Governance Today October 2015

UP/GBD-212/2015-17

OCTOBER 2015 VOL. - 02 ISSUE - 01

RNI NO: UPENG/2014/62662

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www.governancetoday.co.in

How swachh have we become?

Illegal objects of pleasure p.31 I IPC summit event report p.68

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Editor-in-Chief Ajit Sinha Editor Anand Mishra Senior Copy Editor Ramesh K Raja Correspondent Praveen Raman, Ritika Bisht, Sagarika Ranjan Guest Writers & Contributors Ritwajit Das, Vinit Goenka Graphic Designer Girdhar Chandra Fuloria, Sarvesh Dixit Web Architect Farhan Khan CORPORATE OFFICE Strategy Head Ajay Kumar VP Sales Gautam Navin VP Strategic Alliance & Branding Salil Dhar SALES & MARKETING (CORP) Anupam Gupta, Shubham Gupta, Anjana Yadav sales@governancetoday.co.in I 07840086703 GOVERNMENT ALLIANCE Vaibhav Jaiswal I 07840086705 ADVERTISEMENT Stuti Bhushan I 09999371606 Karamjeet Singh I 09990098732 Abhijeet Srivastava I 09990098572 ACCOUNTS EXECUTIVE Yogesh Chikara FOR SUBSCRIPTION CONTACT subscription@governancetoday.co.in ADVISORY BOARD Terry Culver Associate Dean, SIPA, University of Columbia Vinit Goenka National Co-Convener, IT Cell, BJP Amod Kanth General Secretary Prayas JAC Society Pratap Mohanty Former Dy Educational Advisor, MHRD, GOI Ranjit Walia Managing Counsel Walia & Co. Published By Ajit Kumar Sinha 713, 3BA - Tower No. - 4, River Heights, Raj Nagar Extn - Ghaziabad Uttar Pradesh-201003 Printed & Published by Ajit Kumar Sinha on behalf of Odyssey Infomedia Pvt. Ltd. Printed at Rama Offset Printers A-43, Sector - 10, Noida, UP - 201301 Editor-In-Chief: Ajit Kumar Sinha @ All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, and mechanical, including photocopy, or any other information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

4 I October 2015

Not so swachh a Bharat CONSTIPATED INDIA even today looks for relief among the dusty, unhealthy bushes along roads and in farmlands while the garbage, including hazardous e-wastes and medical waste, finds its place everywhere but the dustbins.

Infections, respiratory diseases and other such health issues still lace a huge chunk of population and to look up to we only have the slippery, greasy, dwindling rope of hope.

There are many facilities and provisions that are still a luxury.

Composting at a community level, toilets at public places, water treatment plants in hospitals, drinking water availability, medical waste management and the different colored bins required for waste segregation at source are the most common and basic expected amenities, but are mostly non-existent in shared landscape of India.

Of late the political arena of the country has been experiencing some new developments in the form of several innovative projects introduced by the Modi government.

Not one but all of these promise results that, considering the present state of the country, seems utopian.

October 2, 2015 marked the completion of another such innovative venture – Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). A program started by the government to clean India.

“The Swachh Bharat Mission is a major initiative of Government of India aims to make India litter free and open defecation-free by 2019.

www.governancetoday.co.in

42 36

COMBATTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING REQUIRES A NATIONAL PLAN OF ACTION

14

Ravi Kant President, Shakti Vahini

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NOT SO SWACHH A BHARAT

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INDIA CAN HAVE DEVELOPMENT SHORTCUTS

BY IMPLEMENTING e-GOVERNANCE

42 48

26 29 31

Viljar Lubi Ambassador of Estoniaa to India

33 39 42 45

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THE OPEN SHAME MESSY GARBAGE MANAGEMENT LEARNING FROM THE BEST ILLEGAL E-WASTE SHIPMENT THE SOULLESS TRADE ILLEGAL OBJECTS OF PLEASURE MISSING CHILDREN OF INDIA INDIA’S MALNOURISHED CHILDREN IT IS HOT, AND IT WILL GET HOTTER TIME TO LEAD THE RACE

51

AIMING FOR THE TOP TABLE

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THE WAR OF PACKAGES

SMART CITIES NEEDED TO OFFER WORLD CLASS LIVING CONDITIONS

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Ashish Tandon MD, Egis in India

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PEOPLES PARTICIPATION REQUIRED FOR FOOLPROOF GARBADGE MANAGEMENT

JANTA SPEAKS THE CITIZENS WHO ARE NOT TAKING SILICON VALLEY BY STORM TREAT FOR THINKING FILM GOERS INDIA’S PAYMENT CORRIDOR TOWARDS CASHLESS FUTURE A YEAR IN HINDSIGHT October 2015 I

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Editorial

Making India swachh again A YEAR ago, Swachh Bharat mission was launched with much fanfare and glitz. Leading personalities from various walks of life endorsed the initiative which aimed at making India clean. It was indeed a noble initiative because we all know how much bad odor, bad image and most of all how many epidemics does dirty, filthy garbage bring to the nation.

So, without a question, this was a great idea to work upon. But one year down the line, it is prudent and pertinent to ask how much change has it brought on the ground?

Building toilets was priority number one for the government. India is home to the largest number of open defecators in the world. It lags even Bangladesh in this regard. Lack of a necessity as basic a toilet has forced many children, mostly girls to drop out of schools. Open defecation is a social curse and a massive health hazard in that it poisons ground water which in turn creates multiple health problems, especially in rural areas.

Besides, it is a security issue for women. So, the government of India embarked on making toilets.

One year down the line, the government claims to have built 80 lakh toilets. But on ground, basic problems are bugging. Unavailability of water, non-existing sewage connection and lack of waste disposal systems are to name a few. Same is the case with toilets built in schools. So, a lot of effort is still needed. Building toilet is not enough, allied facilities are also needed. More importantly, users need to be brought on board. Currently, the amount that is given to people for building toilets is proving insufficient.

Waste disposal is another big area and in this, not much change is visible on ground. We are still not seeing any improvement in how waste is collected, segregated, transported, dumped, treated, and recycled. There is so much we can learn from western countries in this regard, from underground waste collection to creating electricity from waste. While we do have a functional waste to energy plant in Delhi, its efficiency is horrendous because the feed, i.e. the garbage, is not sorted. It also leads to poisonous gases emitted in air. Needless to say, a concerted and sincere beginning is needed.

While it is easy to blame government and civic authorities for the mess, how much have we changed over the last year? Are we segregating garbage at home, something which we must, so that the waste is treated properly? Are we throwing garbage at the right places? Most of all, are we pressing civil bodies to do their job right? No, we are not. And unless we improve, not much will improve on ground.

If anything, we need to learn from Gandhi in this regard who felt cleanliness and hygiene was more important than even freedom.

Governance Today just turned one. We started our journey a year ago with a vision, which was to contribute to the discussion on pressing issues of governance. We feel proud that during this period, we have raised critical issues ranging from gender equality to education, agriculture and economic health of the country. We received lot of praises and fair amount of criticism. But it was nice to have so many responses which validated our understanding that a genuine debate sans hyperbole is indeed required on burning issues that the country faces. We thank our readers for their response and hope they would keep the two way communication alive.

Best regards

Ajit Sinha Editor-in-Chief

www.governancetoday.co.in

October 2015 I

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THUS THEY SPOKE Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human values, not identities. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are the new neighbourhoods of our new world.

Narendra Modi Prime Minister

I don’t know what you want to call me... Santa Claus... you want to call me hawk, I don’t know. I don’t go by this. My name is Raghuram Rajan and I do what I do.

Raghuram Rajan, Governor Reserve Bank of India

Chinese first built China and then all corporate giants vied to invest in China.

So, lets first Make India. If we make India strong, investments will come at our terms, else investors will dictate terms.

Arvind Kejriwal Chief Minister, Delhi

I changed my profile picture to support Digital India, the Indian government’s effort to connect rural communities to the internet and give people access to more services online.

Mark Zuckerberg CEO, Facebook

I have worked with CAB officials for 14 months, and everything is a challenge. We will speak to all 121 members and discuss the way forward.

I will do whatever I can. Very happy that Dalmiya’s son will also be a part of CAB. Sourav Ganguly President, Cricket Association of Bengal Having become a mother was perfect for a script like this (Jazbaa) because there is a lot of truth to the nuancing you can bring in. In terms of any dramatic moment, you can bring in a degree of truth to the sense of drama.

Experience does bring in a lot of honesty here.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Bollywood actor 8 I October 2015

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GOVERNANCE WATCH

1.2 lakh agents deployed for PM Jan Dhan Yojana KEEPING IN line with Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, the banks have deployed about 1.2 lakh Business Correspondent Agents/ Bank Mitras (BCAs/BMs) to provide banking services to unbanked households of the country. 1,23,308 BCAs/BMs have been deployed by the banks for attaining the goal under PMJDY financial inclusion programme. They work on online real time mode using various types of telecom connectivity.

The outlets of BCAs/BMs are fully equipped with the infrastructure required for delivery of banking services.

These outlets also provide insurance and pension related services which are delivered through biometric authentication and using Rupay ATM/ Debit cards swiping with PINs. As of September 9,79,305 BCAs/ BMs did cash transactions (both deposit and payment), 34,205 did remittances and total 1.20 crore transactions were done by them.

Govt to discuss transgender Bill in Winter Session THE UNION Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is working towards introduction of ‘Right of Transgender Persons Bill’ in the Winter Session of Parliament. The government has finalized a policy that would allow them to accord benefits of reservation in education and government jobs. ‘Multipronged policy’ will allow transgender to be classified on their official identity cards as those belonging to the third gender.

“While the Supreme Court judgement has said that transgenders will get reservation under OBC category there are transgenders who are availing themselves of benefits under the SCs and STs. So we have defined specifically in the policy that transgenders under general category – who are neither SCs nor STs – will get reservation under OBC quota,” said news reports quoting an official.

Power demand increases past 1.50 lakh MW INCREASED FARM demand and reduced generation from hydel power stations has pushed power demand to a record 1.50 lakh MW level, as per National Load Dispatch Centre. This has also resulted in pushing electricity prices on the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) to a record. Rajesh K Mediratta, director, IEX, said, “Increased volumes were largely due to a surge in demand for power in Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra where there has been an abrupt end of the monsoon, leading to increased temperatures and agricultural load.”

On September 15, the IEX spot power market saw a record trade of 137 million units for delivery the next day. The previous high was 131 million units traded on October 10, 2014. “Demand for power is expected to remain around 1.5 lakh MW level till agricultural demand persists,” said Mediratta. www.governancetoday.co.in

October 2015 I

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GOVERNANCE WATCH

ISRO launches ASTROSAT, first space observatory A FEW days after it celebrated the successful completion of a year around the Red planet by its first inter-planetary mission - the Mars Orbiter, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its first dedicated multi wavelength space observatory into space, besides six satellites for Canada, Indonesia and the United States. Though the national space agency has launched satellites for Indonesia and Canada earlier, this is the first time ISRO is launching satellites for the United States.

Though there have been scientific missions in the past by ISRO - Aryabhata, SROSS, Youthsat, IRS-P3, GSAT-2, Chandrayaan-1 and Mars Orbiter Mission, this is the first time ISRO is launching a space observatory into space.

Though ASTROSAT may be similar to the NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the former is about 10 times smaller and cannot be compared to the Hubble.

FMC merges with SEBI IN THE first ever merger of two regulators, over 60-year-old commodities regulatory body Forward Markets Commission (FMC) merged with the capital markets watchdog SEBI with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ringing the customary stock market bell to formalise the amalgamation. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman, UK Sinha said that the commodities market entities would get a timeframe of up to one year to adjust to the new regulations as they would have to follow the same norms that are applicable to their peers in the equity segment. “In order to ensure that nothing is disrupted, there is no discontinuity... We are giving some timeframe so that they can adjust with the new regulations,” Sinha said. The SEBI chief also said that the entire process has “all been very well thought out” and the regulator has also brought out a handbook for the benefit of all entities by making them aware about various rules and regulations.

Tax in the offing for Swachh Bharat TO ACHIEVE its vision of Clean India, the government may soon levy cess on telecom services, fuel and minerals, if the recommendations of the sub group of chief ministers on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan are accepted.

While the sub-group is yet to arrive at the overall cost of the programme, it has recommended that Centre and states contribute in 75:25 proportion to achieve the targets set over the next five years besides roping in private players to work towards solid and liquid waste management in the country on a PPP mode. The subgroup headed by Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu finalised its recommendations at its fourth meeting recently and is expected to submit the report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon. Chief ministers of Haryana, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Mizoram attended the meeting at NITI Aayog.

10 I October 2015

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GOVERNANCE WATCH

Curb on prescription and sale of antibiotics soon IN A bid to avoid development of drug resistance to infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, urinary tract infection and even HIV, the government may soon issue restrictions on prescription and sale of commonly used antibiotics. As soon as it happens, the doctors and chemists will have to follow certain mandatory protocols and guidelines while prescribing antibiotics. The move is a part of the new global strategy, adopted by all member countries of the World Health Organization, to fight drug-resistant diseases. While WHO will assess implementation of the strategy at its ongoing South East Asia Regional Committee meeting in Timor Leste, India is so far ahead of the May 2017 deadline set up at the World Health Assembly meeting of WHO in Geneva in May, as per reports. The resolution passed at the Assembly.

Next generation anganwadis on the anvil IN A first of its kind public-private partnership, the Ministry for Women and Child Development recently signed an MoU with Vedanta to develop and modernise 4000 Anganwadis in the country with a total investment of Rs 400 crore. The MoU was signed by Dr Rajesh Kumar, joint secretary of the ministry and Mayank Ashar, managing director, Cairn India, a subsidiary company of Vedanta. Through this partnership, Vedanta aims to create social incubators that will help uplift the communities on a national scale by educating children, eradicating malnutrition and developing vocational skills among women in India. The model Anganwadis will be equipped with solar power, television for e-learning, hygienic toilets and pure drinking water supply.

Construction of these centres will be done by Vedanta, using prefabricated eco-friendly structures.

RBI cuts interest rates by 50bps AMID GOVERNMENT and industry pressure, Reserve Bank of India recently cut interest rate by 50 basis points, double of what was broadly anticipated and the biggest in more than three years. The cut brought down repo rate to 6.75 per cent, the lowest in four-andhalf-years. The RBI also revised downwards its real GDP forecast for 2015-16 to 7.4 per cent from earlier expectation of 7.6 per cent, saying that growth is expected to pick up in the latter part of the fiscal. The development is said to be a big boost to the economy and borrowers and has received wide appreciation from masses and classes. After the announcement, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said the central bank will work with the government to ensure a faster transmission and also hoped that banks will pass on the benefits to customers.

www.governancetoday.co.in

October 2015 I

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GOVERNANCE WATCH

‘Remarkable resilience shown by power sector, NTPC’ INDIAN ECONOMY, the Indian power sector and the largest Indian power company - NTPC have shown remarkable resilience by posting impressive achievements amid challenges, A.K. Jha, CMD, NTPC said. Jha was addressing the shareholders at the 39th AGM of the company in New Delhi recently. The power sector has also shown a new vibrancy along the value chain in contributing to the economy through higher generation output and other performance indicators in line with the government’s upgraded mission of providing ‘24X7 power for all’ by 2019. Jha also said that it is primarily driven by domestic demand and with Infusion of new direction and energy through programmes like ‘Make in India’, ‘Digital augur well for its growth. He informed the shareholders that present installed capacity of the company is 45,548 MW and the company has made the single largest thermal capacity addition in the country.

Dr. Arup’s ‘Delhi’s New Moti Bagh’ released “DELHI’S NEW Moti Bagh” a book authored by Arup Roy Choudhury was released by Union minister Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi. The book published by Amaryllis , gives an insight into the making of New Moti Bagh now a prime residential locality in South Delhi comprising impressive bungalows and comfortable flats retaining elements of classical architecture based on Lutyens ‘s Delhi style. Dr. Arup Roy Choudhury, a doctorate from IIT-Delhi has illustrious career of over 36 years includes over 14 years as a CEO. In April, 2001 he became the youngest CEO of a central public sector enterprise in India – the National Building Construction Corporation Ltd. (NBCC), at the age of 44 years from year April 2001 to August 2010. He is credited for turning around NBCC from a loss making company into a ‘Miniratna’ profit generating unit enabled to pay dividends to the Government.

Coal supply: Panel against scrapping fuel pacts STATE-RUN COMPANIES in steel, cement and fertiliser sectors may not have to bid for Coal India’s linkages as an inter-ministerial panel of the coal ministry has recommended against termination of their fuel supply pacts with the coal miner “in the larger public interest”.

An inter-ministerial committee (IMC), which has been constituted by the government to suggest a roadmap for auctioning Coal India Limited’s (CIL) linkages has in its recent meeting argued that the state-run companies in the unregulated sectors comprising steel, cement, sponge iron, fertiliser and captive power need perpetual access to fuel to meet their production needs. “It was also recommended that the fuel supply agreements (FSAs) of PSUs of non-regulated sector would continue to remain in force as it is in the larger public interest,” the IMC observed in its meeting on September 24.

12 I October 2015

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GLOBAL WATCH

Asians to be the largest group in US by 2065 THANKS TO the changing pattern of immigration that is about to take place over the next 50 years, Asians will have surged past Hispanics to become the largest group of immigrants heading to the US, a new immigration study by the Pew Research Center says.

By 2055 Asians will become the largest immigrant group at 36 per cent, compared with Hispanics at 34 per cent. According to the study, an increase in Asian and Hispanic immigration will drive US population growth, and foreign-born residents would make up 18 per cent of the country’s projected 441 million population by 2065.

Currently, 47 per cent of immigrants living in the US are Hispanic, but by 2065 that number will have dropped to 31 per cent. Asians currently make up 26 per cent of the immigrant population but in 50 years that percentage would increase to 38 per cent.

Sri Lanka no to Int’l judges probing war crimes AS PER Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanism to probe the alleged rights abuses during the military conflict with the LTTE cannot have foreign judges due to constitutional impediments. The Sri Lankan Constitution does not allow foreign judges to operate in the country.

This came after UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for a hybrid special court, integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators to probe the alleged rights abuses during the civil war that ended in 2009. The Sri Lankan military is reported to have killed 40,000 civilians in the final months of the three decade long ethnic conflict. But a US-sponsored draft resolution has called for a domestic judicial mechanism that includes foreign judges to probe the war crimes.

First withdrawal from doomsday vault FOR THE first time, a withdrawal of seeds from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, popularly known as the “doomsday bank” has taken place and that’s thanks to the war in the Middle East which is destroying ecology beside killing people. The vault is primarily an underground storage in a Norwegian island 1,300 km from the North Pole, built to safeguard global food supplies in case of a global catastrophe. It has more than 860,000 samples, from almost all nations. Even without power, the vault would stay frozen and sealed for at least 200 years. The researchers at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) have requested seeds, including samples of wheat, barley and grasses suited to dry regions to replace seeds in a gene bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo that has been damaged by the war. www.governancetoday.co.in

October 2015 I

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COVER STORY

Not so swachh a Bharat One year after it was launched, the Swachh Bharat Mission fails to make much headway in many states

14 1 4 I O October cttto ccto obe ber b eerr 2 20 2015 0 01 15 15

www.governancetoday.co.in ww w ww w.g .go .g ovvveern ove rrna naan n nccceettod to o od day. ayy..cco ay o..i.iin o n

Sagarika Ranjan CONSTIPATED INDIA even today looks for relief among the dusty, unhealthy bushes along roads and in farmlands while the garbage, including hazardous e-wastes and medical waste, finds its place everywhere but the dustbins.

Infections, respiratory diseases and other such health issues still lace a huge chunk of population and to look up to we only have the slippery, greasy, dwindling rope of hope.

There are many facilities and provisions that are still a luxury.

Composting at a community level, toilets at public places, water treatment plants in hospitals, drinking water availability, medical waste management and the different colored bins required for waste segregation at source are the most common and basic expected amenities, but are mostly non-existent in shared landscape of India.

Of late the political arena of the country has been experiencing some new developments in the form of several innovative projects introduced by the Modi government.

Not one but all of these promise results that, considering the present state of the country, seems utopian.

October 2, 2015 marked the completion of another such innovative venture – Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). A program started by the government to clean India.

“The Swachh Bharat Mission is a major initiative of Government of India aims to make India litter free and open defecation-free by 2019.

