News and publications update

Supreme Court gives a blow to the UID 
The Supreme Court issued an interim order in a case filed by Justice (Retd.) K.S. Puttaswamy which gives a severe jolt to the Centre's hopes of making the Aadhar cards available to every citizen and make it an essential component of welfare schemes. The Court took reservations to the fact that on one hand the Aadhar cards are being projected as voluntary, the implementation of welfare programs is being hinged on it.

Millenium Development Goals Revisited
The United Nations has proposed a new set of development goals to take effect after 2015. In this EPW piece, it has been argued that the new goals are not of much significance as they still retain the problems that were associated with the present goals - that of vagueness and lack of specific obligations, diminished role of the civil society, and institutional failure to look at institutional reforms.

Poverty trends: Worsening of poverty from 2004-2009
In another EPW article, Utsa Patnaik analyses and compares poverty estimates and other official figures between 2004-05 to 2009-10 and concludes that contrary to what the government would make us believe, poverty in terms of nutritional intake has only increased during this period.

Land Acquisition Bill: Becoming a reality soon
As reported here, Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has said that the Land Acquisition Bill will be brought into force in two months. But even has the time for notification of the Bill is fast approaching, the debate around the new land acquisition regime continues. In his column of the Business Standard, Dilip Mookherjee highlights issues such as the fate of land misappropriated by governments themselves, identification of land-owners and tenancy registration, among others.

International Labour Organization’s Domestic Workers Convention, 2011

September 5, 2013 marked the coming into force of ILO's Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) which extends the basic labour rights of workplace to domestic workers. It is a huge development in the struggle to recognise the dignity and value of domestic workers and giving them their long-due rights of collective bargaining and fair terms of employment. In the past, the ILO, in its report 'Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection', had identified the widespread prevalence of domestic workers (workforce of 53 million estimated worldwide) and had put forth a case for their legal protection. 

Eight countries have ratified the Convention so far while several others have initiated efforts in this direction. India must also take cue from these global developments and show sensitivity as well as respect to the enormous number of domestic workers it houses by drawing out some basic rights for them. According the aforesaid Report, India is home to eight percent of the world's domestic labour, yet it has never attempted to take steps for their protection. While some states have ensured minimum wages to domestic workers, there has not been a single attempt at the national level but for the draft bill submitted by the National Commission for Women (read more here). In light of the deprivation, disentitlement and neglect that domestic workers have faced over the years at the hands of the state, it is high time the Parliament and the state legislatures start thinking seriously in this direction. 

Land Acquisition Bill and the dilution of the principle of 'land for land'

Among the euphoria surrounding the passing of the new Land Acquisition Bill, that a key provision ensuring land to those displaced by irrigation projects was done away with has gone largely unnoticed. In her column on the Business Standard, Sreelatha Menon noted that this deletion took place in the intervening period between its passing in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the behest of the Madhya Pradesh government. It must be noted that the principle of compensating land for a farmer's land was put into place by the tribunal established in Narmada water dispute where the government was ordered to give effect to this principle in compensating the victims. However, while land compensation was awarded to a large number of families in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the state of Madhya Pradesh resisted giving land as compensation.

With the overnight removal of the provision guaranteeing an acre of land to an affected family after passing in the Lok Sabha, the government has taken a stand that flies against the victories achieved in the decades-long struggle in the Sardar Sarovar project as well as the ideals of "fair compensation" which the Bill is purported to be premised on.  

Democracy vs Capitalism: Role of social-welfare schemes in the privatisation era

There seems to be an inherent contradiction between the idea of a free market economy of the globalised era and that of enforcement of 'positive' socio-economic rights by the state. This is largely due to the divergence in the role of the state that either sees as adequate. Though this conflict is being increasingly experienced by developing economies, there isn't much normative literature that has emerged on the subject, with the exception of a few very recent writings highlighted in a previous post on this blog.

Ashutosh Varshney, in his column in the Indian Express, has come out with a possible explanation to this conundrum which the Indian economy is also facing today. He characterises it as a clash between democracy and capitalism and concludes that the government must try to ensure both mass welfare as well as economic freedom in order to attain the fine balance between the two. He believes that while UPA-2 has attended to the former, it has taken growth for granted and has thus faltered in facilitating the latter. The idea that he therefore carries in his piece is that if the government stops assuming that the economy will fuel itself on its own and takes positive decisions in this regard, socio-economic schemes brought in by the same government would not contradict the capitalistic ideals but will, in fact, complement them. 

