Friday, August 5, 2011

National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi

National Advisory Council

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Advisory Council
New NAC.jpg
Sonia Gandhi and the fourteen members
Agency overview
FormedJune 2004
JurisdictionGovernment of India (Union Government)
HeadquartersNew Delhi
Agency executiveSonia Gandhi, Chairman
Website
Official site
 

The National Advisory Council (NAC) of India is an advisory body set up to monitor the implementation of the UPA government's manifesto, the Common Minimum Programme(CMP). It is a brainchild of Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi. It is also informally called as UPA's Planning Commission for social agenda. On 23 March 2006, Sonia gandhi had resigned from the post of chairmanship of the NAC after Office of profit controversy. On 29 March 2010, she was back as the chairperson of NAC.

Contents

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[edit]History

NAC was set up on 4 June 2004 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during UPA-I, to implement the National Common Minimum Programme, or CMP. [1]

[edit]Organisation

The leader of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson of NAC, holding the status of a cabinet minister. The other members of this council are nominated by the prime minister in consultation with the chairperson. The funds for the functioning of this council are provided from the budgetary allocation for the Prime Minister's Office.

[edit]NAC - II (2010 - present)

The NAC - II is a mix of activists, retired bureaucrats, economists, politicians and an industrialist.

The NAC secretariat has Rita Sharma as its Secretary.[3][4]

[edit]Focus areas

  • Natural resource management, including revitalisation of agriculture,
  • Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
  • Welfare of minorities
  • Poverty elimination and employment generation
  • Land rights and land reforms
  • Right to education, disadvantaged children
  • Health security and medical insurance
  • Social security and safety net for the disadvantaged groups
  • Urban poverty
  • Development of the northeast
  • Special Component plan for Scheduled Castes and the tribal sub-plan for Scheduled Tribes.

[edit]NAC - I (2004 - 2006)

[edit]Achievements

The RTE act neglected the constitutional rights of tribal councils in north east India, which are the bodies having controlling powers over Elementary Education in their respective areas.

[edit]Criticisms

The NAC has been criticized by opposition parties and scholars as not in keeping with India's constitution, and that it would emerge as an alternative, unelected cabinet. [5][6][7][8]
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MNREGA


Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Indian Rupee symbol.svg120 (US$2.68) per day in 2009 prices.[1] The Central government outlay for scheme is Indian Rupee symbol.svg40,000 crore (US$8.92 billion) in FY 2010-11.[2]
This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Around one-third of the stipulated work force is women. The law was initially called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) but was renamed on 2 October 2009.[3]


Political background

A NREGA Worksite in Kerala
This act was brought about by the UPA coalition government supported by the left parties. The promise of this project is considered by many to be one of the major reasons for the re-election of the UPA in the Indian general election, 2009[weasel words].
Dr. Jean Drèze, a Belgian born economist, at the Delhi School of Economics, has been a major influence on this project.[4] A variety of peoples movements and organisations actively campaigned for this act.[5]

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The plan

The act directs state governments to implement MGNREGA "schemes". Under the MGNREGA the Central Government meets the cost towards the payment of wage, 3/4 of material cost and some percentage of administrative cost. State Governments meet the cost of unemployment allowance, 1/4 of material cost and administrative cost of State council. Since the State Governments pay the unemployment allowance, they are heavily incentivized to offer employment to workers.
However, it is up to the State Government to decide the amount of unemployment allowance, subject to the stipulation that it not be less than 1/4 the minimum wage for the first 30 days, and not less than 1/2 the minimum wage thereafter. 100 days of employment (or unemployment allowance) per household must be provided to able and willing workers every financial year.

