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இன்றைய செய்திகள்:

கடலூர் மாவட்ட செய்திகள்




வெள்ளி, நவம்பர் 18, 2011

கடலூர் மாவட்டத்தில் மீண்டும் கனமழை இயல்பு வாழ்க்கை பாதிப்பு


கடலூர் ஆட்சியர் அலுவலகச் சாலையில் மழையில் நனைந்தபடி வகுப்புகளுக்குச் செல்லும் கல்லூரி மாணவிகள்.
கடலூர்:

            கடலூரில் புதன்கிழமை இரவு முதல் மீண்டும் பெய்யத் தொடங்கியுள்ள கன மழையால் மக்களின் இயல்பு வாழ்க்கை பாதிக்கப் பட்டுள்ளது.வங்கக் கடலில் காற்றழுத்த தாழ்வு மண்டலம் உருவாகியிருப்பதால் கடலூர் மாவட்டம் முழுவதும் மீண்டும் பரவலாக நல்ல மழை பெய்து வருகிறது. கடந்த இரு வாரங்களுக்கு முன் பெய்து வந்த மழை புதன்கிழமை இரவு முதல் மீண்டும் பெய்யத் தொடங்கியது. 

            வியாழக்கிழமை காலை முதல் கன மழை பெய்தது. இதனால் கடலூரில் பொதுமக்களின் இயல்பு வாழ்க்கை பாதிக்கப்பட்டது. கல்லூரி மற்றும் பள்ளி மாணவ மாணவியர் பெருதும் பாதிக்கப்பட்டனர். தெருக்கள், சாலைகள் அனைத்திலும் மழை நீர் குளம்போல் தேங்கி, போக்குவரத்துக்கு பெரிதும் பாதிப்பை ஏற்படுத்தியது. ஏற்கெனவே மோசமான நிலையில் இருந்த சாலைகள், மக்களுக்கு மீண்டும் சங்கடத்தை ஏற்படுத்தின. விவசாயிகள் இந்த மழையைப் பெரிதும் வரவேற்று உள்ளனர். 

இதுகுறித்து கடலூர் மாவட்ட உழவர் மன்றங்களின் கூட்டமைப்பு தலைவர் பி.ரவீந்திரன் கூறுகையில், 

          இப்போது விட்டு விட்டு பெய்து வரும் வடகிழக்குப் பருவமழை விவசாயிகளுக்கு பெரிதும் பயனளிப்பதாக இருக்கும். சம்பா நெற்பயிருக்கு யூரியா தட்டுப்பாடு உள்ள நிலையில் விட்டுவிட்டுப் பெய்து வரும் மழையால், பயிர்களுக்கு நைட்ரஜன் சத்து இயற்கையாகக் கிடைக்கும் வாய்ப்பு உள்ளது. கடந்த இரு வாரமாக மழை ஓய்ந்து இருந்தது. எனவே ஆழ்குழாய் கிணற்றுப் பாசனப் பகுதிகளில், மின்மோட்டார்கள் மூலம் தண்ணீர் வழங்க வேண்டிய நிலை ஏற்பட்டது. ஆனால் தொடந்து அதிகரித்து வரும் மின்வெட்டால், போதிய தண்ணீர் வழங்க முடியாமல் விவசாயிகள் கவலையுடன் இருந்தனர். இந்த நிலையில் இப்போது தொடங்கியுள்ள மழை, ஆழ்குழாய் கிணற்றுப் பாசன விவசாயிகளும் வரவேற்கத் தகுந்ததாக அமைந்து உள்ளது என்றார்.










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Velmurugan to launch new party in ‘Thai’


Expelled PMK Joint general secretary T.Velmurugan addressing his supporters at a meeting held at Town hall in cuddalore. A file photo: C. Venkatachalapathy

 
         Expelled PMK Joint general secretary T.Velmurugan addressing his supporters at a meeting held at Town hall in cuddalore.

          Ruling out any rapproachment with the PMK leadership, former MLA T. Velmurugan, who was expelled from the party, on Thursday, announced his decision to launch a new political outfit, possibly in the Tamil month of Thai. “I am in touch with my supporters and well wishers and we are discussing the name for the party and a flag besides the motto of the party. I hope we will in a position to launch the party in Thai,” he told the reporters here.

          Asked whether he would consider the option of going back to the PMK if former minister Anbumani Ramadoss convinced the party leadership about taking him back, Mr Velmurugan said “now it is impossible for me to work with the PMK.” “Mr Anbumani Ramadoss wanted me to remain patient after I was shown the doors. Many days passed and he could not do anything. Moreover, he remained a mute spectator and never intervened in my support when Dr Ramadoss and others humiliated me in the high level political committee,” he explained.