The Ayes have it- The Bill to prohibit Manual Scavenging and the Street Vendors Bill passed by the Lok Sabha

  In a bid to set new records as the most productive Monsoon Session, the UPA government finally introduced and passed the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012 on Friday, 6th September. Only last week, it was reported that over 500 safai karamchari workers staged a protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi demanding the speedy passage of the Bill and an apology from the Prime Minister himself. The UPA had made promises in its first and second terms to eradicate the menace and indignity of manual scavenging. 

   The new bill prohibits the employment of manual scavengers and the construction of unsanitary lavatories which require manual handling of human excreta. It obligates each occupier of unsanitary latrines to demolish and convert them as per the sanitation requirements at his own cost. Offences under the Bill shall be cognizable and non-bailable and can result in imprisonment for upto 5 years. The Bill also promises to rehabilitate manual scavengers and provide for alternative employment. 

   On the same day, the Lok Sabha also passed the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012. The Bill provides for the demarcation of vending zones under powerful Town Vending Committees and grievance redressal mechanisms. It overrides all existing state and municipal acts including the Code of Criminal Procedure in order to protect vendors from harassment from local authorities and the police. Such a legislation goes a long way to protect the livelihood and social security of millions of street vendors in our cities. It follows a Supreme Court directive in Gainda Ram and Ors. v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Ors. [(2010) 10 SCC 715] to the appropriate government to legislate and bring out a law to recognise and protect the fundamental right to livelihood of hawkers and street vendors. 

News Round-Up

Gujarat government notifies the Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region development project

Frontline reported here that Modi’s government has sanctioned a massive project in the Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region (MBSIR)  to develop an industrial hub and urban centre covering over 50,884 hectares. Farmers in the region however, insist that the land allocated for the project, which is supposed to be located on wasteland, is very much fertile.

Forest Rights in Action?

EPW has come out with a detailed analysis on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Odisha. The study reveals how the the State's approach has led to several possible beneficiaries being excluded from the benefits under the Act. Inadequate awareness, the lack of guidance by the implementation agencies and the sidelining of tribal oriented provisions in favour of individual beneficiaries are cited as some of the constraints to the effective operation of the Act.

Parliament passes the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill

After the National Food Security Bill, the UPA quickly followed up with the passing the LARR. The Lok Sabha passed the bill on August 29th and the Rajya Sabha on September 4th. The Bill replaces the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 and promises to assure transparency in the process of land acquisition and provide adequate compensation and rehabilitation for land owners and others affected by acquisition of land.             

The Food Security Bill is all but law now, but not everyone's happy.

The Rajya Sabha yesterday passed the National Food Security Bill, 2013 by a voice vote, following the Lok Sabha's nod on August 26th. The Bill now only requires Presidential assent to become the law. However, the current economic situation has led to serious doubts about the Bill, reflected in the media (here, here and here) and the markets both. The Sensex dropped 590 points the day after the Lok Sabha's assent, and already today the Rupee opened lower, as compared to yesterday's close. 

Following the concerns raised post the Lok Sabha debate, Harish Khare penned a strong-worded reply in the The Hindu to critics of the bill, pointing to the social obligations the State has towards the underprivileged sections of society and applauding the UPA for fulfilling its commitment. An excerpt: 

"Once every few decades comes a moment in a Republic’s life when a few fundamental commitments have to be renewed — or rejected. This is one such week, a time to test our core beliefs. It is also the time to ask a fundamental question: since when in this country has a veto been ceded to the markets and its manipulators, at home and abroad, to decide the issues of equity, social justice and economic fairness? There is something inherently perverse in the suggestion that this much-needed welfare measure would send out the “wrong” signals. Pray to whom? Those half-a-dozen professional financial manipulators in London?"

Khare, a former adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh believes that the upper classes- controllers of public opinion today and the major beneficiaries of the earlier economic reforms- are directing an unfounded anger towards the State and the poor themselves. In a democracy, a single class of persons cannot, and should not be dictating the allocation of collective resources to the rest. The National Food Security Bill "strikes a new balance" between the interests of the various stakeholders of this democracy, and rightly so. 

