NCMP and the Right to Work

National Common Minimum Programme and the Right to Work

Blind Spots of a Grand Vision

 Anindo Banerjee 

An Overview of Key Challenges  

The year 2007-08 witnessed a range of divergent developments that included significant acts of assertion of people’s right to work on one hand, and blatant furtherance of policies endangering the survival of millions of India’s poor on the other. In the month of October, when over twenty five thousand landless agricultural labourers hailing from various dalit and tribal communities of India converged at New Delhi to press for their land rights and succeeded in securing a vital policy decision towards constitution of a high-powered ‘National Land Reforms Council’, they exemplified a valiant act of assertion against their increasing alienation from vital resources like land, water and forests. However, it was an ironical coincidence that by the end of the same month of October, the government had accorded formal clearance to establishment of as many as 396 Special Economic Zones, bearing ominous implications for the survival of thousands of poor citizens in a country inhabited by millions of landless people!

Given that a good number of instances of dispossession of the poor from critical life-support systems have taken effect in the recent past, the issues concerning the right to work need to be examined cautiously, with an eye on the impacts of contemporary trends and policies on the wellbeing of poor communities. While the National Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance government contains important provisions towards securing the right to work for India’s citizens, this article seeks to assess its performance in terms of its actual contribution in enhancing livelihood security of different sections of marginalized communities. 

Whose right to work?

While the constitution of India directs the State to make effective provisions for securing the right to work for its citizens (Article 41; directive principles of state policy), several contemporary policy priorities seem to be in conflict with the directive. For instance, the burgeoning thrust on establishment of Special Economic Zones seems to overlook the long-term interests of the poor in many places. One of the largest Special Economic Zones in India proposed to be set up by Reliance Industries Limited in Maharashtra across three tehsils of Raigad district threatens to displace nearly 35,000 farmers based over 25,000 hectares of agricultural land. The threat to the livelihoods of farmers likely to lose ownership of land are sought to be offset merely by providing one-off monetary compensations without any thoughts about the limited livelihood-choices available to them, consequent pressure on limited urban infrastructure, or the implications for a large number of non-owner dependents of farmland, e.g. sharecroppers or wage labourers.

In some cases, even the tokenistic provisions of compensation are made a mockery of. In villages like Nevta located on the periphery of Jaipur town, farmers have been issued notices to vacate their land in lieu of an unbelievably unjust exchange offer by which each loser of land would be allotted land in a different place amounting only to one-fourth of the acquired size, deceptively projected to carry a higher notional value than the value of the land originally acquired! 

The deprivation of poor communities from opportunities to pursue occupations of their choice and capability is probably the commonest and most glaring form of violation of a citizen’s right to work. An important area of concern relates to increasing privatization of common property resources in the country, bearing life-threatening implications for a large number of poor communities. For instance, the increasing scale of operations of mining companies in various forest-rich areas of states like Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have destroyed the age-old forest-based livelihoods of many tribal families. In states like Orissa and Chhattisgarh, the government has already committed several rivers and reservoirs for use by industry for water-intensive activities.

When displaced households migrate to cities, their survival becomes even more arduous, thanks to modern urban policies that increasingly shut out spaces from the reach of the poor. The commonest coping avenues for the poor, e.g. participation is retail trade, accessing state-run basic services, or opting for low-investment livelihoods (e.g. rag picking or plying rickshaws) are made increasingly inaccessible by policies that allow entry of big business houses in retail trade, enhance the cost of basic services by allowing their privatization, or block public spaces for the poor. These are important blind spots of contemporary development policies, which often undermine the right to work of poor citizens in protecting the interest of big businesses.

In a country where the rate of growth of the size of labour force exceeds the rate of growth of employment, and where bulk of the workforce is employed in the unorganized sector, the challenge of creating gainful employment opportunities for a large segment of socially and economically disadvantaged citizens remains the greatest trial of relevance of our welfare state. The eleventh Five-year Plan of India aims at providing employment to 70 million additional people by 2011-12. Given that the incidence of unemployment is substantially higher in the ‘below poverty line’ category, and particularly amongst the scheduled castes and tribes therein (as indicated by successive NSSO surveys), the right to work assumes greater significance in the specific context of marginalized communities and in the light of a state’s commitment to poverty reduction. 

Salient Promises in the National Common Minimum Programme

While the issue of unemployment has historically been accorded significant thrust in successive five-year-plans and public policies of the Government of India, the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has accorded critical importance to the issue by promising a legal guarantee of employment at minimum wages for at least 100 days on asset-creating public works every year, for every rural, urban poor and lower middle-class household. Accordingly, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was promulgated by the parliament in 2005, which stands out in its promise by making employment a legal right of citizens, and by making governments liable to pay compensation for lapses in timely delivery of the same. The Act came into effect in February 2006 and offered a golden opportunity to pro-actively reach out to poor communities affected by burgeoning agrarian crises, devastating disasters and an acute dearth of gainful livelihoods.

Besides, the NCMP was aimed at bringing about an enabling support environment to bolster the agricultural and informal sectors, which provide employment to a massive chunk of the country’s workforce. With the objective of examining problems facing enterprises in the unorganized sector, it promised to establish a National Commission to make appropriate recommendations to provide technical, marketing and credit support to such enterprises, aided by a National Fund created specifically for this purpose. It also promised to expand social security, health insurance and other schemes for workers in the unorganized sector, including weavers, handloom workers, fishermen and fisherwomen, toddy tappers, leather workers, plantation labour, and beedi workers. It also accorded highest investment, credit and technological priority to the continued growth of agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, floriculture, afforestation, dairying and agro-processing to address the challenge of creating new jobs. Similarly, implementation of minimum wage laws for farm labour was accorded a priority and was envisaged through a comprehensive protective legislation for agricultural workers.

Resource Allocation

Despite the thrust on augmentation of employment opportunities, the budgetary allocation for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, originally estimated to cost to the tune of Rs. 40,000 crores per annum, has been relatively conservative, with an allocation of Rs. 16,000 crores for covering 596 districts in the year 2008 – 2009 (entailing a 33% increase over last year, towards scaling up the scheme across 266 additional districts). The allocation forms 41.56% of the total central plan outlay for the department of rural development. While the government’s commitment to generate employment additionally entails outlay of Rs. 2150 crores for the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana, the cumulative value of the outlays on various employment generation schemes, at less than half a percent of country’s GDP at current price level, seem inadequate for effective realization of the right to work.

