Genetically modified crops: the way forward

The government must be transparent and address understandable fears

Last October, principal scientific adviser to the government of India R. Chidambaram sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the use of genetically modified (GM) food crops, in which he said: “India... should not hesitate to be the first introducer of new advanced technology, after convincing itself, of course, about its value to the users and the nation, its economic viability, its safety and environment friendliness.” It is an eminently reasonable stance. But more often, it’s a lack of clarity that dogs the debate on GM crops in India—as witnessed last Friday when a committee of government and independent experts met inconclusively for the third time this year to evaluate field trial data on GM mustard.

The Indian GM crops saga is a convoluted one. Currently, it has the world’s fourth largest GM crop acreage on the strength of Bt cotton, the only genetically modified crop allowed in the country. But the introduction of Bt cotton has been both highly successful and controversial. Cotton yield more than doubled in the first decade since its introduction in 2002, according to the Economic Survey 2011-12—by which point it accounted for 90% of cotton acreage. But it was also shadowed by controversy, with a tangle of pricing and intellectual property rights (IPR) issues followed by government price interventions and litigation.

GM food crops have fared worse. An agreement to develop Bt brinjal was signed in 2005 between Mahyco—American agricultural biotech giant Monsanto’s Indian Bt cotton partner—and two Indian agricultural universities. Following the study of biosafety data and field trials by two expert committees, Bt brinjal was cleared for commercialization by India’s top biotech regulator, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, in 2009. But nothing came of it, with moratoriums imposed by then Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh and his successor Jayanthi Natarajan following opposition from civil society groups and brinjal-growing states.

This split within the government—Veerappa Moily subsequently reversed Natarajan’s decision on field trials, and both Manmohan Singh at the time and Modi subsequently have advocated GM crops—shows how fraught the issue is.

Multiple studies have shown no human or ecological ill-effects, as well as increased yields and resistance to pests among other benefits. Perhaps the most wide-ranging of these is a 2014 meta-analysis—by Wilhelm Klumper and Matin Qaim of the University of Gottingen, Germany—of 147 studies on farm surveys and field trials of GM crops carried out across the world. Their results: use of GM technology increased crop yields by 22%, reduced chemical pesticides by 37% and increased farmer profits by 68%, with better results in developing countries than in developed ones.

But the foundation of such studies has been questioned by opponents of GM crops—ranging from civil society groups to a minority within the scientific community—who allege that regulatory bodies and scientific publications are in bed with GM corporates. In India, Bt cotton has been questionably blamed for economic distress and farmer suicides and raised questions of biodiversity and horizontal gene transfer.

Both Singh’s and Modi’s administrations must share the blame. GM crops have never been a purely scientific issue. They are situated at a socioeconomic and political nexus, and involve understandable fears about long-term human and environment safety, market monopolies in seeds and food sovereignty. Politics involves managing perceptions; both governments have failed here.

If the Modi government is to lay the ground for a measured, tested introduction of GM crops, it must clean house. It can start with transparency; keeping biosafety data out of the public domain, as has been done with GM mustard, will not help. Nor will the lacking regulatory regime, rightly pointed out as being inadequate by the Supreme Court. Taking up the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill again is a must. So is resolving IPR issues that have again reared up with the Andhra Pradesh government seeking compulsory licensing or revocation of the Bt cotton technology patent in its struggle with Monsanto. Such interventions create regulatory uncertainty and deter the entry of competitors that could check monopolistic conditions.

Given agricultural distress and the need for broad reforms in the sector—and the potential of GM crops to supplement those reforms with increased drought resistance and reduced pesticide dependence, among other benefits—opposition must be managed, not allowed to hold sway.

Should the government allow more GM crops in India?

NASA’s most powerful rocket to send 13 tiny satellites into space

These satellite secondary payloads or ‘CubeSats’ will carry sci-tech investigations to help pave the way for future human exploration in deep space.

The Space Launch System (SLS) — NASA’s most powerful rocket ever that will launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to a stable orbit beyond the Moon in 2018 — will also carry 13 tiny satellites to test innovative ideas.

These small satellite secondary payloads or ‘CubeSats’ will carry science and technology investigations to help pave the way for future human exploration in deep space, including the journey to Mars.

SLS’ first flight, referred to as Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), provides the rare opportunity for these small experiments to reach deep space destinations, as most launch opportunities for CubeSats are limited to low-Earth orbit.

“The 13 CubeSats that will fly to deep space as secondary payloads aboard SLS on EM-1 showcase the intersection of science and technology, and advance our journey to Mars,” said NASA deputy administrator Dava Newman in a statement.

While Near-Earth Asteroid Scout or NEA Scout will perform reconnaissance of an asteroid, take pictures and observe its position in space, ‘BioSentinel’ CubeSat will use yeast to detect, measure and compare the impact of deep space radiation on living organisms over long durations in deep space.

‘Lunar Flashlight’ will look for ice deposits and identify locations where resources may be extracted from the lunar surface while ‘LunaH-Map’ will map hydrogen within craters and other permanently shadowed regions throughout the moon’s south pole.