The objectives of the SBM describe a complex set of action that can be delivered through the fundamental instruments of social change: behavioral change and greater public awareness about the ill-health effects of poor sanitation and solid waste management (SWM),” states the official site of the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.

The officials involved in the project say that it’s one year and counting and say this with positivity in their voices. If the www.governancetoday.co.in

PEOPLE TALK “They ask us not to spit on the roads. Aare sir, where will we spit then. We hardly get to eat the whole day and gutkha and paan are our only respite. They threaten to fine us but where do we spit?”

Babloo Kumar (Auto Driver) “What mission? For us, (laughs). I have been collecting garbage for last 12 years and they failed to provide decent gloves and shoes and you talk of security and homes. Do you think I am a fool?”

Vishnu (Door-to-door garbage collector) “We did get new brooms and are being made to work harder but nothing has improved for us rather it has worsened.

Now they threaten to deduct wages and make us clean three to four times a day. Only work has increased nothing else.”

Rama Devi (Toilet cleaner) “You know I have read about this Swachh Bharat mission take off but one year and still no dustbins at the metro stations. If I want to throw something I have to go all the way out. So, people do litter. Who would like to waste Rs 8 for a piece of garbage?”

Shrishti Nanhorya (Sales and marketing executive) “We stand the whole day in the sun to sell fruits and in a diameter of almost a kilometer there is no provision of toilets for us. How can anyone control for so long? We cannot even shift because our market is here. Who likes to do it in open, we also feel ashamed but what to do?”

Mohan Kumar (Fruit seller) official numbers, released by the Ministry of urban development, are to be believed then the project is heading towards its goal gradually but definitely.

According to a survey conducted in 476 cities by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India during 2014-15, Mysuru has been ranked as the cleanest city in India. The ranking is based on solid waste management and extent of open defecation in the city.

The report card states that till August 2015, as many as 31,590 wards had achieved 100 per cent

Door-to-door collection of Solid waste while 17.34 per cent of the processing and disposal of solid waste has been achieved. In case of infrastructure, 2,672 Urban Local Bodies have got themselves registered under the scheme.

The government has sanctioned 1,645,055 Individual Household Latrines (IHHL) of which 464,651 has already been constructed. In addition to this, 14,420 common toilets and 9,813 personal toilets have been constructed.

However, we need to read between the lines. The glitter of October 2015 I

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One year into the Swachh Bharat Mission, not much has change on the ground

magical numbers are far too less to clean up the filth. In case of solid waste management, there are five such states where the initiative has failed to percolate. The statistics of progress stands at zero in these states. So, the zeros have made it to West Bengal, Bihar, Tripura, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

in Patna. In case she falls ill or fails to clean the toilets for any reason, the wage for the day gets deducted.

There are no medical facilities for her, no security, no education benefits for her children and no progress. She says, “I am living just for my children, to educate them so that they never have to do what I do.”

Similarly, in case of toilets there are 19 states that have zeros in their bags.

The tough world doesn’t end here. Rama narrates a very sad incident of how she was publicly humiliated when she accidentally held one of the upper caste person’s hands to save her from falling.

“I wanted to kill myself that day madam but who will take care of my kids then and this was not the first time but of course was worst,” she laments.

There is another issue that has not even managed to find its place among these numbers let alone making it to good or bad categories.

The very first link of Swachh Bharat Mission i.e. the ‘safai karmachaaris’ fail to get themselves enlisted in the government’s priority list for the government report card has no mention of their improved condition. Rama Devi (42) has been cleaning public toilets for last 20 years at a wage of Rs. 60 per day 16 I October 2015

When government officials were questioned on this, they had a list of benefits and privileges to show.

They even boast of the attempts made to improvise the labor laws

and how they care about these ‘safai karmchaaris’ but on the ground level, these turn out to be mere lip service. The benefits have failed to percolate down to these people at the grassroots level.

Life for them hasn’t changed much except for in a few cities like Mysuru and some parts of Maharashtra. However; it cannot be denied that the age-old shackles of mindsets have begun to develop cracks. These ‘Safai karmchaaris’ now know their rights. They have realized that they matter. Our Prime Minister’s vision to achieve the 3Es for governance – Effective; Easy and Economical does display possibility. A country with around 6,00,000 villages and around 2.5 lakh panchayats, it is a big deal if one karmachaari says, “It will take some time for the results to be seen but winds of change has begun.” edit@governancetoday.co.in

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ADVERTORIAL INTERVIEW

Peoples participation required for foolproof garbadge management It has been one year of Swachh Bharat campaign. How do you see the development of this program so far?

Our Hon’ble Prime Minister launched Swachh Bharat Campaign on 2nd of October 2014 with a solemn motto to make it a mass campaign. Since then, due to vigorous efforts, it has accelerated and has become a sanitation drive. There is sharp change in the mind-set of the public towards sanitation at home, schools and public places. The Government departments, PSUs, Corporate houses and other stakeholders are showing a great deal of inclination and commitments towards this mission and contributing under Corporate Social Responsibility for construction of toilets.

During this last one year, more than 4.25 lakh school toilets have been constructed. It can, therefore, be said that the program is developing well.

Open defecation is one of the biggest sanitation problem. Despite best efforts, India lags even Bangladesh in this regard. Where have we gone wrong and what’s the way out?

It is agreed that open defection has been a part of our rural culture due to financial constraints, poor www.governancetoday.co.in

education and lack of awareness on the ill effects of open defection.

Most sufferers of it have been women. With increasing education and awareness campaigns, behavioural changes are taking place. Public in rural areas are now more inclined to have household toilets, and maintain them.

Garbage management is not much talked about at broad level. How can we innovatively manage this problem?

There is no second opinion that garbage management and disposal is a burning issue. With a large population, India needs foolproof solid waste management and must encourage community based organisations, NGOs, Companies etc. to seriously get involved in this issue.

It requires both political and administrative will to deliver and combat and the government should ear mark especial budget provision for this solid waste management.

What are the challenges that country faces today with regard to hygiene?

It is an admitted fact that indifferent behaviour and mind-set towards health, hygiene and sanitation is a big challenge which needs to be met and changed. Behavioral changes are possible through intensive campaigns on the electronic media, print media, public meetings in

Dr. Suman Chahar Chairperson, International Academy of Environmental Sanitation & Public Health

schools / colleges, Gram Panchayats / Aganwaris etc. and by inserting these topics in the school syllabus.

Government must give extensive stress on solid waste management.

It will bring socio-eco revolution, create clean environment and will reduce diseases.

Do you have any economically viable latrine design for the economically backward communities?

Yes. We have all types of designs on latrines. Sulabh toilets are economical, affordable, easy to maintain and water saving. These are within the reach of common masses.

We also train masons on construction of toilets and create awareness among rural community.

Proper sanitation facilities for woman workers of unorganised sector is a big issue. How do you look at this issue and what can be a workable model for this?

Yes. There are a number of areas/ places where women are working as helpers, labourers and casual workers, for example, construction sites, market areas, factories. Also at places such as bus depots and important bus stands and factories with high level of human movement, separate women public toilets must be provided.

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COVER STORY

The open shame After seven decades of Independence, 130m households lack toilets

Our country is home to 600 million people who defecate in open and fall prey to commnunicable diseases.

Praveen Raman THE LAST general elections was unique in many ways. Perhaps this was for the first time that the issue of sanitation found space in public discourse. Both the Congress and the BJP spoke of open defecation-free India in their election manifestoes. Given that our country is home to 600 million people who defecate in open, the political class could not ignore the shame it brings to an individual and society. Ending open defecation would bring immense benefits.

Some 130 million households lack toilets.

More than 72 per cent of rural people relieve themselves behind bushes, in fields or by roadsides.

The share is barely shrinking.

Realising the urgency to curb the one of the country’s great problems, Union Finance Minister, 18 I October 2015

Arun Jaitley, while presenting the first budget of the country, set a goal of ending defecating in the open by 2019. That will be 150 years since the birth of Mohandas Gandhi, who said good sanitation was more important than Independence.

Open defecation not only poses severe health risks, but it is also a security issue for rural women who are bound to relieve themselves in open and are found to be attracting anti-social elements. Numerous cases of women being abducted from fields have been reported from across the country. Because the country’s population is huge, growing rapidly and densely settled, it is impossible even in rural areas to keep human faeces from crops, wells, food and children’s hands.

Ingested bacteria and worms spread diseases, especially of the intestine.

They cause enteropathy, a chronic illness that prevents the

body from absorbing calories and nutrients. That helps to explain why, in spite of rising incomes and better diets, rates of child malnourishment in India is not improving faster.

Data suggests that lakhs of Indian children die from preventable conditions each year. Faeces in groundwater spread diseases such as encephalitis, especially because the monsoon adds the unhealthy elements to the water. An expert told this magazine that the costs of all this, in incomes and taxes forfeited, are far greater than the price of fixing it.

India fares worse on sanitation than many poorer places including Afghanistan, Burundi and Congo, partly because too many of its leaders are too squeamish to face up to the issue. Thankfully, that appears now to be changing. The government, gung-ho on infrastructure, has just www.governancetoday.co.in

said it will build 12 million toilets.

But building more toilets may not be enough to curb this social evil as there is enough evidence to believe that the mere availability of government-built latrines will not end open defecation.

What is needed instead are public campaigns, in schools and in the media, to explain the health and economic benefits of using toilets and of better hygiene. Something with the line of “kya aapne haath dhoye”, the famous advertisement which the Doordarshan use to air in 90s. Researchers found that only a quarter of rural householders understood that washing hands helps prevent diarrhoea. The positive development is that celebrities are lending their hands in spreading the message.

Such campaigns not only mean government-built latrines have a better chance of being used; they would also encourage households to build them for themselves. Precisely how to raise awareness about a touchy subject is not clear, but some at least are trying.

The second fight will be against the bad habit of the people. India’s GDP has touched $ 2 trillion, but this might be the greatest development puzzle as to why growing prosperity has failed to put an end to open defecation in India?

Roughly half the Indian population continues to defecate in the open.

Contrast this with China, where only one per cent of the population www.governancetoday.co.in

defecates in the open. Or with Bangladesh, a country whose per capita income is only half of India’s but only five per cent defecate in the open. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to prioritise building of toilets over temples last year was a welcome shift in political thinking, simply building toilets might not be enough to end open defecation. What is needed, some observers say, is a national movement, perhaps with Modi leading from the front, to change people’s minds and attitudes. A lack of access to toilets is not the primary issue. The government has built toilets that often exceed international standards, spending Rs 12,000 on one pit latrine on an average, while neighbouring Bangladesh spends only Rs 2,000.

Yet, government latrines are less likely to be used than private ones, says a sanitation expert.

He further says that even in households with working latrines, individuals continue to defecate in the open. Latrine use is largely limited to the elderly, disabled and the weak. Households often use the structures for purposes such as storing their tools or housing cattle.

This implies that building toilets alone is not going to solve the problem of open defecation.

Why do people prefer to defecate in the open? The answer is income, poverty, education, access to water and look and behold, a curious combination of a culture of purity

and pollution that teaches people it is bad to accumulate faeces near home, coupled with false beliefs about how long it will take for the pit to fill and, thus, the problem of emptying (typically a pit latrine of 60 cubic feet takes five years to fill if regularly used by a household of four) and misconceptions about manual scavenging. This is based on the confused notions of purity and pollution that still linger. Latrine use means accumulating pollution near homes. Emptying latrines is inconceivable by high-caste Hindus and ‘untouchable’ castes want to distance themselves from such work. Therefore, households prefer to defecate in the open.

Without doubt, the issue of sanitation has taken centre stage in policymaking. It has now become an important parameter to judge the performance of the government.

Even as the government has bigger stake to provide fund and logistics for all sanitation programmes, but the panchayats can the most critical role in this as they are closest to the community. The PM’s Swachh Bharat programme seems to largely focus on, but it is not likely to end open defecation without the participation of the people. What is needed is to also work on changing behavior and attitudes.

The cultural barrier can be broken but it requires a change in government thinking. The focus of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has to be on a certain kind of ICE (information, communication and education). We will have to make the people realise that by defecating in the open, diseases spread.

Additionally, finding a way of telling people that pits don’t fill in a few months and a credible way of assuring them that the government will empty the pits in a few years, so that they don’t worry about it, is also likely to help. The practice of open defecation is known to be a source of multiple health and security evils. The practice must end to ensure basic human dignity to millions and save the country billions in medication. praveen@governancetoday.co.in

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COVER STORY

Messy garbage management Households and civic bodies both to be blamed for the situation

Indian cities generate more than 100,000MT of waste everyday. This poses a big challange to waste management agencies.

Praveen Raman FOR THE past three years, Nandu’s routine has not changed much. He has a small ‘thela’ which he uses to collect garbage from more than 100 houses in Delhi’s Lakshmi Nagar locality. The 14-year-old begins his work early morning and had to do his work manually. He has no clue what does organic and inorganic waste mean, neither does he care to separate them. He pulls out plastic waste that fetches him money, sometimes.

Indian cities generate more than 100,000 MT of waste every day.

Cities like Mumbai generates about 7000 MT of waste per day and other large cities such as Pune and Ahmedabad generate waste in the range of 1600-3500 MT per day. The 20 I October 2015

collection, processing, transporting and disposing this solid waste are done either by the civic bodies or by private organisations. While rules have been laid down for the segregation of waste in categories like organic/food waste, domestic hazardous waste, recyclable waste and for undertaking safe and scientific transportation, processing and disposal of municipal waste, but most of the urban local bodies face difficulties to comply with these rules with regard to doorto-door collection, segregation, transportation, processing and safe disposal of waste. When we produce this amount of waste everyday, it becomes imperative to manage and dispose it in a scientific manner. It is a well-known fact that India is a

land scarce country. The garbage collector who comes to your house every morning to empty your dustbins inside his truck, takes all the garbage from your neighbourhood and dumps it on an abandoned piece of land. Garbage collectors from all parts of the city meet there to do the same. Such a land is called a landfill.

The collection of garbage is a big issue too. Being a country of large population, India’s waste generation is also high, and as such, it creates a crisis if the garbage collector doesn’t visit a neighbourhood for a couple of days. Typically, each household waits for the garbage boy with two or three bags of trash. If he doesn’t turn up, the garbage becomes too much to store in the house. www.governancetoday.co.in

*TDP: Tonnes Per Day

People in India litter excessively.

The sweeper again sends all this garbage to the local dump, from where it finally goes to a landfill.

At the end of the day, it is safe to say that all garbage gets dumped in a landfill. www.governancetoday.co.in

Why is waste such a problem?

Presently, the practice is that once a landfill is “filled up� completely, a new landfill is discovered in a different part of

Source: Delhi Government Environment Dept.

the city. As per the estimates of the Energy Research Institute, 1400 sq. km. of land would be required by 2047 for municipal waste! Cities with proximity with rivers, have an additional dump for all their garbage and throw most garbage in the river.

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Resultantly, the river chokes up after a point and practically doesn’t flow at all. Expansive white deposits can be seen on their surfaces that prevent the flow. The deposits are nothing but toxic wastes that have reacted with the water. Practically no living creature lives in this section of the river.

There are many disadvantages of the landfill method because it creates land pollution and in most cases, ground water contamination as well. The waste is not subjected to recycling, composting, or any other form of environmental treatment.

Hazardous toxic wastes lie side by side with the organic wastes in the landfill.

The waste disposal issue has been given a small budget by the government. Limited by this, the municipalities are illequipped to deal with the massive amounts of waste they collect everyday. Another problem is their inefficiency in collecting the waste. Currently, their efficiency is only about 50 to 80 per cent. The common man living in a populated urban city can tell you that the garbage boy seems to take holidays every now and then. The real problem is that he has collected so much that he can’t store any more trash in his truck for the day, which is why he seems to take a “holiday” and does not come to your house.

On the one hand, we can blame the municipality for not having enough resources to collect all the garbage.

On the other hand, we ourselves are to blame for generating such quantities of garbage.

Community participation has a direct bearing on efficient garbage management. Yet, the municipal authorities have failed to mobilize the community and educate citizens on the rudiments of handling waste and proper practices of storing it in their own bins at the household, shop and establishment level. In the absence of a basic facility of collection of waste from source, citizens are sometimes forced to dump waste on the streets, open spaces, drains, and water bodies in the vicinity creating insanitary conditions. Citizens assume that 22 I October 2015

It is important on the part of civic bodies to segregate the waste

waste thrown on the streets would be picked up by the municipality through street sweeping. For the general public, which is quite indifferent towards garbage disposal etiquette, the onus of keeping the city clean is entirely on the urban local bodies. This mind set is primarily responsible for the garbage littered shared spaces in cities and towns across the country.

What can be done about it?

Firstly, it is imperative on the part of households and municipalities to separate the biodegradable from non-biodegradable waste.

Biodegradable wastes can then be subjected to composting, which is a process of converting plant and animal wastes to humus by soil microorganisms. Humus enhances the fertility of soil.

Non-biodegradable wastes then further have to be categorized on the basis of their toxicity.

Toxic wastes, when dumped in the land, eventually contaminates and poisons ground water. They have to be stored in tightly sealed underground containers.

Wastes like plastic, metal, paper etc. can also be subjected to recycling. In some ways, the waste can actually serve as a resource!

Of course, all of the above requires a hike in the waste disposal budget. The municipalities need to be taught the technologies described above so that they can deal with the waste effectively.

As individuals, we need to realize that we do generate quite a lot of waste – we dispose of containers that can be reused and we throw away papers that can be recycled. It is important to reduce our wastage of resources so that we don’t pressurize our weak waste disposal system. Secondly, household must learn to segregate waste. It is known world over that segregation works best at source of waste generation, i.e. households. This is why developed world encourages its citizens to store garbage in different packets and dump them accordingly in different waste disposal pits or bins. Even though municipalities in some Indian cities have put different boxes for collecting different types of garbage, they are woefully inadequate.

Moreover, people are not sensible enough to segregate and dump garbage in these boxes. Like many revolution, efficient waste management revolution also has to start at the fundamental level, i.e. our homes. praveen@governancetoday.co.in

www.governancetoday.co.in

COVER STORY

Learning from the best We can take lessons from developed countries on waste management Anand Mishra A COMMON, ubiquitous sight of India’s cities is not modern transportation systems or infrastructure which are most expected in any modern country of the world. It is actually the foul smelling garbage littered by roadside in all localities.

Filthy garbage disposal points and open sewages strewn with plastic bags and home refuse are the biggest commonality among Indian cities. Needless to say, these are visual

Beyond exasperation, a crucial question to ask is how do other countries which generate much more garbage per capita, manage the garbage and waste efficiently? New York, a city of nearly half the population of NCR (national capital region) generates nearly three times more garbage, yet is able to gather, segregate, recycle and dispose it without people feeling the rot. Surely, other countries, cities and municipalities are doing something we in India have not yet done or have

transporting waste through a very simple method; put garbage bins at designated places where people would dump their waste, have these garbage bins ferried to local waste collection centers from where they will be sorted and sent to either landfills or digesters which produces electricity from the waste. While this is the most common practice, the world has now started to alter the model by reducing and gradually eliminating the entire process of transporting waste on wheel,

Underground pneumatic waste collection systems are highly efficient and non polluting to environment

proofs of unimaginative, broken and unplanned waste management system of the country. Anyone who has lived or is living near Ghazipur area of East Delhi would have the same answer if asked about the most unlivable aspect of their locality; the garbage landfill which much against its classification, has now become a garbage mountain which reeks of rot, contaminates the ground water, and has vultures hovering all day in search of food. That’s the case in the capital city of India, spare a thought for the smaller cities. www.governancetoday.co.in

not bothered to learn. In fact, there are innovative and smart systems being put in place in many places around the world that India can learn from, in crucial segments of waste management, namely collection of waste and disposing waste.

As it turns out, leaders in the waste management are creating energy out of waste and in the process, are ridding the need of waste landfills.

Collection & segregation Most municipalities, have traditionally depended on collecting and

i.e. ferrying above ground. Surprisingly, the technology is now new; it has been there for about half a century, it is just that it has taken wings over last decade or so as cities in Asia and Europe are becoming increasingly aware of the problems related to conventional methods of waste collection. Countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are leading the drive to implement this technology.

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Waste to energy plants emit vary low quantities of polluting gases

around the chosen operating area.