A comprehensive legislation covering issues of workers in the unorganized sector remains to be brought into effect, though the ‘National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS)’ set up by the Government of India in keeping with its NCMP commitment has proposed to extend social security to unorganized workers in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Given that over ninety percent of the country’s labour force works in the unorganized sector under extremely difficult circumstances, mostly as wage labourers or self employed workers, the right to work needs to be secured with the greatest urgency for workers in the unorganized sector. The budget for the year 2008 – 2009 seeks to bring into effect provisions to extend health cover to workers in the unorganized sector falling in the BPL category, and to provide life insurance cover to one crore landless households. In addition, the National Old Age Pension Scheme has been enlarged to include all BPL persons above the age of 65 years. 

Securing the Right to Work through NREGS

The performance of various states in implementing NREGS during 2007 – 2008 is summarized in Table 1. In the absence of data indicating the actual number and distribution of households that effectively availed of a minimum of 100 days of employment during the year, the average number of employment-days delivered per benefited household serves as a proxy indicator, even if not a perfect measure, of the penetration of the scheme amongst benefited households. The average number of employment-days generated per ‘benefited’ household in 2007 – 2008 was nearly 36, varying from as low as 15 (West Bengal) to a high of 65 (Rajasthan). Till February 25, the average number of employment-days generated per benefited household was less than fifty for as many as 23 out of 27 states. 

The inclusion of scheduled castes in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh did not significantly exceed the actual SC composition in the population of the state (15.17%, 17.16% and 11.61% respectively), despite the fact that these states generated substantially higher number of employment-days than most other states. Coverage of scheduled castes in states like Gujarat and Tripura did not even match up to the existing proportion of scheduled castes in the population of the state. Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh accounted for the highest coverage of scheduled castes under NREGS, delivering between 54%-76% of all jobs to them. In view of the fact the scheme doesn’t differentiate between the poor and the non-poor, or between dalits and non-dalits in terms of eligibility for employment, the relative inclusion of dalits in delivery of employment can be taken as a good indicator of a state’s commitment to equitable development. Given that the scheme needs to be extended with greater urgency to communities known to suffer from greater degrees of poverty, treatment of dalits at par with other population sub-groups points at the lack of a good understanding of poverty and the lack of commitment to use the scheme as an opportunity to reach out pro-actively to the poorest population sub-groups.

As many as ten out of the 27 states failed to deliver a minimum of one-third of all employment-days to women, thus violating a core objective of the scheme. The shortfall was most glaring in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, where the inclusion of women wasn’t even one-fifth of the total number of employment-days generated under NREGA. Nearly 43.4% of all employment-days were delivered to women across the 27 states of India on an average, with Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Kerala topping the ranks with 82%, 70% and 67% coverage respectively.

Maharashtra, Punjab and Uttaranchal accounted for the lowest level of utilization of available funds amongst all states in the country, registering only 25%, 39% and 42% expenditure respectively. As many as seven states have failed to spend even half of all the funds available till February 25. As a matter of fact, the minimum wages payable to labourers under NREGA fall far short of the corresponding market rates of labour in several states of India, which makes a strong case of periodic upward revision of the same.

Issues in Actualization of the Right to Work and Policy Implications

Practices of implementation of NREGS during the last two years point at several serious issues affecting its delivery in the true spirit. The element of ‘demand-based delivery of employment’ has become largely redundant with demand for employment not being acknowledged in most places, which circumvents the obligation to pay unemployment allowance for delays in employment-provision. Over-reporting of number of employment days delivered under the scheme and underpayment of wages are other common practices, aided by absence of gram-sabha based social audits, which could hold panchayat functionaries, engineers and block level functionaries accountable for their actions and lapses.

The scheme needs to be envisaged as an opportunity to address economic and social disparities in rural India, by according preference to dalit labourers, locating work-sites closer to dalit habitations and deputing a greater number of administrators/monitors hailing from dalit communities. The Act also needs to clearly articulate a schedule of work that could be preferentially allotted to people with disability, and allow self-employment possibilities for them. Facilities like crèche, currently provided in very few worksites despite clear provision in the Act, need to be compulsorily arranged for at all work sites to enable labourers with small children, particularly women, to avail of their entitlements under the scheme. For speedier and more effective implementation of the scheme, procedures and technicalities relating to identification, approval and commissioning of public works need to be made simpler and more decentralized, in order that panchayats can effectively implement and govern the scheme without any undue dependence on engineers. Simplified procedures coupled with timely flow of funds to the panchayats can help in expediting the delivery of the scheme.  

Amongst other necessary areas of intervention, the government needs to expedite processes towards enactment of a comprehensive legislation favouring workers in the unorganized sector. Work conditions facing labourers in the unorganized sector need to be brought under tighter scrutiny with provisions of strict penal measures for employers falling short in discharge of their obligations. Similarly, the government needs to spell out a clear policy for safeguarding the interests of poor vendors and small traders threatened to be affected by entry of giant corporate firms in retail markets. Policies relating to acquisition of land must bear strong deterrents to prevent unjustified acquisition of land, particularly instances affecting small and marginal holders, and provisions for relief and rehabilitation must be thoroughly enhanced to secure lifetime coverage of risks of displacement. 

*** 

Kosi Yatra 2009

कोशी तटबंधों के बीच बसे नागरिक - भारतीय गणराज्य की सौतेली संतानें?

अनिन्दो बनर्जी  

पिछले दिनों १५ वीं लोकसभा के चुनावों की सरगर्मी भले ही पूरे देश में छाई रही हो, देश के कई इलाके ऐसे भी थे जहाँ चुनावी प्रक्रियाओं के दौरान अलग तरह की प्रतिक्रियाएं देखने को मिलीं. कोशी नदी के तटबंधों के बीच अवस्थित लगभग ३८० गाँवों की गिनती भी ऐसे ही इलाकों में की जा सकती है जहाँ के निवासियों ने इन चुनावों के दौरान अपने इलाके के पांच दशकों की उपेक्षा के मुद्दे पर एक विशेष प्रक्रिया का संचालन किया. विकास के हस्तक्षेपों से चरम रूप से वंचित कोशी के तटबंधों के बीच बसे विभिन्न गाँवों के नागरिकों ने चुनावों के दौरान अपने पांच दशकों के अलगाव के मुद्दे को एक जनघोषणापत्र के ज़रिये ज़ाहिर किया. यह जनघोषणापत्र कोशी क्षेत्र के हजारों नागरिकों की समस्याओं तथा विकास की आकाँक्षाओं की अभिव्यक्ति का नतीजा था, जिसके संकलन में कई स्वेछासेवी संस्थाओं का योगदान रहा. लोगों की यह प्रतिक्रिया बेवजह नहीं थी - पिछले पांच दशकों से कोशी के तटबंधों के बीच कैद गाँवों के १० लाख से भी ज्यादा नागरिकों की ज़िन्दगी आज भी मुख्यधारा से अलगाव का ऐसा उदाहरण बना हुआ है जिसकी तुलना ढूंढ पाना मुश्किल है.