“The SLS is providing an incredible opportunity to conduct science missions and test key technologies beyond low-Earth orbit,” added Bill Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development at NASA.

This rocket has the unprecedented power to send Orion to deep space plus room to carry 13 small satellites — payloads that will advance our knowledge about deep space with minimal cost,” he informed.

NASA has also reserved three slots for payloads from international partners. Discussions to fly those three payloads are ongoing, and they will be announced at a later time.

On this first flight, SLS will launch the Orion spacecraft to a stable orbit beyond the moon to demonstrate the integrated system performance of Orion and the SLS rocket prior to the first crewed flight.

The CubeSats will be deployed following Orion separation from the upper stage and once Orion is a safe distance away.

‘I think WHO should declare an emergency

The World Health Organization faced flak for its delay by two months in 2014 in declaring the Ebola epidemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This might not happen in the case of Zika virus when the WHO will convene an emergency committee on February 1 (Monday) to help determine the level of the international response to the outbreak.

It is alleged that WHO declared Ebola as a PHEIC only after a U.S. health care person was infected with the virus. Likewise, is it because the risk to the U.S. is very high in the case of Zika virus that WHO has convened the Committee meeting on Monday? “I think it is safe to assume two things. First, we do know that political considerations factored strongly into the delay in calling a PHEIC for Ebola, due to pressure from West African countries. Second, when a disease has potentially strong impacts on North America and Europe the political calculations change very quickly. That drives the media and pushes WHO to act”, Lawrence O. Gostin from O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC and Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights said in an email to this Correspondent.

But in the first place why should the Zika virus outbreaks be declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern? The term PHEIC is defined as an “extraordinary event” which is determined if both these conditions are met — constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease, and potentially requires a coordinated international response.

According to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) agreement, this definition “implies a situation that is: serious, unusual or unexpected, carries implications for public health beyond the affected State’s national border, and may require immediate international action”.

The Zika outbreak in 23 countries meets these conditions. “Given the rapidly spreading Zika epidemic, I think WHO should declare an emergency and use all their powers under the International Health Regulations,” Prof. Gostin said. “Actually there is a detailed algorithm [based on which WHO declares PHEIC], but essentially if the disease has cross border spread, if it is novel, and if it poses an international risk, it qualifies. All that applies to Zika in my view”.

Since its outbreak in Brazil in May 2015, there have been nearly 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly — a foetal deformation where infants are born with abnormally small heads. Officials are still investigating whether Zika causes microcephaly in newborns, but the link is “strongly suspected,” according to the WHO.

Evidence of virus

“Evidence of the virus has been found in the placenta and amniotic fluid of mothers and in the brains of foetusesor newborns. Yet causation between Zika virus and microcephaly is not yet established”, Prof. Gostin, Corresponding author writes in a paper published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The WHO estimates that 1.5 million people might have been infected in Brazil. “We can expect 3 to 4 million cases of Zika virus disease”, Marcos Espinal, an infectious disease expert at the WHO’s Americas regional office, told Reuters. And Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO had said that the virus is “spreading explosively” through the Americas.

Since the first outbreak was reported in May 2015 in Brazil, the virus has already spread to 23 countries and territories in the Americas. It has spread even to Australia by travelers, and is anticipated to spread to rest of theAmericas, Europe and Asia.

Even now under the IHR, the WHO communicates with member countries about public health risks. But things may change or work differently if PHEIC were to be declared. “If a PHEIC were declared, WHO would provide detailed guidance for States, mobilize resources, and provide technical assistance. It would place the epidemic within the framework of binding international law. It will inject major urgency into R&D [to develop therapies and/or vaccines]”, Prof. Gostin explained.

Prof. Gostin says convening an emergency committee does not mean that WHO will declare a PHEIC. For instance, in the case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the emergency committee was convened 10 times to take stock of the situation but WHO did not declare a PHEIC; it offered “detailed recommendations to guide member States.”

But the very process of convening the committee would “catalyze international attention, funding and research”. For instance, Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, has already announced that Phase I clinical trials of a possible vaccine against Zika virus may begin before the end of 2016. The National Institutes of Health launched a Zika vaccine initiative late last year. Brazil too has gone on an overdrive to find an effective vaccine. It may take as long as 10 years before a vaccine becomes widely available, Dr. Fauci cautioned.

Little attention was paid as long as the Zika infection remained asymptomatic and self-limiting. But “emerging data on foetal complications altered this equation” and all focus has been directed at finding an efficacious vaccine urgently.

The Zika virus infection usually is asymptomatic in nearly 80 per cent of the cases. As a result, many cases of Zika go undetected, making it difficult to estimate the true scale of the outbreak in the Americas. One in four people infected with Zika develop symptoms — mild illness, such as fever, rash, muscle/joint pain, and conjunctivitis.

Since the infection is spread through Aedes species mosquito (which bites during daytime) which is commonly seen in these countries, and since it causes foetal abnormalities, countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Jamaica have recommended that women delay pregnancy. El Salvador has asked women to delay pregnancy until 2018.

