Chronic hunger kills 50 in Orissa district

Priya Ranjan Sahu , Hindustan Times

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Balangir (Orissa), February 24, 2010

First Published: 00:43 IST(24/2/2010)

Last Updated: 02:01 IST(24/2/2010)

Nine-year-old Ram Prasad Bariha saw his brother, sister and mother die within a month — September 2009. His father, Jhintu Bariha (42), followed a month later. 

  

The dreaded Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) belt of Orissa is yet to come out of the starvation-migration-death cycle. It accounts for 71 per cent of the state’s families below poverty line (BPL).

The Bariha family of Chabrapali village of Balangir district’s Khaprakhol block is no exception. In the last two years, 50 people in the 30-45 age group died of chronic hunger and prolonged malnourishment in Balangir, according to members of affected families and social organisations active in the area.

HT visited five blocks of Balangir — Khaprakhol, Belpada, Tureikela, Bangomunda and Muribahal — where the deaths have orphaned 300 children. Balangir is 340 km west of Bhubaneswar.

The dreaded Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) belt of Orissa is yet to come out of the starvation-migration-death cycle. It accounts for 71 per cent of the state’s families below poverty line (BPL).

 

The region spanning the southwestern tribal tract of Orissa came under the spotlight in 1986, when news of starvation deaths and distress sale of children in Kalahandi drew the attention of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Tens of thousands of crores have since been spent on development of the region. Some areas, such as Kalahandi, have turned around.

But several pockets in the KBK belt remain trapped in abject poverty. In Balangir alone, about 62 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, official estimates say.

But data available with the Union Rural Development Ministry says only 476 (0.2 per cent) of the district’s 240,001 households covered by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) have BPL cards that give them access to subsidised foodgrains.

The district administration is still in denial, so is state revenue minister Surya Narayan Patra. He said, “I have received a report from the Balangir collector on Jhintu Bariha’s family. It says starvation is not the cause of the deaths.”

Dr Purnachandra Sahu, chief district medical officer, said: “Most patients here suffer from malnutrition and anaemia.”

Patra said he had no  information on the 50 deaths but would initiate a fresh enquiry into the Bariha case. “My whole family died due to lack of food,” said Jhintu’s father Champe (79). But Balangir collector Aswathy S said: “Jhintu Bariha was paid Rs 10,000 before his death.”

The state advisor to the Supreme Court-appointed Commission on Right to Food, said in its September 2009 report: “Inadequate food intake was taking a heavy toll on the health of the whole family.”

But Aswathy claimed, “We did everything possible for the family under the government’s social security programmes.”

These programmes never really took off in Balangir. The Western Orissa consortium for implementing NREGS admitted in 2008 that the scheme had failed to deliver in Balangir.

The public distribution system also has holes. Distribution is done according to the 1997 BPL survey even though another survey was done in 2002.

Also, in the last 13 years, many have branched out of their original families after marriage, like Jhintu. But they aren’t entitled to PDS facilities. Besides, many migrated to other states in 1997 and were left out of the BPL list.

Food, Supply and Consumer Welfare Minister Sarada P Nayak blamed the Centre: “The 1997 list left out many.”

‘Lapses’ in NREGA implementation admitted on anniversary day

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admits there have been “lapses” in implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, its architects Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy stay away from a function to mark four years of the scheme’s existence

On February 2, to mark four years of India’s ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh noted that there had been several achievements in implementation of the scheme but that several problems remained.

Singh referred to the scheme as pathbreaking, with its pro-poor vision and promise of the right to work, inclusive growth and social security. He said the government was trying to improve the payments process through banks and post offices and achieve better integration with other grassroots-level programmes.

The prime minister sought to highlight that the NREGA had helped provide jobs and reduce the impact of the global meltdown and drought on the rural poor. “Several chief ministers have said that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme helped our poor people in rural areas to a great extent in facing the problems,” he said at the anniversary meet in New Delhi marking four years of the scheme that the government says has provided employment to over 4 crore households in the current financial year.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who was present at the gathering of 1,200 participants from all over the country, also listed several problems relating to the scheme such as delayed payments and unemployment allowances not being given. She stressed that while the scheme was doing well, there were gaps in its implementation that needed to be sorted out. She cautioned implementing agencies against being complacent in the wake of the scheme’s overall good performance in the last four years.

An official government release said the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable groups have sought employment under the scheme. The participation rate for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) in 2009-10 has been 52%. In tribal-dominated districts, the average days of employment has been 65 days per household, as against the national average of 48 days. Women’s participation has risen to 50%.