सुपौल जिले के बसंतपुर, किशनपुर, सरायगढ़ भपटियाही, निर्मली, सुपौल व मरौना प्रखंडों, दरभंगा के किरतपुर प्रखंड, मधुबनी जिले के लौकाही, घोघरडीहा व मधेपुर प्रखंड तथा सहरसा जिले के नौहट्टा, महिषी, सिमरी बख्तियारपुर व सलखुआ प्रखंडों में तटबंधों के भीतर अवस्थित अधिकांश गाँवों के  निवासियों को आजादी के साठ सालों के बाद भी अपनी बुनियादी ज़रूरतों की पूर्त्ति के लिए कोशी की निरंतर बदलती धाराओं को पार कर कम से कम १० कि०मी० दूर जाना पड़ता है. आज की तारीख में कोशी क्षेत्र के ज़्यादातर प्रखंडों में तटबंधों के अन्दर एक भी प्राथमिक स्वास्थ्य केंद्र या उप स्वास्थ्य केंद्र कार्यरत नहीं है. कई गाँवों में हालाँकि प्राथमिक विद्यालयों का प्रावधान ज़रूर है, लेकिन बुनियादी सुविधाओं व शिक्षकों की अनुपस्थिति में इन स्कूलों का होना या न होना एक ही बात है.  


नीचे की तस्वीर में सुपौल जिले के बसंतपुर प्रखंड के छतौनी गाँव के लिए स्वीकृत एक प्राथमिक विद्यालय की दशा दिखाई गयी है, जिसमे सीमेंट के आठ खंभों के सिवाय कुछ भी नहीं हैं. इस पूरे गाँव से सिर्फ ८ बच्चे नाव से नदी पार कर बाहर के एक गाँव के विद्यालय में पढने जाते हैं. इलाके के कई गाँवों में यदी किसी को कोई बड़ी ज़रुरत अचानक आ पड़े तो फिर भगवान् ही मालिक है, अन्यथा सुपौल के ढोली गाँव के तारानंद सिंह के चार बच्चों को जन्म गाँवों दौरान तथा जोगिन्दर राम की पत्नी को प्रसव गाँवों दौरान अपनी जान गंवानी नहीं पड़ती. इस इलाके में शायद ही कोई ऐसा पंचायत होगा जहां हर साल सुरक्षित प्रसव की सुविधाओं के अभाव में कम से कम पाँच मौतें न होती हों! कई गाँव ऐसे भी हैं जहाँ पोषण की बुनियादी सेवाओं की अनुपलब्धता के कारण लोगों का एक असामान्य रूप से बड़ा अनुपात विकलांगता से प्रभावित है, जैसे किरतपुर प्रखंड का जमालपुर गाँव.  

इसी प्रकार के कई मुद्दों को १५ वीं लोकसभा के चुनावों के ठीक पहले एक 'जनघोषणापत्र' के रूप में संकलित करने की कोशिश की गई. चुनावों से ठीक पूर्व तटबंधों के अन्दर के कई गाँवों में जनसभाएं की गईं जिनमें अलगाव के मुद्दों पर व्यापक चर्चा के अलावे चुनाव के प्रत्याशियों तक अपनी मांगों को पहुँचाने तथा उनका रूख समझने की तैयारी भी की गई. इन जनसभाओं के दौरान गाँवों के लोगों के द्वारा इस मुहिम को स्थानीय स्तर पर आगे ले जाने की दिशा में रणनीतियाँ भी तय की गईं. जनसभाओं के दौरान कई नए मुद्दों का भी पता चला. सुपौल के ढोली पंचायत के मुखिया व कोशी मुक्ति संघर्ष समिति के नेता श्री रामप्रसाद मंडल ने हाल के वर्षों में सुपौल में प्रारंभ किये गए जलविद्युत परियोजना द्वारा दिए गए मुआवजों के निर्धारण में पुनः तटबंधों के अन्दर के निवासियों की अवहेलना की बात उठाई. कई गाँवों के लोगों ने कोशी के तटबंधों के अन्दर बसे गाँवों की स्थिति को शाश्वत आपदा का दर्जा दिए जाने की मांग की. एक अन्य महत्वपूर्ण मांग तटबंध के अन्दर के संपूर्ण इलाके को एक अविभाजित लोकसभा क्षेत्र के रूप में निर्धारित करने की थी, ताकि तटबंध के अन्दर के लोगों के प्रति राजनैतिक दलों की दिलचस्पी व जवाबदेही बढ़ सके. 

"पिछले साल कुसाहा में तटबंध के टूटने से तटबंधों के बाहर के कई इलाकों में पहली बार बाढ़ आया, जिसे तुंरत राष्ट्रीय आपदा का दर्जा दे दिया गया; जबकी हमारे ऊपर पिछले पचपन सालों से हर साल एक पूरी नदी बहा दी जाती है, लेकिन हमारे दर्दों की सुनवाई आजतक नहीं हुई!" 

- लौकहा पलार पंचायत के एक जन प्रतिनिधि 

आजादी के बाद देश में विद्युत उत्पादन और सिंचाई व्यवस्थाओं में बेहतरी के उद्देश्य से नदियों को बाँधने की जो मुहिम शुरू की गई, कोशी परियोजना उसी प्रक्रिया की एक कड़ी थी. पचास के दशक में भारत नेपाल सीमा पर कोशी नदी के जलप्रवाह के नियंत्रण के लिए कोशी बराज का निर्माण कार्य प्रारंभ किया गया तथा बाढ़ से इलाके की सुरक्षा के लिए नदी के दोनों ओर तटबंध बनाने की प्रक्रिया शुरू की गई थी. यह उल्लेखनीय है कि बराज के उद्घाटन के दौरान तत्कालीन राष्ट्रपति डा० राजेंद्र प्रसाद ने भरी सभा में इलाके के नागरिकों को देशहित में ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा योगदान देने का आग्रह   किया था. बड़े स्तर पर विकास की सम्भावाओं को देखते हुए इलाके के निवासियों ने कोशी परियोजना का स्वागत किया था, भले ही इसकी कीमत उन्हें बाद के वर्षों में अपनी ज़मीन व जायदाद की क्षति से चुकानी पड़ी थी. यद्यपि एक तत्कालीन जनसभा में प्रधानमंत्री पंडित जवाहरलाल नेहरु ने कोशी परियोजना के लिए अधिग्रहित ज़मीन के बदले ज़मीन, हर प्रभावित परिवार के लिए आवास तथा हर परिवार के एक सदस्य के लिए सरकारी नौकरी उपलब्ध कराये जाने का वादा किया था, दुर्भाग्य से, परियोजना के लगभग पॉँच दशकों के बाद भी इन वादों पर कारवाई नहीं हो सकी. बदले में जो नुक्सान लोगों को उठाना पड़ा उसकी भी कभी भरपाई नहीं हुई. स्पष्ट है कि कोशी के तटबंधों के बीच फँसे गाँवों का मुद्दा सिर्फ अलगाव का नहीं, बल्कि न्याय से वंचित किये जाने का भी है. 

