates.

New Interventions under Family Planning Programme

1.                  Scheme for Home delivery of contraceptives by ASHAs at doorstep of beneficiaries: The govt. has launched a scheme to utilize the services of ASHA to deliver contraceptives at the doorstep of beneficiaries. 

2.                  Scheme for ASHAs to ensure spacing in births: The scheme is operational from 16^th May, 2012, under this scheme, services of ASHAs to be utilised for counselling newly married couples to ensure delay of 2 years in birth after marriage and couples with 1 child to have spacing of 3 years after the birth of 1^st child.  ASHAs are to be paid the following incentives under the scheme:-

a.      Rs. 500/- to ASHA for ensuring spacing of 2 years after marriage.

b.      Rs. 500/- to ASHA for ensuring spacing of 3 years after the birth of 1st child.

c.      Rs. 1000/- in case the couple opts for a permanent limiting method up to 2 children only.The scheme is being implemented in 18 States of the country (8 EAG, 8 NE Gujarat and Haryana).

3.                  Boost to spacing methods by introduction of new method PPIUCD (Post-Partum Intra Uterine Contraceptives Device.

4.                  Introduction of the new device   Cu IUCD 375, which is effective for 5 years. 

5.                  Emphasis on Postpartum Family Planning (PPFP) services with introduction of PPIUCD and promotion of minilap as the main mode of providing sterilisation in the form of post-partum sterilisation to capitalise on the huge cases coming in for institutional delivery under JSY.

Assured delivery of family planning services for both IUCD and sterilisation.

6.                  Compensation for sterilisation acceptors has been enhanced for 11 High Focus States with high TFR.

7.                  Compensation scheme for PPIUCD under which the service provider as well as the ASHAs who escorts the clients to the health facility for facilitating the IUCD insertion are compensated.

8.                  Scheme for provision of pregnancy testing kits at the sub-centres as well as in the drug kit of the ASHAs for use in the communities to facilitate the early detection and decision making for the outcome of pregnancy.

9.                  RMNCH Counselors (Reproductive Maternal New Born and Child Health) availability at the high case facilities to ensure counseling of the clients visiting the facilities.

10.             Celebration of World Population Day 11^th July & Fortnight: The event is observed over a month long period, split into fortnight of mobilization/sensitization followed by a fortnight of assured family planning service delivery and has been made a mandatory activity from 2012-13 and starts from 27^th June each year.

11.             FP 2020- Family Planning Division is working on the national and state wise action plans so as to achieve FP 2020 goals. The key commitments of FP 2020 are as under :

·        Increasing financial commitment on Family Planning whereby India commits an allocation of 2 billion USD from 2012 to 2020.

·        Ensuring access to family planning services to 48 million (4.8 crore) additional women by 2020 (40% of the total FP 2020 goal).

·        Sustaining the coverage of 100 million (10 crore) women currently using contraceptives.

Reducing the unmet need by an improved access to voluntary family planning services, supplies and information. In addition to above, Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh/National Population Stabilization Fund has adopted the following strategies as a population control measure:-

Prerna Strategy:- JSK has launched this strategy for helping to push up the age of marriage of girls and delay in first child and spacing in second child the birth of children in the interest of health of young mothers and infants. The couple who adopt this strategy awarded suitably. This helps to change the mindsets of the community.

Santushti Strategy:- Under this strategy, Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh, invites private sector gynaecologists and vasectomy surgeons to conduct sterilization operations in Public Private Partnership mode. The private hospitals/nursing home who achieved target to 10 or more are suitably awarded as per strategy.

National Helpline: - JSK also running a call centers for providing free advice on reproductive health, family planning, maternal health and child health etc. Toll free no. is 1800116555.

Advocacy & IEC activities:- JSK as a part of its awareness and advocacy efforts on population stabilization, has established networks and partnerships with other ministries, development partners, private sectors, corporate and professional bodies for  spreading its activities through electronic media, print media, workshop, walkathon, and other multi-level activities etc. at the national, state, district and block level.