       Mr Velmurugan reiterated that ninety per cent of the party workers and leaders had expressed solidarity with him while the PMK, had been reduced to a private sector company, represented by a few leaders, mostly those who were averse to the idea of taking him back to the party. He also said he had adequate resources and capacity to run a political party since in the past he had successfully organised public meetings and mobilised funds for election campaigns through his contacts. “It was I who spent the money for the PMK candidate in Puducherry Lok Sabha polls. I was in charge of Pennagaram Assembly by elections and I am capable of running a party with the support of people cutting across caste lines,” he stressed.

         When reminded that in the past many PMK leaders such as Dheeran, Dalit Ezhilmalai, P.T. Elangovan and P.T. Arulmozhi, who were expelled from the party failed to make any impact, Mr. Velmurugan said that was why he was not in a hurry to launch a party. “I want to make proper arrangements before plunging into action. Wait and see,” he said. Mr Velmurugan said he was not ready to criticise any political party like PMK founder Ramadoss, who he said was known for blindly opposing parties such as the Congress and the BJP after being in their company in the Centre. 










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Public distribution system reforms and Aadhaar In Cuddalore District

The promotion of the PDS as an Aadhaar application would fundamentally alter its form and character.


In Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu: The portability proposed under the UID project is largely incompatible with static fair price shops.


         NO scheme of the Indian government would be transformed more fundamentally by Aadhaar than the public distribution system (PDS). The nature of this transformation appears to be taking the form of a virtual dismantling of the PDS; even if a skeletal fair price shop (FPS, or ration shop) system continues to exist, it is likely to be squeezed to death sooner than later.

           Universal PDS was established in India in 1965 as part of a national food policy. An important feature of this policy was the integration of food procurement and distribution. The government procured foodgrains from farmers at a procurement price and distributed the grain across the country through the PDS. The policy was formed on the basis of experience that showed the market to be a poor substitute for state action in moving foodgrains.

          In the period after 1965, the outcomes of state intervention in the food economy were mixed. On the one hand, the PDS acted as a check against exacerbation of regional disparities in foodgrain consumption (see “Food insecurities”, Frontline, July 17, 2010). On the other hand, the PDS was not serving a large section of India's population and its performance across States, judged by the off-take of grain, varied considerably. Thus, by the 1990s, the challenge was how to extend the PDS to more regions and sections. However, the official policy after 1991 took the PDS on a different trajectory.

           In 1997, the government abolished universal PDS and replaced it with targeted PDS (TPDS). The population was classified into above poverty line (APL) and below poverty line (BPL) households. Only BPL households were eligible for subsidised grain. The experience after 1997 shows that TPDS led to the exclusion of a massive section of the poor from the PDS. There were major mismatches between households classified as APL and their actual standard of living.

‘Inefficiency' is policy-induced

           Thus, the poor “efficiency” of the PDS under the neoliberal regime was a policy-induced phenomenon. The critical problem with the PDS today is that it remains narrowly targeted. Needless to say, Aadhaar cannot address this problem; it is a non sequitur. The draft National Food Security Bill, released in September 2011, does not seek a return to a universal PDS. Instead, it disingenuously renames BPL households as “Priority” households and splits APL households into two: (a) “General” households; and (b) the rest, who are totally excluded from the PDS. Five features of the Bill are notable.

            First, the share of Priority and General households will continue to be based on the Tendulkar poverty lines, which were at the centre of the recent controversy over poverty lines. Second, General households will be entitled to a smaller quantity of foodgrains than the Priority households, at higher prices. Third, the strength of the entitlement right for General households will be weaker than for Priority households. Fourth, no more than 75 per cent of the rural households, and 50 per cent of the urban households can come under the ambit of the PDS. Fifth, schemes such as cash transfers and food coupons are allowed to replace foodgrain entitlements, if the government so wishes.

         Clearly, the first four features keep the proposed system substantially close to the existing TPDS. The fifth feature is intended to undermine the PDS and replace it with food coupons or cash transfers. Scholarly opinion in India today is significantly in favour of a return to universal PDS. However, a powerful lobby of the ruling elite and a section of economists are resisting it. Aadhaar is a tool in the hands of this lobby to ensure that universal PDS is never reinstated. The official thinking on PDS reforms is already available in “Economic Survey 2009-10”. The official thinking on the use of Aadhaar in the PDS is available in a working paper of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). It claims that there are massive leakages in the PDS caused by the widespread circulation of “bogus ration cards”. It claims that Aadhaar can eliminate bogus ration cards.