कोशी नदी का साम्यवाद - कई राजा बने फ़कीर 


मरौना के हरि यादव, अनंत यादव; भपटियाही के रामेश्वर सिंह इत्यादि जैसे लोगों की गिनती किसी ज़माने में इलाके के बड़े ज़मींदारों तथा अति समृद्ध लोगों में होती थी. इनके कोठों में न सिर्फ भारी मात्रा में अनाज का संग्रहण होता था, वरन उनके खेतों में काम कर इलाके के अनेक मजदूर परिवारों का गुज़ारा भी चल जाता था.  

आज स्थिति यह है की इन समृद्ध परिवारों में अधिकांश कोशी की लहरों में अपनी संपत्ति खोकर फकीरों की ज़िन्दगी जीने के लिए मजबूर हैं. इनमे से कई अपने पूरे परिवार के साथ दूसरे शहरों का रूख कर चुके हैं जहाँ बड़ी मशक्कत के बाद उन्हें दो जून की रोटी नसीब होती है. प्रखंड के कई गांवों गाँवों लोग आज भी १९९३ में आये भीषण बाढ़ को याद कर काँप जाते हैं जिसने कई सम्पन्न किसानों की ज़मीन को बालू के ढेर में बदल दिया. 

३० जनवरी १९८७ को बिहार सरकार के मंत्रिमंडल की एक विशेष बैठक में तत्कालीन कृषि मंत्री श्री लहटन चौधरी की अध्यक्षता में 'कोशी पीड़ित विकास प्राधिकार' के गठन का निर्णय लिया था, जिसका उद्देश्य कोशी परियोजना की वजह से प्रभावित तटबंध के अन्दर के लोगों के आर्थिक विकास व प्रभावी पुनर्वास की योजनायें बनाना था. इसी बैठक में राज्य मंत्रिमंडल ने कोशी के कुप्रभाव से तटबंधों के बीच के निवासियों के रक्षार्थ तथा उनके आर्थिक विकास के सम्बन्ध में १९ बिन्दुओं की एक महत्वपूर्ण कार्ययोजना भी बनाई थी, जिनमें कई महत्वपूर्ण नीतियाँ शामिल थीं, जैसे प्रभावित परिवारों को परियोजना से लाभान्वित जिलों में सरकारी नौकरियों में १५% का आरक्षण, हर ५ पंचायतो के लिए एक प्राथमिक स्वास्थ्य केंद्र तथा हर पंचायत में एक उप स्वास्थ्य केंद्र की व्यवस्था, इत्यादि. तब से आजतक हालाँकि इस प्राधिकार में कई महत्वपूर्ण व्यक्ति अध्यक्ष बनकर आये और गए, लेकिन लोगों की ज़िन्दगी पर प्राधिकार की वजह से कोई बेहतरी न आ सकी. आज इलाके के गाँवों में इस प्राधिकार के ज़िक्र भर से लोग गालियाँ देने पर उतारू हो उठते हैं. 

आज स्थिति यह है की कोशी तटबंधों के अन्दर स्थित लगभग ३८० गाँव चरम बदहाली की मिसाल बनकर रह गए हैं. ज़्यादातर गाँवों में बड़ी संख्या में अनुसूचित जातियों व अति पिछड़े वर्गों का निवास है, जिन्हें आये दिनों विभिन्न प्रकार के संघर्षों का सामना करना पड़ता है. वर्त्तमान में क्षेत्र के अधिकांश परिवारों का गुज़ारा प्रवासी मजदूरों की आमदनी पर चलता है. इलाके के अधिकांश परिवारों के पुरुष साल के अधिकांश महीने दिल्ली और पंजाब जैसे सुदूर के इलाकों में रोज़गार करते हुए गुज़ारते हैं तथा सिर्फ आपदाओं के समय ही घर वापस लौटते हैं. इलाके के अनेक परिवारों का गुज़ारा एकल महिलाओं, जिनमें विधवाएँ भी शामिल हैं, की आमदनी पर चलता है, जो कृषिकार्य से लेकर अलग अलग तरह की मज़दूरी के कार्य करती हैं. किरतपुर प्रखंड में ऐसे कई गाँव हैं जहाँ परिवारों की एक बड़ी संख्या एकल व विधवा महिलाओं के रोज़ाने के रोज़गार पर आश्रित है. इस इलाके के अनेक परिवारों के बच्चे भी रोज़गार की तलाश में अन्य राज्यों में जाते हैं, जिनमें से अनेकों का कुछ वर्षों के बाद अता पता नहीं रहता!  

कोशी के नागरिकों के जनघोषणापत्र के संकलन की प्रक्रिया में कई स्वेच्छासेवी संस्थाओं का महत्वपूर्ण योगदान रहा. प्रक्रिया का समन्वय प्रैक्सिस नामक एक अंतर्राष्ट्रीय संस्था के राज्यस्तरीय कार्यालय द्वारा किया गया तथा इसमें कोशी क्षेत्र में कार्यशील कई संस्थाओं ने विशेष भूमिकाएँ निभाईं. प्रक्रिया में सक्रिय रूप से शामिल संस्थाओं में मिथिला ग्राम विकास परिषद्, ग्राम भारती, समर्पण, सझिया समांग, महिला विकास आश्रम, चरखा तथा हेल्पेज इन्डिया की महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका रही. इन संस्थाओं के प्रतिनिधियों ने कोशी क्षेत्र में चुनावों के ठीक पहले तटबंधों के अन्दर के अलग अलग गाँवों के साथ सम्पर्क बनाते हुए दो सप्ताहों की नाव यात्रा भी की. संस्थाओं का यह नेटवर्क आनेवाले दिनों में तटबंधों के अन्दर के गाँवों के अलगाव के मुद्दे के प्रभावी समाधान की दिशा में यथावश्यक प्रयास करेगा. 