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Provisions under NREGA

  • Adult members of a rural household, willing to do unskilled manual work, may apply for registration in writing or orally to the local Gram Panchayat
  • The Gram Panchayat after due verification will issue a Job Card. The Job Card will bear the photograph of all adult members of the household willing to work under NREGA and is free of cost.
  • The Job Card should be issued within 15 days of application.
  • A Job Card holder may submit a written application for employment to the Gram Panchayat, stating the time and duration for which work is sought. The minimum days of employment have to be at least fourteen.
  • The Gram Panchayat will issue a dated receipt of the written application for employment, against which the guarantee of providing employment within 15 days operates
  • Employment will be given within 15 days of application for work, if it is not then daily unemployment allowance as per the Act, has to be paid liability of payment of unemployment allowance is of the States.
  • Work should ordinarily be provided within 5 km radius of the village. In case work is provided beyond 5 km, extra wages of 10% are payable to meet additional transportation and living expenses
  • Wages are to be paid according to the Minimum Wages Act 1948 for agricultural labourers in the State, unless the Centre notices a wage rate which will not be less than Indian Rupee symbol.svg60 (US$1.34) per day. Equal wages will be provided to both men and women.
Note: The original version of the Act was passed with Rs 60/ day as the minimum wage that needs to be paid under NREGA. However, a lot of states in India already have wage regulations with minimum wages set at more than Indian Rupee symbol.svg100 (US$2.23) per day. NREGA's minimum wage has since been changed to Indian Rupee symbol.svg120 (US$2.68) per day.
  • Wages are to be paid according to piece rate or daily rate. Disbursement of wages has to be done on weekly basis and not beyond a fortnight in any case.
  • At least one-third beneficiaries shall be women who have registered and requested work under the scheme.
  • Work site facilities such as crèche, drinking water, shade have to be provided
  • The shelf of projects for a village will be recommended by the gram sabha and approved by the zilla panchayat.
  • At least 50% of works will be allotted to Gram Panchayats for execution
  • Permissible works predominantly include water and soil conservation, afforestation and land development works
  • A 60:40 wage and material ratio has to be maintained. No contractors and machinery is allowed
  • The Central Govt. bears the 100 percent wage cost of unskilled manual labour and 75 percent of the material cost including the wages of skilled and semi skilled workers
  • Social Audit has to be done by the Gram Sabha
  • Grievance redressal mechanisms have to be put in place for ensuring a responsive implementation process
  • All accounts and records relating to the Scheme should be available for public scrutiny

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History

MNREGA was launched on February 2, 2006 from Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.The project was implemented in phased manner covering 130 districts by year 2007-08.With its spread over 625 districts across the country, the premier flagship program of the UPA Government has raised the productivity, increased the purchasing power, reduced distress migration and helped in creation of durable assets in rural India. This project has a formidable impact on rural India by providing employment to 41 million households in year 2010-11. Also, It has strengthed the social and gender equalty dimensions as 23% workers under the scheme are Scheduled Castes,17% Scheduled Tribes and 50% women.[citation needed]

Funding

MNREGA started with an initial outlay of $2.5bn(Rs 11300cr) in year 2006-07.The funding has considerably been increased as shown in the table below:
YearTotal Outlay(TO)Wage Expenditure(Percent of TO)
2006-07$2.5bn66
2007-08$2.6bn68
2008-09$6.6bn67
2009-10$8.68bn70
2010-11$8.91bn71

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Implementation

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its performance audit of the implementation of MGNREGA has found "significant deficiencies" in the implementation of the act. The plan was launched in February 2006 in 200 districts and eventually extended to cover 593 districts. 44,940,870 rural households were provided jobs under NREGA during 2008-09, with an national average of 48 working days per household.[6] In recent times, nrega workers have faced problems due to delays in payment of wages, some of which have been pending for months.[7]
Employment under NREGAS in 2010
Indian Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday that As of 30 June, a total of 179,43,189 families in the country have been provided employment under MGNREGS.[8]

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Works/Activities

The MGNREGA achieves twin objectives of rural development and employment. The MGNREGA stipulates that works must be targeted towards a set of specific rural development activities such as: water conservation and harvesting, afforestation, rural connectivity, flood control and protection such as construction and repair of embankments, etc. Digging of new tanks/ponds, percolation tanks and construction of small check dams are also given importance. The employers are given work such as land leveling, tree plantation, etc. First a proposal is given by the Panchayat to the Block Office and then the Block Office decides whether the work should be sanctioned.In Rangareddy district manchal mandal the dry land horticulture and plantation of trees on the bunds of the fields taken up under MGVN programme is taken up in a big way.