On January 15, the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised pregnant women “to consider postponing travel to countries with ongoing Zika virus transmission”.

Public Health England (PHE) has said men should wear condoms for 28 days after returning from any of the countries where Zika infection has been reported if their partner was at risk of pregnancy, or already pregnant. It also said that men should use condoms for six months following recovery if a clinical illness “compatible with Zika virus infection or laboratory confirmed Zika virus infection was reported.”

Kudos New Crop Insurance scheme: Building the Future

Kudos New Crop Insurance scheme: Building the Future

Agriculture being the mainstay of Indian people traditionally and culturally, the Narendra Modi government has been focusing on the agriculture front quite seriously. Therefore the announcement of the New Crop Insurance scheme on 13^th January, 2016 by the Government of India has received kudos from all quarters.

The government and the policy makers have always faced a few challenges vis-à-vis the task of ensuring food security, higher agri growth and adequate jobs in agri sector. There has been always a long felt need to bring together at one place all conceptual issues, detailed institutional framework and operational details related to farmers’ welfare, risk management of farming community and the crops during drought and floods and other localized risk factors.

The broad policy on drought and natural disasters management prepared by the government has prescribed multifold actions vis-à-vis the disaster mitigation plans, relief measures required for providing succor to the affected population and the need to integrate these with long term objectives.

In other words, steps were required to be taken on a war footing with a well thought of and far-sighted vision and action plans, both in short term and long terms.

The New Crop Insurance scheme must be understood from that perspective. This is all the more relevant at a time when the country is facing drought for the second straight year due to poor monsoon rains.

Under the new scheme that would cost government Rs 8,000-9,000 crore annually, the farmers' premium has been kept at a maximum of 2 per cent for foodgrains and oilseeds, and up to 5 per cent for horticulture and cotton crops.

To be rolled out from the Kharif season this year, the much awaited scheme - Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana - was cleared at the Cabinet meeting, headed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The new scheme, to be executed also by private insurance companies, is seen as a significant step by policy makers, farming community and experts. The government’s move will enhance insurance coverage to more crop area to protect farmers from vagaries of monsoon. Hence the scheme is considered very timely and also quite in tune with similar initiatives in some countries.

For Rabi crops, the farmer’s share has been rightly fixed at 1.5 per cent — against actual premiums of 8-10 per cent. For year-long cash crops and horticulture crops, this has been capped at 5 per cent.

The PMFBY will replace the existing two schemes National Agricultural Insurance Scheme as well as the Modified NAIS.

The official sources also clarified that in terms of Service Tax, as the new

PMFBY is a replacement scheme of  NAIS / MNAIS, there will be exemption from Service Tax liability of all the services involved in the implementation of the scheme. It is estimated that the new scheme will ensure about 75-80 per cent of subsidy for the farmers in insurance premium. 

It is worth mentioning that the government is already shelling out around Rs 5000 crore annually average for the last five years for various disaster relief measures even as the government’s new move will now mean a tentative expenditure of about Rs 9000 crore. This will be more helpful especially for farmers as the risk factor would be looked into. According to many, the 'Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojna' will also rid farmers of the web of complex rules of the earlier insurance schemes.

Within hours after official announcement was made, the Prime Minister Modi tweeted expressing confidence that the new Crop Insurance Scheme will bring about a major transformation in the lives of farmers. "This is a historic day. I am confident that this scheme, which is inspired by the consideration of farmers' benefit, will bring about a major transformation to the lives of farmers," the Prime Minister said in a series of tweets.

"Farmer brothers and sisters, at a time when you are celebrating festivals like Lohri, Pongal and Bihu, the government has given you a gift in the form of Prime Minister's Crop Insurance Scheme," he had further tweeted. 

The new scheme includes successful aspects of the existing schemes and "effectively addresses" whatever was lacking in earlier schemes."The scheme has the lowest premium, it entails easy usage of technology like mobile phone, quick assessment of damage and disbursement within a time frame," the PM said.

The government would have to cough out Rs 8,800 crore annually whereas the coverage would be for a crop area of 194.40 million hectare. It is significant to note that after coming to power in May 2014, the Modi government had announced that it would bring a new crop insurance scheme.

Among others, expressing confidence that farmers will adopt this new scheme, the union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said it will help them tide over financial uncertainties.

Experts also say that the mechanism of higher subsidy for crop premiums is not out of line with international standards. The United States, for instance, covers over 120 million hectares and gives subsidy to the tune of around 70 per cent. China insures its farmers for a sown area of around 75 million hectares with a subsidy on premiums of about 80 per cent. In Indian context, during the next five years, the plan would probably cover over 50 per cent of the cropped area.

A Game-changer: There are a few significant features about the new scheme and this will make it both – farmers’ friendly and a game-changer in the long run. The new Crop Insurance Scheme is in line with ‘One Nation – One Scheme’ theme. “It incorporates the best features of all previous schemes and at the same time, all previous shortcomings/weaknesses have been removed,” an official announcement said and thus highlighting the end of the cob of complexities the farmers had to face earlier.