These waste collection systems are placed outdoors or indoors and are accessible round the clock. Outdoor waste points are preferred for sparsely populated areas because of their lower construction costs. Each waste collection point incorporates as many waste inlets as there are types of refuse or waste. The most commonly used waste fractions in pneumatic waste collection systems are: mixed waste, organic waste and paper. There is one waste inlet for each type of waste. The waste is temporarily stored by the waste inlets until the next emptying cycle.

From inlets, the waste is transported along the pipelines into containers at the waste station. When full, the containers are sent away for further

processing using various mode of transport, including underground railway network.

large residential and office buildings, healthcare facilities, and hospitality sectors.

The best part is that no personnel are needed in the actual collection and transport of waste from the collection point to the waste station. The system is remotely monitored and controlled by operators at the waste station. The automated system, in addition to reducing personnel vehicle and fuel costs, benefits environment by vastly reducing CO2 emissions.

For Indian government, which is working hard to make Clean India a successful initiative, pneumatic waste collection systems could be a boon. The current system, which is highly manual, is not only unhealthy for people who are working in this process, but also for overall health of cities and invariably result in pandemics. As for cost, while the initial investment cost for a pneumatic system is surely higher than traditional methods, it has much lower operating cost and usually, the investment is recovered in 12-15 years.

This system can be most effectively installed in new cities which are planned afresh; but there are countries which have installed it in existing cities with great success.

Such systems are most suited for

Sweden has revolutionized the waste to energy concept. It recycles more than 99 per cent of all household waste compared to only 38 per cent in 1975. In 2012, the country burnt about 2.3m tonnes of household waste to energy 24 I October 2015

Waste to energy Collecting of waste and transporting it to the place of final processing is a big part of the waste management, but that is only half of the story; the other part, which is more important from sustainability perspective is what is ultimately done with the waste. This is where great imagination, careful planning, and monetary and tech investment www.governancetoday.co.in

is required. Let us take the case of Delhi NCR. The city collects about 8,000 tonnes of waste everyday of which just 4,500 tonnes are collected and only 2,500 tonnes are treated.

It has three waste to energy plants which are all inefficient besides emitting toxic gases. It need not be so, though. India can learn from Swedes. Sweden has revolutionized the waste to energy concept. It recycles more than 99 per cent of all household waste compared to only 38 per cent in 1975. In 2012, the country burnt about 2.3 million tonnes of household waste to energy. There are 32 plants in Sweden producing heat for 810,000 households and electricity for 250,000 private houses. Over the last thirty years, heavy metal emissions have been reduced by 99 per cent even as waste emission has gone up by three times during this period.

Waste is a relatively cheap fuel and Sweden has, over time, developed a large capacity and skill in efficient and profitable waste treatment. It even imports a little under a million tonnes of waste from other countries as it has virtually run out of garbage and other countries pay Sweden for the same. Operationally, the incineration is advanced enough to have 99.9 per cent non-toxic carbon dioxide and water; contrast it with the toxic incineration plants in Delhi.

Change begins at home One big reason for poor performance of Indian waste to energy plants is that waste is unsegregated and has plastic, paper and all other material which not only reduces the calorific output, but also is hazardous. On the other hand, most households in developed world segregate waste. Swedish households separate their newspapers, plastic, metal, glass, electric appliances, light bulbs and batteries from biodegradable. The benefit of segregation is that nearly all of the waste is reused, recycled or composted.

Newspapers, bottles, plastic containers are all reused whereas biodegradable is composted and becomes soil or biogas through chemical process. Wasted water is purified to www.governancetoday.co.in

RECYCLING TO SAVE LANDFILLS

Some items like clothing and plastics are most often dumped in landfills. To clean up this mess, corporates have started to pick the baton. American clothing giant Levi Strauss & Co. has expanded its clothing recycling initiative to all of its mainline and outlet stores.

As part of the initiative, consumers can drop clean, dry clothing or shoes of any brand in the collection boxes at their local Levi’s store.

Any consumer who drops a clothing item will receive a voucher for 20 per cent off on a single, regular-priced item. The move is a step to reduce the clothing that ends up in landfills.

The Americans discard more than 28 billion pounds of unwanted clothing, shoes and other textiles every year and 85 per cent of that ends up in landfill. On the other hand, German sportswear major Adidas has joined the Parley for the Oceans initiative to recycle ocean plastic waste into its products from 2016. Joint program will focus on high end research on how to reduce the problem of plastic waste ending on ocean. Approximately, eight million tonnes of plastics are dumped in the planet’s seas annually.

the extent of being potable. People take their larger waste like TV to recycling centers on the outskirts of the cities. This is how the country has reached a level where it dumps less than one per cent of its waste into landfills. In short, it is not just the macro industrial scale efforts are required, the social conditioning is equally important. How a country manages its waste is an indication of its technical prowess besides its value system. Unfortunately, India cuts a very sorry figure in this aspect as it is not only able to manage

its waste at macro level, it has not yet been able to condition its society to segregate its waste.

However, as the country moves to higher level of growth and resultantly consumption, it will generate more waste and as such would need more advanced and technological sound methods of waste management. There are operational models available globally; what is required is a determined effort to push for a positive change. anand@governancetoday.co.in

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COVER STORY

Illegal e-waste shipment The trade is driven by relatively low cost of shipment, high cost of treatment

Most of the 41.8 m metric tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2014 globally was handled informally, including illegally

Ritika bisht SITTING AT your workplace or home, we are either hooked to our laptops, smartphones, ipods, LEDs or any other electronic appliances/ equipments.

Technology has become inevitable or we cannot imagine our life without it; which is obvious as it has proved to be time saving medium for people to communicate, work and coordinate other day-to-day activities at their fingertips. But that is only one side of the story.

However, the increased usage of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is inevitably giving rise to electronic waste, otherwise known as e-waste.

Rapid change in technology has accelerated the amount of e-waste generated annually which in turn has resulted in vast environmental, social, health, economic and even criminal challenges of unknown 26 I October 2015

proportions. E-waste has been identified as hazardous waste by the Basel Convention, which has developed guidelines on treating it and formulated a framework for control on trans-boundary movement of such waste.

Reports published in last three years suggest that lack of stringent legal policies and environmental regulations for managing the hazardous e-waste have given birth to informal sectors. For unorganized sector, recycling of valuable elements contained in e-waste has become a source of income and this practice is increasing in all developing countries including India. About 41.8 million metric tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2014 and partly handled informally, including illegally. According to the UNEP report titled Waste Crime –Waste Risks, 2015, this could amount to as much as USD 18.8 billion annually.

But the unorganized sector undertakes primitive recycling techniques to treat e-waste which result in emissions and release of toxic elements that not only affect the environment but also people who are engaged in this work.

E-waste-related health risks may result from direct contact with harmful materials such as lead, cadmium, chromium, brominated flame retardants or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and from inhalation of toxic fumes.

Illegal trade is driven by the relatively low costs of shipment and the high costs of treatment.

According to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, exporting e-waste to Asia works out 10 times cheaper than processing it in within these countries. In the absence of proper mapping and investigation, possible prosecution of criminals involved in illegal waste collection, illegal dumping are likely to grow, www.governancetoday.co.in

city with approximately 5.0 Mt of e-waste generated every day.

Expected level of e-waste in India in mn MT

as will the associated threats to human health and environmental security.

Electronics industry is world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing sector and high rate of obsolescence in technology usage has resulted in about 41.8 million metric tonnes (Mt) of e-waste in 2014 which will increase to 50 Mt by 2018.

Given its nature, the exact size of the global illegal waste trade is unknown. A UNEP study of 2013 has stated that European Union, United States, Japan and Korea are the main origins of e-waste whereas India, China, Pakistan, Malaysia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and other African nations were perfect place for dumping.

Another aspect of the illegal trade of e-waste is the savings in illegal disposal; illegal disposal of waste can offer savings of up to 200 to 300 per cent, compared to legal and safe disposal of the same waste. Illegal waste shipment to other countries results in profit generation for the exporter who are paid to dispose the e-waste safely.

However, instead of practicing the recycling and safe disposal by themselves, they dump it in other nations who are then faced with the environmental health hazards.

With profit as a prime objective, this chain includes exporters, middlemen and informal recyclers.

From the moment the waste is shipped to the time it is reached in other place, every step is structured www.governancetoday.co.in

along a legal chain of operations by exploiting the loopholes in control regimes. Non-existence of stringent laws has given opportunity for criminals to commit large-scale breaches of environmental laws along with tax fraud and money laundering.

This has become a regular scenario where the exporter country ships the waste to other countries as an escape route. Around 90 percent of the world’s electronic waste is illegally dumped in developing economies and India is one of the top importers of e-waste. According to an Assocham study titled ‘Electronic Waste Management in India,’ out of total e-waste in India, just 1.5 per cent is recycled by formal recyclers while 8 per cent of the e-waste generated is rendered useless and goes to landfills. The remaining 90.5 per cent of the e-waste is taken care of by the informal sector, where untrained workers undertake dangerous procedures without using personal protective equipment.

The biggest e-waste recycling market in India is Delhi and approximately 40 per cent of the e-waste in India lands here. As of November 2014, there were 21 recycling facilities in Delhi which have been issued licenses by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee for collection, segregation and storage of e-waste without dismantling and recycling.

New Delhi is followed by Bengaluru and Chennai. Chennai is the fourth largest e-waste generating

There are 138 Central Pollution Control Board certified recyclers/ dismantlers in the country but when it comes to the amount of e-waste, India heavily depends on the unorganized sector as only a handful of organized e-waste recycling facilities are available.

At present, over 95 per cent of the e-waste is treated in urban slums of the country. Around 76 percent of e-waste workers in the country suffer from respiratory problems like breathing difficulties, irritation, coughing and choking as a result of handling e-waste without any safety procedures.

Children as young as 9 or 10 are seen handling electronic gadgets like computer monitors with bare hands. They first smash the screen to take out the copper wires which is then followed by throwing wires on a bonfire so as to burn away the plastic. The burning of copper wires leads to release of toxic substances.

Children are more vulnerable to the exposure to toxic substances as their central nervous, immune, reproductive and digestive system are still developing and toxic gases can not only halt further development but may also cause irreversible damage. Lead is one of the most commonly used heavy metals in both computer and television screens. It has been found that female workers in informal sectors, who are exposed to high levels of lead, have more miscarriages and stillbirths.

Effective monitoring and enforcement approaches at global, regional and sub-regional levels to reduce the illegal movement of e-waste. Creating public awareness about the e-waste problem is also very important. Policies need to be strengthened in order to prevent e-waste from killing people and damaging delicate environment.

Unless a concerted effort is made, the menace would continue to poison the health and ecology, hardly an outcome we can afford. ritika@governancetoday.co.in

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HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The soulless trade Menace of human trafficking needs concerted response Praveen Raman “HUMAN TRAFFICKING is a crime against humanity. It involves an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion, or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them,” according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Human trafficking is the fastest growing form of international crime and the second largest source of income for organized crime, surpassing even the drug trade. Today an estimated 27 million men, women, and children are held as slaves.

Each year, more than 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), all commercial sex with minors is human trafficking, regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion are evident. Although the name suggests it, human trafficking doesn’t necessarily involve transporting victims. People can be trafficked on the same street they grew up on.

Human trafficking is primarily driven by coercion and exploitation. Physical force and violence often are part of the crime, but sometimes the oppression comes through psychological or emotional manipulation, insurmountable debt, immigration or other legal threats, or blackmail.

Like many other countries, India too is facing the problem, but the pattern indicates that 90 per cent trafficking takes place at domestic level. Other than this, India is a hotspot for people trafficked from the neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan too. The prevalent sectors employing the trafficked people are flesh trade, industries and agriculture which use bonded www.governancetoday.co.in

Physical force and violence often are part of the crime

labourers, household employing domestic workers and organized begging.

Human trafficking is often termed the modern day slavery. The comparison very apt because both perpetuated by an unfeeling economic system that treats humans as commodities, to be transported and traded for monetary gain. This commodification of human life is a continuous process since time immemorial. India is one country where human trafficking is an especially acute problem, with an estimated 16 million people currently believed to be victims of sex trafficking in particular. The sex trafficking is one of the most profitable businesses of the world. It is becoming increasingly easy and inexpensive to procure,

move and exploit vulnerable girls.

Traffickers exploit others for the profit gained from forced labor and commercial sex. They lure and ensnare people into forced labor and sex trafficking by manipulating and exploiting their vulnerabilities. Human traffickers prey on people who are hoping for a better life, lack employment opportunities, have an unstable home life, or have a history of sexual or physical abuse.

Traffickers promise a high-paying job, a loving relationship, or new and exciting opportunities and then use physical and psychological violence to control them. Traffickers can be lone individuals or part of extensive criminal networks, with the common thread of exploiting people for profit.

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A wide range of criminals, including individual pimps, family operations, small businesses, looseknit decentralized criminal networks, and international organized criminal operations, can be human traffickers. Often the traffickers and their victims share the same national, ethnic, or cultural background, allowing the trafficker to better understand and exploit the vulnerabilities of their victims. The economics of the trade makes it clear that traffickers exist because human trafficking remains highly lucrative; there is much money that can be made at relatively very low risk. This powerful combination makes it one of the most profitable criminal industries in the world.

Human trafficking operations often intersect or exist alongside legitimate businesses and require a number of other actors and specific conditions in order to operate without detection. Certain industries are commonly used by traffickers to enable, support, or facilitate their human trafficking operations.

Exploiting these businesses is essential to trafficking networks; traffickers require space, advertising, transportation, and financial services to operate. In many cases, businesses are unaware of how their facilities or services are being used by traffickers. In other cases, they are aware of how their business may be facilitating the conditions needed for the trafficking operations, but the profits they generate outweigh reservations they may have about their role. Traffickers also often use these legit business to increase the risk or difficulty for a potential victim to reach out for help.

According to reports, the overwhelming majority of sex trafficking victims in India are women and girls, and about 40 per cent are adolescents. Over time, the average age of sex workers has dropped from 14 – 16 to 10 – 14 because young girls are believed to have a lower risk of carrying a sexually transmitted disease. However, as a result of this thinking, trafficking victims are now contracting diseases at even younger ages. Most victims come from the rural areas and are 30 I October 2015

illiterate. Though poverty and a lack of education alone are not direct causes of trafficking, they do increase vulnerability. 78 per cent of trafficked victims in the country are from West Bengal.

Some trafficking victims have been abused in other ways (such as through domestic violence or dowry harassment); some are sold into trafficking by family members or acquaintances; and some are tricked into exploitation, believing that they are heading towards a better employment opportunity when they are actually being transported to brothels. Natural disasters and military conflicts also tend to increase the ‘supply’ of human trafficking, because traffickers are able to find more potential victims in such troubled times.

Demand from the first component is what keeps prostitution and commercial sex alive, but it’s really the second demand component that underscores how human trafficking finds ways to flourish and exploit situations.

In many cases, trafficked people are forced to work as bonded labourers too. While many people are aware of sex trafficking, human trafficking that involves forced labor is far more prevalent. Some 78 per cent of forced labor is based on state- or privately-imposed exploitation, not forced sexual exploitation.

It’s likely you have encountered at least one of the 21 million people in forced labor. In developed economies too we are seeing an increase in cases of trafficked immigrant teachers, nurses, and construction and service workers – all who hold valid visas. Their presence sheds light on the structural failures within economic and employment systems that increase immigrant workers’ vulnerability to severe forms of labor exploitation. Multinational corporations, employers, businesses, labor recruiters all exploit these failures. In other words, human trafficking is not only a big business.

Trafficking in humans is increasingly a legitimate business.

While traffickers look as organized criminal syndicates or underground black marketers who

exploit undocumented workers, today’s traffickers can also be licensed labor recruiters – those who solicit workers for jobs in other cities or countries – employers or even government officials. Trafficking for labor exploitation often occurs within the legal framework of employment and business and through documented visa programs.

Trafficking for labor exploitation often goes undetected and gets little attention. Immigration officials may categorize immigrant workers who are trafficked as undocumented workers and deport them. Police and labor inspectors may view involuntary servitude or debt bondage in sectors such as agriculture, construction, manual labor and manufacturing as “mere” worker rights abuses, and so not justifying a remedy. Prosecutions for forced labor are far fewer than those for trafficking for sexual exploitation (and even those are low).

Human trafficking is a blot on the socio economic structure which allows humans to be commodified and transacted in such crude way, often at continental levels. There is no denying that government is doing its best to curb the menace. However, these steps are falling woefully short as criminals are always ahead of law. As such, law enforcement agencies need to be innovative to trace the footprints of such criminals and nab them. The corruption in the system is a huge cause of such crimes going unprobed.

But perhaps most important part of the anti human trafficking war is at the source. Most trafficked persons are fleeing hunger, despair, crime infested life or civil conflicts.

Unless these basic problems are not addressed, there will always be potentially trafficable women, girls and children. Basic social and economic comfort is a must for a satisfied society and responsibility of governments. Failure in this basic duty is unpardonable, not just at governance level, but also as social level. The fight against human trafficking has to be fought at multiple levels and there is no escaping that praveen@governancetoday.co.in

www.governancetoday.co.in

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Illegal objects of pleasure She has been bitten, cut with blades, burnt with cigarette and sodomized yet she will dress up again, every evening!

Sex workers in India have no legal backing to protect their rights

Sagarika Ranjan “MOST HORRENDOUS, scary and nightmarish it was. They took it all except for this pair of underwear and that too after much of pleading,” he said sobbing on that chair of the police station. To my surprise the police men were smiling. Were they insensitive? I guess not.

The policemen’s attitude did draw my attention but it was lipstick marks on the complainant’s body that made me interested in this story. He had been victimized by a group of sex workers, well that is his side of story, what he did to invite such trouble remains unknown. I was reminded of Sunita (name changed) and her field – Prostitution. It is legal in many places around the world but in India, you www.governancetoday.co.in

need to sit back to understand its versatility.

Sunita was happily married at the age of 12 and came to a city with her husband, name of the city she couldn’t recollect. 10 days of excellent life and then sold off to a goon for a night, then another and then repeated night assaults. A month or two later, she isn’t sure as nights and days were all same in the dingy dark room, she managed to free herself.

Sensible enough she begged for help from the first khaki-clad gentleman she saw.

Now, comfortable on that wooden police station bench. She sat narrating her ordeal to that police official with a register. She was given water; apparently the case was registered and asked to wait.

She did. It was evening and she was

asked to wait, she did. It was night and she was asked to wait and unfortunately she did.

Next morning she was in her underwear, sobbing just like this underwear-clad complainant with lipstick marks. The difference was that in her case the complaint went unheard. Worse, she was handed over to her husband and life became what it was. Two years later, at 16, she again managed to flee. This time she was sold off to a pimp in Bangalore by another khaki-clad gentleman and this time, never to escape.

She is 35 today and has two children. The business doesn’t want her anymore and she wants her kids to study. But is it this simple?

According to a report by the Sonagachi Research & Training Institute, Kolkata, “Law regulating October 2015 I

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face violence from anti-social elements (gangs or thugs), brokers or other ‘managers’, and intimate partner violence is also frequently reported,” states the report.

Risk of client-initiated violence varies greatly by setting and may depend to a great extent on conditions where the trade takes place.

The demand to regulate prostitution has gather momentum during last few years

sex work, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, de facto criminalizes sex work and work environment thereby leaving little room for sex worker to protect their rights and social entitlement. Having a criminalized status means rights are compromised.”

Allegedly, police and administration uses all possible abusive practices (both as a protector of law and guardian of moral code) against sex worker and in most circumstances practices do not necessarily follow the code of law.

Society at large finds its ‘moral justification’ in harassing, beating or even killing a sex worker as the common perception is that they are involved in ‘immoral act’ by selling sex services – for which they need to be penalized.

Social stigma is the biggest roadblock. Anisha (name changed) who has been in the profession for last 17 years says that the biggest problem and the very root of all problems is that there is no social acceptance.

“Even if we want to leave the trade and wish to lead a respectable life, it seems impossible. May girls and boys from my part of the world have tried getting into mainstream and study or work but they returned after some time.”

She adds that when they return they are even more depressed and abused and this discourages many more who were planning to leave in 32 I October 2015

search of a respectable life. I have a husband and two children today but my case is like one in a thousand.

The ratio needs to change.

“They need to realize that no one does this by choice. Pet ke liye karta hai hum sab. Pehle police bhi bahut maarta tha but abhi wo bhi samajhta hai ki pet ke liye hai, (We do it for our empty stomachs. Initially the police used to beat us but now even they understand.)