            Indeed, such an inversion of the problems in the PDS – an exaggerated focus on leakages and fake ration cards – is a necessary self-justification for the government and the UIDAI. The government wants to establish that the existing PDS is “inefficient” and needs phasing out. The UIDAI wants to establish that fake ration cards are the biggest challenge to the PDS and that any PDS reform has to “leverage” Aadhaar. Indeed, fake ration cards exist in most States and eliminating them is a major challenge. However, two important points need to be noted. First, the proportion of fake ration cards across the States is small, ranging from 2 to 13 per cent. Secondly, many States have already identified fake ration cards and eliminated them even before the introduction of Aadhaar. The annual report for 2010-11 of the Department of Food and Civil Supplies notes that 208.57 lakh fake ration cards were eliminated across 26 States, as of December 2010. In many of these States, the issue of new ration cards and PDS operations are at advanced levels of computerisation. Some States have successfully introduced hologram-enabled technologies to eliminate duplicate ration cards. Further, the frailties of biometrics in proving identity beyond doubt raises major questions about such claims regarding Aadhaar.

           The exaggerated focus on fake ration cards can be challenged from another angle. In the operation of the PDS, there are two major sources of leakage. First, there are leakages after foodgrains leave the godown and before they reach the fair price shop. Secondly, there are leakages between the FPS and the customers. Any observer of the PDS knows that the major proportion of leakages belong to the former category, and the latter accounts for only a small proportion.

PDS reforms and Aadhaar

           Many States have already begun reforming their PDS networks using GPS-monitored and coloured trucks that carry grains from godowns to fair price shops. SMS alerts are sent to village residents over stock movements at their FPS, thus empowering them with information. In all these efforts, the priority focus was on leakages before the grain reached the fair price shop. Aadhaar has no role here. Yet, the government persists with the use of Aadhaar as a necessary premise for PDS reform. This is where the plan to dismantle the PDS using Aadhaar unfurls.

          According to the UIDAI working paper, the government needs to liberalise the allocation of fair price shops to reduce PDS leakages and beneficiaries should be given freedom to choose the best fair price shop. The paper argues that “two aspects of the Aadhaar-enabled system – linking grain allocation to authenticated off-take, and choice of FPS for the beneficiary – would enable a significant shift from the present approach, where foodgrain allocations within the PDS are static, supply-led and divorced from beneficiary demand and choice. The Aadhaar-enabled approach would instead help create a demand-led, dynamic system.”

           According to the paper, “systemic efficiency” can be improved by substituting fair price shops with food stamps or direct cash transfers. An identical view is expressed in the “Report of the Task Force on an IT Strategy for PDS and an Implementable Solution for the Direct Transfer of Subsidy for Food and Kerosene” (chaired, again, by Nandan Nilekani), submitted in October 2011. The arguments in “Economic Survey 2009-10” and the UIDAI paper are repeated here; they include providing “beneficiaries maximum choice” and introducing “token-agnostic technology solutions” like “direct cash transfers”. .

          The UIDAI paper further claims that Aadhaar can enable PDS to be “portable”. Thus, a migrant worker can buy his/her PDS quota from anywhere in India. The claim, of course, has a deceptive appeal. One would have to dig deeper to grasp the real intent.

Portable PDS?

           At present, each fair price shop has a specified number of households registered with it and stores grain only for them. The shop owner would not know how many migrant workers might approach him and demand grain, and for what periods. Hence, for lack of stock, he would turn the migrants away. In other words, the proposed portability of the PDS is largely incompatible with static fair price shops. Even if these outlets were fully computerised, the nature of circular and seasonal migration would ensure that the system could not respond optimally.

          If full portability of the PDS is insisted upon – and this is what proponents of Aadhaar do – there is only one way out: do away with the fair price shops, accredit grocery shops to sell grain against food stamps, and allow these shops to compete with one another. According to the government's plan, while food stamps are the medium-term solution, the long-term solution is a shift to direct cash transfers. Food stamps and cash transfers can be provided through Aadhaar numbers. Clearly, a shift to food stamps and cash transfers would mean an end to the fair price shop model.

            In fact, if we consider a limited form of PDS portability as adequate, it could easily be implemented within the present system, using hologram-enabled cards or smart cards. However, nothing short of “leveraging Aadhaar” appears palatable to its proponents. Typically, food stamps are worth an amount that households can exchange to buy food from any seller. However, there are very few countries that have found success with food stamp schemes. A number of generic problems have plagued food stamp schemes across most countries (see Madhura Swaminathan, “Targeted Food Stamps”, The Hindu, August 3, 2004).
First, food stamps are rarely indexed for inflation. With a rise in inflation, the real value of the stamps falls. According to Kaushik Basu, Adviser to the Finance Minister, this can be addressed by adjusting the value of stamps annually, on the basis of an expected inflation rate for the next year. Basu should surely know that this would be no piece of cake.