Accountable Governance, Pro Poor Markets

Accountable Governance, Pro-poor Markets[1]

- Anindo Banerjee

 The context

 In the month of October, when over twenty five thousand landless agricultural labourers hailing from various dalit[i] and tribal communities of India marched to New Delhi to press for their land rights and succeeded in securing a vital policy decision towards constitution of a high-powered ‘National Land Reforms Council’ headed by the Prime Minister, they heralded a historic assertion against increasing market-led appropriation of vital resources like land, water, mines and forests. Given that the last two decades have witnessed countless instances of dispossession of the poor in developing economies from critical life-support systems, mostly at the behest of market-forces actively aided by agencies of the State, the issues concerning the role and obligations of market forces and agencies of the State towards poverty reduction need to be examined cautiously, with an eye on the impacts of contemporary trends and policies on the well-being of poor communities.

Markets and the Poor

The experiences of several African governments during the eighties and the nineties relating to policies aimed at overcoming acute fiscal imbalances are a good pointer to the potential impact of ungoverned market forces on critical sectors such as agriculture. Measures administered to this effect on the advice of international financial institutions like the World Bank included withdrawal of the public sector from sectors like agriculture, decontrol of prices, reduction of farm subsidies and increased privatization. The outcomes were equally radical: the drastic steps immediately affected over seventy percent of the poor in the region by drastically suppressing food production. A recently-concluded evaluation[ii] of World Bank’s role in African agriculture attributed the crisis to the inability of market forces to step in and jump-start agricultural growth. According to Professor Jeffery Sacks of Columbia University, “The whole thing was based on the idea that if you take away the government for the poorest of the poor, markets will somehow solve the problems, but markets can’t step in and won’t step in when people have nothing. And if you take away help, you leave them to die[iii].”

The example of sub-Saharan Africa clearly illustrates the criticality of the role of a pro-poor ‘welfare state’ in safeguarding the survival needs of the poorest of the poor, who do not offer any investment-incentives to profit-seeking market forces. According to the UN-MDG report of 2007, the share of the poorest fifth of populations in developing regions in national consumption decreased from 4.6 to 3.9 percent between 1990 and 2004. Widening income inequality is of particular concern in Eastern Asia, where the share of consumption among the poorest people declined dramatically during this period. Inequality is the highest in Latin America, the Caribbean and in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poorest fifth of the people account for only about 3 per cent of national income, despite increased involvement of market forces in local economies. Internationally, 46 countries of the world have become poorer today than they were in 1990,  according to Human Development Report 2004.

Nearly 1300 million people live in absolute poverty, earning less than one dollar a day, while about 3000 million people, more than a half of the world’s population live on less than two dollars a day. According to the International Labour Organization, over 120 million people are officially registered as unemployed, besides an additional 700 million underemployed people.

Instances of poverty, which often are a complex interplay of social, political and economic factors, can be addressed only by interventions that hit hard at the root causes of inequalities, rather than by the quirks of unregulated markets that by design are tailored to suit the conditions of the rich and the powerful. Given the enormous amounts of power, influence and resources that the latter tend to have at their disposal, often catalyzed by increasing overlap of political and business interests in most modern economies, the only chance for the poorest people rests on systems of governance that can be held to account and at least be subjected to a floor test of popularity based on electoral performance of alternative political ideologies.

The message of the poorest people is loud and clear: governments must protect them from the vagaries of market! Their verdict has been communicated clearly on many an occasion, evident in the electoral defeat of the ‘India Shining’ campaign in India. The resurrection of the ‘Aam Aadmi’ (i.e. the ‘common man’) as a reference point of current development policies, at least rhetorically, has been compelled by lessons learnt from many of these recent trends. Yet, the poorest of the poor in countries like India continue to face unprecedented challenges to their existence. The markets are pushing them hard to extinction, by encroaching upon some of their commonest avenues of survival, notably retail trade, artisan-crafts, common property resources and most alarmingly, agriculture.

One needs to delve into the basic character and orientation of markets to assess their potential role in poverty reduction. Markets operate on the laws of supply and demand, and thereby play a role in fixation of prices and wages. Theoretically speaking, the price of a product or service is directly proportional to the rarity of its supply, its quality, the cost of production, and inversely proportional to the bargaining power of the buyer and degree of regulation of unfair practices. For markets to be favourable entities for the poor (when participating in markets as sellers), the latter ought to be able to vie with competing forces towards suppressing the cost of production, acquiring greater market-share to limit the range of suppliers and towards investing adequately in optimizing the quality of the product. Such possibilities are likely to be highly infeasible, given their limited economic abilities. Similarly, as buyers of products or users of services, their bargaining power is often limited on account of their limited ability to promise continuity as buyers or users, limited credit-worthiness and lack of effective mechanisms to hold sellers/service providers accountable. Profit-seeking markets are more likely to serve clients that can offer greater economic returns to producers and therefore are likely to exclude the poor. The only ways to offset this fundamental likelihood of exclusion is to either regulate the markets in order that the poor are compulsorily served on pro bono terms as a principle of policy, or to create alternative providers that by mandate serve the poor. This necessitates a role for a pro-poor welfare state or non-profit organizations in serving the needs and interests of the poor.

India was one of the fastest growing economies in the world during the nineties. The decade also witnessed an unprecedented scale of entry of market forces in various sectors of the economy. Yet, despite a significant spurt in macroeconomic growth, the rate of reduction of rural poverty in India was halted during the 1990s. Estimates show that the incidence of poverty, which between 1972-73 and 1989-90 fell from 55.4 per cent to 34.3 per cent in rural India, never went below the 1989-90 level in subsequent NSSO rounds undertaken up to 1997 [iv]. Though the rate of decline of rural poverty picked up again during the subsequent years between 1999 – 2004, the rate of GDP growth was in fact less during this phase than during 1993 – 99. The average per-capita expenditure in rural areas was not even ten per cent higher in 1999-2000 than in 1993-94, and rural poverty actually went up in some of the poorer states, such as Assam and Orissa. Also, foodgrain off-take through the public distribution system declined from 17 million tonnes per year in the early nineties to 12 million tonnes per year around the end of the decade[v], endangering the food security of millions of the poor in the country at the time when the GDP growth was unprecedented.