The problem is multi-layered.

The parents are poor they sell their kids, the kids are hungry so the mother sells her body, small children want food, so they do what they are told to because in this cruel and corruption laced society, respectable options are nearly nonexistent for them. Do it or die of hunger. Ashodaya samithi collective in Mysore talks about the violence faced by sex workers. It has been identified as a major contributor to HIV vulnerability.

A report by the society states that sex workers face violence in many forms – from social stigma, discrimination, intimidation, coercion and harassment to blatant physical and sexual violence. Experiences of violence affect communities from various geographical, cultural and economic settings. “The perpetrators of violence are also diverse. Oddly, violence by police is among the most commonly reported types of violence. Sex workers

“In metro cities there are redlight areas. There if any client tries to harass us or demand more for less money the worker can oppose for there are many to help. Here in the small cities, we are taken to hotels or to the client’s places. We are told that there is one person but at times we are gang raped and what not,” said Anisha showing cut marks all over her body.

She has been bitten, cut with blades, burnt with cigarette and sodomized a number of times, yet every evening she dresses up, does her make up to be bashed, beaten and hurt, in an apparently pre-ordained ordeal that never ends.

The cruelty broke all boundaries when Anisha told about a fiveyear-old-boy who, today 11, does not know if he is a girl or a boy. He was kept as a domestic help where the house-owner, a widower, sodomized him for years, made him wear bangles, dresses and dress up like a female just to satiate his thirst.

The boy was rescued by a team of social activist but by then he had lost his mental balance. Today, he quietly sits in a corner and is awaiting his death as the doctors said that his limbs will never be okay in the future. All he can do it stare to find death one day. “There are many more, hundreds madam ji.

Worse tales I can tell you but what is the point. We will live like drainworms and die one day. If you can then save our kids,” saying this Anisha walked away denying talking further for she knew life is not going to change any sooner.

All they ask for is to legalize prostitution so that they are treated like humans and not animals or for that matter even worse. edit@governancetoday.co.in

www.governancetoday.co.in

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Missing children of India There is a need for an integrated country-wide database

Economic deprivation and lack of employment opportunities are aomg reasons for child trafficking

Ramesh Kumar Raja CHILDREN CONSTITUTE over one-third of India’s population of 1.21 billion people, which means India is home to some 400 million children. According to a Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation- MoSPI report of 2012, every sixth child in the world lives in India. But alas, 135,000 children are estimated to be trafficked in India every year. In one of India’s poorest states of Chhattisgarh alone, more than 10,500 children were registered as missing between 2011 and 2013.

Although child trafficking, according to UNICEF, is defined as “any person under 18 who is recruited, transported, transferred, harboured or received for the purpose of exploitation, either www.governancetoday.co.in

within or outside a country,” India is a source, destination, and transit country for trafficking for many purposes including commercial sexual exploitation. Though most of the trafficking occurs within the country, there is also a significant number of children trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh.

There have been many cases where children just disappear overnight, as many as one every eight minutes, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Children are taken from their homes to be bought and sold in the market. In India, there is a large number of children trafficked for various reasons such as labour, begging, and sexual exploitation. While some children are abandoned by families who can’t take care of them because

of a lack of money, some run away to escape abuse or unhappy homes.

Some are lost, mostly when families travel.

There are several contributing factors to child trafficking, which include economic deprivation, lack of employment opportunities, social status, and political uprisings.

Many of the families in India are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, which forces the parents to sell their children off to gangs. In a country where half of the population lives under the poverty line, such desperate measures to make any money is not unthinkable.

There have been instances when parents have had to sell their children for as less as Rs 100. Children, particularly girls, are more vulnerable than adults, making them an October 2015 I

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LIFE FULL OF HELL

easier target and a commodity for gangs. They are looked upon as more expendable than the rest of the population which makes them available as objects to be sold. Another reason of sexual exploitation is that people around the world find pleasure in the outcomes of this abuse, therefore causing a demand for it.

An estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Indian children are smuggled out of the country every year to Saudi Arabia for begging during the Hajj.

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have the largest number of people trafficked.

Intra state/inter district trafficking is high in Rajasthan, Assam, Meghalaya, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Delhi, Mumbai and Goa are the major receiver states. Trafficking from north eastern states is high but often over looked.

LABOUR: Legally, children in India are allowed to do light work, but they are often trafficked for bonded labour, and domestic work, and are worked far beyond what is allowed in the country. They are often forced to work, using contraptions that binds them; making them unable to escape and then forced to submit to control. Others may be bound by abuse whether physical, emotional, or sexual. Those forced into labour lose all freedom, being thrown into the workforce, essentially becoming slaves, and losing their childhood.

ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES: Children, over adults are often chosen to be trafficked for illegal activities such as begging and organ trade, as they are seen as more vulnerable. Not only are these children being forced to beg for money, but a significant number of those on the streets have had limbs forcibly amputated, or even acid poured into their eyes to blind them by gang masters. Those who are injured tend to make more money, which is why they are often abused in this way. Organ trade is also common, when traffickers trick or force children to give up an organ.

SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: This is an issue that is faced among many developing countries and is defined as “the sexual abuse of children and youth through the exchange of sex or sexual acts for drugs, food, shelter, protection, other basics of life, and/or money”. Often young girls are taken from their homes and sold as items to become sex slaves and even forced into prostitution. This may seem bad enough, but sexual exploitation is not always forced. Out of desperation, some parents will even sell their kids off for prostitution. As the parents are likely to have been sexually abused as children, generations to come are forced to live in this seemingly never-ending cycle of selling their children into sexual exploitation and abuse.

34 I October 2015

There is a rising demand for livein maids in urban areas. This has resulted in trafficking of girls from villages in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to live under extremely poor conditions first in ‘placement agencies’ and later in the employers’ homes. Placement agents keep the girls in small unhygienic rooms packed together. They are often made to do the placement agent’s household work and subjected to sexual abuse. Rani (name changed), a 16-year-old girl was taken from her village in Jharkhand and subjected to various forms of sexual abuse and exploitation at the hand of her employers including rape. When rescued her parents refused to take her back since she had been tainted by rape. Falling sex ratios in Haryana and Punjab has led to a need for trafficking of brides from villages in Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam and West Bengal, who have been sold off by the parents. 15-year-old Sangeeta (name changed) from Assam, for instance, was sold and married to a 40-year old man for Rs 15,000 in order to produce a male heir.

Anti-trafficking activists say thousands of children are going missing from some of India’s remote www.governancetoday.co.in

tribal areas as human traffickers respond to a surge in demand for domestic child labour in booming urban districts. While trafficking for sex and other purposes has always existed in India, trafficking children for domestic slavery is a relatively new development. According to HS Phoolka, a senior Supreme Court advocate and a human rights activist, this is due to rising demand for domestic maids due to rising income in urban areas and wide scale poverty in rural areas. This trafficking, he says, shows the rise of massive inequality in India.

What bothers one is that trafficking is still considered a fringe issue among law enforcement agencies, especially in rural areas of backward states. As per Rishi Kant of NGO Shakti Vahini, the response of states across India to this problem is very poor. “Human trafficking is not a priority in states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, as law enforcement authorities are too busy fighting the armed Maoist insurgency or civil unrest,” says Kant. Lack of funds and resources and determination in the police is another areas of concern to offer counselling services to the people prone to human trafficking. The police don’t see trafficking as a crime in these areas. They just see it as poor children migrating for a better livelihood and don’t take these issues seriously. The liberty enjoyed by those running trafficking rackets in these tribal areas is increasing the power and influence of local criminal gangs. The situation has become so serious in these areas that traffickers have upper hand. Even if cases are filed against them, they are able to pressure the families to change their statements or threaten them.

One of the main reasons for the high number of missing children is that the law in this regard is inadequate. There is no legal definition of a missing child, and each state follows its own rules, experts believe.

Except for a few states, the police in India do not register first information reports for missing children.

They only make an entry into the list of missing persons at the police station where the child is reported www.governancetoday.co.in

A large number of trafficked children end up in child labour

missing so in-depth investigations are infrequent. There is a lack of inter-state cooperation and a need for an integrated country-wide database for missing children. If a child is reported lost in one state but has been trafficked to another state, there is no mechanism to ensure that the child will be searched for countrywide. Thanks to the Supreme Court for expressing serious concern over the number of missing children in Chhattisgarh last year that the state responded with legislation, India’s first attempt to regulate the growing number of employment placement agencies, which are often channels for children being trafficked into domestic slavery and other forms of exploitation.

Although the judiciary is working hard to curb child trafficking from its grass root level, it calls for a strong judicial activism. The courts need to carry out comprehensive and independent national surveys to identify the total number of child trafficking in the country. Prosecutions must be initiated against all those who indulge in child trafficking use and against those who use

intimidation and violence to retain children. The number of successful convictions and sentences passed should be published, by state, on a regular basis.

It may be noted that the menace of child trafficking cannot be handled in isolation. But this problem can only be stopped if the kingpins are arrested, and in order to do so the police and the public have to become much more vigilant. The government has the resources and authority to implement the law, while community-based organizations have the grass-roots level contacts and trust necessary to facilitate this implementation. Furthermore, the non-governmental groups can act as a watchdog on government programs, keeping vigil for corruption, waste, and apathy. Neither standing alone is sufficient. The child trafficking is a vast, wicked, and longstanding social ill, and the stubbornness of that must be attacked with similar stubbornness. Anything less than total commitment is certain to miscarry. ramesh @governancetoday.co.in

October 2015 I

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INTERVIEW

COMBATTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING REQUIRES A NATIONAL PLAN OF ACTION

THE SHADY business of human trafficking is more of a curse, especially in a country like India where a woman is often regarded as a deity. To discuss the issue, its causes and solutions, Ramesh Kumar Raja talked to Ravi Kant, president of Shakti Vahini, a Delhi-headquartered NGO that works extensively for the causes of women and children with a focus on combating trafficking, slavery, child labour, honour killing, female foeticide, etc. Kant also happens to be a Supreme Court advocate and a member of the Central Advisory Committee (CAC) on Combating of Trafficking in Women and Children for Commercial Sexual Exploitation, Ministry of Women and Child Development. He is also a member of the panel appointed by the Supreme Court to suggest measures on rehabilitation of women in prostitution. Edited excerpts:

How do you look at the situation of human trafficking in India?

Ravi Kant President, Shakti Vahini 36 I October 2015

Human trafficking is a serious problem in India. In fact, India is a source, transit and destination for trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labour, child labour, forced marriages and for domestic help. India is a major transit for the victims from Nepal too. The traffickers have been using the IGI Airport in Delhi to evade the restriction at Tribhuvan Airport in Nepal which does not allow immigration of any woman below 30 years if she is not accompanying her bio-logical guardian. The economical perspective of the menace is that it involves huge amount of money which goes unnoticed to the authority.

Though the menace is not directly linked to the political leaders yet they can play an important role to prevent it by creating income generation programme for the source states. The eastern part of the country like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh are the major source states because of the back-breaking poverty and www.governancetoday.co.in

lack of sensitization in these states.

The victims are forced to work in bonded condition in brick kilns, agriculture and factories. Though improving in its intervention in combating the menace, India needs to do much more to curb this menace. The sex industry is much organized. The brothels are linked to each other and often transfer the victim from one state to another to evade the law enforcement agencies and with the intention of not allowing the victim become familiar with the place.

Where is India in the overall global scenario?

India has been facing problems of cross-border trafficking from Nepal and Bangladesh and vice versa through its porous borders.

The Nepali victims are reportedly routed to Arabian countries for the purpose of prostitution through India making it a major transit point. India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNCTOC) which has the protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, particularly women and children.

India has ratified the SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution. A large number of Nepali, Afghan, and Bangladeshi females—the majority of whom are children— and women and girls from Asia and Eurasia are also subjected to sex trafficking in India. Prime destinations for female trafficking victims include Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, and along the IndiaNepal border. Traffickers pose as matchmakers, arranging sham marriages within India or to Gulf states, and then subject women and girls to sex trafficking.

Who are the soft targets in the business of human trafficking? How do they end up in the trade?

The states like Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Odisha and www.governancetoday.co.in

Orientation programmes are organised by Shakti Vahini against human trafficking

Chhattisgarh are the major targets for human traf ficking as the people of these states are suffering from poverty. The traffickers target the women and children of these states and lure them on the pretext of better livelihood. The poverty push them to migrate to the bigger cities for employment. Some of the victims are lured on the pretext of love and marriage. Those who are forcefully kidnapped are often made unconscious by using some sedatives.

Once the victims are brought to the destination they are being categorized depending on their feature. First category victims are forced into prostitution followed by other kinds of exploitation.

The young victims are often being injected with hormonal injections for rapid growth of their body.

The skewed sex ratio in Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and Punjab has compelled the society to purchase girls for marriage. In such cases, the victims are made to do work in field and domestic as well in the day, and during nights they become the sexual slaves. With the sudden change of culture, language, food habits coupled with sexual exploitation, the victims become physically unfit and suffer from various diseases.

What factors are responsible for rapid increase in this business?

The high demand in the sex industry as well as in the domestic help sector is highly responsible

for rapid increase in this business.

The culture of nuclear families and working culture for both husband and wife has raised the demand for domestic help and the traffickers are taking the advantage of it. On the other hand, the back-breaking poverty in the source states make it easier for traffickers to lure the victims. The practice of female foeticide in the northern states decrease the number of girls in the society, thus abetting the human trafficking.

How do you rate the efforts of governments in reining in the menace?

Trafficking in persons, particularly in women and children for various purposes such as commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), forced labour, forced marriages, domestic servitude, etc. is an organized crime that gravely violates basic human rights.

The government has adopted a multipronged approach to combat the crime of human trafficking.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is implementing a comprehensive scheme in states/ UTs to strengthen the law enforcement response to human trafficking. The scheme involves establishment of Integrated Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) in 335 vulnerable police districts throughout the country and capacity building of responders, which includes Training of Trainers for Police, Prosecutors and Judiciary. So far, 225 Integrated Anti Human October 2015 I

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Trafficking Units have been made operational in different districts of the country and 100 more AHTUs are proposed to be established in the current financial year. The government of India, had enacted and strengthened legislative measures in the form of Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 which has come into force from 3rd February 2013. In the new Act, Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code has been substituted with Section 370 and 370A of IPC which comprehensively defines Human Trafficking and provides stringent punishment for the same.

The setting up of Anti Human Trafficking Units is a wonderful initiative by the government. There is a central advisory committee to combat trafficking which is supposed to meet periodically.

The states also have recently come up with the advisory bodies and task forces to combat trafficking which include members from NGOs. Some states also have victim compensation schemes in place. But improvements are required. There is no specific data of human trafficking cases which needs to be strengthened. Though there are Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) from MHA on Anti Human Trafficking, the law enforcement and other stakeholders have not been mandated to follow the SOPs.

Where do you find the issue going unattended?

The advisory bodies to combat trafficking hardly have meetings.

The meeting of the advisory body must be periodical. There is an urgent need to sensitize the judiciary regarding the issue which will bring more convictions by reducing the demands. The judiciary is not taking care of the victims’ accommodation, travelling and food while coming for deposition. There is no victim protection policy on behalf of government to protect the victims who are often being threatened for not deposing in the court. This too needs to change.

38 I October 2015

What needs to be done to curb the social problems that are responsible for the situation?

The capacity of the law enforcement and the judiciary needs to be strengthened. The government should ensure the safe migration of the people in the country and outside as well. Village level sensitization programme must be implemented which should also target the school students in the source. The need of community policing is very important. There should be panchayat level proactive bodies to keep records of the village children. Like West Bengal’s Kanyashree Prakalpa, all the states should implement schemes for reducing the reduction in school drop outs which simultaneously will prevent trafficking of young children. Most importantly, the convergence of all the stakeholders, linking the police investigation from source to destination is very important to curb this menace.

Working in the field of anti-human trafficking is very challenging. Until and unless one has the passion and commitment it is very difficult to work for the victims of human trafficking.

Bringing smile to the face of a trafficked victim, getting her linked with the government system for rehabilitation and compensation is the satisfaction which hardly one finds in other profession. The blessings of the victims and their family are a source of inspiration for us.Every steps to combat the human trafficking issue is a challenge. There is no protection mechanism for NGOs or victim protection policy. Continuous threat from the traffickers and the exploiters, and corruption in the system amounting to a major challenge for an anti-trafficking activist. Fighting for the justice of the victims is again a big challenge as the judicial system is too slow which make it easy for the traffickers to get access to the victims and threat them.

How is your organisation involved in combatting this social evil?

Any suggestion you want to make in the context of governance?

Shakti Vahini has been fighting this menace since its inception. The organization has its own resource to provide training programmes to the police officers. The organization has rescued more than 2000 victims of human trafficking.

Shakti Vahini is working in the source states and strengthening their capacity, thus building a good link between source and destination. The organization is involved in research, policy making with the government departments, providing legal aid to the victims and in partnership with the respective state government, in their rehabilitation. The organization also runs 24x7 helpline number and gets at least 20 calls per day.

What has been your experience in dealing with the problem? What sort of challenges you have faced?

The law enforcement officers and the judicial officers working in the destination like Delhi, Mumbai etc. should be mandated to visit the source states for understanding the reality of this menace. Then only they will be able to handle the cases sensitively which will bring more convictions. A witness protection protocol is required.

Facilities need to be created so that victims may depose before the courts through video conferencing.

A MoU between different states is required to handle cases of human trafficking. Standard operating protocols need to be notified and given legal validity. Convergence of the stakeholders, most importantly the railways which is the main transit route for the traffickers, is important. The survivors may be given railway concession and confirmed railway reservations during the court deposition.

www.governancetoday.co.in

HEALTHCARE

India’s malnourished children Rapid survey reveals disturbing picture

India has the largest number of malnourished children in the world

Ramesh Kumar Raja EVEN THOUGH India is striving to become a world power, it still has more malnourished people, especially children, than any other country notwithstanding some notable progress in recent years. India lags far behind poorer neighbours such as Bangladesh and Nepal in terms of child vaccination rates, breastfeeding practices, incidence of open defecation, access to safe water, and related indicators.

Such is the situation that Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, stands still at the place where it was a decade ago. What bothers one is the poor show of Gujarat, which is the only one among the more developed states to perform worse than the national average in reducing the numbers of child stunting cases and underweight children.

Thanks to the Rapid Survey www.governancetoday.co.in

on Children (RSOC), a nationwide sample survey of over one lakh households conducted by the United Nations agency for children, Unicef, and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, that the government can now renew its approach to give special emphasis on access and utilization of services under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). While the field work of the survey was undertaken between November 2013 to March 2014, the draft national and state level fact sheets in respect of key indicators on maternal and child health and nutrition, and usage of ICDS services were prepared during August 2014.

Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Tripura are the only states which have reduced the proportion of underweight adolescent girls according to the survey findings. The state-level

numbers reveal that while some states have made remarkable progress in battling child malnourishment, others have made little progress despite a decade of high growth. Almost all states have performed poorly in reducing the number of underweight adolescent girls. Uttar Pradesh, as discussed, still has the highest levels of child stunting, with over 50 per cent of the children under the age of five underdeveloped, meaning that their height is more than two standard deviations less than the expected height for their age for that population. Jharkhand, meanwhile, has the highest number of underweight children under the age of five, meaning their weight for age is more than two standard deviations less than what would be expected.

Interestingly, Kerala remains the best performing state in the number of child stunting cases, while the October 2015 I

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Source: The Economist

Bihar and Jharkhand fare worst in open defecation and underweight children

north-eastern states of Manipur and Mizoram have the lowest numbers of underweight children.

Delhi and Mizoram reduced child stunting at the fastest rate between 2004-05 (when the last official National Family Health Survey was conducted) and 2013-14.

While Madhya Pradesh and Bihar still have high levels of underweight children, both states reduced these numbers at fast rates along with Himachal Pradesh. No state reported an increase in the proportion of children underweight or stunted, a significant reversal from past trends.

The survey findings show that at the national level, stunting is higher in rural areas (41.7 per cent) than in urban areas (32.1 per cent), as is the case for underweight children.

At the national level, the RSOC findings point to some outstanding trends. For instance, the proportion of underweight children has dropped from 42.5 per cent a decade back, to just under 30 per cent at present. There have been similar improvements on stunting, wasting and other measures of malnutrition.

While the national immunisation rate has risen, the rate of open defecation is down from 55 per cent of households to 45 per cent.