Implementation of National Agriculture Market Project

Implementation of National Agriculture Market Project

The National Agriculture Market (NAM) e-platform has been envisaged to bring in operational efficiency and transparency in the mandi operations and to enhance market access for the farmers and eliminate information asymmetry. In order to provide guidance to the States/ Union Territories (UTs) for integration of their regulated wholesale markets with the NAM e-platform, the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare has had workshops from time to time for the States/UTs, one of which was the visit of State Ministers and officials to Hubli, Karnataka on 9th July, 2015 to witness first hand the functioning of e-marketing platform. The Department has also circulated a detailed template to enable States/UTs to prepare their Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) to submit their proposals thereon to the Government. Further to facilitate integration, the implementing agency i.e. Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) will engage a Strategic Partner (SP) which shall, inter-alia, train all participants (farmers, commission agents, traders, employees of the Market, data entry operators, etc.) in the market where the NAM is adopted, so that every participant is able to operate the NAM for its business requirement. Further, the SP will also provide one year local support to each participating mandi and set up a help desk to support day to day operations and to answer queries in the State language.

Cabinet approves Central Legislation to declare 106 additional inland waterways as national waterways

Cabinet approves Central Legislation to declare 106 additional inland waterways as national waterways

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval to carry out official amendments in "The National Waterways Bill, 2015". The amendments are based on the recommendations of the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture and comments of State Governments. It provides for enacting a Central Legislation to declare 106 additional inland waterways, as the national waterways. After the inclusion of 106 additional inlands waterways to the existing five national waterways, the total number of national waterways goes upto 111. 

The number of waterways to be declared as new National Waterways is now proposed as 106 and adding the existing NWs, the total number of National Waterways in the bill goes up to 111. The following changes have been effected in the original list of 101 waterways that was introduced with the National Waterways Bill 2015, on 05.05.2015:- 10 waterways of Kerala have been omitted, 17 waterways have been merged with the existing waterways and 18 waterways (5 Karnataka, 5 Meghalaya, 3 Maharashtra, 3 Kerala, 1 each from Tamilnadu and Rajasthan) have been added, thus, making a total of 106 waterways that have been finalized for declaration as new National Waterways in addition to the 5 existing waterways. In order to carry out these changes, an official amendment to the National Waterways Bill, 2015 will have to be moved in the Lok Sabha in the current Session of Parliament. 

Declaration of the above additional 106 waterways as National Waterways would not have any immediate financial implications. Financial approval of the competent authority for each waterway would, however, be taken based on the outcome of the techno-economic feasibility studies etc. that are being undertaken by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) currently. IWAI will develop the feasible stretch of National Waterways for shipping and navigation purpose through mobilization of financial resources. 

The declaration of these National Waterways would enable IWAI to develop the feasible stretches for Shipping and Navigation. The right over the use of water, river bed and the appurtenant land will remain with the State Government. In addition, other benefits to States are: fewer accidents, less congestion on roads, cheaper mode of ferrying passengers, reduced logistics costs in cargo movement and development of adjoining areas. 

The expeditious declaration of National Waterways and its subsequent development will enhance the industrial growth and tourism potential of the hinterland along the waterway. This will also provide an additional, cheaper and environment friendly mode of transportation throughout the country. 

Background:

Inland Water Transport is considered as the most cost effective and economical mode of transport from the point of view of fuel efficiency. One horse power can carry 4000 Kg load in water whereas, it can carry 150 Kg and 500 Kg by road and rail respectively. Further in a study as highlighted by the World Bank, 1 litre of fuel can move 105 ton-Km by inland water transport, whereas the same amount of fuel can move only 85 ton-Km by rail and 24 ton-Km by road. Studies have shown that emission from container vessels range from 32-36 gCO2 per ton-Km while those of road transport vehicles (heavy duty vehicles) range from 51-91gCO2 per ton-km.