The prime minister released ‘Report to People on Mahatma Gandhi NREGA’, showcasing the scheme’s performance over the past four years, at the function which was boycotted by social activists Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy. “We see little point in attending ceremonial functions as members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council even as the council’s substantive work is at a virtual standstill,” the duo said in a joint letter to Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj C P Joshi. Dreze and Roy were instrumental in giving form and shape to the employment guarantee scheme -- the Rs 40,000 crore flagship programme of the UPA government which, according to the 2009 Economic Survey, benefited over 4 crore (4 million) people in 2008.
Both are members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, the body that monitors NREGA work, but say that the executive council has not been activated and this was hampering the efficient rollout of the scheme.

Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, it is the obligation of the government to facilitate the functioning of the council, they say. Failure to do so amounts to a violation of the law, besides depriving it of an “essential accountable safeguard”.

“Ill-considered” policy decisions had been taken, including the freezing of wages in December 2008, against the advice of the council, the activists charge, pointing out that the ministry is yet to index wages to the price level, despite promising to do so.

Dreze and Roy also protested against the ministry’s decision to construct a Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendra under the MNREGS, which, they fear, is a “dangerous step towards displacement of labour-intensive works by material-intensive works”. They see the programme as a likely new entry point for exploitative and corrupt contractors and say its inclusion was “made in a non-transparent manner, without adequate consultation”.

They stress that they are not against providing adequate infrastructure to gram panchayats, but that such activities are best undertaken under other schemes such as the Backward Regions Grant Fund, with the labour component alone under the NREGS.

Joshi sought to clarify things by stating that the focus would now be on tackling delayed payments under the Act and streamlining implementation with proactive disclosure, conduct of social audits, effective grievance redressal mechanisms like an ombudsmen in each district, and independent monitoring.

The scheme currently covers 619 districts across India. Its significant progress over the past years can also be attributed to the increase in coverage, from 330 districts in 2007-08 to 615 districts in 2008-09 to 619 districts in 2009-10.

According to data put out by the rural development ministry, the scheme used around 63%, or Rs 24,538 crore, of the total budget allocation till the end of December, and provided jobs to people in 41.5 million households. The average duration of employment per household was 46 days, against the stated goal of 100 days.

State-wise performance

State-wise statistics compiled by the central government show that the governments of West Bengal and Kerala have fared poorly in implementing the rural job guarantee scheme.

According to the data, while a job-seeking household under the scheme got over 40 days of employment, on average, nationally in 2008-09, about 72% of such households in West Bengal did not get even 15 days of employment.

In Kerala, about 50% of rural poor did not avail even of 15 days of employment during 2008-09. While a total of 6.3 lakh households availed of jobs under the NREGS in this state during the period, only 3.2 lakh sought more than 15 days of employment.

In the current fiscal year too, employment provided to job-seekers in Kerala and West Bengal is far below the national average. While the data compiled by the rural development ministry for the first five months of this fiscal year showed that on average 39 days of employment were provided to job-seeking households nationally, in West Bengal the average was 19 days while in Kerala it was 16.

Tripura fares better than most states with over 90% of job-seeking households availing of more than 15 days of employment. Even in the first five months (till August 2009) of the current fiscal year, job-seeking households in Tripura have availed of 47 days of employment as against the national average of 39 days during the same period.

In Rajasthan, 86% of households that sought jobs got more than 15 days of employment, the statistics show. States like Karnataka (74%), Madhya Pradesh (67%), Chhattisgarh (69%) fared better, as over two-thirds of households that sought jobs availed of more than 15 days of employment during 2008-09.

Among the bigger states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh continue to fare badly. Almost 53% of job-seeking households in Bihar could not avail of even 15 days of employment under the scheme which guarantees 100 days of employment to every job-seeking household. In Uttar Pradesh, 45% did not avail of more than 15 days of employment.

The performance of states like Assam (about 46% did not get even 15 days of employment), Tamil Nadu (45%), Gujarat (58%), and Punjab (about 50%) was also dismal, the figures show.

A state-wise break-up of utilisation reveals that while most states managed to utilise over 55-60% of allocated funds in 2009, some such as Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh among others, used less than 50%.