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Criticisms

Many criticisms have been levelled at the programme, which has been argued to be no more effective than other poverty reduction programmes in India, with key exceptions such as Rajasthan.[9]
The first criticism is financial. The MGNREGA is one of the largest initiatives of its kind in the world.[9] The national budget for the financial year 2006-2007 was Rs 113 billion (about US$2.5bn and almost 0.3% of GDP) and now fully operational, it costs Rs. 391 billion in financial year 2009-2010.[9] Funding was argued by Jean Dreze and others to be possible through improved tax administration and reforms, yet the tax-GDP ratio has actually been falling.[9] There are fears the programme will end up costing 5% of GDP.[9]
Another important criticism is that the public works schemes' completed product (e.g. water conservation, land development, afforestation, provision of irrigation systems, construction of roads, or flood control) is vulnerable to being taken by over wealthier sections of society.[9] A monitoring study of NREGA in Madhya Pradesh showed the types of activities undertaken were more or less standardised across villages, suggesting little local consultation.[9]
Further concerns include the fact that local government corruption leads to the exclusion of specific sections of society.[9] Local governments have also been found to claim more people have received job cards than people who actual work in order to generate more funds than needed, to be then embezzled by local officials.[9] Bribes as high Rs 50 are paid in order to receive the job cards.[9]
A multi-crore fraud has also been suspected where many people has been issued the NREGA card who is either employed with another Government Job and who are not even aware that they have a Job Card. In Gujarat, a scam of Rs 10 million has taken place.[10]
The productivity of laborers involved under NREGA is considered to be lower because of the fact that laborers consider it as a better alternative to working under major projects. There is criticism from construction companies that NREGA has affected the availability of labor as laborers prefer to working under NREGA to working under construction projects. [11]
It is also widely criticized that NREGS has contributed to farm labour shortage. In July 2011, the government has advised the states to suspend the NREGS programme during peak farming periods.[12]
The National Advisory Committee(NAC) advocated the government for NREGA wages linkage with statutory minimum wages which is under Minimum wages act as NREGA workers get only Rs100 per day.[13]

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Aam Aadmi (Hindi& Urdu for "Common Man") is a term used by Indian National Congress as their political agenda in 2004 and 2009 elections and uses this as its guiding principle in running its coalition government. It refers to the average Indian or Average Joe. The idea of Aam Aadmi is to address three essential things: Food, Clothing and Shelter.
Aam Aadmi aims at the happiness of common man.[1] The government must protect the common man by providing subsidies on food and fertilizer. However, there are high administrative costs of delivery in present subsidy scheme. The economists now opt direct cash transfers to reduce administrative costs.

Aam Aadmi was introduced in 2004 by the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. Its obejctive was to strengthen the Right to Information Act, National Rural Employment Guaranteed Scheme, National Food Security Act and Bharat Nirman Yojana [2] by way of economic and social inclusion of every underprivileged section of society.[3] No marginal groups are excluded from the development process. Women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes belong to the marginal groups.[4] The development plank is akin to Indira Gandhi's Garibi Hatao.




History

[edit]
The Right to Information Act

The Right to Information Act 2005 is an Act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.[6]
The Act specifies that citizens have the right to:
  • inspection of work, documents and records.
  • taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records.
  • taking certified samples of material.
  • obtaining information in the form of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes 'or in any other electronic mode' or through printouts.
The Right to Information Act makes the common man up to date. His role in government's decision-making process has been redefined by the Act. The Right to Information Act is an effective tool to control corruption, make government accountable, and curb the arbitrary use of power.[7] The Act has now been amended to provide for disclosure by government in all non-strategic areas.