Supportive governments are an imperative to kick-start development in the least developed states

How to fast forward the backward states

Supportive governments are an imperative to kick-start development in the least developed states

The recent Bihar election was a fierce contest for political space. The stakes were high, and there were national implications. The campaign sought to focus on development, but it was also about caste and religion. Even so, development outcomes over the past decade, attributed to the Nitish Kumar-led governments, probably did exercise a significant influence on the election verdict.

Yet, in 2015, Bihar is among the poorest and least developed states of India. Its larger neighbour Uttar Pradesh, which goes to the polls in 2017, is about the same. So is Odisha. This group also includes Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, despite some change for the better. Once upon a time, the five were described as BIMARU states, which is no longer politically correct. It is, in effect, the Hindi heartland plus Odisha. For India to progress fast, and more evenly, these states need to catch up with the richer ones.

Taken together, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha, account for 45% of India’s population and 35% of its land area. But they contribute only 28% of national income and are home to 53% of the people who live below the official poverty line in India. This represents an underutilization of our most abundant resource, people, and also our most scarce resource, land. It also suggests that there is a vast potential for development, which could transform India if only it can be mobilized.

Observers and analysts have highlighted the impressive growth performance of these states since the early 2000s, as average annual output growth rates, in real terms, were close to double-digit levels, until the downturn in the national economy. Did this help them reduce the wide income gap with other states? The answer is a clear no, at least partly because they grew from low bases.

Click here for enlarge

Figure 1 compares the population-weighted Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) per capita in these five states with that in the top five states, at decadal intervals, from 1980-81 to 2010-11. For the purpose of comparison over time, in this exercise, Bihar includes Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh includes Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh includes Chhattisgarh. This comparison also excludes the small states in the North-east and the Union territories. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were the bottom five throughout the period. The top five included Haryana and Maharashtra throughout, Punjab, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thrice, and Kerala twice, in the four selected years. It reveals a widening gap. Output per capita in the bottom five states as a percentage of that in the top five states dropped from 56% in 1980-81 to 39% in 2010-11.

Similarly, figure 2 shows that per capita income in the poorest state, Bihar throughout the period, as a percentage of that in the richest state, Punjab thrice and Haryana once, in the four selected years, fell from 35% in 1980-81 to 25% in 2010-11.

There are two reasons for this divergence in incomes between rich states and poor states, despite rapid growth in the latter. For one, output growth was rapid even in the richer states, while population growth rates were significantly higher in the poorer states so that the growth in their income per capita was distinctly lower, leading to the widening gap. For another, the distribution of increments in output attributable to growth was unequal between regions.

This is neither surprising nor altogether new. It is in the logic of markets, accentuated by liberalization, which tends to widen regional disparities because of a cumulative causation that creates market-driven virtuous or vicious circles. Regions that are better endowed with natural resources, physical infrastructure, skilled labour or educated people, experience rapid growth. Like magnets, they attract resources and people from elsewhere. In contrast, disadvantaged regions tend to lag behind and become even more disadvantaged. Over time, the gap widens through such cumulative causation. This has happened in most developing countries that have experienced rapid growth, whether China and Indonesia in Asia or Brazil and Mexico in Latin America.

Growth matters because it is cumulative. If output growth, in real terms, is 10% a year, output doubles in seven years. If per capita income growth, in real terms, is 7% (or 5%) a year, per capita income doubles in 10 or (14 years). But the complexity of economic growth cannot be reduced to a simple arithmetic of compound growth rates. It is also important to consider what drives and sustains economic growth.

In this context, it might be interesting to consider international development experience. There are rich and poor countries in the world economy, just as there are rich and poor states in India. The laggard states in India are large enough in terms of population size (and geographical size) to be countries. Uttar Pradesh (200 million people) compares with Brazil (205) million or Nigeria (180 million). Bihar (104 million) compares with the Philippines (105 million) or Vietnam (93 million). Madhya Pradesh (73 million) and Rajasthan (69 million) are comparable with Turkey (76 million) or Thailand (70 million). Odisha (42 million) is comparable with South Korea (48 million) or Argentina (40 million).