The State vis-à-vis the Poor

The eleventh Five-year Plan of India underscores the challenge of providing employment to 70 million additional people by 2011-12. It is also a well-established fact that the incidence of unemployment is substantially higher in the ‘below poverty line’ category, and particularly high amongst the scheduled castes and tribes therein (as indicated by successive National Sample Surveys). A critical question therefore is: what strategies and preparedness does the State have to meet this challenge, which is important to be addressed to prevent the nation’s slide into anarchy? Do markets provide a solution, or do they further endanger the chances of survival of the poor? Can democratic governments be allowed to forego their duties towards a majority of their trustees who vote them into power?

Of late, various governments in India have been offering unprecedented incentives to the private sector with an eye on macro-economic growth. For instance, policies relating to establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) include significant supports to private entrepreneurs in the form of facilitation of land acquisition, tax rebates and friendlier administrative mechanisms, amongst others. However, many of the provisions jeopardize the long-term interests of the poor in many ways and the much-touted objective of inclusive growth hasn’t come into effect. For instance, one of the largest Special Economic Zones in India proposed to be set up by Reliance Industries Limited in Maharashtra across three tehsils of Raigad district threatens to displace nearly 35,000 farmers based over 25,000 hectares of agricultural land. The threat to the livelihoods of the farmers likely to lose ownership of land are sought to be offset merely by providing monetary compensation without any thoughts about the limited livelihood-choices available to them, consequent pressure on limited urban infrastructure, or the implications for a large number of non-owner dependents of farmland, e.g. sharecroppers or wage labourers.

In similar developments across the country, as many as 396 SEZs have been accorded formal clearance by the government (by October 2007), of which 149 have already been notified. When households displaced by SEZs or big projects migrate to cities, their survival becomes even more arduous, thanks to modern urban policies that increasingly shut out spaces from the reach of the poor. The commonest coping avenues for the poor, e.g. participation is retail trade, accessing state-run basic services, or opting for low-investment livelihoods (e.g. rag picking or plying rickshaws) are made increasingly inaccessible by policies that allow entry of big business houses in retail trade, enhance the cost of basic services by allowing their privatization, or block public spaces for the poor.

Another area of concern relates to increasing privatization of common property resources in the country, bearing life-threatening implications for a large number of poor communities. The operations of mining companies in various forest-rich areas of states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have destroyed the age-old forest-based livelihoods of many tribal families. In Orissa, the state government has already committed several rivers and reservoirs for use by industry for water-intensive activities. In Chhattisgarh too, industries have been permitted to draw water from rivers like Kelo and Sheonath. Kelo, a tributary of Mahanadi river, happens to be an important source of livelihood for over sixty village communities settled alongside its 98 km long stretch across Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh, whose lives have been badly affected due to severe decline in the stock of river water.

During a People’s Tribunal held in Kolkata in January 2007, Santwana Dey – an elderly woman hailing from a farmer household based in Bejiberia village of Singur where the Government of West Bengal acquired land for handing over to Tata Motors in lieu of promises of jobs in a car factory and offers of monetary compensation, raised a fundamental issue: ‘no one can dictate what should my family do for a living; we have a right to pursue occupations that we are capable of and cannot be forced to work in a car factory, which we have no inkling about!’ Santwana’s straightforward assertion in the Tribunal underscored a legitimate contention of millions of marginalized citizens of the country – regarding their right to work, and particularly the right to avail of work of a suitable and gainful nature, in keeping with the directive of the constitution of India (Article 41; directive principles of state policy) calling upon the State to make effective provisions, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, for securing the right to work. In a country where the rate of growth of the size of labour force exceeds the rate of growth of employment, and where over ninety percent of the workforce is employed in the unorganized sector, the challenge of creating gainful employment opportunities for a large segment of socially and economically disadvantaged citizens remains the greatest trial of relevance of our welfare state.

The performance of the State with respect to its duties towards the poorest of the poor people might have been inadequate and often inefficient, but it has undoubtedly been critical. No other agency has the scale and depth of presence amongst the poor like agencies of the State. There are important policies favouring affirmative action for the socially marginalized, employment guarantees, relief from disasters, decentralized governance, right to information, provisions against atrocities, social security benefits for especially-challenged people and affordable basic services. However, bureaucracies managing a State’s performance have often failed to administer the pro-poor provisions effectively and have eluded any kind of accountability to the people. In many states, they have also undermined the status and potential of Panchayati Raj institutions by assuming sweeping powers over decisions relating to local development. Holding functionaries of the State accountable is the greatest need of the hour, not reducing the role of the State.

The Way Forward

For poverty reduction to be effective and viable in the long run, the State needs to play a far more efficient and accountable role than it is today, without withdrawing itself from the obligation of poverty reduction. Markets can be made a supportive channel towards creation of more development opportunities for the people, through regulations that bring about a level playing field. A two-pronged strategy, where the State assumes full responsibility for efficient and accountable delivery of crucial basic services and entitlements, and also enables poor communities to effectively engage with markets can significantly contribute to the wellbeing of the poor. Facilitating meaningful participation of the poor in contemporary markets would call for support towards value addition and sale of economic products of the poor; storage of goods; establishment of efficient institutions for managing procurements, forward movements and linkages; price control and equitable incentives, amongst other things. Local institutions of governance need to be freed from the control of bureaucracy and capacitated to play an effective regulatory role towards safeguarding the strategic needs of the poor, based on principles of equity and social justice.

Markets, unless regulated with a pro-poor orientation, can eliminate the poor rather than contributing to poverty reduction, given the inherent tendencies of supply-side domination and profit maximization. The poor have little say in the functioning of market forces, but have some stake and control in the governments they elect. The only way in which the poor can safeguard their interests in a market is by electing pro-poor governments that eliminate anti-poor market forces and regulate supplies of essential goods and services in order that they remain accessible and affordable to the poor. Good governance is the right of every citizen, and ensuring the same through effective mechanisms of accountability of government functionaries is the greatest need of the hour.

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[1] Published in India Economic Review (December 2007), a journal published by IIPM New Delhi

[i] ‘Dalit’ literally means ‘oppressed’ and refers to socially marginalized communities living in India.

