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UPDATE 20: Latest Developments
Dear Friends, In this update, we take a quick tour of activities on election related activities, and on resurging activities on mid-day meals. Continuing from the last update, we have more information on the monitoring systems being built in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. The new format makes the updates more presentable. They also present other significant advantages. We can now link you more easily to previous issues, etc. We have added an “Events” section for you to conveniently locate them across the country. Over time, we will also strive to present you customised mails to suit your interest better. We look forward to your constant feedback. 1. JHARKHAND: FURTHER ACTION ON MID-DAY MEALS 2. RAJASTHAN: TRUCK YATRA ROLLS ON 3. DELHI: LINKING THE RIGHT TO FOOD WITH THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION 5. MAHARASHTRA: CAMPAIGN FOLLOWS UP ON ANTYODAYA CARDS FOR PRIORITY GROUPS 5a. MAHARASHTRA: RALLY FOR BETTER DROUGHT RELIEF 6. CHHATTISGARH: RIGHT TO WORK DRAFT BILL 7. WEBSITE ADDRESS 8. MISCELLANEOUS 1. JHARKHAND: FURTHER ACTION ON MID-DAY MEALS Jharkhand activists are back on the roads, trying to persuade the government to start providing mid-day meals in primary schools. An extensive signature campaign took place recently in about 10 districts. Following on that, over seven hundred people from all parts of Jharkahnd gathered in Ranchi for a series of campaign activities, starting with a press conference on 10 November 2003. The next day, a rally was taken from Goskar College to the Secretariat. En route, further signatures were collected. This was followed by a public mid-day meal for children, aimed at embarrassing the government, and a lively ‘bal sansad’ (children’s parliament). An appointment had been sought with the Chief Minister and the Governor. When the rally reached the Secretariat, people decided to stage a sit-in demonstration on the spot. Most responsible officials as well as the Chief Minister were inside the building, for a Cabinet meeting. Though the CM did not meet the group, a delegation was received by the Chief Secretary of Jharkhand. The Chief Secretary said that the government had decided to start providing mid-day meals, and that Rs 20 crores had been sanctioned for the current financial year. The programme is due to begin on 15 December, 2003. He further stated that a proposal for a full-fledged mid-day meal programme, with a budgetary provision of Rs. 136 crores per year, was with the Cabinet Committee. The proposal envisages an expenditure of Rs. 2.50 per child per day and takes on board most of the demands made by the right to food campaign in Jharkhand. It also includes a provision of Rs 15,000 per school for building kitchen sheds. A follow-up meeting with the Education Secretary and other senior officials was fixed for 19 November 2003, for further discussions of the guidelines of the scheme. 2. RAJASTHAN: TRUCK YATRA ROLLS ON The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) along with other groups in Rajasthan have been working towards establishing a Peoples’ Agenda in Rajasthan, in the context of the forthcoming elections in the State. Under the banner of a “Campaign for a Peoples’ Agenda”, ‘truck yatras’ have been organized over the last 3 months in which members from different organizations as well as individuals have participated. The truck yatras have gone to different districts in Rajasthan covering both rural and urban areas. The truck yatras are a part of a large set of activities held in the state to promote a ‘participatory democracy’; to articulate policy priorities of common people, and to mobilise public opinion for the same. Some policies and issues in which a consensus has emerged include the Employment Guarantee Act (Right to Work); Right to Food (mid day meal schemes, PDS reforms etc); the Right to Information and other effective modes for increasing participation and accountability of governance, concerns arising from privatisation of public utilities like water and electricity; the concerns of marginalized communities; the struggles against oppression waged by the Dalit and women’s movement; etc. These issues as well as those that have been a priority of people’s movements in the state will be compiled together in a “Jan Goshna Patrika” (People’s Manifesto). The manifesto will be widely distributed and discussed during the final phase of the truck yatra. The final phase of the yatra during November 13 – 26 will cover 6 districts of the state. The team pays as much attention to the mode of communication as the message itself. To ensure that the message reaches people they are presented in various attractive forms including ‘nukkad nataks’ (street plays), a “Ghotala Rath Yatra” (chariot of scams), music, puppet shows, etc. Various participatory meetings are conducted to create sustained interest in issues, especially among youth. The yatra draws to a close in a few days from now. In the past three months, it has covered most districts of the state. It has also combined with a set of other activities including a “people’s assembly” coinciding the previous assembly session; “election watch” process to ensure proper electoral rolls; dissemination of information on the disclosure made by candidates; etc. Together it is hoped that the intense set of activities has will help in furthering a participatory democracy, where policies will reflect the priorities of the common people. 3. DELHI: LINKING THE RIGHT TO FOOD WITH THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION Parivartan, a Delhi-based organisation committed to the right to information, has been actively pursuing the questioning of making the public distribution system work. Despite strong protests from the ration dealers and support from the administration, Parivartan has moved on, with and signs of success are beginning to appear. Parivartan mobilised a large number of people in Delhi to apply for the their records under the right to information act. Initially the administration said that they will not share the records with them, but subsequently they started sending letters to the applicants specifying the time and place where they can come to verify their records. On 23 September 2003, five women went with two Parivartan activists to the specified office. In anticipation of their visit, a large number of ration dealers had arrived at the spot. They beat up the activists and threatened to lynch them if they continued with their work. The food officials and the police too started intimidating people who had applied, forcing some of them to withdraw their applications. But most applicants have withstood the pressure and are now suddenly finding themselves in a position where the dealers are begging them not to press for action. In the meanwhile, the case of intimidation was taken up with the chief
minister. With her prompt intervention, the intimidations have stopped.