My research on developing countries in the world economy reveals some catching up by Asia, Latin America and Africa taken together, with the industrialized world, which gathered momentum circa 1980, in terms of their share in world output, manufacturing and trade. The divergence in per capita incomes stopped and a very modest convergence started after 2000. But this process was distributed in an unequal manner between regions and between countries within regions. Even so, there are lessons that emerge from this experience.

There were three common factors underlying the success of latecomers to industrialization and development: initial conditions, enabling institutions and supportive governments. I believe that these are important pointers from which the underdeveloped states of India can learn something about how to kick-start development.

There are two aspects of initial conditions. The first is the creation of a physical infrastructure, led by the government, through public investment in power, roads, transport and communications. The infrastructure that exists is simply inadequate if not verging on collapse. The second is the spread of education in society, where primary and secondary education should be the focus, with an emphasis on learning outcomes. This will need a massive overhaul of public schooling systems that have atrophied with the passage of time.

Institutions are not pre-conditions that can be created in a vacuum but evolve in the process of development. Yet, some enabling institutions and institutional changes are essential to break the stranglehold of inertia and the status quo.

The most important, perhaps, is the administrative systems of government. Corruption and rents, patronage and exploitation, or arbitrariness or inefficiency, are deeply embedded flaws. These can be controlled and must be minimized by making ministers, legislators and administrators responsive and accountable to people, so that performance is rewarded and incompetence is penalized. This means preservation rather than subversion of the rule of law. This means transparency in information and decisions. This means introducing institutionalized checks and balances.

The other sphere, almost as important, is the agricultural sector and rural development. It cries out for attention after prolonged neglect. In Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha, the share of the rural population in total population, even now, is in the range of 75-90%. There is a desperate need to rejuvenate or establish institutions that can provide extension services (administrative reform), access to credit (agricultural bank), or irrigation facilities (in mission mode), for farmers. The availability of energy and credit in rural areas would also foster rural industrialization and non-agricultural employment through entrepreneurship.

Supportive governments are an imperative to kick-start development in the least developed states. This has multiple dimensions. But there are three that deserve emphasis.

Insofar as development is about the well-being of people, these state governments should concentrate on safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, and public health in rural areas, to support social consumption for those who cannot meet these basic human needs through private incomes.

Insofar as development is about transforming the production capabilities of economies, there is a role for these state governments in evolving policies, developing institutions and making strategic interventions, whether as a catalyst or a leader. Given the near zero output elasticity of employment in agriculture, the only potential for creating employment and raising productivity lies in manufacturing or services. But it is only low-productivity consumer services that are likely to be located in such states.

The obvious strategic choice in the medium-term would be to develop manufacturing. For this purpose, the creation of a physical infrastructure and creating a milieu that is conducive to, or attractive for private investment, whether domestic or foreign, are necessary conditions. This quest for industrialization would benefit from imparting vocational education for skill development, setting up an institutional framework, say in the form of a board chaired by the chief minister, to formulate industrial policy, and establishing a state industrial development bank to help finance investment.

The third dimension, good governance, is critical. Governance capabilities do matter. Indeed, the quality of governance is an important determinant of success or failure at development. The most striking illustration of this proposition is provided by the wide diversity in economic performance across states in India, despite common policies, similar institutions, and the economic union. Public perceptions about governance shape electoral outcomes as people re-elect, or oust, incumbent governments.

Some of this might be easier said than done. But a better world is possible for these states and, hence, for India.

Voters are changing politics. Politicians must reform the civil services.

State of the service

Voters are changing politics. Politicians must reform the civil services.

The latest pay commission report was a disappointment. Any organisation that cares about performance would be delusional to carry out a compensation review without a simultaneous review of organisation structure and human capital. But a commission member felt “such a review falls well beyond the mandate of this commission”. Even if that is literally true, most impactful mandates are not given physically but taken spiritually; the most exasperating but perhaps most common response of civil servants is “above my pay grade” and “outside my job description”. We currently treat our best bureaucrats badly because we don’t punish bad ones; our government has become too big for small things and too small for big things; and the state is unable to deliver on its own intentions.

