Policy watch February 2007

 

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DRDAs to be abolished
The Planning Commission will soon formally announce the winding up of District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs) and merge them with District Planning Committees (DPCs) constituted under the panchayati raj set-up. At the third meeting of the Empowered Sub-Committee of the National Development Council on Panchayati Raj Institutions in Delhi, members agreed that DRDAs would function as parallel bodies once all DPCs were in place. The DRDA has traditionally been a principal organ at the district level to oversee implementation of anti-poverty programmes of the Union ministry of rural development. Headed by the collector or the district magistrate, it (DRDA) is expected to coordinate effectively with other departments, non-governmental organisations and financial institutions to gather support and resources. Under the Panchayati Raj Act, these functions have been assigned to DPCs. The Union ministry of panchayati raj has been demanding winding up of DRDAs for some time now.

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Panchayat ministry seeks World Bank support
The Union ministry of panchayati raj (MoPR) is seeking support from the World Bank for a new initiative in which panchayats across the country will compete with each other to get extra funds from the Centre. Under the new Panchayat Empowerment and Accountability Incentive Scheme (PEAIS), a panchayat delivering better service while ensuring transparency in financial dealings will get access to extra funds. “Empowerment of the panchayat is the responsibility of the state and ensuring accountability is the responsibility of the panchayat members. This scheme seeks to incentivise the states for empowering panchayats and for making them (panchayats) more accountable and transparent,” says Union minister for panchayati raj Mani Shankar Aiyar.
The current design aims at linking the PEAIS fund for each state to its degree of devolution of powers to panchayats in the previous year. “It is not aimed at rewarding the best and punishing the worst. Rather, it seeks to incentivise the progress. It is a good indication about how far a state has progressed in utilising the design of devolution,” says Aiyar. While the World Bank is processing the MoPR’s proposal, it may provide fodder for all those who are critical of the World Bank’s involvement in such an initiative.
Read interview with Mani Shankar Aiyar >>

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New afforestation approach
The Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has asked the Planning Commission to raise its budget for the afforestation programme during the 11th Five-Year Plan. This is because the MoEF wants to turn the tree-planting programme into a wider rural enterprising scheme. Under this, rural communities will take up plantations, collect minor forest produce and process it into final products through cooperatives. The MoEF has asked for Rs 8,000 crore: seven times more than the allocation for afforestation during the 10th Plan. The Joint Forest Management Committees will play a major role under this scheme.

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Village forests may be revived
During the 11th Five-Year Plan, the government may revive village forests as envisioned in the Indian Forest Act, 1927. According to sources in the Planning Commission, the steering committee on environment and forests for drafting the 11th Plan is seriously thinking of reviving village forest systems and of turning them into units for development. Under the 1927 Act, there is a provision for setting aside any reserved forest as village forest for use by communities. Very few states have such a provision and as a whole, the country’s forest bureaucracy has tended to forget it. Of late, many civil society groups have been demanding the revival of village forests.

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Government to introduce micro-finance Bill
The Centre has decided to introduce a Bill on micro-finance in the forthcoming budget session of Parliament. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had recently announced the need for greater availability of micro-credit services to the poor and to small enterprises. The legislation will create a friendly policy environment for micro-finance services.

The micro-finance Bill will reach out to two important groups in the home-based work sector: women and children. The proposed Bill will cover 2.2 million self-help groups covering 32.98 million poor households.

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Rajasthan government to develop model villages
The Rajasthan government has selected 50 villages to develop as model villages under the Deendayal Upadhyay Adarsh Gram Yojana. These will be provided basic amenities and infrastructure. A three-year plan will be formulated for their development. The scheme is inspired by the successful development model implemented in Ralegan Siddhi, Maharashtra.

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Jobless growth continues
The International Labour Office’s (ILO’s) recent report on global employment trends points out that the global growth in economy is not generating employment. This trend has been continuing for the last few years and is likely to persist in 2007 as well. Despite an estimated global economic growth of 4.9 per cent, the unemployment rate is likely to remain at last year’s level. “To make long-term inroads into unemployment and working poverty, it is essential that periods of high growth be better used to generate more productive jobs. Reducing unemployment and working poverty through creation of such jobs should be viewed as a precondition for sustained economic growth,” the ILO report says.

The report adds that in South Asia, employment generation is not in sync with the growth in the number of people who have attained working age. Thus unemployment will continue to rise. “During the last 10 years, the employment-to-population ratio went down from 58.4 per cent to 56.5 percent. Taken together with increasing unemployment rates, this means that employment creation has been insufficient to absorb the growing labour force,” says the report.


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New scheme for panchayat infrastructure
With the increasing role of panchayats in poverty alleviation schemes, the Union ministry of panchayati raj (MoPR) has launched the ‘Gram Swaraj Yojana’. This scheme will provide infrastructure support to panchayats. Ministry sources say that about 50 per cent panchayats do not have offices for carrying out day-to-day work. The new programme seeks to address three aspects: physical space (buildings to conduct panchayat activities), adequate staff to carry out core work (not planning and implementation, but maintaining accounts) and ensuring cyber connectivity. Under the ‘Gram Swaraj Yojana’, essential infrastructure such as meeting halls or courtyards, space for computers, files, record rooms, library and rooms for panchayats representatives will be provided. The MoPR has asked each state to carry out assessment of its existing infrastructure at the village panchayat level and then give proposals to meet the gap through the scheme. It has approached UNDP for funding of the programme.

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Free land in Maoist affected areas
The West Bengal government has directed Block Land Reforms Officers (BLROs) to distribute free land to all landless households living below the poverty line in the Maoist-affected districts of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore. Each landless family will be provided 10 cottahs (half a bigha) of land near its present residence, so that enough can be earned from the plot to sustain the family throughout the year. For this initiative, the government has to dig into its pool of land or purchase it from others in the areas.

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SC verdict may impact land reform laws
The recent verdict of the Supreme Court through a Constitution bench, which says that any law placed under the Constitution’s Ninth Schedule, will be open for judicial scrutiny may impact many land reform laws. According to the Constitution, laws placed under the 9th schedule are not open for judicial review. The apex court ruled that it can strike down a law if it violates the fundamental structure of the Constitution.

Out of the 284 laws under this schedule, 250 are related to land and agrarian reforms, and job quotas for various sections. In the original text of the Constitution, a provision under Article 31(2) protected laws concerning agrarian reforms and abolition of the zamindari system.

The first test of the provision came when the Bihar Land Reforms Act 1950 was challenged before the Patna High Court on the grounds of discrimination. The law was declared invalid as it offended Article 14 of the Constitution. The Parliament reacted by inserting Article 31-B and its concomitant, the Ninth Schedule. Later through Article 31-B and Article 31-C and the Ninth Schedule, the Parliament devised a scheme of insulating certain laws from being challenged before courts. This was done by initially putting 13 laws pertaining to agrarian reforms under the Ninth Schedule. It is expected that many land reform laws will be challenged using this verdict.

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