Records of 15 shops were also opened up in Balswa, Welcome colony and
Gautampuri. The process has had dramatic impact in these areas. The ration
shops have now started opening regularly, and people of these areas are
reported to be getting their rations now. Parivartan is now planning a
social audit of several ration shops immediately after elections in Delhi. In the last update we shared with you the concept of complaint camps being conducted in West Bengal. This system of collecting complaints of people in a organised fashion, and taking them up for redressal has had its impact in several places. The process is conducted under the aegis of the Commissioners, but with no direct inputs from them. Anurahda feels that the officials are typically ‘worried’ about court cases and do not want to take things for granted. This puts some pressure on them to take action. This makes them take action on complaints that they would not have attended to with mere complaints from people. The PIL increases the approachability as well as response of the administration. This factor has helped in getting the attention of the senior officers. This in turn has made the lower level officials more responsive. The potential of the Commissioners’ intervention often gets things moving, without the actual intervention by either the advisor or the Commissioners themselves. In one case in South 24 Parganas district, the BDO of Pathar Pratima block had submitted a report to the DM that ration shops are functioning perfectly well. Since he knew that the local organisations would take it further, he started organising meetings with the ration dealers and the people in each Gram Panchayat and tried to redress the complaint. When they countered him that he on one had gives a report that every thing is working fine, and on the other organises these meetings to solve problems, the BDO said that he has to give such a report to save his job, but is interested in redressing the complaints. In another case many ration dealers in Nakashipara block in Nadia district
were not supplying grains for eight months. The local groups wanted the
grains to be given back dated. The dealers asked to be pardoned arguing
‘what has happened has happened’, but they will open their shops regularly
now and supply grains henceforth. As a compromise, they agreed to supply
grains henceforth and give backdated grains for four months. But all this
was to be done without official cognisance.
In May 2003 the Supreme Court directed the Government of India to issue Antyodaya cards to all people falling under certain priority groups. Importantly, these include all primitive tribes, widows without regular economic support, aged destitute, et al. The process has faced hurdles all along the way in most states. While the order of the Supreme Court directs that ALL people falling under the priority category be covered, Government of India raised the number of Antyodaya cards by just fifty lakhs, which would be grossly inadequate to cover these people. In many states, even this addition was not implemented properly. In Maharashtra for example, the government had not passed on the increased quota to deserving people since it would entail additional transport cost to the state government. Anna Ani Arogya Adhikar Abhiyan in Maharasthra took the first step with the state government and pressed them to ensure timely distribution of additional cards. The intervention succeeded with the state passing an order for the ‘Extended Antyodaya Scheme’ on October 16, 2003. The campaign groups have distributed the order widely and following the implementation of the order in the grassroots level. This process will address a big lacuna found in many states where the local officials are totally ignorant about distributing the extra cards to priority groups. A campaign at another level needs to be fought to ensure that all people under the priority categories receive Antyodaya cards. Barring a few districts of the Gwalior-Chambal region in Madhya Pradesh, where the administration has taken efforts to distribute Antyodaya cards to all primitive tribes, the direction of the Supreme Court is being violated brazenly in most places. The direction has been ignored to an extant that many district level officials are not even aware of the order. Further, we have heard of no district where efforts have been taken to reach out to widows with the expanded scheme. We request you to give us feed-back on the implementation of this direction in your region, and of any efforts you have taken to ensure its implementation in your area. 5a. MAHARASHTRA: RALLY FOR BETTER DROUGHT RELIEF This year has seen pockets of drought in different parts of the country. Sangli district in Maharasthra has been experiencing a spell of drought, and campaign groups are working to ensure proper drought relief in the region. Towards this, a rally was organised on November 2, 2003 to press for timely provision of grain under the Employment Guarantee Scheme and for proper implementation of all food schemes. The rally ended with a charter of demands including separate arrangement for distribution of grains to labourers working on EGS to ensure timely release of grains; provision of work within 2-3 KM distance of residence; provision of grains at Antyodaya rates and sugar at Rs. 5/ KG to all people in the drought hit area; providing the benefit National Family Benefit Scheme within a month of death of the primary breadwinner of the family; provision of temporary ration cards for migrant labourers working on sugarcane plantations; and proper implementation of all food schemes. 