Blaming India’s bureaucracy for all this is silly. India and Pakistan, born on the same night, have had very different democratic destinies for many reasons, but one of them has been our national civil service cadre (notables include V.P. Menon for the integration of princely states and Sukumar Sen for our first election). On the other hand, India and China, with the same per capita GDPs in 1970, have had very different economic, education and health destinies for many reasons, but one of them has been the monopoly of the permanent, generalist civil services. The only job of the civil services is execution, but not only is the bureaucracy’s collective performance on that narrow metric painful, many bureaucrats don’t have the specialisation to deliver the 12 projects detailed in Nandan Nilekani’s wonderful new co-authored book, Rebooting India. Further, the notion that bureaucrats must protect India from its politicians is wrong and not dissimilar to academic Daniel Bell’s case in his recent book, The China Model, that choosing country leadership without elections delivers superior policy outcomes. The book is interesting but irrelevant. In a democracy, policy is a child of politics.

The first avatar of India’s bureaucracy was the Indian Civil Service (ICS), which Subhas Chandra Bose refused to join because “the ICS perpetuates the British empire” and Jawaharlal Nehru felt “was neither Indian nor Civil nor Service”. The second avatar began after Independence. Sardar Patel convinced Nehru of the importance of a “uniform national administrative structure with considerable central control”. Ironically, assimilating 562 British franchise operations — the princely states — along with Partition made a system designed to control 300 million subjects seem like the right configuration to govern 300 million citizens. It was the right call: A permanent generalist civil services staffed by a highly meritocratic selection process led to a golden period for the civil services because politicians and bureaucrats were idealistic and frugal, one-party democracy kept the political economy simple, and the primary goal was nation-building. The third avatar began in the 1970s, when the national political monopoly broke down, politics became the country’s highest EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margin business, idealism diminished and bureaucrats began taking sides (the biggest surprise for me in Coomi Kapoor’s great book, The Emergency: A Personal History was how civil servants fell in line). This led to them losing their independence, retaining their permanence and amplifying their “generalness”. It also coincided with the start of the period — 25 years after Independence — when nation-building skills became less important than poverty reduction skills.

The fourth avatar of the bureaucracy should be about creating an adventurous and accountable state focused on execution. Moving to a cost-to-government structure that monetises all benefits, like houses and cars, and enrols everybody in the employee state insurance and provident fund schemes will enable a more liquid and fluid civil servant labour market. Sharper performance management will end the “outstanding” ranking for 95 per cent of civil servants, which punishes the good and honest ones. This will also enable giving top jobs to 45-year-olds. Then, it will replicate the up-or-out colonel threshold of the army, which prevents the pyramid from becoming a cylinder; people not shortlisted for promotion beyond joint secretary should retire early. It will create a UPSC-administered lateral entry process at the level of joint secretary, equal to 30 per cent of staff. It will introduce an equivalent of Australia’s senior executive service, under which all appointments after joint secretary will be done on five-year contracts through an open application process.

It will enable 25 per cent of all senior positions to be co-terminus political appointees confirmed by a standard and transparent vetting process. It will create a culture of bold decision-making with explicit legal protections; the backseat drivers and post-mortems of the last decade have created an understandable preference for following rules over doing the right thing. It will reduce the physical and spiritual distance from normal people — largely adopted from the British — like red lights/ stars/ flags on cars, drivers, off-book government-paid armies at home, an excessive security apparatus, peons, separate lines, etc, because state legitimacy is corroded by the pedestal narrative. It will reduce the size of the Central government by accelerating the transfer of funds, functions and functionaries to state capitals. It will separate regulator, shareholder and policymaker roles in all areas, and shift government ownership of all PSUs from line ministries to a single holding company tasked with governance and human capital.

