MORPARIA’S PAGE E-mail: [email protected] Contents JUNE 2013 VOL.16/11 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ THEME:GOI Schemes Morparia’s page 2 How much can a Government do? 5 V Gangadhar Managing editor What ails Government schemes? 6 Mrs. Sucharita R. Hegde Leena Mehendale Fair prices, unfair practices 9 Dr. Sunil B. Bhosale and Pralhad N. Kamble Editor Anuradha Dhareshwar 100 days of assured wages 11 Dr. Nilay Ranjan and Dr. Deepender Kumar How dependable is Aadhar? 14 Sub editor Prof. Rajanish Dass and Neha Khatri Rajlakshmi Pillai Good intent, lackadaisical implementation 16 6 Dr. Nidhi Mishra Design A house for the homeless 18 H. V. Shiv Shankar Avani Kapur The fight against malnutrition 21 Marketing Dipa Sinha Mahesh Kanojia Know India Better Terracotta Art of Bishnupur 23 OIOP Clubs Rangan Dutta Vaibhav Palkar Face to face: Devinder Sharma 36 Subscription Feature Nagesh Bangera … and, above all, Pran 40 Sanjit Narwekar 23 Mother tongue, an endangered language 43 Advisory board Shoma A. Chatterji M V Kamath Sucharita Hegde Youth Voice: Anuja Gopalan 45 Justice S Radhakrishnan Cultural Kaleidoscope 46 Venkat R Chary Drug abuse: A ticking time bomb 48 Johnson J. Edayaranmula Printed & Published by Mrs. Sucharita R. Hegde for Columns 51 One India One People Foundation, Nature watch : Bittu Sahgal Mahalaxmi Chambers, 4th floor, In focus : C.V. Aravind 22, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Cool Champ 53 Mumbai - 400 026 Young India 54 Tel: 022-2353 4400 Fax: 022-2351 7544 36 Great Indians 56 e-mail: [email protected] / Devinder Sharma [email protected] Printed at: Graphtone (India) Pvt. Ltd. A1 /319, Shah & Nahar Industrial Estate. S. J. Marg, Lower Parel (W) Mumbai – 400 013 visit us at: Anutai Wagh Major General Eustace Asghar Ali Engineer www.oneindiaonepeople.com D’Souza PVSM oneindiaonepeople2020.blogspot.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Not quite the title I am a regular reader of OIOP. I have enjoyed reading the the satire column by V Gangadhar. The write-up on ‘vanaprastha’ in the March 2013 issue was indeed rib Youth are making a difference tickling. Especially, the narrative on the interaction with The May 2013 issue of OIOP focused on a very relevant the lady of the house is quite humorous. topic. Youth empowerment is an important issue in By way of digression, I wish to make a few observations today’s times when we are noticing a new found on the subject. The title given to the piece is a little out awareness towards issues in our youth. The protest march of sync with the contents thereof. The four Ashramas against the Delhi gang rape saw a huge participation of (stages of life) are Brahmacharya (celibacy), Grahastha youth, which signals a positive attitude of youth towards (Marital), Vanprastha (in family fold, yet detached from social issues. It was nice to read about youth making a pleasures) and Sanyasa (renunciation). I feel that the difference to society through their work (Youth Voice). article relates to a desire to seek sanyasa, a life of reclusion Overall, the issue had a nice mix of articles and views. in the forest. Keep up the good work! – S. Nageshwar Rao, Thane – Mrinalini Kelkar, Mumbai Mahalaxmi Chambers, 4th floor, 22, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mumbai - 400 026 22, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mahalaxmi Chambers, 4th floor, Letters should be addressed to Foundation, One India People The Editor, 022-2351 7544 e-mail: [email protected] / [email protected] www.oneindiaonepeople.com 022 - 2353 4400 Fax: Tel: 4 ONE INDIA ONE PEOPLE June 2013 SATIRE How much can a Government do? V Gangadhar cautions that too much planning and scheming can prove to be disastrous and lead to bad governance. MERICA calls itself a democracy but it is a bogus the rest of the country, the menu had to be changed. The claim. Why? Most Americans want the government North demanded rotis, parathas, samosas and so on. Bengal Ato be kept out of anything and everything. Ronald and the eastern states recommended dishes from their region. Reagan won a presidential election promising the people Shiv Sena threatened a bandh if ‘varan bhat ’, poha and he would keep the government ‘off the backs of the people’. vada pav were ignored. So now you understand the nature of As an Indian I ask you, what kind of a democracy is that? problems the government has to face to implement its plans. Why do we then elect a government? Yes, that has been the history of government plans and We have set a better example. We want the government to schemes. When the South rebelled against the imposition do everything for us. Roads? Government. of Hindi as the sole national language in an Repairing pot holes? Government. Health agitation which brought the Dravidian parties care? Government. Food supplies? Without to power, the Centre thought of a brilliant Government. Without government being a party government ‘Three language formula’ where students to anything and everything