Looking Beyond the Hysteria: Nuts and Bolts of the Food Security Legislation

Indian Parliament took a momentous step towards providing a legislative framework for realisation of the constitutional right to food when its two Houses passed the National Food Security Bill 2013. Yet, this transformative moment has been met with hysteric opposition in the media and the financial market. It has been called the 'biggest mistake India might have made till date'. As pointed out in the previous post, the Sensex dropped 590 points the day after the Lok Sabha's assent. The Credit rating agency, Moody's has also termed the legislation “credit negative”. Similar disapproval has been voiced by other commentators as well.

While the concerns over additional governmental expenditure at a time when India is confronted with massive current account deficit and a declining rupee cannot be brushed aside, there is need for a dispassionate and clear-headed analysis of what the Food Security Bill attempts to do and its likely impact on governmental expenditure.

As Kotwal, Murugkar and Ramaswami have argued, many critics of the Food Security Legislation have overestimated its cost by a not very insignificant margin. They refute the widely-cited estimate of Surjit Bhalla who had argued in his column in the Indian Express that the Bill will cost 3% of India's GDP. These scholars on the other hand argue that the subsidy increase as a result of the Bill will be firmly within 1% of GDP.

This can be surmised from the fact that we already have a gigantic network of procurement and storage that runs the existing PDS system. Anil Padmanabhan explains this further in his column, Five Myths About the Food Security Bill, where he argues that the incremental procurement and associated expenditure would be comparatively insubstantial in view of the our pre-existing procurement network. To quote Padmanabhan:

"it is claimed that the Food Security Bill would put a massive burden on an already overburdened exchequer as the government would have to procure additional food grain. Not only would they have to find more storage but also spend extra to procure the grain. Yes, it is fact that the procurement will have to be 62 million tonnes (mt) a year. But guess what, the country procured 72 mt of foodgrain in 2012-13. And in case you wonder, in the previous year procurement was 63.38 mt, with the existing infrastructure at its disposal.”

Admittedly, 1% of the GDP is not a trifling sum. However, it would be analytically untenable to cast the blame for our burgeoning fiscal deficit on the food security legislation alone. As Debraj Ray argues in his blogpost, Monkeying with the Rupee,

“The defense budget of the Government of India is double the projected expenditures of the Food Security Bill. For 2013-2014, a "modest increase" of 5.3% (following on somewhat less modest increases of 17.6% and 11.5% in the two preceding years) brings us to a sum of over 2 trillion rupees. There's more: the foreign exchange component of expenditure on defense is orders of magnitude higher than the corresponding component for food. Compare this to the FSB, which will spend half the military budget, and all of it on domestic production and distribution...just the total cost of subsidizing fuel use last financial year was 1.6 trillion rupees, substantially higher than the estimated expenditure under FSB.”

Therefore, critics of the Food Security Bill would do well to move away from their myopic and exaggerated focus on the financial implications of the Food Security Bill. As the Brazilian Supreme Court reminded its government in the context of right to health in S.T.F. Recurso Extraordinario [Extraordinary Remedy] no. 271.286-8:

“Between the protection of the inviolable rights to life and health, which are subjective inalienable rights guaranteed to everyone by the Constitution itself, and the upholding, against this fundamental perogative, of a financial and secondary interest of the State, ethical-juridical reasons compel only one possible solution: that which furthers the respect of life and human health”.

This is not to mean that diversion of funds and leakages that have become endemic are insignificant issues. Yet these objections do not merit an abandonment of the legal entitlement approach towards starvation and malnutrition. Such criticisms ignore that the Supreme Court's intervention in the PUCL case and its recognition of a constitutional entitlement has led to remarkable improvements in reduction in leakges states like Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. For instance, JNU Professor, Himanshu wrote in his column in Mint:

“The latest round of consumption expenditure for the year 2011-12 was released recently. Data from the survey shows the extent of leakage for rice and wheat, taken together, is 35% only compared with 55% in 2004-05 using the same method. Thus, within a span of seven years the reforms introduced by states have led to a significant reduction in leakages. What is also worth noting is not only the curbing of leakages but also the expansion in access to PDS. Only 23% households purchased cereals in 2004-05 and 39% in 2009-10. This number rose to 44.5% in 2011-12. In 2011-12, 50% of rural and 31% of urban population was purchasing cereal from PDS.”

Therefore, in spite of its limitations, especially in view of India's deficient legal infrastructure, legal entitlement approach has shown that it can expedite deep-rooted and systemic reforms in the administration of PDS in India and turn the right to food from a mere constitutional aspiration into a reality.