The Indian state is not designed for the scale, complexity and accountability it faces. This is not the bureaucracy’s fault. Change will be most sustainable and effective if it comes from inside the civil services, but their senior leadership often spend their final years trying to get post-retirement jobs, rather than caring about systemic reform or their younger colleagues. Change from outside is a second-best choice, but it is unrealistic to expect people to cut the tree they are sitting on. We need a new configuration of the capabilities and relationship between siyasat (the politics), hukumat (the state) and awaam (the people). Voters are massively changing politics. But only politicians can do civil service reform.

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current affairs 0n 11th dec

Anti-dengue vaccine brings hope

At a time when India is struggling with rising number of dengue cases with each passing year, the Mexican government has approved the world’s first anti-dengue vaccine which is designed to protect people in the 9-45 age group from nine to 45 years from all four subtypes of the virus.

Called Dengvaxia, the vaccine has been developed by France-based Sanofi Pasteur and is the result of an extensive clinical development programme running for almost two decades.

“Today, with this first marketing authorisation of Dengvaxia, we have achieved our goal of making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease,” said Olivier Brandicourt, Sanofi’s managing director and CEO said on Wednesday. “This is a historic milestone for our company, for the global public health community and, most importantly, for half the world’s population who lives at risk of dengue,” he added

Kerala to be declared first digital State

Kerala is expected to be declared the first digital State in the country shortly, on the strength of its digital infrastructure and e-governance initiatives. Discussions are on to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make the declaration, Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson said here on Thursday.

Delivering the inaugural address at the Knowledge Sharing Summit organised by the Kerala State IT Mission and Computer Society of India, he said the State had succeeded in leveraging ICT for economic growth and making government services affordable and accessible for the masses. Bridging the digital divide is our priority, he said.

Mr. Thomson highlighted several initiatives under the Digital Kerala programme. Principal Secretary, IT , P.H. Kuriansaid the high mobile and Internet penetration and the increasing use of smart phones had hastened the evolution of Kerala as a digital society.

Supreme Court upholds Haryana panchayat law

It disqualifiesilliterate people from contesting polls

In what may be a precedent preventing illiterate persons from participating in grass roots democracy, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Haryana State law mandating that only those having “minimum” educational qualifications will be eligible to contest panchayat elections in the State.

The other grounds for disqualification from contesting polls under the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 are failure to pay arrears to any primary agriculture co-operative society or agriculture co-operative banks, failure to pay electricity bill arrears and not having a functional toilet at home.

The “minimum” education required for eligibility to contest in a panchayat election is completion of matriculation in case of general candidates; completion of Class 8 for a woman candidate or a candidate belonging to Scheduled Caste; and completion of Class 5 pass for a Scheduled Caste woman candidate contesting for the post of ‘Panch’.

The law leaves 68 per cent of the Scheduled Caste women and 41 per cent of the Scheduled Caste men in Haryana ineligible to contest panchayat elections. The judgment may become a rallying point for other States also to amend their laws in the same fashion.

The verdict by a Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre agrees that the Haryana law creates “two classes of voters,” that is, “those who are qualified by virtue of their educational accomplishment to contest the elections to the panchayats and those who are not.”

But Justice Chelameswar, who authored the verdict, reasons there is nothing “irrational or illegal or unconnected” if the law prescribes minimum educational qualification for candidates. Simply put, the court feels that basic education would “enable the candidates to effectively discharge duties of the panchayat.”

“It is only education which gives a human being the power to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, prescription of an educational qualification is not irrelevant for better administration ,” Justice Chelameswar reasoned.

The court completely agreed with Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi’s submissions during the hearings that the law was meant to elect “model representatives for local self government for better administrative efficiency.”

The apex court failed to find any merit in the argument of three women candidates, spurned by Haryana’s new poll law and who moved the Supreme Court, that “people do not choose to be illiterate.”

Those with minimum educational qualification alone can contest polls

Why high-speed rail is viable

Given that it is a low-energy, low-emission mode of transportation that can reduce costs significantly, India should not miss the opportunity to develop high-speed rail

t has been reported that Japan has offered to finance the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail (HSR) corridor, estimated to cost about Rs 90,000 crore, at an interest rate of less than one per cent. Whenever any news item on HSR appears, questions revolving around whether India really needs HSR are raised. Without cogent and coherent answers to these questions, it will be impossible for HSR projects to gain larger acceptance. This article attempts to consolidate the doubts generally raised about HSR in India and provide comprehensive explanations.