More often than not, the social 40 I October 2015

and health indicators across India follow predictable patterns. In states with higher incomes, those nearer the coast and farther south, most health indicators are better.

This perhaps is the reason that Kerala and Tamil Nadu are typical high achievers. Conversely, in landlocked states, poorer ones and in the north, social and health results are usually worse. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand thus fall in this category. On the other hand, north-eastern states are often outliers, both poor and landlocked but often with high rates of literacy and better health. While everywhere has seen a reduction in the share of underweight children and in stunting, it is unusual that on occasion higher incomes do not correlate with the biggest health gains. For instance, Maharashtra and Gujarat are states with relatively prosperous people, but Maharashtra’s nutrition levels are better than Gujarat’s. This is also true for rates of immunisation and of open defecation. It seems to be a case of better governance. The Maharashtra government has put more emphasis on tackling nutrition problems, for example among its adivasi, or tribal, population, than its Gujarat’s counterpart.

According to experts, two

important factors are worth looking at. Lower rates of open defecation correlate well with reduced malnutrition. When children live and play in clean environments they are less likely to be infected with parasites and resultantly, are able to better absorb nutrients. And states that focus on helping girls and young mothers probably do better at breaking long-term cycles of malnutrition. Where teenage girls have a low body-mass index, there seems a greater likelihood that mothers will give birth to undernourished children. Proper nutrition for girls and women should, therefore, be a priority if new born and infant health is to be improved.

While the recent release of summary findings from the RSOC has created remarkably little interest in the mainstream media, the main focus of attention so far has been the uncaring performance of Gujarat in matters of health and nutrition. There has also been some speculation about the reasons for the Central government’s ostensible unwillingness to release the findings. The confidential contents of the findings, however, are in public domain now, thanks to the opposition Congress for disclosing them. Jairam Ramesh of www.governancetoday.co.in

Robust healthcare is yet to reach most of the people in the country

the Congress quoted figures from the survey that showed Gujarat lagging behind many states in key parameters. He accused the Centre of deliberately suppressing the survey findings to hide the failure of the ‘Modi Model’ of development and also to hide the major advancement made during the UPA rule in checking child malnutrition.

Politics apart, the reluctance in revealing the full contents of the study is unfortunate as there is so much to learn from the survey, for social reasons, better policy planning and effective program targeting. According to Jean Dreze, a Belgian-origin development economist who has been influential in Indian economic policymaking for last couple of decades, the RSOC can be regarded as some sort of substitute for a fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS). It may be noted that the third NFHS was conducted almost ten years ago, in 2005-06. Continued delays in the completion of the fourth NFHS have created a huge gap in India’s social statistics, even as all other South Asian countries conducted regular national health and nutrition surveys. Fortunately, the RSOC survey seems to be modelled on NFHS, generating a wealth of health and nutrition statistics that www.governancetoday.co.in

can be usefully compared with the corresponding findings from the third NFHS. By and large, the results from RSOC look like relatively good news for India.

They suggest a noticeable progress in many aspects of maternal and child nutrition between 2005-06 and 2013-14. But the advancement is patchy — fairly fast in some areas, sluggish in others.

Meanwhile, the rapid survey findings underscores the fact that India is steadily catching up with its poorer neighbours, at least in some respects. The findings also suggest that the areas of rapid progress (such as safe delivery and vaccination) are those where serious action was initiated during the last decade or so. Hence, the need of the hour is to combine these initiatives and extend them to other fields where there is still no sign of rapid improvement. But unfortunately, financial allocations for the ICDS were cut by 50 per cent or so in the last Union budget, sending a bad signal about policy primacies.

“Health policy is a mess of confusion and inertia, with the Health Ministry and NITI Aayog talking at cross purposes. The Central government is brazenly ignoring its legal obligation to provide for maternity entitlements

under the National Food Security Act. Even the sanitation budget has been quietly reduced, soon after the Prime Minister made tall promises of India being open-defecation free within five years,” observes Dreze.

India has a model in Southeast Asia to look up to. Much before the ASEAN region started to make headlines globally for its sustained high growth, the governments in these countries, especially, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia heavily invested in primary healthcare and education in order to ensure that future generation of workers and healthy and educated. It was this healthy generation which made the rapid economic rise possible for these nations. The same feat was repeated

by China which invested heavily in its healthcare over last three decades. As India wants to grow fast and become a major economic power, it needs healthy workers in very large numbers which is not possible without ensuring an effective primary healthcare system that works even in remote parts of the country. A healthy child makes a healthy and smart worker of tomorrow which is the core of a stronger nation. ramesh@governancetoday.co.in

October 2015 I

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ENVIRONMENT

It is hot, and it will get hotter 2015 would go down as the hottest year on record; but lives must be saved through suitable planning

Extremely high temperature takes a toll even on infrastructure as the molten asphalt on a Delhi road shows

Ritwajit Das OUR PLANET’S climate has touched a major turning point and is set to dispense record-breaking global temperatures in 2015 and 2016, according to a new report from the UK Meteorological Department. Natural currents and climate cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are greatly altered and somewhat reversing, and will further intensify the strong manmade-driven global warming, the report concludes. This will change weather patterns around the world including more heat waves assisted by more frequent extreme weather events.

The record for the hottest year was broken in 2014, when heatwaves scorched India, China, Russia, Australia and parts of South America. But, despite rising greenhouse gas emissions continuing 42 I October 2015

to trap more heat on Earth, the last decade has seen relatively slow warming of air temperatures, dubbed a “pause” in climate change by some. But global warming had not paused; instead, natural climate cycles led to more of the trapped heat being stored in the oceans.

Now, all the signs are that the pause in rising air temperatures is over and the rate of global warming will accelerate fast in coming years. The issue would likely dominate UN summit in Paris later this year.

The El Niño natural cycle of warming in the equatorial Pacific which is currently underway is expected to be the strongest El Niño since 1998 and will push up global temperatures further– it has already altered the Indian monsoon and the Atlantic hurricane season.

Another longer-term natural cycle in the Pacific (the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) also looks to be shifting

into its warmer phase.

“If the Atlantic cooling continues as we expect, that would favor cooler and on the whole, drier summers, but there are other factors that compete to affect our climate,” said Sutton. Periods of cooler Atlantic waters in the past, such the 1980s, have also been associated with severe African droughts but more rain in the US. According to an official at the UK Met department, the weather experienced in specific places from year-to-year results from the combined effects of all the natural cycles and manmade global warming. A lot of these cycles can occur without the influence of human beings, but they are now occurring on top of the influence of man’s activities. Although natural variations continue to be important, in terms of global temperature, they are all smaller than the human caused warming. www.governancetoday.co.in

This year, India was hit by a severe heat wave which killed more than 2,500 people in multiple regions. The heat wave ensued during the Indian dry season, which typically lasts from March to July with peak temperatures in April, May and extended till July.

The South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and the neighboring Telangana were the areas most affected by the heat wave. The heat wave of this year had the highest recorded temperatures since 1995.

The heat wave was caused in large part by scantier pre-monsoon season showers, which brought much less moisture than normal to the area, leaving large parts of India arid and dry. The sudden end of pre-monsoon rain showers, an uncommon trend in India, contributed to the continuation of heat waves. This weather pattern, coupled with the El Niño effect, which often increases temperatures in Asia, combined to create the record high temperatures. High humidity compounded the effects of the temperatures on residents.

The Loo, a dry wind originating from Pakistan and northwest India, also contributed to the increasing temperature.

This year’s heat wave has affected most States in India, but Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have reported more than a third of the total death toll. What is distinctive about the condition in these two States? One explanation is the sudden change in temperature, after a relatively benign early summer spell. According to a Centre for Science and Environment Report, heat wave conditions in 2015 have been of a shorter duration as compared to 2010, when the other major heat wave of the decade was reported, but has claimed more lives.

The report says this could be due to the sudden change in temperature after rains in February and March had kept temperatures cool.

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the wet spell lasted until April before a sudden escalation in www.governancetoday.co.in

MAX TEMPERATURE TRENDS 1951 - 2010

Source: India Meteorological Department

India’s hottest summer in 20 years

May, when temperatures in several parts were four or five degrees higher than had been recorded for decades. Yet, heat-related deaths, though not as many as currently being reported, have occurred here before. But despite that, on this occasion, neither State had the mechanism to either foresee or plan for such an emergency. This is in stark contrast to States like Gujarat and Odisha, which have both come up with specific action plans.

In 1998, over 2,000 heat waverelated deaths were reported from Odisha. Since that year, by about end-February, the State government prepares each year for the possibility of another heat wave striking. Schools and colleges shift to early morning sessions — between 6.30 a.m. and 12 noon — as do government offices.

Public transport does not operate between 12 noon and 3.30 p.m.,

while public wage programs such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act are stopped during these times. In May this year, when reports broke of an approaching heat wave, the State Special Relief Commissioner ordered all district collectors to ensure that no laborer was allowed to be in the sun between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

In addition, as part of its guidelines, the State government ensures that public health centers are equipped with ice slabs to treat patients. The government puts out a series of advertisements advising people on the precautions to take.

But there are no concrete and distinctive national health policies and disaster response mechanisms are placed in context of heatwaves and extreme heat island effects. India with its 1.2 billion people will face unprecedented challenge in days to October 2015 I

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2015 INDIAN HEATWAVE

come because there will be more carbon dioxide emission which in turn will cause global warming, the demand for energy in India will go up steadily with it’s population. It is going to be too hot and crowded in days to come.

Balancing options In Ahmedabad, the city’s municipal corporation has advanced an operational heat alert system that has been in place since 2013.

It was developed after more than 1,000 people were reportedly killed after the heat wave of 2010. The Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan is a four-pronged strategy, the first step of which is to inform people about the risk of heat illnesses and the preventive measures they should take. The second is to map out actionables for various government agencies. The third involves training healthcare professionals to deal better with heat-related illnesses.

44 I October 2015

In the last step, the corporation ensures that drinking water is easily accessible in several places, and temporary cool spaces are built during periods of extreme heat.

In May this year, the Maharashtra government held a two-day workshop in Nagpur to develop a similar heat action plan for the city.

Disaster cum health experts, lobbyist and activist want Indian government to label heat wave as national calamity because it will bring in the required attention factor, which has been missing till now. It will also create favorable condition within existing policy frameworks associated with disaster risk reduction and public health attributes.

Classification of heatwaves as a national calamity will lead to proper institutional setup being created both at central and state level. Classifying a heat wave as a national calamity is only logical given that the number of deaths reported across the country this year is five times

the number of deaths in the recent floods in Jammu and Kashmir. The classification would help, as the onus would then be on the government to make sure that prevention, rehabilitation and compensation measures are effectively provided.

However, according to Amit Sengupta, Associate Global Coordinator, People’s Health Movement (a network of grassroots health activists), that would only solve half the problem. “If you have an inadequate public health system that is not equipped to deal with emergencies, then the right classification is not going to help,” he says. Given how simple it is to prevent a heatstroke death, it is a shame that the country should have lost so many lives to it in 2015, at the height of the age of information.

This year world is anticipating a global climate binding agreement in Paris mainly in context of emission reduction keeping in mind of future from 2020 – 2050. The science behind heating of earth climate is no longer questionable, it is a verified fact. Developed countries will pledge greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and developing countries will be encouraged by developed countries to cite nonbinding greenhouse gas emission target figures. Country like India will have to put forward the essence of mitigation and adaptation in Paris. Preventing deaths from heatwaves is no rocket science. It is most commonsensical things that need to be done to prevent exposure to sun and hot winds.

What is required at a pan India level is acknowledgement of the fact that heatwaves could be a huge life risk, something that has not yet been realized in India. As some states have shown, by taking proactive steps, precious lives can be saved.

The need is for a concerted effort by all concerned at different levels of planning. Weather will continue to get harsher, but that must not be allowed to kill people.

(The writer is an international research consultant working in the area of environment, urbanization, climate change and sustainable development.)

www.governancetoday.co.in

ECONOMY

Time to lead the race India in a sweet spot to cash on the Chinese economic turmoil

The stock market decline has impacted a large number of average Chinese

Anand Mishra IN THE middle of August this year, the Government of China devalued its currency over a span of three days in a bid to keep its exports intact. The step came after a series of bad news about the Chinese economy over the last few months. The move triggered a free fall in Chinese equity market, which spooked the world currency, equity and commodity markets. Such fast developments in the second largest economy of the world have obviously forced economists and policy makers globally to rethink the condition of global growth. On one side, there is unanimity that the immediate short term impact for the world economy is going to be negative, there are informed voices which claim that the current turmoil in China could benefit India over mid to long term www.governancetoday.co.in

provided India manages to cash the low commodity prices and pushes important reforms through.

Decelerating growth pulls down global confidence That Chinese economy is slowing has been a known fact for over a year now. What has made headline is the pervasiveness and the mood of the nation. The latest estimates show that even if the Chinese economy manages to grow at 7 per cent, which is official estimate, it will be the lowest in over 25 years, lower than 7.3 per cent, the revised estimate of the Chinese government for the year 2014. Key industrial segments are showing disturbing signs. Factory output is up 6.1 per cent from the last year. Growth in fixed-asset investment has slowed to 10.9 per cent on a year-to-date basis which

is a 15-year low. Manufacturing activity has come down to its lowest level in 77 months. The Chinese car market, the largest in the world is expected to contract for the first time in 17 years and global car majors like Ford and Volkswagen are staring a reduced shipments to the country in over a decade.

Investment in the first quarter came down below 15 per cent, the lowest in over 15 years. The overall impression of the economy is that it is in for a hard-landing and that has implication for the rest of the world. The most immediate and visible impact globally was the fall in global stock markets. While that may have been a reflex reaction to the crash in Chinese markets, the underlying rationale could well be the realization that a slowing Chinese economy has the potential to pull down the global economy, and different countries may suffer October 2015 I

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IMPACT ON SELECT INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SECTORS Possible winners Consumer goods: The fall in commodity prices will bring down the raw-material cost for consumer goods companies while domestic demand for their products will expectedly ride on the rebounding economy. An improving macro environment and lower input prices will drive strong profit growth for these companies.

Autos: Automobile manufacturers are in a sweet spot as lower oil prices and interest rates making it less expensive to buy and drive cars. Meanwhile, falling commodity prices will boost profit margins by lowering costs. Rise in discretionary income also would help.

Banking: Investors in India feel that RBI will cut interest rates to boost the domestic economy. This is increasingly possible with easing inflation. Banks are likely to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of a cut as lending growth will pick-up and their bad loan ratios will come down.

Downstream oil companies: Fuel retailers often have to shoulder losses in a rising fuel prices regime as they sell at government-set prices. As the prices of these commodities fall with oil, these companies are likely to benefit a lot.

Exports: Both technology and drug exporters have been outperforming recently as a weak rupee makes them more competitive abroad and lifts the rupee value of the dollars they earn.

E-commerce: Most of the goods that are sold by e-commerce companies are imported from China. They are likely to benefit big time from

different levels of pain. China is the second-largest economy in the world; it contributed 38 per cent to global GDP growth in 2014. More importantly though, a Chinese slowdown will directly affect a number of economies that trade heavily with China. According to the World Trade Organization data, the US, Japan and the EU exported $123bn, $194bn and $211bn respectively to China in 2013. Needless to say, these would feel the pinch of a consumer less willing to buy from them. There are other countries like Australia, Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia who 46 I October 2015

the fall in Chinese currency. They would see their costs coming down significantly.

Possible losers Metals: like all global commodity players, Indian metal producers which have benefited by a surging Chinese demand, are now likely to see fortunes slide. They could see their exports decline. Also a Yuan devaluation would make Chinese dumping more likely.

Textiles: India competes most with China in global markets in textile sector. A Yuan devaluation may translate into tougher competition for Indian players in global markets.

Chemicals: Chemicals, both organic and inorganic are largely produced in India and China. While margins in complex chemicals are higher, base chemicals attract lower margins.

Low crude oil prices have already affected final prices, but China lowering its prices will impact Indian players.

are big commodities producers and China is their largest consumer.

These would also be badly hit.

The global commodity prices have been declining on the back of a low Chinese demand and the trend may be accentuated moving forward, experts say. According to global investment banking major Goldman Sachs, the Yuan devaluation was important for commodity markets and it signaled that global macro conditions have changed. It further noted that China had joined a “negative feedback loop� that was pushing commodity prices down as growth slows and businesses

and households, nervous about the future, reduce their borrowing and spending.

The Indian perspective India stands as an outlier in the emerging markets back in one respect. Unlike most others, India is not a major commodity player.

Unlike Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, etc., India does not earn a major part of its global income through commodity exports. Another fact about India is that despite getting more integrated with the world economy, India still depends on www.governancetoday.co.in

To cash on emergant opportunities, India needs to address crucial infrastructural issues

domestic demand for growth. Both of these facts together mean that the potential of Chinese contagion hitting India is not very high to begin with. On the other hand, there is a significant section of economy watchers, who feel that India could actually benefit from the current turmoil. As for exposure to China, exports to the middle kingdom accounted for only 5.2% of India’s total last year.

Jayant Sinha, India’s minister of state for finance, said this week the Chinese slowdown and its worldwide fallout could provide a chance for India to “take the baton of global growth.” His boss, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, has expressed the desire of the government to “take advantage of the global slump and turn India into a sought-after destination for investments.”

As Chinese markets recede, India can be a place for foreign investors who may be interested in India’s domestic market. This is especially luring because India is recovering from a slowdown and consumer demand is expected to rise over the next few quarters, according to an economist with a public sector bank in Delhi. Because of easing inflation, there is an expectation that the RBI will cut rates, moving forward www.governancetoday.co.in

and that will also buoy demand for cars and consumer durables, among other things, he says.

Outstripping China as the world’s fastest-growing large economy has given the government and investor confidence, even though the official figures are being seen with circumspection by market analysts.

But the domestic demand data that grew by 7.8 per cent in the last quarter of last fiscal corroborates the rebounding economy.

And many global players are buying into the Indian story in the changed scenario. Foxconn Technology Group, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that makes most of the world’s Apple Inc. iPhones, has expressed its intent to invest billions of dollars to build new Indian factories. Xiaomi, a Forconn client, has already started manufacturing in India. It is little wonder that PM Narendra Modi has been harping about bringing in foreign investment in Indian manufacturing, which goes to make his Make-in-India plan a success.

Foreign investment in the country jumped 31 Per cent to $9.5 billion during the first quarter of the current fiscal, compared to the same period last fiscal.

that for India to sustain the positive vibe, it would be necessary to undertake structural reforms which could make setting up and doing business in India easier.

Foreign investments not only bring in foreign currency, they also bring the prospect of creating an ecosystem of local vendors who supply components, raw materials and secondary services. This in turn generates jobs which India so desperately needs for its millions that join the workforce every year.

But for all that to happen, India needs to create better roads, ensure availability of reliable electricity and most important of all, clear files in its officialdom fast. Bills like GST need to see the light of the say.

This would not only create stronger domestic markets to support economic growth, but also make exports more competitive, with or without support from exchange rate depreciation. In the ultimate analysis, India needs to realize that in global economic environments, only those emerge winners who cash in the fleeting opportunities.

The current turmoil has presented such an opportunity and India must not let it go unexploited. anand@governancetoday.co.in

However, most experts agree October 2015 I

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INTERVIEW

INDIA CAN HAVE DEVELOPMENT SHORTCUTS

BY IMPLEMENTING e-GOVERNANCE

Viljar Lubi Ambassador of Estonia to India

48 I October 2015

www.governancetoday.co.in

ESTONIA IS a small country in Baltics. A nation of just over 1.3 million, the country has been a major global case study on how to implement effective and efficient digital governance. Estonia was among the first countries to start working on applying emergent technologies in government and public systems. Today, there are hardly any service that is not fully available online in the country.

Anand Mishra, Editor, Governance Today and Rajesh Mehta, serial entrepreneur and foreign investment specialist, spoke to Mr. Viljar Lubi, Ambassador of Estonia to India, to find out more about the digital governance philosophy of the government of Estonia and how the two countries can cooperate on various matters. Edited excerpts:

How do you see the progress of relation between India and Estonia?

India-Estonia relations go back to early years of the 20th century, academic cooperation goes back even further. But the big boost to the relationship between the two countries has taken place in the last couple of years. Especially businesses have started to discover opportunities in both countries and tourism is picking up also. Thus, the trend is very positive. Still, I would say that our collaboration has a lot of room for further expansion, but we need to work on that as the lack of awareness has been the biggest challenge, again in both of the countries.