6. CHHATTISGARH: RIGHT TO WORK DRAFT BILL The idea of right to work has been catching steam in government circles slowly. The Government of Chhattisgarh has been actively considering introducing the right to work bill. A Draft Right to work bill has been prepared [by who?] for Chhattisgarh now. The draft bill is available in the right to food website of Chattisgarh [link], as well as our own site. If you have comments on the bill, please send them to us at right2food@yahoo.co.in. The campaign groups are actively pursuing the issue by various means. They have been taking up various advocacy measures with the state government on one side. To build popular support, efforts are on to get in touch with various mass based organisations. Mobilisation is also on the cards; for example a meeting was conducted in Raigarh last month, which was attended by about 300 people to build support for right to work. In the meanwhile, groups in Chhattisgarh are taking up studies on various food and related schemes. As a first step, studies on ICDS and on mid-day meal scheme have just been concluded. You can access the studies in [ ] as well as in [www.righttofood.com]. The study on mid-day meal scheme will be uploaded shortly. We have informed you in previous updates about systematic monitoring of of mid-day meal scheme done by groups in Chhattisgarh, the questionnaire used by them has been uploaded in our website for your reference. The “research and surveys” section has a set of other tools that could be used by you for the purpose of doing surveys on a range of food and related schemes. Do write to us if you need further assistance from us. 7. WEBSITE ADDRESS The website address www.righttofood.com was dysfunctional for a few days inbwteen. This has happened since the domain name registration had expired without our notice. You can still access the site at http://geocities.com/righttofood. The domain has been restored, and you can make use of it as usual once again. 8. MISCELLANOUS *.1. In Uttar Pradesh, Mr Ashok Bajpai, Minister for civil supplies recently made a public statement to the effect that the government was not planning to provide mid-day meals, and that it would seek a reversal of the Supreme Court order on this. The same article, published in Times of India, quoted senior officials and “experts” who claimed that cooked mid-day meals had been found ineffective elsewhere. However, within a week of this faux pas, the government issued a statement clarifying that mid-day meals would be introduced “soon” in 18 districts. This vague promise is the latest of a long series of earlier announcements of this kind. On 13-14 November, a two-day protest meeting was organised in Lucknow, based on a 17-point charter on various aspects of education including mid-day meals. *.2. Gram Sampark – a system for monitoring: Madhya Pradesh government has developed a web-based system of sharing information on monitoring done by the government. The system called “Gramsampark” involves month-to-month monitoring of eleven basic minimum services by the government in each village. If any facility is found to be faulty, then it comes under the ‘defaulter’ list. The list is available online for anybody to check. The list of defaulters is reviewed at each level from block up to the state government and concerned departments have to submit reports of action taken to solve the problems in each facility within the month. The system offers a hand for campaign groups to check if correct information goes on records regarding functionality of the schemes, and to press for timely redressal. The information can be accessed at www.mp.nic.in/gramsampark *.3. ICDS study: Centre for Equity Studies will shortly launch an evaluation study of ICDS facility under the aegis of the Commissioners of the Supreme Court. The study will cover states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, etc. where the scheme is reputed to function well, and compare them with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, etc. where the scheme is marred by problems. The study will involve voluntary collaborators from different states. In case you are interested in collaborating, please contact Ms Shonali Sen at shonalisen@hotmail.com |
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