Importantly for the beneficiaries, risks leading to crop loss are to be covered under the scheme include: Yield Losses (standing crops, on notified area basis). Thus a Comprehensive risk insurance is provided to cover yield losses due to non-preventable risks, such as Natural Fire and Lightning, Storm, Hailstorm, Cyclone, Typhoon, Tempest, Hurricane, Tornado. Risks due to Flood, Inundation and Landslide, Drought, Dry spells, Pests/ Diseases also will be covered.

Similarly in cases where majority of the insured farmers of a notified area, having intent to sow/plant and incurred expenditure for the purpose, are prevented from sowing/planting the insured crop due to adverse weather conditions, shall be eligible for indemnity claims upto a maximum of 25 per cent of the sum-insured.

In post-harvest losses, coverage will be available  up to a maximum period of 14 days from harvesting for those crops which are kept in “cut & spread” condition to dry in the field. For certain localized problems, Loss / damage resulting from occurrence of identified localized risks like hailstorm, landslide, and Inundation affecting isolated farms in the notified area would also be covered.

Moreover, it has been made clear that there will be “no upper limit” on the Government subsidy. Even if balance premium is 90 per cent, it will be borne by the Government. Earlier, there was a provision of capping the premium rate which resulted in low claims being paid to farmers. This capping was done to limit Government outgo on the premium subsidy. This ceiling has now been removed and farmers will get claim against full sum insured without any reduction.

The new scheme envisages among other things that there will be use of technology. More technology and science will be encouraged. Smart phones will be used to capture and upload data of crop cutting to reduce the delays in claim payment to farmers. Remote sensing will also be used to reduce the number of crop cutting experiments, sources say.

Making use of technology mandatory will also improve operational efficiency and will be beneficial to both - the farmers and the insurers, experts and insurance players say. Additionally, since farmer's premium will be down, the uptake of policies would be high. Moreover making the new crop insurance scheme mandatory for states will also mean there will be increase in the list of policy takers. Adding catastrophic events also to this cover to protect farmers against crop loss/damage due to incidents like cyclone would be beneficial to all stake holders yet again.

Speech by the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee at the Fifty-Fourth convocation of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)

Speech by the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee at the Fifty-Fourth convocation of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)

1. I am indeed happy to be here amidst you today for the fifty-fourth convocation of Indian Agricultural Research Institute, a leading institution in our country for agricultural research, education and extension. I congratulate the students who are being awarded degrees today. On this occasion, I also take the opportunity to compliment the members of the faculty for shaping the minds and skills of these students.

2. The IARI, set up in 1905, has played a key role in providing human resource to the national agricultural research system. Over eight thousand students of IARI have been awarded post-graduate or PhD degrees so far. Several alumni of IARI have held key positions driving agricultural research and education in important institutions in India and abroad.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
3. India has only 3 percent of the world’s land resources and 5 percent of water resources. Yet, Indian agriculture system supports 18 percent of the world population. The transformation from a state of "ship-to-mouth" to a leading exporter of food grains has been made possible largely due to the scientific developments in premier institutes like IARI. This Institute has made significant contributions in ushering the green revolution and building a vibrant agriculture sector in our country. I applaud IARI for its dedicated service to the nation.

4. IARI has recently developed several breakthrough technologies bringing prosperity to farmers. India’s basmati rice export has been revolutionized because of IARI’s short-duration high-yielding basmati rice varieties. Pusa basmati varieties accounted for more than 90 percent of the 30,000 crore rupees of export earnings this year. It gave profit in excess of two lakh rupees per hectare to the farmers. Likewise, IARI wheat varieties have resulted in an additional production of 3 million tonnes of wheat in the previous year.

5. Resource management, farm machinery and plant protection technologies of IARI are widely used by farmers. They have resulted in enhanced input use efficiency, farm profit and environmental sustainability. The diagnostic techniques developed by IARI such as "micro-array chip" and "ELISA kits" for plant virus detection, and nanotechnology-based chemical formulations for management of nematodes and insect pests are expected to reduce the input cost of plant protection chemicals. IARI’s climate change and mitigation research on methane emission from rice paddies are significant from the point of view of developing appropriate strategies and protecting India’s interests in climate change negotiations.

Friends:
6. Degrading soil health and dwindling fresh water availability are posing major concerns for agricultural sustainability. Low soil organic matter and imbalanced use of fertilizers are affecting crop productivity. The “Soil Health Card Scheme” aims at providing farm-wise and crop-wise fertilizer recommendations to enhance fertilizer use efficiency. To my mind, IARI technologies like “Pusa Soil Testing and Fertilizer Recommendation meter”, remote sensing-based crop and natural resource monitoring, and decision-support systems can contribute significantly towards this mission. Crops use 23 percent of the applied fertilizer with the balance 77 percent lost to environment. To further increase the efficiency of fertilizer use, easy methods based on plant tissue analysis for sensing nutrient status and making fertilizer recommendations are needed.