           Secondly, possession of food stamps does not always translate into physical access to food. In many countries, shops either did not stock the commodities linked to stamps or simply refused to sell commodities against stamps. Thirdly, food stamps are difficult to administer. There are always delays in issuing food stamps and reimbursing the shops. Stamps are also faked on a large scale. For these reasons, replacing the PDS with food stamps not only would be impetuous, but also would inflict new burdens on the poor.

Direct cash transfers?

              According to Basu, “a system with directed cash transfers would, arguably, be better than…the direct delivery of foodgrains to the poor through…ration shops”. In direct cash transfers, a specific amount of money is transferred to a household to meet a specific need. The argument is that giving cash can reduce transaction costs of the government and lead to faster delivery and expanded beneficiary choice. Can direct cash transfers be an effective substitute to the PDS? Without judging the utility of direct cash transfers as a complementary effort to transfer resources to the poor, there are strong reasons why it cannot be an effective substitute to the PDS. First, the emergence of the PDS in India was part of a national food policy that tried to address the interests of consumers and producers. It was an integrated system of food procurement and distribution. Any dismantling of the PDS would also mean an end to procurement, which forms an important institutional support to India's peasantry. Secondly, money is fungible. For any household, a cash transfer would by no means ensure an equivalent quantity of food purchase or calorie intake.

           Thirdly, by definition, cash transfers are less self-selecting than the PDS. Self-selection means that households that do not want a particular provision voluntarily withdraw from accessing it. A classic example is the pre-1997 universal PDS in Kerala, where studies showed a tendency among richer households to withdraw from PDS purchases. However, when transfers are made in cash, the incentive to self-select declines significantly. Finally, just as for food stamps, a rise in inflation would lead to a fall in the real value of cash transfers.

          In sum, the promotion of the PDS as an Aadhaar application would fundamentally alter its form and character. Montek Singh Ahluwalia stated recently: “We have to rework the system. If we simply introduce UID without re-engineering the system, it wouldn't work.” What is clear is that this re-engineering would be nothing short of a virtual dismantling of the PDS.




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School Teachers against SMS-tracking system

          The recent announcement by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to introduce an SMS-based monitoring system to ensure attendance of teachers in government schools has obviously put the teachers in a tight spot. Even as the noble profession’s practitioners are fuming over this sudden need for regulation, educationists and parents are measured in their reaction, stating that the initiative, though well-intentioned, is not fool-proof.

          Impressed by a presentation made by Cuddalore District Collector V Amuthavalli, the CM recently announced that an SMS-tracking system to ensure the attendance of teachers in all government schools would soon be introduced across the state. Under this system, the headmasters of every school would have to send an SMS to a designated number every morning reporting the staff strength for the day. The school will carry its unique code, and the compilation of this report would be made available for scrutiny to the Chief Educational Officer and District Educational Officer. The National Infomatics Centre will use a software to convert the SMSes to text documents for this purpose. This system, being enforced in Cuddalore since July this year, is expected to be extended across the state soon.

            However, recipients of this sudden form of scrutiny — the teachers — are a peeved lot. “Why should it be only teachers who are subject to this form of double-checking? If the goal is to ensure that the public is benefitted, then why not introduce it first in Primary Health Care Centres with doctors,” says a teacher in a government school in the city, on condition of anonymity. She was echoing the sentiments of teachers in the Cuddalore district, who protested the initiative vehemently, calling it unfair if it was introduced only among the teaching fraternity.

        Also, if the list of defaulting teachers was being handed over to an official within the education department itself, it is possible that no stringent action will be taken, says Mallika, mother of a Class 6 student in a government school here, questioning the effectiveness of such a measure. “The state has appointed District Education Officers and Assistant Education Officers for the purpose of ensuring teacher attendance. There are also Block Resource Teachers and Supervisors in every block to ensure that the education of students is carried on without hassles. Then, why should another layer of scrutiny be added?” asks V Annamalai, South Zonal Secretary of the All India Teachers Federation. “The scheme seems poised to reach government and government-aided schools and teachers will soon present a memo to the CM on the issue,” he adds. There are 3,75,000 teachers in the state in government and government-aided schools.

         Renowned educationist SS Rajagopalan says that such a regulation should only be self-imposed to be successful. As per the statute, any District Educational Officer should have only 30 schools to inspect. “But upon verification, we found that one district in the state has 136 schools coming under the purview of a DEO. We should strengthen the inspectorates for the healthy functioning of the system, instead of introducing another line of supervision,” he says.













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