To quote Shoma Choudhary of Tehelka:

“The real significance of this Bill, however, is that in every democracy, the starting point must always be an articulation of rights and intention. A legislation itself can never be a magic wand: but the syllables of idealism rightfully belong to it. Enacting the Abolition of Untouchability did not mean the curse of caste disappeared overnight. Nor will the Right to Education ensure every child turns into a scholar in a day. Nor indeed can the Right to Information ensure governments will reveal all their dark truths. What legislations do is set forces into motion. They might take decades to mature but they create the correct moral framework. They give citizens the right to demand.”

Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to see the gains of the legislation as merely symbolic. It would be pertinent in this regard to remind ourselves of views of Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at NYU and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions, who claimed in his book, Human Rights and Development that:

“creating a legal right to food is one way of creating a focus for public action in response to India’s nutrition emergency, and for increasing the poor and underprivileged’s sense of entitlement to state action on nutrition. Moreover, the more politicized the deprived are about their right to food, the more vigilant they will be in policing the various state nutrition schemes that already exist, and in combating the endemic corruption that diminishes the effectiveness of existing measures.”

From that vantage point, the onus lies on commentators to shift their gaze from a reductionist opposition to the National Food Security Bill to its nuts and bolts, which even the most ardent supporters of the Bill admit, leave considerable room for improvement.

In this post, we would like to draw attention to the following main areas:

a) Identification of Beneficiaries: The most important flaw of the Bill is that it does not really create enforceable entitlements for anyone, because the selection of eligible households is left to the discretion of the government. Instead of specifying the exclusion criteria or making it mandatory for state governments to specify exclusion criteria and deeming everyone else eligible, section 15 leaves the identification criteria for the State Governments to evolve. As a result, the actual number of rights holder would remain a contention question.

As Nitin Sethi reported:

“When the Bill was still in works, the answer to this was rather simple. The government would get a new BPL census done through the states – the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC). The census would measure people for seven basic ‘deprivations’ and give a score to individuals on the basis of where they stand on this count. The Centre would decide a cut off score, and anyone above that score across the country would be eligible for the subsidised food grains. The UPA then decided against using the SECC for the food bill and informed the states that they were – in a throw back to the targeted PDS era - yet again imposing state-specific cut offs based on this country-wide cap and updated State-specific poverty lines. The centre would provide subsidy for the numbers it had set and the States could choose who they wanted to give the grains to by their own criteria and design.”

b) Use of Aadhaar: Section 18 (2) (d) allow “leveraging 'Aadhaar' for unique identification” for the purpose of this legislation. In view of the cloud of uncertainty over the UID Project for the lack of a statutory mandate and its implications on the right to privacy, linking entitlements under the law with Aadhaar may not be advisable. Moreover, as Reetika Khera has shown, other less expansive technological solutions like smart cards , bank payments, etc. have been remarkably successful in minimising leakages in states like Chattisgarh. Therefore, Aadhaar may not be necessary for the successful implementation of this statute.

c) Grievance Redressal Mechanisms and Civil Society Participation: Active involvement of court-appointed Commissioners and civil society organisations, notably, the Right to Food Campaign, was critical in shaping the success and direction of review by Supreme Court of executive policies in the PUCL case. Indeed, Lauren Birchfield and Jessica Corsi have noted in their work, Between Starvation and Globalisation: Realizing the Right to Food in India [31 Mich. J Int'lL. 691]:

“In terms of defining, unpacking, and explicating the right to food, the Campaign and Commission have been key contributors to the development of the PUCL litigation. Gains made in the struggle to define the right to food are attributable to the constant involvement of civil society and to the agency awarded to directly affected persons and groups. Incorporating the people whose rights have been denied has allowed for proper identification of immediate needs and systemic deprivations and has resulted in the construction and authorization of appropriate and effective schemes. Most importantly, perhaps, Campaign and Commission involvement has integrated the public into the knowledge base supporting the right to food, empowering individuals to both identify their rights and to determine how those rights should be realized.”

Therefore, the grievance redressal mechanism contemplated under the legislation must be receptive to intervention and feedback by civil society organisations. While Section 22 does provide for non-official representation in the State Food Commissions, more needs to be done in carving out a genuine space for civil society organisations.

d) Costs-Sharing: Given that many states would have to incur substantial expenditure in expanding the existing distribution, transportation and storage networks, it would have been prudent for the statute to resolve the contentious matter of sharing of these costs. Past experience with NREGA indicates that this issue can become politically explosive and hence, categorical legislative imperatives would have been useful.