National performance

Performance of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS (national overview)
	(FY 2006-07) 200 districts	(FY 2007-08) 330 districts	(FY 2008-09) 615 districts	(FY 2009-10) 619 districts (upto  December 09)
Total job cards issued	3.78 crores	6.48 crores	10.01 crores	10.89 crores
Employment provided to households	2.10 crores	3.39 crores	4.51 crores	4.34 crores
Person-days (in crores)
Total	90.5	143.59	216.32	203.35
SCs	22.95 (25%)	39.36 (27%)	63.36 (29%)	59.88 (29%)
STs	32.98 (36%)	42.07 (29%)	55.02 (25%)	44.51 (22%)
Women	36.40 (40%)	61.15 (43%)	103.57 (48%)	101.14 (50%)
Others	34.56 (38%)	62.16 (43%)	97.95 (45%)	98.95 (49%)
Person-days per household	43 days	42 days	48 days	47 days
Budget outlay (in Rs crore)	11,300	12,000	30,000	39,100
Central release (in Rs crore)	8,640.85	12,610.39	29,939.60	24,758.50
Total available funds (including OB) (in Rs crore)	12,073.55	19,305.81	37,397.06	38,619.14
Expenditure (in Rs crore) (percentage against available funds)	8,823.35  (73%)	15,856.89 (82%)	27,250.10  (73%)	26,078.43 (68%)
Expenditure on wages (in Rs crore)	5,842.37 (66%)	10,738.47 (68%)	18,200.03  (67%)	18,061.24 (69%)
Average wage paid per person-days	65	75	84	89
Total works taken up (in lakhs)	8.35	17.88	27.75	35.59
Works completed	3.87	8.22	12.14	13.09
Works break-up
Water conservation	4.51 (54%)	8.73 (49%)	12.79 (46%)	18.23 (51%)
Provision of irrigation facilities to land owned by SC/ST/BPL and IAY beneficiaries	0.81 (10%)	2.63 (15%)	5.67 (20%)	5.78 (17%)
Rural connectivity	1.80 (21%)	3.08 (17%)	5.03 (18%)	5.77 (16%)
Land development	0.89 (11%)	2.88 (16%)	3.98 (15%)	4.99 (14%)
Other activities	0.34 (4%)	0.56 (3%)	0.28  (1%)	0.81 (2%)
Source: Press Information Bureau

Highlights

• Allocation of funds for the current year raised to Rs 39,100 crore.
• Employment provided to 4.27 crore households.
• Real wages raised to Rs 100 per day.
• 200 crore person-days generated so far, of which women comprise 50%, SCs 30% and STs 22%.
• 8.8 crore bank accounts opened to give wages transparently.
• 34 lakh works taken up in 619 districts.

New initiatives

• District-level ombudsman for effective grievance redressal for beneficiaries.
• Eminent ‘citizen monitors’ for transparency and accountability.
• Social audit for transparency and accountability.
• Convergence guidelines with other programmes for sustainable development.
• Construction of Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendra as village knowledge centre.
• Business correspondent model for payment of wages at the doorstep.

Source: The Hindu, February 3, 2010
              Hindustan Times, February 3, 2010
              Press Trust of India, February 2, 2010
              Press Information Bureau, February 2, 2010

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Rural e-governance in India: For whom?

By lisac - Posted on 02 February 2010

In India’s rural e-governance initiative, 33% of local government seats are reserved for women. Rural village heads of Chhattisgarh State – one of India's poorest-- can now participate in the public process and in theory remotely communicate the needs of their villages through the use of a low-cost computer that does not require computer literacy. But women are not taking the active roles that were expected. Using GEM, APC's gender evaluation methodology, Dr. Anupama Saxena and her team are finding out why winning an electoral seat does not necessarily guarantee that your voice is heard within the governance system if you are a woman.

Rural e-governance in India: For whom?

In India, a highly rural country, Simputers, a type of low-cost, portable alternative to PCs that require limited computer literacy, have been introduced to give a voice to the marginalized through their locally elected leaders. In 1993, the Panchayati Raj (village self-government) system was introduced as a tool to improve rural communities. Described as revolutionary, one of the key features was that 33% of elected seats were reserved for women, a quota that has also recently been increased to 50% in the state of Chhattisgarh, one of the poorest states in the whole of India, and where GEM evaluator Dr. Anupama Saxena of Guru Ghasidas University conducted her study.

However, her findings show that even with their presence in local governance officially guaranteed, women sarpanchas (democratically-elected village heads) have not been able to participate on an equal footing to men in rural governance.

Women sarpanchas

When ICTs were introduced in 2005 in select village Panchayats, everyone expected the entire rural governance process to change with sarpanchas—both male and female—as the main beneficiaries. However, while women sarpanchas are apparently happy, enthusiastic and optimistic about using the technology, so far there have been no visible or tangible changes in their participation. The GEM study helped uncover why: numerous technical problems related to the Simputers and ingrained inequalities, meaning that even designated female representatives remain voiceless—something that an evaluation that does not focus on gender-related inequalities may not have unveiled.

Representation alone does not mean participation

The unequal participation of women sarpanchas in rural e-governance is the result of prevailing social cultural discriminations against women.

Differences between male Simputer use and female use are substantial: one in three males who were given a Simputer transferred information to and from it. Of the women, less than one in a hundred used it (0.7%) to transfer data. So while supposedly 33% of all local government heads are women, they are not actively participating in the process, and using GEM helped uncover why.

Lack of education, reproductive and productive roles, lack of financial independence and deeply rooted cultural and religious taboos make it difficult for women to be heard in traditionally male-dominated spaces like politics, and the negligible presence of women sarpanchas in rural governance is obvious.