[ii] Evaluation undertaken by The Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, titled “Assessment of the Bank's assistance to agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa during FY 1991-06”

[iii] Ref. report titled ‘World Bank Neglects African Farming, Study Says’, published in the New York Times, October 15 2007

[iv] Ref. ‘The Poverty Puzzle’ by C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, Macroscan, February 22, 2000

[v] Ref. ‘Hunger amidst Plenty’ by Jean Drèze, India Together, December 3, 2007

Community-led Evaluation of CBPPI Programme

Voices of Verity  

Anindo Banerjee

This write-up is a tribute to the spirit of the community representatives involved in terminal evaluation of Community Based Pro-Poor Initiatives (CBPPI) programme in India (supported by United Nations Development Programme), who have been a great source of strength and support to their families and communities by virtue of their relentless struggle for a life of dignity. The write-up primarily seeks to reflect upon the processes and sidelights of a community-led evaluation exercise, and doesn’t aspire to report the findings per se. The experience reaffirms the capability of the poor (the team of evaluators being predominantly a representation of the poor, including tribal people, socially disadvantaged castes and women) to undertake evaluations of such scale that were hitherto bastions of ‘experts’. For many of us in Praxis (the facilitating agency), the experience emphasizes the criticality of community leadership, and shows the way forward.

When Chitri Mali – the outspoken community leader hailing from a remote tribal hamlet of western Orissa alighted from behind the smoky windows of her train, accompanied by her equally flamboyant colleagues bedecked in shining bracelets and characteristic tribal attire, the hosts from a local NGO could hardly imagine the visitors to be the long-awaited emissaries from UNDP commissioned to carry out term-end evaluation of the NGO’s interventions over the past five years. During the week that followed, the visitors embarked upon an unprecedented trail of investigations, undeterred by a barrage of sneering remarks. The functionaries of the host NGO soon came to realize how erroneous were they in their attempts to size up the capabilities of their guests. A few days later, when the group presented their observations and findings before an elite panel of experts, the NGO representatives learnt many a valuable lesson – not merely regarding the shortfalls of their work, but more importantly, relating to the blunder of underestimating the capabilities of their under-rated visitors.

The run-up to the community-led evaluations

Although the idea of deploying community representatives to evaluate the achievements and impact of the Community Based Pro-Poor Initiatives (CBPPI) programme came about initially on an experimental note (one of Praxis' training alumni - Ms. Shashi Sudhir - drove the idea within UNDP), it met with tremendous responses of support from nearly all the highly-placed people who witnessed the presentations made by illiterate women and men at the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) office in New Delhi after various teams of community representatives returned from their month-long visits to selected projects located in various states of India. As many as 13 major projects located across 11 states of India were evaluated in the process, by a team of 26 community representatives who were divided into four teams for operational convenience.

Each team of community representatives was accompanied by a carefully selected facilitator, whose main responsibility was to provide secretarial and logistical assistance to the respective teams for executing the evaluations and for writing the reports. The facilitators were selected and provided by Praxis (Institute for Participatory Practices headquartered in India and entrusted with overall management of the community-led evaluation exercise). Key traits looked for in the facilitators included a friendly attitude and the ability to keep the process community-led. They were also expected to refrain from imposing their own opinions or judgments about the work of the organizations under evaluation.

For ensuring neutrality in the observations of the evaluation teams, cross-visits were planned in such a way that no community representative visited the projects delivered for her own community, but instead visited a different project located in some other state. In practical terms, it also meant that the accompanying facilitators had to be fluent in the languages spoken by members of the community team, as well those spoken in the areas visited by them. As many as nine different languages were spoken amongst the twenty six members of the group, even if one were to overlook the numerous dialectical differences amongst their diverse mother tongues. Needless to say, identification of competent facilitators for each team turned out to be no less challenging than the arduous demands of the evaluation itself. 

Gearing up

Before embarking upon the evaluation exercise, all the community representatives and their accompanying facilitators assembled at a workshop held at Jodhpur, Rajasthan, to arrive at a common understanding of the task at hand. The key objective of the workshop facilitated by resource persons from Praxis was to arrive at a list of key indicators, which the community representatives could use in the subsequent evaluations, and to identify a set of appropriate methods that could help in reaching out to different sections of communities benefited by the programmes. Given that all the community representatives participating in the evaluation were already familiar with the design of the CBPPI programme, having seen its implementation in their respective places of origin, they were well placed to suggest appropriate indicators that could be used for the evaluations.

The process of identifying indicators had its own hilarious highs. To start discussions on the subject, the concept of evaluation was introduced with a simple analogy – the act of buying potatoes. There wasn’t a single soul in the team of community representatives who had never been involved in purchase of potatoes, and they were asked about possible criteria that could be used to distinguish good potatoes from bad ones. Several interesting responses emerged. Someone said that a good potato is white in colour, while others thought that a good potato is tight in composition, doesn’t have wrinkles on its surface, doesn’t smell bad, or carry rotten cavities. The analogy was extended to the possibility of distinguishing a good programme from a bad one, at which people had a good laugh. This was followed by a group-exercise to generate criteria to distinguish a satisfactory programme from a not-so-satisfactory one. Needless to say that the exercise resulted in a long list of as many as 77 interesting indicators of a ‘good’ programme, which were subsequently classified by a smaller team of 4 community representatives into 7 thematic categories (using a colour-coding method aimed at identifying similar-sounding indicators listed on charts) with some help from the support facilitators. The categories were related to: 

1. Inclusion of the poorest
2. Enhancement in the status of women
3. Quality of the collectives (of poor) formed under the programme
4. Quality of work done / services delivered under the programme
5. Engagement of the project with pressing local problems and issues
6. Quality of linkages formed with govt. agencies, institutions of local self-governance and other local institutions
7. Sustainability (prospects of continuation of the processes after withdrawal by the implementing organization)

It would be worthwhile in this context to mention a few indicators that were unusual in their nature and scope. For instance, some community representatives wanted to examine whether the programme sought to directly address social problems like child marriages, dowry and out-of-school children. Some of them wanted to examine the prevalence of ‘casteism’ and discrimination within project processes as an indicator of success, while some others wanted to explore the role of the programme in encouraging women to air their views in village level meetings. One of the groups emphasized on the need to assess the efforts of the programme in seeking out the poorest of poor families for delivering benefits and chose to examine the criteria of selecting beneficiaries. To gather necessary insights in a systematic fashion, a range of PRA methods (ref. Box 1) were suggested by the facilitators from Praxis, which were improvised by the community representatives during preparations at the workshop, and ingenuously used while carrying out the evaluations subsequently.  

Following the workshop, the community representatives broke into smaller groups and visited a few villages of the nearest organization implementing the CBPPI programme, to pilot test their approach to the evaluation exercise. This helped in sharpening their grasp of some of the methods earlier discussed during the workshop. When Zubeida Bibi, one of the active members of the team, returned after conducting a well-being analysis in one of the villages covered by the programme, she burst out with anger on failing to locate a single household from the poorest category amongst members of the local thrift group.