None of this calls for neglect of the financial implications of the Food Security Bill. However, we submit that dismissing the constitutional entitlement to food on the ground of fiscal deficit is ethically, politically and economically untenable. Moreover, criticisms of this legislation as a politically motivated exercise ignores the fact that the government and the Parliament are not only expected but also obliged to respond to pressure from the grassroots. Instead of bemoaning the Bill as political, perhaps it is time to celebrate it as a symbol of a renewed social compact between the state and its citizenry. 

Socio-Economic Rights and Privatisation - Publication Round Up

Can privatisation of basic services, trade liberalisation and withdrawal of state be reconciled with state obligation towards protection of socio-economic rights and social justice? How are socio-economic rights implicated by the prevalent economic model of market integration and promotion of international trade and investment? Two recently published papers reflect on this intractable question.

Yoav Dotan's, Informal Privatization and Distributive Justice in Israeli Administrative Law, 36 Hamline Law Review 27 (2013) looks at the normative models used by the Israeli Supreme Court in addressing the distributional impact of privatisation of services in that country.

According to Dotan, recent privatisation of public utilities in Israel has been paralleled by increased recognition of socio-economic rights as part of he enumerated civil political rights in the Basic Laws. Yet the development of an activist doctrine of fundamental rights in the socio-economic field has failed to serve as a constraint against the distributive consequences of privatization.

Dotan explains:

“This is because the idea of fundamental socio-legal rights does not require full distributive equality with regard to relevant social goods (such as healthcare, housing, or education). It only provides for some minimal (constitutional) level of service that the state must supply to every member of society. The problem is, of course, that when one deals with the distributive outcomes of privatization, the doctrine does not constrain the process but rather approves its very essence and outcomes. This is because the starting point of privatization is complete equality in the provision of the service, and its end result is the creation of a free market that serves most people, with some minimal assurance of (an inferior) public level of services to the poor. Thus, the socio-legal rights doctrine is conducive to the outcomes of privatization because it only takes care of the minimal (welfare) level, while completely neglecting the overall impact of the process... When the Court encountered arguments against the distributive impact of privatization, it was always willing to accept the infringement of socio-economic equality if the government ensured some “basic,” “minimal” level of public service.”

Sharmila Murthy looks at the relation between privatisation and socio-econimic rights in the context of right to water and sanitation in her paper, The Human Right Water and Sanitation: History, Meaning and the Controversy Over Privatisation, 31 Berkeley Journal of International Law 89 (2013).

She avers that framing of water and sanitation as a human right is a response to global regulatory emphasis on efficiency and sustainability and has been a rallying call for anti-privatization movements. However, according to Murthy, “from the standpoint of international law, the human right to water and sanitation is not incompatible with private sector participation or with market-based approaches.“

Yet, she acknowledges that real tensions do exist between privatisation and the right to water.

“The challenges of operating an urban water and wastewater system complicate private sector involvement in the delivery of services. The large amount of infrastructure required means that network provision of water is a natural monopoly that is expensive to maintain and upgrade. Moreover, in recent years, there has been a stronger emphasis on full cost-recovery and “ring-fencing” services, which reduces the ability to cross-subsidize across different municipal sectors. While the human right to water and sanitation does not require that services be free, they do need to be affordable and no one should be denied services for inability to pay. This is a difficult goal to reach and requires that states critically assess their tariff structures.”

Most importantly, she argues on the basis of case studies from around the world that:

“The involvement of the private sector in the delivery of water and wastewater services will not necessarily lead to efficiency. Case studies from around the world highlight that without proper oversight, a private operator's drive to improve efficiency indicators by reducing costs can have significant impacts on water quality and consistent service delivery. Moreover, there are significant transaction costs associated with outsourcing to the private sector that need to be accounted for when considering proposed efficiency gains. Regulation and monitoring both play a key role in mitigating the tensions between market-based approaches and rights. Yet such oversight also requires strong institutional capacity, without which states are more likely to enter into private arrangements on unequal footing, resulting in terms that are not in the best interests of the public. Another challenge of engaging in private sector water contracts is that the international forums available for addressing such disputes are not transparent and may not provide a vehicle for addressing the concerns of individuals and communities who may seek to raise human rights concerns.”