“One of the Sarpancha’s husbands actually denied us access to his wife,” Dr. Saxena recounts. “He repeatedly told us over the phone that there was no need to meet his wife since she just stayed at home, and that she lived far away from the Panchayata she was representing, and that she never visited it. Instead, it was he who performed all the sarpancha duties.” Such stories were common in different variations.

Male sarpancha being interviewed

“When we asked who the village sarpancha was, in most of the cases it was the name of the husband that was told to us and only after asking a second time and insisting on the actual name of sarpancha, the villagers informed about the women sarpancha.” The situation over the phone was similar – the husbands often identified themselves as the sarpancha and insisted that the information should pass through them as their wives “did not know anything.”

The few women sarpanchas who did take—and were able to take—their role seriously, were not taken seriously in official meetings.

Simputer training for only a day

Just one in ten women sarpanchas attended the Simputer training independently. The other 90% were accompanied by either a male relative or a sachiv (secretary of the village government). This is because in rural India, women travelling alone and in public is not encouraged.

The trainers were also male, and the women interviewed said they did not feel at ease approaching them with questions. This was not the case for male sarpanchas, because many men had already been exposed to new technologies such as mobile phones or computers. Men can also learn with fellow men through informal circles, whereas women do not have any opportunities to discuss technology outside of the one-day training, which many women found insufficient. In fact 53% of female sarpanchas told Dr. Saxena that they had had problems with the training for a variety of reasons including travel difficulties, language, food while away, as well as a lack of interest. It is difficult to find something interesting if you do not understand it, and given the low levels of English and Hindi literacy levels, many women simply did not understand the content and especially could not perform sarpancha tasks in these languages.

Women face more illiteracy and linguistic challenges

Results from the survey reveal important gender differences, which made Simputers a less than ideal tool for women. The Simputer uses many English words. Only 29% of the women sarpanchas have a working knowledge of English versus 66% of the men. The working language of Simputers is Hindi. 83% of men were fluent in Hindi compared to 70% of the women. Only a very small percentage of male sarpanchas are illiterate whereas one in ten female sarpanchas are illiterate.

Broken Simputers and faraway technical support

Astonishingly, the survey found that only one in five Simputers used by the sarpanchas interviewed were in working condition. This number dwindled to just over one in ten for Simputers used by women representatives. Technical support was not usually available locally with the only option Sarpanchas had was to go to the Janpad Panchayata offices (head offices for the area) often over thirty kilometres away from some of the villages.

“The need to visit the Janpad Panchayat office could have provided the female sarpanchas with an opportunity to get out of their houses and villages and to feel a sense of power while meeting the concerned officers face to face in their offices,” recognised Saxena. “But most women explained to us that their male family members were in control of their official work and denied the women the little opportunity they had to leave their houses and villages. They actively prevented them from meeting others and learning from them.”

This lack of support was internalised by the women. “Many of the women we surveyed cannot appreciate the potential of technology to facilitate the work from their houses or from their villages,” Saxena observes.

GEM helps find solutions that will cater to women

Dr. Saxena and team

At the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad in December 2008, Anupama Saxena was able to share her evaluation findings with the Minister of IT and to others who are engaged in formulating and implementing rural e-governance programmes for gender integration in rural e-governance. She was also the only presenter who spoke about rural e-governance from a gender perspective at the XIIth National Conference on E-governance on February 12 - 13 2009, held in Goa. This was the same conference where the Chief Secretary of the Chhattisgarh IT department and his staff received the gold award for the best implementation of another e-governance scheme in Chhattisgarh. Internationally, Anupama Saxena managed to present her evaluation findings at the workshop on “Human-Centered Computing in International Development” in Boston in March 2009. Despite her efforts, bringing about a change in attitude and the commitment of policy makers and state programme implementers has been slow. Dr. Saxena’s main focus has mainly been to look at ways to effectively salvage the programme. While she has acted as a critic of the e-gram suraj scheme, it has been with the intention of improving what is the only e-governance programme that puts ICTs directly into the hands of female local leaders, by analyzing how it could be better implemented by addressing these women sarpanchas’ needs, and in a more cost-effective way. “We have explicit proof that gender inequalities do exist and that there are workable solutions that can be tailored to the specific dynamics of this region, which will cater to the needs of Indian women sarpanchas in Chhattisgarh.” Incorporating a gender analysis has helped uncover how ICTs are being used in ways that change gender biases and roles, or whether they reproduce and exaggerate existing ones and “GEM” she says, “has given me the confidence to follow through with my advocacy.”

Dr. Anupama Saxena is currently working as an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director in-charge of Women’s Studies and Development Centre of Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India (www.ggu.ac.in) and has been associated with the GEM project since 2005.