[edit]
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

A NREGS Worksite in Kerala
This Act came into force on February 2, 2006. The twin objectives of the Act are augmenting wage employment and strengthening natural resource management. As per the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, job cards are issued to the rural unskilled labour by guaranteeing work for 100 days in a financial year at a minimum daily wage of Rs.100. It is the largest programme in the world for rural reconstruction.[8] The scheme covered 604 districts in India in three phases and provided employment opportunities for more than 4.47 crore households in 2008-09.[9] The total outlay for the scheme is $8 billion during 2009-10.
NREGA creates transparency and accountability in governance. All NREGA beneficiaries now have accounts with banks or post offices. The scope of the programme is limited to unskilled manual labour. The scope can be extended through increased land productivity. Land productivity can be maximized through better convergence of NREGA with other programmes.[10] Sustainable development is the ultimate goal of NREGA. M.S. Swaminathan, Father of Green Revolution in India argues that there is a synergy between National Food Security Act and NREGA.[11] NREGA through its diversified programmes on human development helps to ensure food security for all. It is the realisation of Gandhi's dream to make India self-sufficient. The scheme has now been renamed as Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Gandhiji taught us how unskilled manual labour can be made use of for the betterment of society.

[edit]
Food Security Act

Food security is a proposed act which makes food availability a right for every citizen of India. It aims to give common man to lead a healthy and productive life. Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) is a centrally sponsored scheme launched on December 2000 for one crore of the poorest families. It is on the look out for the 'poorest of the poor'[12] by providing them 35 kilos of rice and wheat at Rs.2 per kg. Whereas the National Food Security Act helps the poor to purchase 25 kg of rice or wheat per month at Rs.3 per kg. It calls for broader reforms in the public distribution system. Food Security Act takes into consideration the following three important aspects:
  • Food Availability.
  • Food Access.
  • Food Absorption.
Food availability in the market depends on domestic production and imports whereas access to food hinges on the purchasing power of Aam Aadmi. Food absorption means the inclusion of required calorie-content micro and macro nutrients in our daily food in-take and thereby enables the human body to fight against deficiency diseases.[13] The absorption of food in the body also depends on non-food factors such as safe drinking water, environmental hygiene, primary health care and access to toilets.
Targeting the BPL families is one of the main issues in the implementation of the Act. In 2005 Planning Commission has made an evaluation of PDS schemes. They found that more than 50 per cent of food did not reach the poor families. In the words of Dr.C Rangarajan, "Food prices must be controlled, otherwise they have a tendency to lead to manufacturing inflation. That will require monetary action especially on the supply management side".[14]

[edit]
Bharat Nirman

Main article: Bharat Nirman
Bharat Nirman Yojana is an action-oriented business plan for rural infrastructure.[15] It is an important step in bridging the gap between rural and urban areas and improving the quality of lives of rural masses. It comprises projects on irrigation, roads (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana), housing (Indira Awaaz Yojana), water supply, electrification and telecommunication connectivity.
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana marker in a village in Punjab
The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was launched on 25 December 2000. The primary objective of PMGSY is to provide good quality all-weather roads in all the rural areas where urban-rural road connectivity is found to be very weak.[16] All unconnected habitations with a population of more than 500 persons has been provided connectivity by 2007.[17]
Aam Aadmi is the image of common man. He is one among millions of illiterate population of India.[18] Whatever be the changes in the economy affects him the most. Inflation, financial meltdown and the resultant job loss are cumbersome for Aam Aadmi.[19] To put it otherwise, Aam Aadmi is always caught up in a vicious circle of poverty.

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The Aam Aadmi Ka Sipahi

The Aam Aadmi Ka Sipahi (the Common Man's Army)[20] upholds the Right to Information Act and NREGA. The Aam Aadmi Ka Sipahi aims to popularize the UPA government's flagship programmes by the Youth Congress and train local youths in e-governance and use of computers.[21][22] The Youth will work at the panchayat level to facilitate the smooth functioning of NREGA and the Right to Information Act.[23] They creates awareness among the rural poor of their rights.

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Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana

Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana (AABY) covers death and disability insurance for the benefit of rural landless households in the country.
Sponsored by Both: Central & State Government

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AADHAAR

The AADHAAR project started by the government of India to give biometric based identity card to every resident of India is aimed primarily to improve access to all welfare programs.

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Swabhimaan

Swabhimaan is a banking project launched to bring banking services to vast unbanked rural areas in the country.[24] It was launched on 9 February 2010. The government has set a target of covering 73,000 new habitations, with population of 2,000 and above under the banking services by March 2012.
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