The Hindu Business Line : The sinking flagships of the UPA

The current session of Parliament opened with the Presidential address to the joint session of both the Houses. The address contained the word “inclusive” 22 times in the first eight pages.

That was understandable. After all, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won its mandate on the basis of an inclusive Common Minimum Programme. When the Common Minimum Programme was drafted, the world “inclusive” was supposed to mean a p rogramme that includes the wish-list of all the members of the alliance. Gradually, it has come to assume an entirely different meaning.

The word “inclusive” now means any programme that excludes the majority groups in the country such as the farmers. The “inclusive” programme has turned highly exclusivist and minorityist.

The President emphatically mentioned that the task of constructing infrastructure for inclusive growth has been mostly completed. What did she mean? She left no ambiguity on this point. She made an inventory of programmes, which have now come to be called the flagship programmes of the UPA. These include The Bharat Nirman; The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme; The Rural Credit Expansion Scheme; The National Child Development Programme; The National Health Programme; The National Food Security Mission; The National Agricultural Development Scheme.

These flagship programmes have become the “Holy Cows” of the UPA. Nobody, not even the Opposition, cares to examine the efficacy of these programmes.

Debt waiver

The Budget 2008-09 attained a celebrity status on account of its debt relief and waiver scheme. There was little in the media about the details of the scheme.

Was the figure of Rs 60,000 crore deliberately inflated? Where will the money come from? Was it politically correct to exclude from the ambit of the scheme farmers with holdings between two and six hectares? Was it wise to exclude loans given by the moneylenders from the scheme?

Some within the UPA have suggested that the scheme be amended to make it more local-specific. In this entire hullabaloo about the debt waiver scheme, the UPA performance on the flagship programmes attracted little attention.

NREGS

Hardly a day passes without the newspapers carrying some juicy bit or story about the mismanagement and corruption in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The Minister for Rural Development has remarkably high lung power and is able to drown out all criticism against the scheme. The discontent, however, is seething and could erupt during the elections.

It is well known that the scheme is copied from the experiment in Maharashtra. On March 15, the Government of Maharashtra started a serious re-examination of the Scheme on a proposal to abolish the special fund created for that purpose. A comprehensive review of the scheme’s working at the national level is urgently called for.

At the commencement of the implementation, the NREGS worked at tandem with the Work for Food Programme. The food allocation has been coming down rapidly and now will represent barely 10 per cent of allocation in the initial year.

In 2007-08, the scheme was implemented in 200 districts. It was extended to 330 districts and then to all the 596 districts in the country. Surprisingly, however, the actual allocation for the scheme has gone down from Rs 18,406 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 15,000 crore this year.

It is claimed that the average employment provided to each registered household was 180 days. In fact, it was only 18 days. Hardly 3.2 per cent of the registered household got more than 100 days work.

The work was supposed to be started in areas where the wage levels are low. In fact, no exercise was carried out for identification of such areas. In practice, no measurement of works is done, no record is kept as to who was present personally for work.

In most cases, the workers earn wages that are lower than the minimum wages. They were paid only Rs 8 per day/head. In case the Government could not provide work on the scheme, the worker was to receive compensation. This was not done.

The incidence of tampering the musters and marking absent as present and present as absent by pencil and overwriting the number of work days was almost universal.

All this is documented in the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

ICDS scheme

The story of the Integrated Child Development Programme is no different. The C&AG observes that there was a decrease in the incidence of malnutrition when it is universally known and reported, even in the United Nations’ documentation, that India has the largest number of malnourished children.

For the last three years, the Finance Minister has been claiming that agricultural credit has been expanded from Rs 60,000 crore to more than Rs 1,60,000 crore.

The increase claimed far exceeds the sum to be waived under the Debt Relief and Waiver Scheme. The question that naturally arises is: Why did the debt waivers scheme become necessary if the supply of credit had multiplied so rapidly in the last four years? Another surprising aspect is that the quantity of fertilisers, pesticides, water, electricity used does not appear to have gone up commensurate with the increase in credit. Where the money went is a moot question.

Nobody can deny that, politically, the UPA has outmanoeuvred the NDA. That does not mean that during the last four years, particularly as regards agriculture, the UPA has brought about any historic revolution that all their supporters appear to claim in unison.

(The author is founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament — Rajya Sabha. He can be reached at sharad.mah@nic.in)

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