Policy watch November 2007

Agricultural growth in Eastern India critical: study

A research study conducted by Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology has said that besides West Bengal and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, the agricultural growth in eastern states are in a critical stage.

The study titled 'Constraints of rice production in Eastern India’ says that although the region produced more than 75 per cent of the total rice produced from the rainfed region, the productivity increased only by 36 kg per hectare per annum as compared to the national average of 44 kg per hectare per annum during 1970 & 2004.

It attributed the low productivity to the concentration of rainfed area under rice, which make the farming and associated technology used in the production process ‘uneconomic’ primarily due to constrained in adaptation of available technology and lack of dependable market support.

According to the study productivity gain of rice in Chhatisgarh, Orissa, Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand was only 15 kg, 24 kg, 25 kg, 26 kg and 26 kg per hectare per annum respectively during the last 35 years,

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Govt. to maintain 4% agriculture growth

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has declared that government would sustain the trend of 4% growth in agriculture in the long term. After a long spell in the last two years agriculture sector has grown at 4 percent. He attributed this to the farm sector ‘reform’. “Despite several odds, a revival in the sector in the past two years is quite evident,” he said. “The record production of 216 million tonnes of food grains, 22.7 million bales of cotton and 345 million tonnes of sugarcane restores our confidence that we have the potential to meet the challenges (4% growth),” he said. The Planning Commission has been saying that 4% growth is necessary for making growth inclusive, the theme for the 11th five-year plan.

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Plan to promote Jatropha farming in Rajasthan

The Rajasthan Government has earmarked 40,000 hectares of wasteland in 11 districts for cultivation of Jatropha to produce bio-fuel. Seventy per cent of the land would be allotted to the families living below poverty line. The State Forest Department, Forest Protection and Management Committees, panchayats and self-help groups had already planted 4.15 crore Jatrohpa saplings across the state. Over 180 village panchayats have been allocated 2,373 hectare land, while 3,790 hectare land were allotted to BPL families to provide direct benefit to them.

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World Bank to popularize National Happiness concept

Bhutan's unique concept of ‘Gross National Happiness’ (GNH) to measure the country's wealth, an alternative to the world's economic scale, could now become a global buzzword with the World Bank trying to popularise the model. Bhutan, a least developed country, came up with this unique way to measure the country's wealth in terms of the happiness of its citizens. Instead of attaining a higher gross domestic product (GDP), the official goal here is GNH - a policy decreed by former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck to try and reflect the true quality of life in a more holistic manner. The policy seems to be reaping the desired results - 72 percent of the country is still forested, healthcare is free, and a study conducted by the University of Leicester in Britain ranks Bhutan as the planet's eighth happiest place, ahead of the US and Canada.

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World Bank loan for local bodies in Kerala

The liaison committee of the CPI (M)-led ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala has asked the state government to explore possibilities of availing low-rate World Bank loan for projects to be implemented by local bodies. The loan, which charges just 0.25 per cent interest, would help the cash-strapped civic bodies to carry out some major developmental projects. The Centre had recently informed the states of the availability of these facilities.

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95% Tamil Nadu Panchayat leaders are literate

According to a study by the rural development department, a majority of the 12,618 elected village panchayat presidents in Tamil Nadu have been to school. In fact, one is a Ph.D and 18 have M.Phil degrees. Only five per cent (679) have not had any formal education. As much as 82 per cent (10,243) have been to school. Of this, 1,217 have completed their higher secondary; as many as 227 are diploma holders, 1,140 are graduates and 293 have completed post-graduate education. At the second tier of the rural local bodies (the panchayat union level), the number of illiterates is similarly negligible (seven persons, 2 per cent). A majority of the 385 panchayat union chairpersons have been to school (263; to 68 per cent) while the remaining have either been to college or hold a diploma (115 president, 30 per cent). At the highest tier of Panchayati Raj governance, not one of the 29 district panchayat presidents is illiterate. A majority has been to school (52 per cent, 15 presidents) while 14 are either graduates or postgraduates.
Compared to 2001, there is a quantum leap in the number of women self-help group members elected to rural local bodies. In 2001, only 2,148 SHG members were village panchayat members. The number is now 4,451. The number of district councilors from SHGs is up; from 4 in 2001 to 25 now. The only figure that is constant is that of the district chairperson. In 2001 there was only one president with a background of work done with women’s SHG.

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India aims to end open-air defecation by 2012

India aims to eradicate open-air defecation by 2012 by building toilets for hundreds of millions of its poor and homeless, well ahead of a global deadline to do so, said the Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad at the recently concluded ‘World Toilet Summit’. An estimated 2.6 billion people, or about one-third of global population, do not have access to a proper toilet, according to the WHO. More than half of that number lives in India or China, with India accounting for about 700 million people, say experts. India has earmarked about 10 billion rupees ($255 million) on rural sanitation projects this year, a 43 percent increase from the previous year. About half-a-million people in India are engaged in manual scavenging -- cleaning toilets and carrying human excreta on their heads or carting it from toilets without a sewage system and dumping it in garbage yards, experts say. The practice is banned but prevalent because of a lack of other employment opportunities and proper sewage systems.

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