It must be noted in this context that the U.N. Committee on Economic and Social Rights had asserted, in its General Comment No. 3 [GeneralComment No. 3: The Nature of States Parties' Obligations (Art. 2,Para. 1, of the Covenant),14 December 1990, E/1991/23 ]:

“...the undertaking “to take steps ... by all appropriate means including particularly the adoption of legislative measures” neither requires nor precludes any particular form of government or economic system being used as the vehicle for the steps in question, provided only that it is democratic and that all human rights are thereby respected. Thus, in terms of political and economic systems the Covenant is neutral and its principles cannot accurately be described as being predicated exclusively upon the need for, or the desirability of a socialist or a capitalist system, or a mixed, centrally planned, or laissez-faire economy, or upon any other particular approach. In this regard, the Committee reaffirms that the rights recognized in the Covenant are susceptible of realization within the context of a wide variety of economic and political systems, provided only that the interdependence and indivisibility of the two sets of human rights, as affirmed inter alia in the preamble to the Covenant, is recognized and reflected in the system in question.”

Therefore, it would indeed be very difficult to claim that privatisation and economic liberalisation are inherently incompatible with the state obligation to protect socio-economic rights. The impact of privatisation policies at a programmatic level and their conformity to rights obligation is another matter though.

This however takes us to Kerry Ritich's warning that social rights are product of a time and place specific consensus. It was underpinned at a theoretic and a political level by the widespread acceptance of Keynesian economic arguments and models and by the consensus borne out of 1930s that entitlements to economic security and inclusion were of interest not just to those who directly benefited from them, but were instead a broad social and political concern. Therefore, it is probable that as political conditions and dominant economic norms have changed, historically contingent meaning of social rights may also undergo transformation in consonance with neo-liberal economic models.

Mid-Day Meal Schemes and Employment Opportunities for Women

Most studies on mid-day meal schemes tend to focus on the obvious nutritional benefits or lack thereof. Carly E Nichols argues that the impact of these programmes extend far beyond, justifying the need to fund and monitor them more stringently. She found that MDMS not only ensures nutritional security for children but also makes women's workload lighter through provision of childcare and food preparation.

In this piece, she argues:

“Programmes that work to reduce women's work burden in this area not only contribute to the overall food security of the family, but make a deeper impact by providing a public subsidy to the huge amount of 'invisible' or unpaid labour that women undertake every day.”

The Debate on the Food Security Bill- A Missed Opportunity?

Debates in an informed democracy should focus on issues of policy. Notwithstanding that the focus in the Indian political landscape is on mud-slinging, the Lok Sabha debate on the Food Security Bill, is illustrative of not just a fundamental lack of understanding of debate as a concept, but also a missed opportunity. In this Indian Express Op-ed, the author engages in an analysis of the Bill, which analysis the legislature has failed at miserably.

Issues such as economic sustainability, and the inherent flaws in the public distribution system, have been elucidated on, in an attempt to bring to the fore the relevant aspects of this debate and the flaws in the Bill.

This editorial piece also makes a point in a broader context, in reiterating the need for informed policy debates, so as to ensure the enacting of effective legislations.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/entitlement-follies/1160377/

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/entitlement-follies/1160377/

Is India’s Child Malnutrition Problem Overblown? Of Height, Weight, Mortality and Genetics

Professor Aravind Panagariya’s recent paper, Does India Really Suffer from Worse Child Nutrition than Sub Saharan Africa, [Economic and Political Weekly, May 4, 2013] has engendered a lively debate on the appropriate methodology for calculating the incidence of child malnutrition in India.

In a paper, reminiscent of Lalit Dandona’s paper that led to massive downscaling of the estimates of the number of persons at risk of HIV/AIDS in the last decade [Lalit Dandona, HIV/AIDS Control in India, Lancet, 2002], Panagariya’s paper argued that the claims that India lagged behind even much poorer Sub-Saharan Africa in eradication of child malnutrition were based on flawed measurement methodology.

The paper averred:  

“The central problem with the current methodology is the use of common height and weight standards around the world to determine malnourishment, regardless of differences that may arise from genetic, environmental,cultural and geographic factors ...Malnutrition is a multidimensional phenomenon. In broad terms, it may be divided into protein energy malnutrition and micronutrient defi ciency...Given these many dimensions involved in identifying malnutrition, only a thorough medical check-up can properly determine whether a child is malnourished or not.”