Box 1: Participatory Methods used by the community representatives in carrying out the evaluations   (1) Facilitating ‘Social maps’ to identify the poorest households (based on people’s criteria) and to assess whether the physical assets generated by the project for the communities are located appropriately (i.e. ensuring convenience of the poorest in accessing the same).  (2) Conducting ‘Well being assessments’ to see whether the poorest households have been included in the SHGs or not, and whether they have received project benefits or not. (3) Conducting ‘Cobweb analyses’ to assess (a)    the quality of groups / collectives formed under the project (b)    the degree of empowerment of women (c)    the quality of structures / services available through the project (4) Open-ended ‘Before and Now Analyses’ on multiple parameters to assess changes brought about by the project on multiple parameters (5) Case-studies to understand the project’s impact on the lives of individual beneficiaries, particularly with respect to its ability to take people out of poverty (6) Identifying key problems in the community, using the ‘Card Sorting technique’ (7) ‘Gender roles and decisions matrix’ to assess the project’s impact on the lives of individual beneficiaries (8) Project performance rating on key parameters, e.g. inclusion of the poorest, enhancement in the status of women etc.

Hitting the field

Over the next one-month, the 26 community representatives collectively traveled over 75,000 km, visiting different organizations implementing the programme located in different corners of India. For most of them, it was a mixed experience, replete with rare opportunities of traveling to faraway places, earning accolades for their capabilities and also occasional bouts of ridicule and contempt. Staying away from families for one long month had its own challenges for many of them. There were times when some of them had to grapple with bad news received from home, during which they got tremendous support from their teammates. Two of the community representatives lost their relatives while in transit. Another two lost some money in transit, but managed to tide over the crises with the support of their teammates. Fortunately, some of the organizations were sensitive to the conditions of the community representatives, and one of them even arranged warm clothes for them to face the extreme cold weather of the hills.

Making a statement

The highlight of the community-led evaluations was the analytical quality of the observations of the groups. Being beneficiaries of the CBPPI programme in their respective places of residence, all the team members had a ready frame of reference to compare their observations with. They looked at each intervention from a perspective that could easily detect the shortcomings and understand the operational dynamics. For instance, while extolling the good work done by one of the agencies in harvesting rain water, the group did not stop short of pointing out how in several villages the marginal land holdings of the poorest had found no favour from such interventions, due to being located at a distance. Similarly, the adverse consequences of conditioned loaning in villages of another organization, resulting in land alienation for poor families - were highlighted as the backlashes of inappropriate interventions. In many places, they identified several livelihood-promotion activities under the programme that were hardly viable due to absence of markets. In one place, the group was shocked to see clear wage differentiation between men and women despite strong emphasis of the programme on reducing gender disparities.

At the same time, the groups did not mince words in lauding the good initiatives of several implementing organizations. Their observations were replete with acclamations that spoke of wonderful efforts in regenerating natural resources, successful campaigns forcing government institutions to act, popular innovations in imparting elementary education, effective operations to free poor people from the misery of bonded labour, numerous livelihood-support interventions helping the poor during lean seasons, efficient collectives managing huge amounts of self-pooled resources, and ingenuous local initiatives seeking to deal with social evils.

The day the groups returned to Delhi after completing their visits to various programme areas, the atmosphere was charged with the victorious spirit of a troop conquering a fort. All their fears, apprehensions and inhibitions had been blown away by the experiences of the evaluation, and they had returned with a trove of stories from their unique adventures across snowy hills, deserts, riverbeds and seashores to share with each other. They spent three days together intensively preparing for the presentation that they had been eagerly waiting for. The support facilitators too worked very hard in helping them articulate their key observations.

The grand finale 

The presentations did not betray the diligent efforts of the community representatives. Key findings and observations from the evaluation were organized around the seven thematic categories earlier identified by the groups to categorize their indicators. While the group members took turns in presenting analytical diagrams and tables drawn on chart papers, the support facilitators translated their observations to the audience. They had prepared too well to afford any mistakes on the occasion, and they surprised people with their pointed observations. The Joint Secretary from the Ministry of Rural Development, who was one of the main guests attending the presentations, was impressed by the specificity of some of their findings, and promptly sought clarifications from the representatives of the concerned organizations about the same. The Resident Representative of UNDP complimented the community representatives for their outstanding work.

For the audience gathered at the UNDP office, the experience showed that it is not only feasible and cost-effective to entrust communities with evaluations of development interventions on a large scale, but also an empowering strategy by itself. As a matter of fact, the whole evaluation across 13 programme areas located across 11 states of India was undertaken for less than Rs. 10 lakh, or equivalent of 1800 Euros. Each of the community representatives was paid Rs. 5000 as an honorarium for their month-long effort, and their actual costs of travel, food and accommodation were either reimbursed or borne by UNDP.

It was time now for the community representatives to say good-bye to each other. Long after all the presentations had been concluded, groups of women could be seen cuddling each other with a tearful twinkle in their eyes. They were aware that they had together conquered many fears that once seemed to thwart any hope of success on their mission. They also knew that they would perhaps not get to see each other again - a sense of loss that would perhaps haunt them for a long time to come! Yet, their stride away from the UNDP office indicated a newfound confidence that would propel them to take on various odds in their daily lives. Their journey of life had found a new beginning!

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Endnotes

[1] The CBPPI programme was aimed at reducing poverty through collective action of poor people themselves. Implemented by non-governmental organizations and government agencies in backward districts of 11 states of the India between 1997 and 2004, the programme had a total outlay of US $ 10.7 million.

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[i] I am grateful to Ms. Kirti Mishra, Ms. Madhura Pandit, Ms. Saswati Bhattacharya and Mr. Debabrata Bhuniya – the facilitators accompanying the four teams – for their valuable inputs and observations. 

 The team of community representatives included Ms. Nanduba Hamirji, Ms. Radha Bahen Garva, Ms. Santokben Barot, Ms. Mainaben Thakur, Ms. Sitabai Walkoli, Ms. Bimal Agiwali, Ms. Budhani Sao, Ms. Parvati Mahant, Ms. Chitri Mali, Ms. Haravati, Mr.Niranjan Sabar, Mr. Bholanath Sabar, Ms. T. Meenal, Ms. A. Tamilarasi, Ms. Jubedabi K., Ms. K. Eswaramma, Ms. Jasmi Murmu, Ms. Malho Murmu, Ms. Lajja Devi, Ms. Pushpa Bisht, Ms. Khama Devi, Mr. Kishna Ram, Ms. Parvati Devi, Ms. Manraji Devi, Mr. Ramji Lal Choubey and Ms. Kistoori Devi.