7. Enhancing water use efficiency in agriculture can hardly be over-emphasized. In this context, the “per drop, more crop” is a mission statement aimed at improving water productivity. We need technology solutions for smart water usage. It is heartening to note that several water-wise technologies like precision irrigation, Pusa Hydrogel, zero tillage wheat system, direct seeded rice system, and short duration crop varieties have been developed by IARI. Scientists here must continue with their efforts to develop water-efficient and drought-tolerant varieties.

8. Inappropriate treatment and unplanned use of raw sewage water is impacting agricultural sustainability while posing a risk to consumer and environmental health. IARI’s eco-friendly waste-water treatment technology should be able to provide safe irrigation water for peri-urban agriculture and also mitigate the problem of sewage water disposal.

Friends:
9. The production of pulses and edible oil in India has remained insufficient making us dependent on imports. The demand for these food commodities is expected to increase in future substantially. IARI has developed mustard varieties suitable for unconventional areas that can boost oil seed production. The Institute has also initiated the development of synchronous-maturity pigeon-pea hybrids and varieties, apart from chickpea. I am confident these technologies will enhance the productivity of pulses and edible oils to meet our domestic requirements fully.

10. Forty-five percent of children below the age of three years are under-nourished in India. A large number also suffer from Vitamin-A deficiency. To address malnutrition in children, food grains must be bio-fortified with quality protein and micronutrients. I am happy that IARI has developed quality protein maize, and iron and zinc rich wheat, pearl millet and lentil varieties through molecular breeding, and genetically modified “Golden rice” enriched with pro-vitamin A. These technologies should reach the farmers immediately for alleviating malnourishment in women and children.

Friends:
11. Despite the advancements made, Indian agriculture is yet to be completely out of the clutches of weather. After a record food grains production of 265 million tonne in 2013-14, a year of normal monsoon, the production level came down to 253 million tonne in 2014-15, when a 12 percent rainfall deficit was registered. Nature has not been kind to us this year as well. A deficient monsoon followed by a further dry spell is likely to affect agricultural production for the second year in a row. This is an area of grave concern.

12. The time is ripe for some serious efforts as eighty percent of the area under cultivation in India is in the grip of severe climatic conditions like drought, floods and cyclones. Global climate change could aggravate these problems. Institutes like IARI must leverage opportunities from frontier sciences such as bio-technology, synthetic biology, nano-technology, computational biology, sensor technology and geo-spatial technology to develop climate-resilient technology solutions. Innovation in agricultural techniques and practices must be supported through infusion of funds, mentoring of ideas, and technical assistance. The risk-taking ability of farmers must be boosted. The newly-launched crop insurance scheme will leverage technology to provide risk cover to the farmers.

Friends:
13. Agriculture is the source of livelihood for more than fifty percent of our population. Mahatma Gandhi had said once and I quote: “To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves” (unquote). Not many youth, however, are coming forward today to take up farming. To attract youth to agriculture, we need technologies that can make the farm sector profitable. Research in agricultural institutes should focus on minimizing production cost, enhancing profitability in the entire “field-to-plate” food chain, and introducing greater automation to reduce drudgery.

14. Globalization of agriculture has increased the prospects for processed food commodities manifold. Our farmers and agri-preneurs must make full use of this opportunity. Increase in investment for agriculture technology development, rural agri-infrastructure, on-farm processing and value addition, and storage facilities are needed. Agriculturists must be trained to transform their farms into production-cum-processing centres. Research in our institutes must address the critical issues that hinder the development of rural agri-businesses. Proliferation of the recently-launched “Start-up India” to the rural sector could provide fillip to the setting up of agro-based enterprises. The “Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav” programme of IARI, under which each scientist will adopt a village, should aim at changing agriculture from subsistence farming to commercial farm industry.

Friends:
15. Agricultural education in our country must conform to global standards. For that, we need to create a large pool of competent faculty empowered with state-of-the-art research infrastructure. A strong network of teachers, learners and practitioners will facilitate lab-to-field dissemination of good agricultural practices. It will also provide feedback about farmers’ problems to trigger research and technology development in our institutions.

16. Agricultural institutes are the foci on which the success of our farm sector and welfare of people depends. The barometer of performance is the quality of their products. Able, committed and industrious professionals from these institutions are required to spearhead the next farm revolution. Students and alumni of this reputed institution must seize the opportunity and contribute to the transformation in agriculture. I wish the graduating students the very best in life and career. I also wish IARI Godspeed for its future endeavours.

The economics of the MGNREGS

 

Ten years after it was launched, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which promises 100 days of employment to every rural household, is back in the news. More people in rural India are seeking employment through the programme across the country, with job numbers scaling a five-year peak.

Although the MGNREGS seems to be reaching many more rural households than before, urban opinion on the programme is sharply divided, both in the mainstream and social media. Even the Narendra Modi government seems divided on the programme, with the ministry of rural development declaring that the 10th anniversary of the programme was a matter of “national pride” barely a year after Modi had derided the programme as a ditch-digging exercise on the floor of Parliament.