Somehow the trade relations between the two countries have not grown up to the potential. How are both countries working to increase trade in goods and services?

You are absolutely right that numbers do not meet our expectations. Trade with India is less than 0.5 per cent of our total trade.

Given that Estonia is a trading nation, our foreign trade turnover being above 130 per cent of www.governancetoday.co.in

our GDP, this number needs to increase many folds. Still, as I said the trend is positive. The first half of 2015 showed more than 30 per cent increase in our bilateral trade.

Volatility in the currency markets has been one of the factors why things have not rushed up. Also the deadlocked negotiations of the free trade agreement between the EU and India keeps quick developments at bay. However, we should not hide ourselves behind these excuses, numerous trade missions both ways have proved that everything is possible and trade opportunities are there for our businesses to grasp.

In 2013, you came out with the Foresight project. Could you share with our readers what follow up action has happened on that?

2013 Foresight project was jointly conducted by the Estonian Development Fund and the Indian Embassy in Helsinki (covers Estonia from there). Estonian Embassy in Delhi was a latecomer, we have been present in India only for the last three years. Thus for me personally this project was extremely valuable platform to start my work as the first Estonian Ambassador in India. It mapped the key areas where our nations have collaborated so far and also gave ideas on how to progress from there. Some key areas were identified; IT and e-governance, logistics, biotechnology, higher education to name a few. After three years in India, I must say that the authors were extremely smart and foresighted as these areas have proved to be the most promising and have already started to generate returns.

The government of Estonia has been a pioneer of e-governance and application of technology in public service. How do you think this knowledge can help India in its e-governance drive?

I believe that Digital India is one of the most important initiative Modi government has put forward. Why? Because modern technology, especially e-solutions, can create shortcuts in development. Estonia introduced e-governance (paperless government) in 1999. That time it was different, it was supply driven, people did not understand why we needed to do things online. Now it is a necessity.

These days e-governance is not a luxury countries may have. It is something countries must have, because people want it. It also enable certain shortcuts. In early ‘90ies when Estonia had to reestablish its banking sector we decided that Internet banking needs to be in the very core of the new system. We never introduced cheque books, no Estonian bank has it and never will. We bypassed this stage. I believe that India can also have these kind of shortcuts by implementing e-governance. You do not need to build fancy offices that provide public services, you build an online infrastructure so that every Indian can use his/her mobile phone to get the necessary service sitting at home. But it really demands a very close public-private-citizen collaboration and trust. Our experience might be useful for India. We already work closely with the Indian government and the states, because we also want to learn from India.

Unfortunately in modern technology you constantly need to be able to adjust to the changes. Today’s cutting edge technology is obsolete in 5 years’ time.

What is your impression of the Digital India plan of the Govt. of India? Based on your experience back home, how do you think it can be improved?

I do believe that every country is different and should have its own specific road map about how to achieve the best solution that takes into consideration the characteristics of that particular country.

Yes, size matters. Yes, demographics matters. In fact, many things October 2015 I

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matter. But with Digital India plan the Indian government has a very clear understanding what it wants to achieve. I totally understand the huge task of implementation of this program in a vast country like India. But a hopeless optimist as I am, I tend not to see these things only as a challenge but more of an opportunity, especially in the hands of the private sector.

They always prefer a big pie to a small one. Back in Estonia we have worked very closely with private sector. The government has been the demander, but all the solutions have been provided by the private sector. In a big country like India you most probably need to divide the whole program into much smaller pieces but at the same time you need to make sure that these pieces can later talk to each other, that they are compatible with each other. This has been the key requirement in every country’s e-government solution, also in Estonia. In Estonia we call this highway where different elements of the e-government can talk to each other the X-road.

Indian companies are looking for making investments abroad now.

What is your message to such potential investors from India? Which are the areas in which Estonia could be looking forward for Indian investments?

Money is global, as business is global. We are very pleased to see the increasing interest of the Indian companies in Estonia. I have had to adjust all my estimates made at the start of the year how many business trips we will see from India visiting Estonia, upwards!

Estonia has a favorable position as a member of the European Union (i.e. market of 500+ million wealthy customers), the Eurozone and the Schengen area with as easy and simple environment to do business as Estonia. You cannot find a country in the EU that has a zero per cent corporate income 50 I October 2015

tax on reinvested profits or a possibility to run your company in the EU remotely online without leaving India. Estonia’s e-residency provides you that opportunity. If I needed to name a few sectors then the big ones are IT, logistics, wood industry, engineering and machinery. But sometimes the business logic is exactly the opposite, go to the areas where competition is low.

But as I said before, we never think in terms of Estonian market only, we are trading country and we are part of the Common Market of the EU. Thus we can provide easy way of doing business with the whole EU. If you invest in Maharashtra, do you only think of Maharashtra or the whole India?

How can India and Estonia increase the people to people contact and tourist flows on both sides?

Tourism is indeed another important sector in Estonia. Just look at the numbers; Estonia has 1.3 million people but greets 3.8 million overnight foreign tourists a year. I hope that we see more Indians in Estonia. I can tell that some of the best Indian restaurants in Europe you find in Tallinn, our capital.

Could you please elaborate about e-residency project that Estonia launched last December?

A resident of Estonia can use 4000+ e-services available online, both public and private. For example, e-school and e-health are almost entirely private in Estonia.

Every resident has an ID card with a smart chip or a mobile ID to use those services. You need those IDs to identify yourself while using those services. A bit like Aadhaar in India. Now we thought, why not open this up to non-residents?

Thus we introduced e-residency.

A non-resident can apply for eresidency that gives him/her the opportunity to access the online services in Estonia and in the EU, like establishing a company online or signing your documents

digitally. An e-resident cannot vote (Estonia is the only country in the world that has internet voting) and it does not give you a visa, but you can run your business remotely from anywhere in the world.

According to you, please let us know some top Estonian Companies which are doing pioneering work?

Ah, that is a tricky question. I really do not know what to pick.

E-government launched in 1999 started the boom, followed by creation of Skype a few years later.

Now we have a start-up environment that puts us at the very top globally, as the country of the most start-ups per person; we have one start up for every 4,000 people. As Estonia is small enough, we do not have the luxury to think in terms of a smart city, we need to think in terms of a smart country. This has been a challenge, but also an opportunity. We have managed to use Estonia as a testing bed for new technologies. Like with electric cars, Estonia is probably the only country where you find a countrywide grid of charging stations, also in rural areas. We have very tech savvy neighbors like Finland and Sweden, so we really need to work hard. The technology emerging from India and other countries in Asia also pushes us out of the comfort zone. Ok, if I needed to mention a few, I would say Transferwise, GrabCAD, Erply, Fortumo etc. are some of the major companies that are doing good work.

Please elaborate on the Innovation & startup culture in Estonia. What can India learn from Estonian Innovation & startup system?

I do not think that it is a one way street, it can only be a two way street. Meaning that we should learn from each other, look for synergies. Our start-ups are too focused on Silicon Valley, I think India has so much to give us also.

www.governancetoday.co.in

DIPLOMACY

Aiming for the top table Permanent seat at UNSC and Indian diplomacy’s efforts for it

The UN Security Council, formed at the end of world war-II, does not reflect present global realities

Vinit Goenka THE UN General Assembly has adopted a negotiating text by consensus for the long-pending United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reforms, setting the stage for talks on the issue at its 70th session. According to Indian diplomats, this boosts India’s bid for a permanent seat in the revamped world body. In recent weeks, Indian diplomacy has been in high gear seeking support far and wide and from the big and small. Prime Minister Narendra Modi even met the Premier of St Vincent and the Grenadines, a country not many Indians will be able to spot on the world map.

But elsewhere the ground seems to be slipping where it matters. The US, Russia and China have unveiled their visions of an expanded UN Security Council. The US says it is open to a “modest expansion of the www.governancetoday.co.in

membership” but this position now goes back on assurances given by US President Obama earlier.

American Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has said that the US is “open in principle” to a “modest” expansion of both permanent and non-permanent members but the condition that “any consideration of an expansion of permanent members must take into account the ability and willingness of countries to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the United Nations.”

In a setback to India’s bid for a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council, Russia along with China and, in a way also the US, has opposed the negotiations to reform the powerful UN body, refusing to contribute to a text that will form the basis for the long-drawn reform

process. UN General Assembly President Sam Kutesa achieved a breakthrough of sorts by circulating a text to UN members that will form the basis for the negotiations on the reform of the Security Council. Kutesa had appointed Jamaica’s Permanent Representative Courtenay Rattray to chair on his behalf the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform.

Kutesa, in a letter dated July 31 to all United Nations members, said he is also circulating letters containing the positions of groups and Member States that indicated they did not wish their proposals to be included in the body of the negotiating text. These countries include US, Russia and China. In other words, the US now appears to backtrack on its earlier assurances.

The group led by Canada, Italy, Colombia and Pakistan has made October 2015 I

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make the UN effective, it must also reflect world realities and be more representative of its diversity. For instance Africa and Latin America are not represented in the P-5.

Likewise, the Islamic world does not find a place. India, which has a fifth of the world’s population, does not find a place. The biggest economy in Europe, Germany, does not find a place. On the other hand, with two members, UK and France, Western Europe is over represented.

With Russia added Europe has three members. Clearly, this is not a satisfactory arrangement. The UNSC does not reflect the world order or its diversity.

India joins hands with Japan, Germany and Brazil for a common cause

a counter proposal that envisages an enlargement of the number of non-permanent members from ten to twenty. The non-permanent members would be elected by the General Assembly for a twoyear term and would be eligible for immediate re-election, subject to the decision of their respective geographical groups.

The Chinese want “small and medium-sized countries to take turns to serve on the UNSC”.

Russia, while not opposed to any expansion, has taken the position that the powers of the members of present UNSC should remain the same with full veto powers meaning there could be two or three classes of UNSC members - the G-5 with veto powers, the G-4 permanent members without the veto, and whoever else may be elected by the UNGA. India’s ambition for permanent membership has never been a secret.

Whatever the serious powers – the only ones who count when it comes to reforming the Security Council – may say in public by way of vague endorsements of India’s push which does not commit them to any practical action, in practice they are all indifferent.

More than a decade ago, India joined Brazil, Germany and Japan in the so-called Group of Four (G4) 52 I October 2015

in a major push for Security Council restructuring. This faltered in the 2005 UN reform effort against determined opposition from some existing five permanent members (P5) and many regional rivals of the aspirant states. Now India has said it will convene “a very substantive and significant” summit of the G4 in New York. Of course, the dream of permanent membership for any of them is, if anything, even more distant today than it was in 2005.

But if the G4 had adopted in 2005 the strategy outlined here, by now other countries would have been lining up to beg them to join as permanent members.

As an immediate response to a destructive world war, the UN at the moment of its birth on June 26, 1945 reflected the reality and ethos of that age. Nothing reflected this more than the composition of the permanent members of the Security Council. Four out of the five were “white” nations. Two, China and France, were defeated nations. Two, Britain and France, were colonial powers. The other ten members of the UNSC are elected members from the various regions. These members are without the veto and with little voice or clout.

While it can be argued that a security council of a smaller number of countries is desirable to

In the Cold War era, veto powers ensured that one bloc could not override the interests of the other. The veto thus came to be used 252 times since 1946. Since 1996, Russia has not exercised the veto even once whereas the US has used it six times and China twice.

Does this presumably reflect the settled shape of the world order now? Clearly the use of the veto itself must be reviewed. One nation alone must no longer be allowed to block the consensus of the UNSC. It is time a threshold of members to collectively enforce veto be discussed.

Times have also changed. The US is no longer the dominant economic and political power it was. The G-4 nations are all bigger economies than Russia, France and Britain. They possibly have bigger global footprints than the three.

How can the power to veto be justified for these three and denied to the G-4? In the past few years, India’s diplomacy has centred on a craving to just become a member of the UNSC. It seems a second-class membership is now feasible. The big question then is whether this is what India wants? Or do we want a greater democratisation of the UNSC to reflect the status and size of the G-4?

(The writer is a Member- Task Force (IT), Ministries of Shipping, Road, Transport and Highways, and Ex National Co-Convener, IT Cell, BJP)

www.governancetoday.co.in

BIHAR ELECTIONS

The war of packages Hopefully development agenda will trump caste politics in polls Anand Mishra THE ELECTIONS in India are a complex exercise, literally and figuratively. And when a state as complex as Bihar goes to polls, it attracts attention, from academicians and social watchers to economists and stock analysts.

This is because electoral politics of Bihar is simultaneously a case study in social reengineering and electoral alliances, and most often sets the tone for broader political deliberation at the national level.

The upcoming election in the state is no different. Not just is it a test of political parties to get their caste combinations right, but it is also crucial for relative power relation among major political formations at the center. In that, it is widely seen as a huge battle for both big coalitions, namely BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and JDU led Mahagathbandhan (literally meaning grand coalition).

Even though both camps have spent enormous efforts in putting in place right caste based equations which the media has debated ad-nauseam, discussion on development has somewhat taken a backseat, and wrongly so, because both camps have put in place economic packages that they claim would transform the state over the next few years. When PM Narendra Modi unleashed a huge Rs 1.25 lakh crore package for the state, the CM of the state, Nitish Kumar branded it an eyewash and derided it as a repackaging of old programs. A few days later, he put forth his own vision of spending Rs 2.7 lakh crore for the development of the state.

These packages should form the terra firma on which the electoral debate should build, instead of appealing to voters on caste lines.

The Rs 1,25,003 crore package www.governancetoday.co.in

Nitish Kumar, Bihar CM

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister

that PM Modi announced is focused on big ticket infrastructure development. The package provides Rs 54,713 crore for highways, Rs 21,476 crore for petroleum and gas, Rs 16,130 crore for electricity, Rs 13,820 crore for rural roads, Rs 8,870 crore for doubling and electrification of railway lines, Rs 3,094 crore for farmers’ welfare and Rs 2,700 crore for airports, including construction of a new airport in Patna. Major roads and highways projects include fourlaning and widening of 2,775 kms of National Highways, Construction of Bridges across Ganga, Sone, Kosi and Construction of 12 Rail overbridges. Also 22,500 kms of Rural Roads are to be built. In oil and gas sector, a substantial part of the package relates to the expansion of Indian Oil Corporation’s 51-year oil refinery at Barauni Refinery.

These projects, in addition to Rs 40,000 crore of ongoing projects, are expected to provide Bihar a major infrastructural push. These are also supposed to provide a boost to the NDA’s chances in polls.

While the package has been touted a game changer by the BJP and its allies, opponents feel the

reality is very different. Experts too feel that the major component of the package is old projects which have been announced and as such, cannot be considered a new package.

The CM Nitish Kumar, writing for a national daily wrote that “At the very best, the so-called Rs 1.25 lakh crore package will not provide anything more than Rs 10,368 crore as incremental resource to the state of Bihar. This Rs 10,368 crore, too, in the absence of a defined timeline or disbursement modalities, hardly means anything to the state.” Thus, in addition to the amount of the package, he has raised the questions about when the money would be actually reach the ground and also about who will bear the cost.

Nitish Kumar is not alone is raising doubts about the package.

Many experts have raised questions about the specifics of the package.

For example, there are concerns about the highways projects which are dependent on land acquisition are known to be delay prone.

Further, many experts say that the highways are to be built by NHAI or large contractors, which may mostly be outsiders to the state.

As such, benefit to the state would October 2015 I

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COMPETING VISIONS BIHAR PACKAGE 1.

Highways: Amount: Rs 54,713 crore • 2,775 kms of National Highways (four-laning & widening)

• Construction of 12 Rail overbridges • Construction of Bridges across Ganga, Sone and Kosi rivers 2.

Oil and Gas: Amount: Rs 21,476 crore • Expansion of Barauni Refinery and seting up of new Petrochemical Plant • Construction of Gas pipelines, new LPG plants and expansion in domestic LPG connections • Petrol-Diesel pipeline from Raxaul to Nepal

3.

Rural Roads: Amount: Rs 13,820 crore

4.

Electricity: Amount: Rs 16,130 crore

5.

Farmer’s Welfare: Amount: Rs 3,094 crore

6.

Education and Skill development: Amount: Rs 3,150 crore

7.

Railways: Amount: Rs 8,870 crore

8.

Airports: Amount: 2,700 crore

VISION STATEMENT 1.

Youth centered schemes: Amount: Rs 49,800 crore

• Rs 1,000 monthly benefit to unemployed in 20-25 years age group • Education loan up to Rs. 4 lakh for students passing Std 12 grade • Rs. 500 crore venture capital fund for development of self-employment 2.

Electrification: Amount: Rs 55,600 crore • All homes to be provided electricity

3.

Water: Amount: Rs 47,700 crore • Piped drinking water for 1.95 crore households

4.

Roads: Amount: Rs 78,000 crore • All housing settlements to be connected with roads

5.

Sanitation: Amount: Rs 28,700 crore • 1.72 crore houses to be provided with toilets

6.

Education: Amount: Rs 10,300 crore • Five new medical colleges • Every district to have an engineering college and a women’s college

7.

Reservation • 35 per cent reservation for women in all government jobs

be only secondary and may not go beyond creating low paying jobs.

Similarly, on the issue of expansion of Barauni refinery, which is another big component of the package, it has been said that because the project is financially unviable, the Cabinet had earlier decided not to go ahead with the expansion, but later on, the government decided to press ahead with the project. Most experts also feel that the projects that account for the bulk of the package, would 54 I October 2015

take close to a decade to materialize and as such benefits to the state may be quite back loaded.

Not to be left behind in the development discourse, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar unleashed a package of his own for the state in a vision statement which amounted to Rs 2.7 lakh crore. Unlike the package announced by the PM, which focused on big infrastructure projects, the one released by Nitish Kumar focused on basic amenities

such as sanitation, drinking water and electricity. The vision statement, consisting of seven keys to the development of the state, lays heavy emphasis on empowering of youth; a sum of Rs 49,800 crore is earmarked for youth-centric schemes. Rs 55,600 crore are to be spent to ensure that every household in the state gets 24-hour electricity in the next two years, whereas 1.95 crore households in rural areas and 16 lakh households in urban areas will be given drinking water connection at a cost of Rs 47,700 crore in five years. Also, concrete sewage will reach to all houses in rural and urban areas at an estimated cost of Rs 78,000 crore.

These two packages differ in style and tenor. They depict the two competing visions of development for the state and characterize the difference in personalities of the two prominent leaders in this battle of Bihar, namely Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes across as a person who believes in creating a conducive environment in which enterprise can thrive which results in wealth generation. On the other hand, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is for bottoms up development which starts with creation of basic infrastructure and eventually leads to business facilitation and wealth generation.

The economy and development have never been the cornerstone of electoral discussion in Bihar elections. While there have been charges in every election, of step motherly treatment to Bihar by the center, to which there is substance, unfortunately, development has always been relegated to backseat as caste and secular-communal diatribe dominates the agenda. We hope that in the weeks running up to poll, both camps would fight more on the specifics of the Bihar package and the vision statement that two sides have thrown up. It will only enrich the debate, educate electorates on issues on which they should vote and reduce the viciousness of the electoral environment. anand@governancetoday.co.in

www.governancetoday.co.in

BIHAR ELECTIONS

Janata speaks Governance Today speaks to people on the ground to find out what they feel about the state polls Sagarika Ranjan It is election time in Bihar, which has arguably most politically aware and active population. Ironically, however, the land which has been the epicenter of tectonic shifts in political landscape since millennia, is reduced to among the laggards as far as development and basic governance is concerned. The much touted progress of last decade has yet to go beyond highways and relatively improved law and order situation. The pitch of electioneering has mostly been reduced to managing and mastering caste equations. As for people, they are mostly resigned to the fact that beneath hue and color of their flags, the political lot is hardly differentiable. Hope floats, however, and people again feel inclined to wish for a government that actually thinks for them. But what are the people on ground think about the election? What do they feel about the leaders, election debate and issues? Most importantly, how much stake they feel they have in the entire electoral rigmarole? We spoke to some people across different professions, economic strata and educational backgrounds to know their understanding of the forthcoming polls. What came across was an eclectic mix of hope, despair, sense of resignation and feeling of alienation from the system. What is common, however, is the famous ability to comprehend the contemporary political game. Read on.

The election time is by and large insignificant in our day to day life, particularly in urban areas. But there is a definite change in the approach of electronic media; they make a lot of hue and cry. As regards the attitude of the political leaders towards the public, it remains the same. They are least bothered about the urban voters.