that we desire, being a party to would study English, Hindi and one regional our system would collapse. It is a gigantic anything and language. The Hindiwalas were delighted task for the government, but since everything that because they could choose Hindi as their independence we have been doing this. No one regional language and benefit over other political party would agree to ‘less of we desire, our states. The three language formula, I think, government’ in running the country. system would still exists but is hardly spoken about. How do we go about it, I mean, government collapse. Our government was so considerate that it doing everything for us? This is a vast system planned and schemed to provide land for the made up of plans, schemes and programmes landless, home for the homeless, food for the to cover each and every issue from birth to foodless, water for the waterless and so on. death. Why did the government organise the family planning Some private individuals chipped in and became public heroes. programme with an impactful slogan like ‘Hum do, Hamare Acharya Vinoba Bhave went around the country collecting do’? The department had a vast network of human power to land for his ‘Bhoodan’ programme though it was discovered keep the population under control. Don’t ask if the plans that the land ‘donated’ to him was useless for any purpose have succeeded. That is not the job of the government. including irrigation. Of course, we still remember the Bhoodan It is not easy to implement such schemes, plans or heroes because their intentions were good. programmes in a vast nation like India. Take the mid-day Job distribution naturally came under this concept. I was meals scheme for school children first introduced by the late impressed when US President Obama announced his Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran (MGR), for government had created five million jobs. But how could example. This proved to be enormously popular all over the one create jobs, and for whom? What about qualifications, country. Then it developed major problems. The Tamil Nadu experience and so on? Our government also kids were supplied with staple diet like rice and sambar. made such announcements and introduced Then another committee discovered this was not nutritious similar schemes, but I can only shake my enough and recommended the addition of an egg. But the head in puzzlement. vegetarians objected and asked for a ‘vegetarian egg’ which was not available. When the scheme was implemented in The writer is a well-known satirist. ONE INDIA ONE PEOPLE June 2013 5 5 GOI WELFARE SCHEMES WhatWhat ailsails GovernmentGovernment schemes?schemes? Almost all government welfare schemes that are meant to benefit the poor and underprivileged in the society are plagued by many problems such as lack of awareness among beneficiaries, faulty implementation, improper monitoring, financial laxity and above all corruption. Leena Mehendale does an incisive analysis on why government schemes go awry and tells us how loopholes can be plugged in the initial stages itself to achieve the desired goals. HE late Prime Minister Rajiv expenditure has to be less than income. The sources of Gandhi is credited with one income for government are through various taxes – taxes Tfamous statement. He declared, on land, property, income, import–export, excise, local entry from a thumb-rule assessment, that tax, sales, entertainment, etc. The profits earned by public out of every rupee spent on a sector undertakings and lease agreements for mines, government scheme, only fifteen paise minerals and forest products are also sources of income. reaches the actual beneficiary. A candid On the other hand, the government has various revelation indeed coming from a establishments to run, notably the institutions of country’s premier! Parliament, Military and Police for external and However, Mr. Gandhi did not elaborate nor internal security, a bureaucracy to run the did he order an investigation as to why, administration and judiciary system. Similarly as much as, 85% goes as unproductive government has to run some institutes expenditure. Perhaps he thought it as a public welfare measure – was a futile exercise and there especially schools, hospitals, was no cure to the problem. Had railways, postal service, he acted on the matter, he telecommunication and so would have stumbled upon the on. These are permanent many factors responsible for establishments and the faulty implementation of these expenditure on them is a welfare schemes of the committed expenditure, government and timely which government cannot corrective action would have shy away from. saved the government However, in any financial exchequer crores of rupees. year, if there is surplus Farzana revenue available with Planning and budgeting of schemes government or if But before I point out why these schemes don’t government is able to yield the desired results, let me spell out a little borrow against future about planning and budgeting.