The first question is: Why should we develop HSR when air travel exists for faster travel between cities? India's transport demand will triple or quadruple in the next three decades, and given that the negative externalities in terms of energy consumption and emissions are high for air travel, it is a great opportunity for India to go for low-energy and low-emission modes such as HSR. HSR is comparable with air travel in terms of end-to-end travel time for most inter-city trips of distances up to 600 km in case of HSR and 1,300 km in case of super-HSR such as maglev. In addition, India can also claim carbon credits for resorting to low-carbon transport - without losing on travel time. Thus, HSR is a better option in terms of energy efficiency, carbon footprint and inter-city travel time than air travel.

The second question is: Why can't we upgrade railway lines to provide semi-HSR, such as the one proposed for the Delhi-Agra link, with a maximum speed of 160 km per hour? Our existing railway lines are used by different trains of different speeds, due to variances in the capacity of locomotives and stoppages for passenger trains. This cannot practicably be changed. Operating a few trains at 160 kmph might showcase our ability but it would further reduce the throughput of our railway tracks due to huge differentials in speed. To meet India's rail transport demand, there should be three sets of double tracks: the first one for conventional trains, the second for freight trains, and the third for HSR in the high-traffic-density corridors such as Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) and its diagonals. Ignoring this ground reality would escalate our internal and external costs of transport. This is evident from the fact that in the absence of sufficient rail capacity, both passenger and freight business has moved to road transport - and this trend would continue unabated.

The third question: Is India at the state of economic development where it could build HSR? The rule of thumb for the timing of investment is that in the first year of construction of HSR, the country's real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) has to be at least $5,000. As reported by the World Bank, India's real per capita GDP at PPP was $5,244 in 2014. So India has reached the economic level where it is appropriate to time investment into HSR. Moreover, there has been continuous upward mobility in terms of demanding more comfortable and faster travel across all sections of society in India.

The preliminary work in terms of preparation of detailed project report and the tendering process may take about two years, the land acquisition may take about two years more and the actual construction, testing and commissioning may take another five years. So the first HSR train would not be ready earlier than 2024. Given the current growth rate, the average per capita real income would be at least 50 per cent more in 2024 than what it is in 2015. This would ensure willingness and affordability to pay for faster travel with comfort. HSR is the best bet to meet this requirement.

The fourth question is: Why should the government splurge on HSR when there are other pressing needs, including developing conventional rail infrastructure and social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals? HSR has been planned on GQ and its diagonal routes of North-South and East-West corridors (NSEW), which are high-density corridors for both passenger and freight traffic. Indian Railways has planned HSR only on these high-demand routes. The government has no intention of developing HSR using its own funds - it would remain the facilitator in the execution of the project. As and when the corridors become financially viable, they would be taken up for HSR execution either with 100 per cent foreign direct investment or through public-private partnerships, or some other format where the government funding would be nil. Thus the question of splurging taxpayer's money on HSR projects does not arise at all.

The fifth question is: How do we handle land requirement and fencing of HSR lines? According to the International Union of Railways, to construct one kilometre of HSR (two lines), 3.2 hectares per km is required, whereas to construct a six-lane highway, 9.3 hectares per km is required. Given the difficulties associated with land acquisition in India for infrastructure projects and the compensation being introduced with the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the lower land requirement of HSR for a transport corridor with higher passenger carrying capacity is a boon. The cost of about Rs 165 crore per km for HSR includes underground and elevated tracks in congested urban areas as well as provisions for fencing, centralised safety monitoring and other safety-related costs, among other things.

HSR would also reduce our crude oil import and dependency, energy consumption, carbon emissions and pollution and increase the overall supply of rail transport. By diverting people from travelling by road, HSR would also reduce road accidents. It would be a great loss to the country as a whole, if the construction of HSR is delayed indefinitely.