Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The Politics of Welfare -Alam Srinivas

The Politics of Welfare -Alam Srinivas

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jul 17, 2015   modified Modified on Jul 17, 2015
-Tehelka

If governance is his priority, Narendra Modi has to detach politics from welfare schemes. He has to ensure that the locals are treated as critical stakeholders

It is a fight that has raged on for a decade. It is a battle to ensure that poor children and deprived pregnant and lactating women get a nutritious diet. It is a war to rightfully implement the grandiose central scheme, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). It is a cause, in which the civil society and Supreme Court (SC) had to intervene regularly to prevent the central and state regimes from side-stepping, bypassing and over-ruling the rules that were set by the apex court.

Although the original intentions of the policy makers were honest — they wanted poor children and mothers to eat well —ICDS was derailed because of obvious reasons like corruption, inefficiency and non-governance. In most states, it became a case of policy- and implementation-capture; powerful interest groups appropriated the scheme, and took it away from the locals. Politicians, bureaucrats and private contractors shared the central booty amongst themselves.

The core issue is that at the end of the day local communities at the village level should manage their own destinies. They need to decide how to run the welfare schemes, including the icds, so that the schemes remain corruption-free and benefit the poor. It is the involvement of locals that can keep out the politico-corporate vested interests that have hijacked most of the welfare plans. This should be a priority area for Narendra Modi if he is serious about ‘maximum governance’.

In a letter dated 25 May, 2015 to the Maharashtra government, NC Saxena, commissioner, and Harsh Mander, special commissioner, both of whom were appointed by the sc to monitor icds, wrote that the idea was to create a decentralised model. “Such a model not only allows for greater monitoring by the community but also provides employment/livelihood opportunities for a large number of poor women and encourages demand for local produce,” they said. They added that implementation of such schemes “through centralised mechanisms… are manipulated in favour of commercial interests.”

Please click here to read more.

Tehelka, 25 July, 2015, http://www.tehelka.com/the-politics-of-welfare/?singlepage=1


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close