Academic opinion on the MGNREGS, however, appears far more favourable than is evident from the public discourse on the issue. A growing body of research on the MGNREGS suggests that it has helped dent poverty, reduced distress migration and raised the bargaining power of rural labourers, especially among lower castes and women, the biggest beneficiaries of the programme.

The latest UN Development Programme report on human development hailed the programme as a “milestone”, which had raised living standards of the poorest of households by offering them a safety net. In a 2014 paper analysing the impact of the programme, economists Stefan Klonner and Christian Oldiges of the University of Heidelberg found that it had reduced poverty by almost half during the agricultural lean season, by helping smoothen seasonal spikes in the consumption of the poorest families.

Using a different data set and a different methodology, a study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) found that the MGNREGS “has reduced poverty overall by up to 32% and has prevented 14 million people from falling into poverty”.

One of the chief attractions of the scheme, according to economists, is the self-selection mechanism of choosing beneficiaries. As Pranab Bardhan, emeritus professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed out in an interview to Mint about a year ago, the MGNREGS is effectively a conditional cash-transfer programme.

The condition is that the beneficiary has to work manually, which immediately rules out the rich and the middle class. And in the absence of credible data on poor households, this mechanism seems to be effective in reaching those who need it the most. As the ministry’s press release pointed out, the proportion of scheduled castes and tribes (SCs and STs) among those the programme has reached is greater than their share in the overall population of India.

The MGNREGS has been instrumental in providing a safety net to the poor because it “attracts mainly poor and vulnerable people such as agricultural wage labourers, scheduled tribes, scheduled castes and small, marginal farmers”, the NCAER report pointed out.

Given that the key objective of the programme was to provide livelihood security (especially during the agricultural lean season) and thereby act as a safety net for the poor, it seems to have met that goal.

Nonetheless, the programme continues to face four main criticisms:

1. It is not actually a demand-driven programme, and its success depends on the willingness of the respective state governments and local bodies.

2. It has failed to create durable assets in rural areas.

3. It has contributed significantly to wage growth and stoked the fires of inflation.

4. It has led to a massive leakage of public resources, and led to unintended consequences in rural areas such as on educational outcomes.

The first point is perhaps the most potent among the main criticisms of the programme. Although it was launched as a demand-driven “workfare” programme, in reality, the MGNREGS remains supply-driven with its reach and impact determined by central, state and local government functionaries, and varying widely across states.

Research by Deepta Chopra of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, shows that it is the government’s inability or rather unwillingness to award jobs under the MGNREGS that has led to the decline of the programme in Rajasthan.

In Rajasthan, the early success of the programme turned out to be its biggest weakness, Chopra argues. She points out that the involvement of grassroots organizations in the implementation of the programme threatened local power brokers, who resented the inability to award jobs according to their discretion.

This led them to sabotage the process of demand-driven work schemes, and the frontline workers charged with accepting applications for work refused to accept them.

Economists Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay of the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, Himanshu of Jawaharlal Nehru University and M.R. Sharan of Harvard University ound significant rationing of work by village headmen in Rajasthan. In many villages, people did not demand work because they were told that “they can request work only when it is available”.

Supply-side issues in the MGNREGS are so important that a group of World Bank economists found that even after mitigating the information asymmetry, participation may not increase. Martin Ravallion and others of the World Bank ran a randomized experiment in Bihar, where they showed a group of villagers an informative video about the MGNREGS.

While the perception of the programme certainly improved among those who viewed the video, the impact on seeking and finding work through the programme remain modest.

Given the supply-side nature of the programme, better-functioning states such as those in south India have made better use of the programme and received more funds compared to poorer northern states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, an analysis by former bureaucrat N.C. Saxena shows. Saxena suggests that pre-fixing state-wise MGNREGS allocations based on need would have been far more equitable.

While creating durable assets was not the main objective of the programme, it became a key aim in later years, and led to convergence with other schemes. The evidence on this count is mixed, but the perception that it has just been an empty ditch-digging exercise may be an urban myth.

While there are anecdotal examples of poor assets created under the programme, there is no systematic evidence suggesting that most or even a majority of the assets are useless. A 2014 study by a team led by economist Sudha Narayanan of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) shows that most assets recorded under the programme in Maharashtra exist in reality and not just on paper.

Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of rural households surveyed found the assets created under the programme such as bunds, ponds, embankments, etc., to be useful for them. Seventy-five per cent of the assets created are directly or indirectly linked to agriculture, the study found.

Another criticism that has been prevalent is that MGNREGS wages increase agricultural wages and, hence, the cost of cultivation rises, which has inflationary effects. In a 2012 paper, Mehtabul Azam of Oklahoma State University analysed the impact of the MGNREGS and found that the programme drove up wages of casual female labour by 8%.

However, this is indicative of a reduction in the gender-wage gap in India’s labour market more than of a wage-inflation spiral. There is very little macroeconomic evidence to suggest that the MGNREGS has been a key driver of inflation. A 2014 Reserve Bank of India report suggests that MGNREGS may not have had any significant impact on food inflation.