I vote and I think voting should be made mandatory for all. One ought to not morally criticize the functioning of the government unless and until has participated actively in forming a government.

As a conscious voter there are several messages that I have for our political folks. To mention a few, I would expect them to shed away with false promises and caste-oriented approach towards voters and focus on issues that will help in the all-round development of the society. The work and visits should continue even after the elections. They should religiously work to improve societies and the life pattern of citizens who have elected them.

Most of the leaders today are of no use

Voting should be made mandatory for all

Shalvi Kashyap Student, Patna

Ashima Srivastava Teacher, Patna www.governancetoday.co.in

It is the tendency of human beings to sustain life in the leadership of the crown. India being a democracy needs to be led by its representatives. In my opinion, most of the leaders today and their policies are of no use. There are a number of unproductive schemes that are contributing not in development but decay of our country. I request our political leaders to change the October 2015 I

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criteria for reservation as this caste-based reservation is eating away the very deserving candidates and better talents.

The deserving candidates are being forced to be confined to their huts. Reservation criteria need to be changed. Our leaders look at us as their vote banks and it is vote bank politics that has not allowed reservation to get evolved with time. If this continues, very soon there may be a civil war to end this misrepresentation.

Even we the people need to be conscious and stand up in unison against vote bank politics and politicians who work for themselves and not the people.

If politicians can reach our areas, why can’t facilities?

Rekha Devi Sweeper, Patna

Since I was born I remember politicians visiting our area, making promises, taking votes and then disappear. We call it the election season, following which our lives becomes the same as before.

My family has been living in the slums for last 70 years and before every election there is a promise that we will be given homes and after every election they send notices to break our huts. They break it and we remake it. Where can we go? There are three to four thousand of us.

We love our leaders, hails them when they visit with hope that something will be done this time but hopes have remained hopes. We even organized hawans and pujas to pray that Jitan Ram Manjhi should not be removed but for us, nobody cares. For last 10 years I have been cleaning toilets for Rs. 70 a day. It has never increased and never anyone talks of making me permanent.

The slums are not safe. There are no medical facilities. No electricity, no water. If voting machines and politicians can reach our areas, why can’t these facilities?

56 I October 2015

Parties promise to make dam and canals but no one does

Satinder yadav Farmer, Jamui Elections? For us it was earlier jungle sarkaar (Maoists) and now it is what the others tell us to do. We decide among ourselves whom to vote for and we all give votes to that candidate. But they are all the same.

We are farmers and need water for our fields; this need of ours has remained unfulfilled till now. Every party promises to make dam and canals but no one has been able to do it so far. Our area is rocky and therefore cannot have wells and easy access to underground water. Tube-wells are very expensive and on top of that generators as electricity is a luxury. I am not educated but have been forced to move to the city to earn as the farm produce are not bought at good prices. They are selling onions at Rs 70 -80 and they bought it from us at a maximum price of Rs 4-8 per kg. During elections, representatives never visit my village that is Baghanda, 20 km from the district headquarters. We travel to see them. Here everyone votes because they say that we will be given water and electricity. During elections it is “it will be done’; later it is “why do you worry, it will be done” and then new representative, new elections and it goes on.

People think that housewives are not interested in politics

Meena Shanker Singh Housewife, Patna www.governancetoday.co.in

I have been exercising my franchise for a long time in the hope of choosing the best government. When I say ‘the best government’, I do not care if it’s the BJP, the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party. A party that works for the development of Bihar will get my vote. It’s funny when people think that housewives are not interested in politics. I keep myself abreast of the political developments in the country.

Most of us had thought the new Central government would transform everything. Price rise, corruption, poverty, unemployment and other ills of the society had spread their tentacles under the UPA government’s regime. But I can hardly see any difference now.

The political scenario in Bihar holds importance.

I hope whoever comes to power does not make false promises like the previous governments. I dislike the influx of people from small towns and villages of the state for attending political rallies. For example, RJD’s last rally at city’s Gandhi Maidan. On the eve of the much-hyped rally, newsreaders on TV advised Patnaites not to move out of their houses. Schools were shut and shops were closed. At the end of the day, there was filth strewn all around (thanks to the rallyists who were returning to their villages). How does that help?

important. Politically motivated anti-social elements approach the banks at times and issue threats so as to get loans without fulfilling the required criteria. These have always been there, especially in the rural areas, irrespective of the party in power. I am sure all of us would like to see a clean, responsible and accountable government in Bihar.

Vote-bank politics needs to be replaced by conscious governance

I had a small egg shop in Patna back in the 90s but the goons tortured me so much that I had to shut it and look for alternative sources of income. Elections for us, the poor lot, is something of little importance as every government promises and forgets. The goons used to take hoards of items from the shops in my area and never pay. One shopkeeper who tried to speak against them was murdered. We approached police and several government officials but in vain.

Today, business has changed and so have the goons.

The scenario remains the same. Yes, means of torture have changed. I vote every election and will so this time too but not because I hope for anything but because it’s my duty.

Sarita Bahadur Banker, Patna

Elections for me is a time full of tension as we are allotted election duty. The duty is not a problem, neither is the training. The problem is the unprecedented violence that in some cases results in fatality.

With the training there should be provision for our safety as well. Vote-bank politics needs to be replaced by conscious Governance. The debates during elections often is not constructive. It includes mudslinging and abuses besides destructive criticism.

All this makes us refrain from the election process.

It is not the sole responsibility of the party in power.

We need to understand that opposition is equally www.governancetoday.co.in

Elections for the poor lot is of little importance

Binda Prasad Shopkeeper, Patna

“I had a small egg shop in Patna back in the 90s but the goons tortured me so much that I had to shut it and look for alternative sources of income.

Elections for us, the poor lot, is something of little importance as every government promises and forgets.”

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DEMOGRAPHY

The citizens who are not People from DNT community continue to struggle for identity

The denotified and nomadic tribes community have no domicile or identity proof

Praveen Raman OUR CONSTITUTION talks about building an egalitarian society in which people with diverse sociocultural and economic backgrounds co-exist in peace and harmony. To achieve this, the government has made many provisions so that the historically wronged and deprived communities have equality in opportunities and prosperity.

As a part of this process, the socially backward people were put under the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the Other Backward Castes. Each was accorded certain privileges to overcome its socio-economic disabilities. In this context, the communities that were earlier part of the De-notified and 58 I October 2015

Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) were also included in the lists of SC, ST, and OBC categories.

However, their inclusion was not logical or uniform. There are still a number of DNTs which have not been included in any one of these categories. Instead, they are placed at par with the communities of the general category. These communities have a long history of marginalisation, neglect and oppression, first during the colonial rule, and subsequently, in Independent India and as such, their entitlement as any other community is not questionable. Because of many reasons, these communities became almost invisible and successive governments mostly lost sight of

them. It is mostly so because these communities are largely politically ‘quiet’- they themselves do not place their demands concertedly before the government, for they lack endogenous vocal leadership.

Perhaps, they have not been seen as constituting a decisive vote bank. It is evident that there is a lot of apathy among the policy makers and planners about these communities. For many, these communities are inconsequential.

Many are not even aware of their existence. The institutional neglect is reflected in the successive FiveYear Plans in which no special provision was made for these communities. However, during the tenure of with the UPA1, a National www.governancetoday.co.in

Commission was constituted to look into the problems of these diverse communities and to suggest ways and means to ameliorate their condition, but it has largely remained on paper only.

These DNTs are important part of the Indian society from the time immemorial, but they are the most neglected section too. Each DNT is an endogamous group. Though they are all called tribes, they are treated as castes for all practical purposes where restrictions on their inter-marriages and inter-dining prevailed. Socially, though they are not considered untouchables, but kept at low level in hierarchy.

While the government has not cared much to obtain demographic information of the DNTs, their population is about 10 crore in our country, which is almost equal to the population of United Kingdom and Spain taken together.

Traditionally, they did not possess any land of piece even for house.

By the virtue of them being wanderers or nomads, they are out of the ambit of all welfare schemes.

Absence of residential proof is one of the biggest hurdle in availing any schemes, education or citizenry rights. Presently there are 1500 nomadic and semi nomadic tribes and 198 de-notified tribes.

In colonial India, some nomadic communities came to be branded as ‘Criminal Tribes.’ Through the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, the government assumed that all the people born in particular tribes were criminals and incorrigible.

After Independence, the criminal tribes were de-notified by repealing the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871.

However, the step brought about little change in their living conditions. These communities continued to carry the stigma of criminality with them. The attitude of society & bureaucrats remain prejudiced and the inhuman treatment continues even today.

To its credit, government did make sporadic attempts for the upliftment of the community after Independence. The aim was the complete rehabilitation, eradication of all stigma and discrimination. www.governancetoday.co.in

SAME PEOPLE, MULTIPLE IDENTITIES The community of Banjara has been included as ST in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa; as OBC in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and as SC in Punjab, Delhi and Karnataka.

The Bawaria / Bavaria community has been included as SC in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and as OBC in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

The Bediya, Bedia, Beria has been included as SC in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand; as ST in West Bengal and as OBC in Karnataka.

The Kanjar/Kanjari/Kanjarbhat/Chara/Kanjar/Nath community has been included as SC in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal and as OBC in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The Madari has been included as SC in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Delhi and Rajasthan, whereas in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat, they have been included in the OBC list.

The Nat (Rana, Badi)/Nut has been included as SC in Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab, whereas in Gujarat and Karnataka, they have been included in the OBC list.

The Od has been included as SC in Haryana and Punjab, whereas in Gujarat and Rajasthan, the Od have been included in the OBC list.

The Yerkula/Yerukulas has been included as ST in Andhra Pradesh.

But the same community has been listed as OBC in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Source: Renke Commission

These efforts have had minor implications for the occupational structure of de-notified tribes. Some of the community members started other occupations such as peddler’s herbalists, security guard etc. rather than criminal activities. This type of change in livelihood and survival raises a troublesome question, however, because they are expected to become a part of the mainstream, but they are also to be segregated from the main society.

These communities have been included in the lists of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) which made them eligible for the benefits of certain welfare schemes and the facility of reservation. It has been noticed over the years that in the process of inclusion of the DNTs into SC/ST/OBC, a number

of anomalies in the status of these communities in various States and UTs have cropped up which has created dissatisfaction among the communities against the State/ UT Governments. For instance, a single (Denotified or Nomadic) community living in contiguous States/UTs and homogenous in nature has been included in different categories. Not just that, sometimes a single community within a State itself has been listed in different categories as DNT, SC and ST. For example, in Madhya Pradesh, the Pardhi has been listed as SC in certain districts, such as Bhind, Dhar, Dewas, Guna etc., but as ST in certain other districts and tehsils along with synonyms like Bahelia, Chita Pardhi, etc.

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Invisible India Total Population: 10.74 Cr Sex Ratio: 936 (approx) Literacy Rate: 2 per cent Mean Age at Marriage: 10yrs (Men), 8yrs (Women)

constitutional status and treated as General Category.

Whats the way out For implementing welfare schemes for DNTs, it is desirable that these tribes are identified and their lists are prepared. Some tribes could not find place in any list at all.

In such a scenario, the government can rope in community leaders from DNTs to examine the inclusion of various castes in the list.

To conceptualise the welfare schemes for the DNTs and to work out the financial implications, it is necessary that the governments have information about population.

Since they have not been enumerated in the census as DNTs, it is necessary that the states undertake a quick house to house survey of the families of DNTs to work out their estimated population and their concentration in the state.

60 I October 2015

The departments dealing with the welfare of DNTs are not adequately conversant with the socio-economic conditions of DNTs largely because of their lack of exposure to them.

The state governments should constitute an advisory committee at the state level/UT level under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister/ Administrator of the UT. To enable the members of DNTs to avail the benefits of various welfare schemes, it is necessary that they are issued caste certificates expeditiously and in a time-bound manner. The states should exercise adequate vigilance and supervision in the matter of issue of the certificates to avoid the possibility of issue of false certificates.

Unavailability of BPL (Below Poverty Line) card is another handicap faced by the DNTs, because of which they are not able to qualify for the benefits of

various welfare schemes meant for the weaker sections and the downtrodden. The states may launch a special programme to have BPL cards issued to the eligible families belonging to DNTs. The Denotified and particularly the Nomadic Tribes are unable to exercise their right to vote as either they are ignorant or are on move from one place to the other and have not been included in the voters’ list. Steps need to be taken by the Union Government, the Election Commission of India, and the State Governments to undertake a special campaign for inclusion of their names in the voters’ lists. Unless these communities have a say in the government formation, the ruling establishment will not be inclined to hear their concerns and they would continue to exist in oblivion. praveen@governancetoday.co.in

www.governancetoday.co.in

www.governancetoday.co.in

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Egis in India is focused on delivering state-of-the-art engineering consultancy services in the many sectors like roads and highways, water, environment, rail, urban development, aviation, building engineering, GIS and data mining, and ports. In addition, we also operate a number of tolled highways in the country.

SMART CITIES NEEDED FOR WORLD-CLASS LIVING CONDITIONS

You are into highway projects too. What are the key challenges that you face in this business?

Egis is not involved in actual construction of highways; however, Egis is managing a large number of highway construction projects as the supervising consultant. Since highways have to span the countryside, a host of difficulties crop up during the construction. These include remote inaccessible areas such as Arunachal Pradesh (AP), troubled areas such as Assam, Chhattisgarh, Manipur, and geologically challenging areas like Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

A recent example of the third type of challenges as mentioned above was the collapse of a tunnel under construction in Himachal Pradesh where three workers were trapped inside and were rescued later on. The reason of the collapse can be attributed to the nature of the soil in the area.

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Ashish Tandon MD, Egis in India

www.governancetoday.co.in

Where do you put Indian highways in terms of load bearing capacity when measured against international parameters?

Indian highways are designed for the legal load carrying limits which are applicable for each category under Motor Vehicles Act. In comparison, internationally, highways are designed for the loads coming on them as per the types of vehicles plying on the highways in those countries. That is the key difference between the two.

Environmental clearance is a major hurdle for highways and port projects. Do you think the concerns are well placed?

Over the last decade or so, environmental clearance had certainly become a major issue for projects to move forward.

However, since last year, a number of measures have been taken by the government to streamline and cut-short the procedure for obtaining environment clearance, the major among them being making the process online. This has already started showing results, as environment clearance no longer poses the same amount of challenge it did till recently.

Infrastructure projects normally take years to complete. Can we evolve a model through which it will take comparatively lesser time?

Infrastructure projects, especially the mega projects, get delayed for a variety of reasons.

The obvious ‘model’ to expedite the projects would be to address these issues. Since Egis is involved in many mega projects like Chennai Metro, Mumbai Metro Line 3 etc., we have a fair idea of the causes for delays. There are, for example, delays in acquiring www.governancetoday.co.in

land for the project, environmental and forest clearances, delays in decision making by government agencies, the poor financial health of contractors/ developers/ Concessionaires etc. These have a huge bearing on the pace at which projects get implemented.

Some of the other reasons include disruption due to terrorist activities, non-availability of certain key construction material like sand and aggregates, and poor project planning.

We have limited number of international airports in our country. What do you think the government can do to address it?

In fact, rather than international airports, there is a dire need of domestic airports in India. The volume of international traffic in India is by and large adequately handled by existing airports. However, a huge jump in domestic air traffic requires immediate augmentation in the airport capacity to handle the same.

However, proper due-diligence regarding travel demand and route preferences need to be carried out before embarking on this augmentation process, so that we don’t have airports like Jaisalmer and Durgapur, which have been constructed with huge investment and few airlines availing them.

How do you see opportunity in ‘Smart City’ project?

India is one of the most populous countries in the world.

To offer world-class living conditions and opportunities to such a large population, SMART Cities are the need of the hour.

Egis has over 50 years of experience is developing SMART Cities. In the recent past, Egis has been engaged as part of an advisory group established by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry in establishing the “Attributes of a Smart City”. Further, Egis has also been empanelled by Ministry

of Urban Development for the implementation of the SMART City Projects. Egis, therefore, sees a huge opportunity in the SMART City rollout. Egis is also engaged in the development of the ICT part of Dholera, the first SMART City in India, and is looking forward to the possibility of getting to work on developing Chandigarh, Nagpur and Puducherry into SMART Cities.

Metro is coming up in more cities now. How do you see it on cost benefit analysis?

Any MRTS in a city needs to be public funded since private participation in such projects is always unviable. Few examples of PPP projects in this sector are Hyderabad Metro, Delhi Airport Express line, Mumbai Metro line 1 and Rapid Metro. All of these projects have been cross subsidized with supplementary revenue streams like advertising and real estate development. As we all know, many of these projects are either being shelved or are facing problems. Talking of the benefit of such MRTS systems, it is pertinent to refer a study carried out by SEPT Ahmedabad on the Delhi Metro Phase I. It showed that the Phase I of Delhi Metro resulted in a reduction of 22% in the number of cars on the associated roads. Apart from the benefit of savings in Fuel Cost, there is a huge positive impact of reduced number of cars on environmental pollution.

What do you think about ‘Bharatmala’ project?

In addition to creating a huge cache of new projects for the highway sector, the Bharatmala project has two major objectives.

The first is to enhance road connectivity in the strategic border areas, especially those neighboring Pakistan and China. The second is to provide road connectivity to and between the various ports along the coast line of India. These will foster greater economic activity in these regions.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Taking Silicon Valley by storm PM’s visit to US west coast a major boost for India’s IT industry

Narendra Modi is the first Indian PM to visit the Silicon Valley in over 30 years

Vinit Goenka THE TOUR of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley gave a major boost to India’s IT industry as it included discussions with the CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Tesla, and ended with a dinner aimed at promoting the Digital India initiative, that saw the technology industry and the Prime Minister rain compliments on one another. Narendra Modi’s visit to the cradle and birthplace of the information-technology revolution marks the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Silicon Valley in over 30 years. The discussions that Modi had with industry leaders were focused heavily on opportunities rather than the challenges involved or substantive issues of implementation.

The Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the Silicon Valley comes in the backdrop of NITI Aayog’s report 64 I October 2015

that claiming India has surpassed its target of Hardware export of worth $ 7 Billion during the thirteenth five year plan. The country also exported software worth $ 69 Billion during the same period of time to the US and other developed economies.

The report says that India is on the path of registering a growth rate of 22 percent in exports of electronics hardware and may surpass the export target $20 Billion by 2016-17.

The country may register a rise of 30 percent in hardware production and achieve the target of $122 Billion by 2016-17 in comparison to $ 33 Billion that it was in 2011-12. The multinational IT companies have been a huge source of employment here in India as they will generate direct job opportunities for 42 Lakh Indians by 2016-17 compare to just 28 Lakh in 2011-12. India will be getting a foreign exchange of $ 130 Billion by another couple of years

just by exporting software and computer applications world-wide including first grade countries like UK and the US. The multinational IT companies have been a huge source of employment here in India and will generate direct job opportunities for 42 Lakh Indians by 2016-17 compare to just 28 Lakh in 2011-12.

Keeping all these figures aside, a tangible outcome from Mr Modi’s sitting with the global CEOs was the announcement made by Semiconductor Company Qualcomm, whose CEO declared to thunderous applause that it was setting up a $150 million fund that would invest in the Indian innovation ecosystem and domestic start-ups. Qualcomm Executive Chairman Paul Jacobs also took a leaf out of the Mr Modi’s playbook by announcing that it would look to spearhead a ‘Design in India’ www.governancetoday.co.in

movement. Experts believe that Mr Modi successfully positioned India as an alternative to China, which has a taut relationship with Silicon Valley.

Facebook and Google are banned from the country, and the US government has accused China of stealing corporate trade secrets through cyber-spying. In a recent note, Baird Research analysts said India’s economy is growing faster than China’s, and could develop a larger consumer class within a decade.

Mr Modi’s visit has dispelled the myth that Indian tech companies are taking away jobs from American professionals. According to a report released by National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) recently, the Indian tech industry contributed nearly 411,000 jobs to the U.S. economy this year. The report states that India-based information technology companies providing services to American businesses and other customers invested more than $2 billion in 2011-2013; paid $22.5 billion in taxes to the US Treasury in those years; and today support more than direct and indirect www.governancetoday.co.in

411,000 jobs in the US – including 300,000 held by the US citizens and permanent residents.