A new paper by Manisha Shah of UCLA and Bryce Steinberg of Brown University argues that the MGNREGS has undesirable effects on educational outcomes, particularly for adolescents. Using the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey data, the duo finds that children in districts with more MGNREGS exposure perform worse in math, and are more likely to drop out of school.

“We examine the effect of MGNREGS, one of the largest workfare programmes in the world, on human capital investment. Since MGNREGS increases labour demand, it could increase the opportunity cost of schooling, lowering human capital investment even as incomes increase. Using a household survey of test scores and schooling outcomes for approximately 2.5 million rural children in India, we show that each year of exposure to MGNREGS decreases school enrolment by 2 percentage points and math scores by 2% of a standard deviation amongst children aged 13-16. In addition, while the impacts of MGNREGS on human capital are similar for boys and girls, adolescent boys are primarily substituting into market work when they leave school while adolescent girls are substituting into unpaid domestic work.”

However, the negative effects of older children dropping out of school could be compensated for by the greater investment made on younger children in participating households. In a forthcoming paper in the IZA Journal of Labour & Development, economists Farzana Afridi, Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay and Soham Sahoo of the Indian Statistical Institute show that a mother’s participation in the MGNREGS not only raises the odds of the child attending school but is also associated with better academic performance.

The issue of corruption is not unique to the MGNREGS but afflicts most state-run programmes, including those that provide for health or infrastructure. As Bardhan pointed out, the leakages from the MGNREGS are a small fraction of the subsidies to the better-off sections of society, and it is, therefore, important not to lose a sense of proportion in evaluating the programme.

A fundamental issue that plagues all well-intentioned public programmes is the lack of state capacity or political commitment to implement it effectively. So far, the focus has been on building state capacity through technocratic solutions (biometric payment systems, for instance).

The evidence on automated payment systems has been mixed. In Andhra Pradesh, a smart card-based payment system has been found to have reduced the problems of delayed payments and helped plug leakages.

Karthik Muralidharan of the University of California, San Diego, who along with his colleagues conducted the experiment on smart card payments for MGNREGS wages in Andhra Pradesh found that “despite the incomplete implementation, beneficiaries in carded mandals experienced a faster, more reliable, and less corrupt payment experience. The smart card system reduced the lag between working on an MGNREGS project and collecting payment by 29%, and reduced the unpredictability in the lag by 39%. Further, it reduced by 19% the time workers spent collecting MGNREGS payments.”

While the Andhra Pradesh experiment has been hailed as a success, news from Chhattisgarh, another state that has done well in the implementation of the MGNREGS, does not bode well for biometric payments. Supriya Sharma of Scroll noted that the Aadhaar-based payment system is facing problems in Chhattisgarh, with many enrolment centres charging bribes while enrolling people.

In summary, the MGNREGS program seems to have been reasonably successful in meeting its goals. It may not have single-handedly transformed rural India, but then it was never meant to do that. It was meant to be a safety net for the poorest and most marginalized sections of society, whose incomes went through sharp fluctuations across seasons.

Although it suffers from implementation challenges and leakages, the MGNREGS has reached the target population more effectively than most other government schemes.

This is not to deny that the programme needs reforms to perform better. While better use of technology can solve certain problems, they are not adequate to fix design bugs or issues of political accountability for the programme.

Given the regional imbalances in fund allocation for the programme, it may be worth considering allocating resources to states and districts that require this programme the most, based on the levels of poverty and exposure to drought, as Saxena argues.

It may also be worthwhile to decentralize decision-making on the implementation of the scheme once the allocation is based on a fair and transparent criterion.

Rather than micromanage each aspect of the programme, the central government should perhaps focus more on monitoring key outcomes such as generation of employment and assets, and on publicizing data relating to these aspects to make states and local bodies accountable for the funds they receive.

how to improve primary education

Each week, we ask people working in the field of public policy what they would do if they were given a billion dollars to spend on projects. What policy initiatives would they fund, and how would they spend this money?

This week, we spoke to Osama Manzar, founder and director of Digital Empowerment Foundation.

If you have your own billion-dollar plan, send it to mintonsunday@livemint.com. Selected entries will be published online.

Here. Take a billion dollars. So, is that enough money to do anything substantial in public policy in India? Why or why not?

Actually, public policy does not need money. If we want any new public policy, we need sustained advocacy after having identified the public issue, and provide policy options. If there is an existing public policy that needs meticulous implementation then, yes, a financial allocation can be used to partly fund the entire implementation in a particular area or a region or a state.

Incidentally, in India, there are several public policies and they often suffer from bad planning and implementation to make an adequate impact. For example, take the case of Right To Information (RTI). It is a great public policy and it is also something extremely desired and people-driven, yet it has been suffering challenges of adequate implementation.

On the one hand, RTI hasn’t even reached the last woman in a village—beneficiaries of RTI applications is estimated at barely 8 million citizens a year. At the same time, governments and the bureaucracy have relentlessly complained about too many “undesirable RTI applications”.

Another public policy that really bothers me a lot for not having been meticulously implemented is right to education (RTE). If I have a chance to look at just one policy and one area of public good that must not be compromised, I would choose 1.4 million government schools in India and ensure they deliver what they are meant for.

Coming to what a billion dollars can do for a chosen public policy. Let me start by looking at what $1 billion means to India. A billion is a 100 crore, which is the population that is yet to be connected to the Internet. A 100 crore dollars converted into Indian currency would somewhere around Rs6,500 crore. Interestingly, if I want this money to be used for connecting the unconnected India, I will have just a dollar, or about Rs65, per person to connect them. Which is not a lot.

However, if I choose to use it for the purpose of RTE, it gives me just about Rs46,000 per school to make all the changes that is desired. So, then the issue is what can Rs46,000 do for a school in a village in India?

What are some areas of public policy that you really care about? Feel free to go as micro as you want.

The one public good that I care about is education. Not because I love education or the system of education, or because I have some extraordinary love for the educational institutions of the country, but because education is the only institutional good that works at the society and community level when people are in their infancy.

I consider the school as a public good. In fact, I consider the most important public good, an unparalleled institution that needs to be looked at to make it work not just as a K12 system but as tutelage for the harmonic growth of the country.

So, what is your billion-dollar public policy idea? Why is it important?

We have about 1.4 million schools in India. This public service more or less employs about 7 million teachers. In fact, ideally, the number of teachers should not be less than 10 million. This public good also provides a public space, tools for education and even food to the children and teachers for at least one meal a day.

Yet, after almost seven decades, we have not been able to make sure that:

• all teachers attend schools regularly

• all children attend schools

• all children complete the full cycle of school

• all teachers certainly teach

• all schools are functional and have everything that has been promised

It is important to note that this is not so much an issue of inadequate public policy as much as one of accountability and a lack of responsibility among stakeholders.

So, my billion-dollar idea is to provide each and every teacher in a government school in India a smartphone enabled with a mandatory app. Let’s call the app Ustaad.

Broadly, what can a billion dollars do for this particular area?

As I mentioned earlier, considering that we have a billion dollars to spend that comes to about Rs46,000 per school of the 1.4 million in the country. It is important that the idea of spending this money must be one-time and not recurring and that it must build a sustainable ecosystem. According to me, broadly, this financial assistance should go to the following two areas:

• responsibility and accountability of the most important stakeholder—the teachers

• each and every school must necessarily be provided with high-bandwidth Internet connectivity

That is where the app will help. But first, let me elaborate how these two alone would make all the difference that is desirable.

We all know that India’s school dropout rate is extreme. Out of all the enrolments that takes place, more than 39% boys and 33% girls, respectively, drop out even before completing elementary levels of schooling. Apart from the fact that poverty and the need for working hands at home may be a hurdle for children going to school, the bigger questions are:

• Are we making our schools work?

• Are teachers actually present in school and do they deliver their actual responsibility of teaching?

This is where Ustaad comes in. Each teacher with Ustaad will have to use the app to share his/her location along with the following:

• a selfie with the classroom in action as soon you enter the class and when you finish and leave the class

• every time you hold meetings with community

• a photo report of all the necessary infrastructure every week—for example, functional toilets for both girls and boys; availability of drinking water; availability of water in the toilets

• midday meal report for quality, quantity and service

• general periodic reporting

Just the regular and accountable presence of the teachers in our schools would make a huge change. However, the use of smartphone and the Ustaad app will have to be made mandatory, qualified by punishment with disincentives for poor use. Gradually, the same smartphone can be used for pushing educational resources and teaching material, making social networks of local stakeholders, etc.

The second part of my idea is connecting each school with high-speed Internet access. This is an extreme necessity as a very low-cost and high-impact infrastructural need of an educational system.

The government already has plans to provide Internet connectivity up to the panchayat level. All I need to do is spend the extra needed to connect this high-speed Internet from the panchayat node to the government school.

Now, give us a sense of how you will spend this money? Be specific if possible.

I would propose to spend money for two ideas:

• First, there is the cost of 7 million mobile handsets for as many teachers. Assuming each at the rate of Rs4,000, that is Rs2,800 crore.

• The rest is plenty for connecting school to panchayat node, ongoing maintenance and management of data, server, app, user support, upgradation and so on.

What outcomes do you hope to see?

The outcomes would be very clearly many, in particular the following:

• teachers would be present in schools

• teachers would spend time in classrooms

• children would be more motivated to go to school

• classroom presence will increase

• dropouts will decrease

• quality of education will become better

• presence of absolute poor children in schools will increase

• larger number of schools will become RTI compliant

• girls’ presence in schools will increase

What if I gave you another billion? Would you keep spending it here?

Yes. I will make use the additional billion to make each and every school wireless Internet enabled and an Internet hub for surrounding communities.

And finally, what if you had to just spend in on yourself? (Be decent.)

I will adopt about 100 villages in different parts of the country and work on holistic development plans. The idea will be to create ‘smart villages’ where people have gainful things to do besides migrate