The report also documented charitable activities by Indian IT services companies in the U.S. through volunteers, scholarships and grants such as a $35 million gift from Tata Consultancy Services to Carnegie Mellon University announced last month.

The report further noted that states leading the number of direct jobs created by India IT sector operations and investments are California, Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Ohio, Washington, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Texas, Michigan, Illinois, California and Georgia had the fastest rate of job growth in 2011-2013.

In addition to jobs, investments and taxes paid, the report estimates that philanthropic activities by Indian IT companies touched more than 120,000 American lives in 2011-2013, with a major focus on educating more Americans in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills increasingly needed by the US employers. The report also lists

several recent examples of grants by leading India-based IT services companies including a $1 million grant by Infosys in computer science education in the US schools; an $8 million commitment from Wipro to support fellowships for STEM education teachers; and a $35 million commitment from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to Carnegie Mellon University in August for a new 40,000 squarefoot technology building plus fellowships and scholarships for outstanding students.

(The writer is a Member- Task Force (IT), Ministry of Shipping, Roads and Highway, and Ex National Co-Convener, IT Cell, BJP) October 2015 I

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ART & CULTURE

Treat for thinking film goers The third edition of the Woodpecker film festival brought powerful issues in the limelight Ramesh Kumar Raja DELHIITES HAD a rare opportunity to catch an engaging mix of Indian and international films and documentaries on diverse themes in the recently concluded Woodpecker International Film Festival (WFF). The festival, in its third edition, showcased a wide variety of films focusing on critical social, ecological and development issues like environment and wildlife, health and sanitation, livelihoods, gender, children etc. In addition, films on religion and spirituality, art and culture, and CSR were also a part of the festival this year. The festival is unique in the sense that on one hand it showcases films and documentaries on powerful contemporary issues and, on the other, it also strives to bring lesser known cinema to India.

The festival opened on September 16 amidst filmmakers and film enthusiasts while discussing about future of issue-based cinema.

The inaugural film of the festival was “The Thin Red Ribbon” by Delhibased filmmaker Ishani K Dutta.

The film is about HIV positive children in Tabitha Children’s home at Imphal, Manipur. The festival continued till September 20 at Siri Fort Auditorium. Prominent films that were screened during the festival included “India’s Wandering Lions” by Praveen Singh and Martin Dohrn, “The Forgotten Tigers”

by Krishnendu Bose, “Nagaland is Changing...But” by Gurmeet Sapal, “Black Pepper White Pepper”

by Ishani K Dutta, “Santhara (A challenge to Indian Secularism?)” by Shekhar Hattangadi, “Modhikhane Char” by Sourav Sarangi, to name a few. According to Narender Yadav, founder director of the festival, “It’s 66 I October 2015

quite encouraging to see that every year WFF gets wonderful stories of change and hope in the form of hundreds of documentaries and short films.

The objective of the festival is to promote issue-based cinema. Our festival’s vision is to showcase films that promote discussions, expand expectations, challenge attitudes and change lives. In fact, we look at the festival as a mission to promote issue-based cinema globally and explore the power of storytelling through films to create a better world.” According to renowned actor Avijit Dutt, who was the chair of the festival jury, “Filmmakers who work in this segment are always looking for a platform to showcase their work and I think Woodpecker Film Festival has done a commendable work in providing this platform.”

Ishani K Dutta, director of “Black Pepper White Pepper”, is of the view that “Woodpecker Film Festival is unique – that’s what makes it attractive and stand out in the crowd. There’s a clear outof-the-box thinking at work here – you will see it in the way they select and organize their films. It’s quite encouraging for filmmakers of every hue and shade – all this festival is concerned about is the strength of the content and the quality of the production. Woodpeckers of the same feather get an opportunity to flock together here, and some of them fly really high.”

Talking about her film, Dutta says, “It was a real challenge making a film about people whom history has somewhat forgotten and about events that happened over 100 years

ago. Whatsoever, we took the task upon ourselves, started speaking to experts, tried re-creating the era and understand the emotions of those soldiers – and here’s the result. Black Pepper White Pepper reveals a more or less untold chapter in India’s history – and I believe this is a story that everyone should know.”

According to Gurmeet Sappal, director of “Nagaland is Changing...

But”, “Woodpecker Film Festival has emerged as a great platform to showcase our own films, watch the work of other directors and interact with the peers.”

As per Ashish Chopra, festival advisor, “India is a nation of diversity with many stories and stories within stories. Some stories are happy and some are sad. Each of these stories have some message to convey. The festival and forum in its third edition portrayed such short films and documentaries. This year we had a special focus on the northeastern part of India - a land with diverse culture, traditions, music, cuisines, beliefs, myths, biodiversity and home to almost 100 tribes and sub-tribes. The filmmakers from the North East are highly talented and WFF is a fantastic platform to watch and appreciate their work.”

A major attraction of the festival was Nigerian cinema. Four Nigerian feature films were screened during the festival this year. These were “Doll House”, “Brothers”, “Knocking on Heaven’s Doors” and “Chamagne”. Several filmmakers from Nigeria were also present in the festival including Emem Isong, Onyeka Nwelue and Azubuike Erinugha. This year 14 awards were www.governancetoday.co.in

Still from the ‘Thin Red Ribbon’

presented in 12 different categories.

The award jury was headed by veteran actor Avijit Dutt. In addition, three senior filmmakers were awarded with Woodpecker Achiever Awards. These were Shekhar Hattangadi, Anil Yadav and Praveen Singh.

The Woodpecker Film Festival and Forum was started in 2013

by Narender Yadav, a former journalist and development communication expert. It was an extremely important year for the Indian Film Industry as it marked the completion of 100 years of Indian cinema. There were a lot of festivals and events that were being organized on this occasion in India as well as abroad. However, almost all these events were focusing only on Bollywood. None of these were celebrating the diversity of cinema that India has produced in the last 100 years, which includes short films, documentaries and www.governancetoday.co.in

experimental cinema. The WFF was thus a tribute to the Indian cinema for its ability to nurture diverse genres of films and filmmaking traditions in the country.

Today, the India cinema is at an important crossroad. While the distinction between mainstream and parallel cinema is almost getting blurred, a new breed of alternative filmmakers, successfully blending entertainment and meaningful cinema, is taking ground. The WFF aims to showcase this rich mélange of visual creativity in the country and also to promote films, documentaries focusing on socially pertinent themes like environment and wildlife, livelihoods, gender, children, tribals etc. through this festival. It’s quite a challenging task to organize a festival that focuses on alternative cinema.

Says Narender Yadav, “Firstly, it’s extremely difficult to find funders/sponsors for this kind of

initiatives. We organize this festival with extremely tight budgets and with some in-kind support from organizations. Secondly, it’s difficult to find committed audience for documentary and short films.

In fact, through our festival we are creating a new set of audience who can enjoy as well as understand the relevance and importance of independent cinema.” In the last three years, Yadav says, there have been several memorable incidents.

For instance, renowned filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who was kind enough to give us his National Award winning film “Celluloid Man’ for screening, as the inaugural film, in the very first edition of the festival. We have been getting incredible response from filmmakers since the first edition itself. ramesh@governancetoday.co.in

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EVENT REPORT

India’s Payment Corridor Towards cashless future

Unveiling of magazine during the inaugural session THE TREND of paperless transactions through the Internet, cards and mobile devices is increasing among people as the ease of doing anytime payment is attracting more and more people to avoid cash transactions. But even as cashless transactions are increasing, a large part of Indian population still prefers cash payments.

and some of our customers are associated with us from very early days who still visit banks for services that can be easily access via internet. So we are trying to convert more and more branch transactions to the channels by educating our customers about the benefits of doing transactions at the comfort of their home.”

With the aim to promote the cashless future, Governance Today had organized ‘India’s Payment Corridors – Towards Cashless Future’ which brought together experts from top banking and financial organization and institutions. The summit acted as a platform for discussing various financial and technical innovations that are taking the financial world by storm, and provided a stage where policy related matters, necessitated by the emergent realities. The event witnessed participation from banking as well as IT fraternity. Inaugural session was attended by Shri Vinit Goenka, Member IT Task Force, Ministries of Shipping and Road Transport and Highways who emphasized on encouraging cashless transactions as it is directly proportional to growth of the economy.

HK Behera, General Manager – Govt. Business & CRLSD, Union Bank of India, mentioned that the bank is coming up with new ways to reach out to its remote customers, especially who are not aware about the advantages of cashless transactions. He added, “We believe that there are large numbers of customers for a bank and we intend to reduce the transaction cost.

In order to achieve this we intend to make a robust alternative delivery channel which will help us to handle large number of customers and in turn lower the cost.”

The participants from the banking industry included Union Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Coastal Local Area Bank, NABARD, HDFC, Bank of India, Yes Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, DCB and many more.

When it comes to the inclusion of IT, Poorna Bolla, Head-IT of Coastal Local Area Bank stated, “We believe that IT infrastructure should be sound for any bank to stay afloat in cut throat competition.”

Prasana Lohar, Head Digital Banking of DCB stated that the bank is continuously coming up with services that pave way for cashless transactions. He added, “Our presence in the sector has been for around 84 years now 68 I October 2015

On IT’s inclusion in banking sector, Rajnish Khare, Head – Digital Transformation & Mobile Banking, HDFC, said, “Technology is one element that can reduce the operation cost. That is why in next decade we would witness increasing number of people talking about services on digital platform.”

S Rajgopalan, DGM-IT, Bank of Maharashtra, also think that technology is the only way to promote cashless economy but educating the customers is also important. He added, “We have still got customers who would not like to use ATM and instead come to branch for cash out of fear of fraud. But we are educating our customers by assuring them that it is safe to use ATMs and internet banking. We need collective effort from the customers as well as from the bank.”

Inextricably linked to the issue of online transaction is the prominence of cyber security. As technology www.governancetoday.co.in

becomes complicated and more pervasive, illicit and illegal activities are also on rise with rogue elements breaking into financial systems to siphon out large sums of money. Bankers and IT companies thus discussed upon trusting data with cloud technology.

difference in cashless transactions and that is why policy makers are pushing for the approaches that would drive the digital payments.

As it came out with discussion, many bankers do not trust their data with cloud while some others trust cloud security.

The session was focused on the challenges faced while planning to move forward with providing cashless services and how to tackle them.

Ruchin Kumar, Security Evangelist – India & SAARC, Gemalto, who provide their services to RBI, explains that at present many banks are not aware about the security features of cloud computing and thus are doubtful for trusting cloud for core-applications.

The summit provided an ideal platform for banking and financial institutions and IT sector to deliberate upon the opportunities as well as challenges that remain ahead for this sector.

Highlights from the Summit Inaugural Session The inaugural session included Shri Vinit Goenka, Member IT Task Force, Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport; Pankaj Jaiswal, MD, Dotcom Services Private Limited; and Champakaraj Gurjar, MD, Maxtone Electronics Pvt. Ltd. Networking.

The discussion centered upon the present scenario of cashless trend in the Indian economy. Pankaj Jaiswal stated the important aspects of cashless economy and how it can drive the economy to inclusive growth.

During the same session, Champakaraj Gurjar focused on how cashless can reduce the cost of printing currencies and direct those resources to better use.

Shri Vinit Goenka compared India with other economies in the world and mentioned Belgium as the example where cashless transactions stand at 93 percent.

He added there is a major problem of unaccounted money in India which can be tackled by bringing in more services that can promote cashless transactions.

Banking Policy for Cashless Transactions in India: Mantra for Spreading Cashless Economy?

The session discussed how the economy can seamlessly go forward with the cashless dream. HK Behera, General Manager – Govt. Business & CRLSD, Union Bank of India, mentioned that banking sector moves along with the policies set by Reserve Bank of India and thus we are working in collaboration to facilitate the same. The positive thing is that Indian government is with us and we will certainly move forward with this dream.

Tushar Trivedi, Sr. EVP – Business Solutions Group, Kotak Mahindra Bank, emphasized on the importance of educating every customer to increase the cashless penetration in remote locations which would ultimately lead to realizing the aim of PMJDY. With internet penetration being 30 percent in India and 45 percent in China, there seems to be huge www.governancetoday.co.in

5A’s of Cashless Dream: Availability, Accessibility, Affordability, Acceptability & Awareness

Subrata Gupta, CGM-FI, NABARD, mentioned how for majority of people using cash is more convenient than digital transactions as cards are not acceptable while travelling by auto or purchasing vegetable from vendors and for other such purchases where cash is used as the medium for payments.

Butchi Burra Babu, DGM-IT, Bank of India, emphasized on the affordability of transferring payments virtually which is much lower than done otherwise.

This is an important factor for those customers who want faster and 24X7 banking services.

KP Saha, MD, Senrysa, shares his experience of working in urban as well as rural areas of the country.

He explains how there is no single solution which can work well in both the scenario. It is easier to implement cashless trend in urban as most of the people are aware about it. However, it is not the same in remote locations and therefore the first thing we need to do is educate our youth.

Next-Gen Payments solutions & security: Transactions to Translations The speakers in the session included Rajendra Mhalsekar, President, Corporate Banking Technology, Yes Bank; Poorna Bolla, Head IT, Coastal Local Area Bank; Ruchin Kumar, Security Evangelist – India & SAARC, Gemalto; and Yadvendra Tyagi, DirectorBusiness Development, Citrus Payments.

The session was focused upon technology giving rise to Next-Gen payment services. The speakers emphasized on how it has become important to introduce robust security features to attract people to undertake online transactions. It is necessary to educate and inform customers about security features as they need to be completely assured while doing e-transactions.

Promoting Digital Money – Cash to No Cash The session was centered upon promoting cashless transactions and focusing on IT development in the banking sector. The speakers for the concluding session were S. Rajgopalan, DGM-IT, Bank of Maharashtra; Avinash Godkhindi, CEO & Director, Zaggle; Prasana Lohar, Head Digital Banking, DCB; and Ruchin Kumar, Security Evangelist – India & SAARC, Gemalto.

The discussion emphasized on the four pillars of cashless namely, government, technology & infrastructure, banking sector and customers. Every pillar has their own set of responsibilities for making virtual transactions easier, economical and most importantly secure.

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Ajit Sinha, CEO, Goveranance Today addressing during the session

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Balaji Parthasarathy, Head Banking, HP during the presentation

Champakraj Gurjar speaking during the inaugural session

K P Saha, MD, Senrysa

Ruchin Kumar, Security Evangelist - India & SAARC, Gemalto

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Vinit Goenka, Member IT Task Force, Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport

Delegates at the registration desk

Delegates interact during the session

Felicitation ceremony

Balaji Parthasarathy from HP and Rajnish Khare from HDFC at the summit

Vinit Goenka and Butchi Burra Babu, Bank of India

Delegates at the summit

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ONE YEAR OF GT

A year in hindsight Taking a look at one year of Governance Today’s journey A YEAR is a fairly small time in overall life of a person or an organization or for that matter a journal. But when we, Governance Today, look back at last one year, we feel a sense of accomplishment. Over the last one year, we have raised issues of critical importance to the overall governance of the country.

That governance is a complex, multifaceted and multilayered exercise needs no underscoring or repetition; it is very well realized.

But what is not fully understood or acknowledged is the efforts that go in the process of governance and the challenges that the policy makers face in the same. It has been our endeavor to bring out the most pressing challenges facing the nation, and how central and state governments are facing them.

As we complete our first year, we present an encapsulation of our journey during which our endeavor has been to present a matter-offactly, objective analysis of issues without any biases. As always, we welcome responses, criticism and suggestions from all our readers for improvements which is a never ending process.

October 2014: Setting the Agenda In our inaugural edition, we set the agenda for our coverage of major issues facing the country. From foreign affairs to financial inclusion and healthcare and education, we tried to probe what is the status of the sector as they exist, what are government planning or thinking on these crucial sectors and what are the challenges that are there.

We also took a close look at the 72 I October 2015

efforts of cleaning up corruption in judicial system.

November 2014: Science & Tech It is a wellknown fact that no country has grown fast without having a strong scientific industrial base.

India is no exception. If it has to grow fast and claim its rightful place in the world, it has to have large number of highly trained scientists and technicians. The edition took a close look at the state of scientific and technological progress of India, its challenges and the policies of the government on this crucial issue. Through interviews of leading scientists and policy makers, we also tried to find what is most required to make India and technological powerhouse.

December 2014: Power and Energy It is no secret that India is a highly power deficient country. On one hand, we intend to make India a manufacturing powerhouse, and on the other, we are unable to provide reliable electricity to industry or for that matter even to households. The problems and reasons for the massive power and energy deficiency that India faces were discussed in this edition which also probed the promise of alternative sources of energy such as solar power, wind power and hydro power.

January 2015: Reinventing Governance Application of technology in governance has shown the potential to revolutionize the way governments interact with public, offer public services and plan various schemes. Indian government has embarked on the e-governance drive and launched various initiatives towards the same. But how good are these initiatives?

More importantly, are our institutions ready for such transformative change and is Indian public tech-literate enough to absorb these changes? Governance Today tried to find out how best can e-governance be incorporated in our governance structure and what are the preparations required at various levels.

February 2015: Indo-US Relations In 2015, for the first time in history, a US President became the chief guest at India’s republic day celebration. It was also for the first time that a sitting US President visited India for the second time. These indicate a radical change in IndiaUS relations. As US puts its Pivot to Asia in practice, a growing strategic dimension to the relation between the two countries could have serious and long lasting impact on the Asia Pacific region. We analyzed the entire bilateral, regional and multilateral dimensions of the new dynamism in India-US relations.

March 2015: Gender Bias Our March edition focused on perhaps the most disturbing aspect www.governancetoday.co.in

of India’s social life, which is ill treatment of and violence against women. It not only presented the real status of women in our society, but also analyzed the deep rooted social maladies responsible for the pathetic state of women in our country today.

It simultaneously chronicled how despite such massive odds against them, women are fighting back and claiming their well-deserved place in all walks of life.

April 2015: Indian Economy While the Indian economy has come off the bottom of last year, it is hardly in fine fettle.

Agriculture has been in doldrums for some time now, industrial production has not been consistently sound, external trade is not looking good and supply shocks are not allowing inflation to come down. But there is a sense of positivity among industry players.

In this edition, Governance Today studied the status of Indian economy, grey areas and how government is trying to fix it.

May 2015: Education in India Even though India is one of the largest exporters of doctors and technologists to developed world, not one of Indian academic institutions is in global top 200.

Our students rank near bottom of global examinations results in science and math. Public education

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is nearly nonexistent, even in urban India. The situation is not much different in secondary and tertiary education in which barring a few institutions, rest don’t have any quality. We took a look on what is wrong with our education system and what is the way out of the mess.

June 2015: Internal Security India is faced with multiple internal security challenges that range from religious fanatic terrorism to Naxalism.

It is facing terrorist threats in Kashmir as well as in Northeast.

Additionally, Naxal violence is akin to a low intensity civil war which has been raging for over three decades now. However, the country is yet to come up with a concerted policy of handling these internal security threats and the entire internal security apparatus is lost in multitude of institutions and rules that don’t get well with each other. In this edition, Governance Today analyzed what’s wrong with our approach and how can we improve.

July 2015: Agriculture in India It is surprising that despite yearly steep hikes in agro produces, the condition of farmers in the country has continued to deteriorate.

The profession of agriculture has not changed in last fifty years.

Poor planning, non-application of technology, poor irrigation and too much dependence on rains, too many people depending on reducing farmland and uneducated farmer class are some of the major reasons why agriculture is lagging

in India and farmers are leaving farms to become laborers. But without a thriving farming sector, India cannot progress evenly and equitably.

August 2015: Social Justice In this edition, we probed the complex issue of social justice in India, which has been mostly used as a vote grabber rather than as a tool of upliftment of a vast section of society.

Resultantly, even after nearly seven decades of independence, the disadvantaged sections of society are living a send class life with little hope. Our methods of imparting social justice have not focused on creating an environment in which a large number of people from such disadvantaged classes are empowered to claim their rightful place in society.

Sept 2015: Banking Sector It is common knowledge that an unhealthy banking sector cannot finance an economic recovery.

As Indian economy takes tentative steps towards recovery, it is imperative that banking sector is well capitalized, has clean balance sheets and is open for business.

However, today, the banking sector is saddled with unsustainable level of bad debts, is undercapitalized and vast sections of it, especially public sector banks, are highly inefficient. On the other hand, RBI is taking determined steps to overhaul the sector by reforming norms and setting up new classes of banks like payment banks and small banks.

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