Panagariya further added:

“The height of an individual can vary for both genetic and nutritional reasons. Without detailed medical examination, one cannot conclude whether an individual is short because of malnourishment or because of genetic factors. This makes identifying stunting by referring to just height, an imperfect exercise. Nevertheless, this is the current practice. Without genetic differences, there is no empirically plausible explanation for the signifi cantly higher levels of stunting and underweight among Indian children than their Sub-Saharan African counterparts.”

In addition to this conceptual critique, Panagariya also emphasised on the mismatch between malnutrition and mortality figures. Comparing the rate of malnutrition and infant and child mortality in India and Sub-Saharan African countries, he found prevalence of lower rates of infant and child mortality in India relative to Sub-Saharan  Africa despite higher malnutrition rates. In view of the fact that declining rates of malnutrition typically accompany declining infant and child mortality rates and maternal mortality ratios, he questioned the official figures on the rate of child malnutrition in India .

This paper has however resulted in a series of rejoinders from nutritionists, public health experts and economists in the pages of Economic and Political Weekly.

Gargi Wable, has come out in support of the use of height-weight matrix for the measurement of  malnutrition. In her paper, Methodologically Deficient, Ignorant of Prior Research [Economic and Political Weekly, Aug.24], she argued:

“First, countries have historically used anthropometric measures such as height and weight alone when assessing child under-nutrition. The Lancet 2008  Series on Maternal and Child Under- Nutrition provides substantial evidence on the relationship between chronic and acute undernutrition and poor height and weight gain in children under five, as well as the risk to morbidity and mortality among children who are stunted (too short for their age) and wasted (too thin for their height)...Second, since the author insists on medical assessment, gross levels of  undernutrition among Indian women and children have been reported from the serum testing performed periodically by well-regarded national surveys, such as the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB). In fact, even the latest round of the NFHS (2005-06), which tested haemoglobin levels pointed to a prevalence of iron defi ciency anaemia among as many as 70% of young children (6 to 59 months age) and among 55% of women in the child-bearing age group (15-49 years).Similarly, measurement of serum retinol levels in the NNMB 2003-06 rural surveys showed a 60% prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency among children of age one to six years.  Obviously, such pervasive levels of micronutrient deficiencies would not occur in  well-fed/well-nourished populations. Thus, using medical assessments instead of weight and height will not help to underrate India’s malnutrition burden.”

Several scholars have questioned Panagariya’s use of genetics as an explanans for deficiency in height among Indian children. Rakesh Lodha, Yogesh Jain and C Sathyamala note in their paper, Reality of Higher Malnutrition in India, [Economic and Political Weekly, August 24] that:

“The central question is whether the Indian genetic make-up is so distinct that it warrants separate charts. There have been multiple studies on the genomic diversity in India of which the Indian Genome Variation Consortium (IGVC) initiative has been the most comprehensive one (Indian Genome Variation Consortium 2008). Recently, the genetic origins of Indian population have also been reviewed (Tamang et al 2012). These papers highlight that the Indian population is a genetically diverse population with significant overlaps with other populations of the world, chiefly European and African. Very few groups are genetically distinct…The available genomics data does not suggest a unique genetic make-up of Indians and thus supports the use of a universal standard for comparing the burden of childhood undernutrition across countries.”

In the same vein, Coffey, Deaton et al, state in Stunting Among Children: Facts and Implications [Economic and Political Weekly, August 24] that:

“Panagariya discusses a number of puzzling facts about child and adult anthropometrics. Most, although not all, of these have been known for a long time. Scholars who have written about these puzzles have indeed noted that some of the facts have no ready explanation, for example, that Indians have higher average incomes and lower infant mortality rates than most of Africa, but that Africans are taller. What Panagariya claims to contribute is the answer to these puzzles: that they can all be explained by “genetics”. All of his argument about the role of genetics is by residual: if we cannot think of anything else, it must be genetics. There is no direct evidence on genetics anywhere in the paper.Genetics might be the answer, or part of it, but any argument by residual is obviously sensitive to having missed something, or to having overlooked some evidence.”

Panagariya’s claim that lower infant and child mortality rates indicate a lower rate of malnutrition has been questioned by Arjun Gupta, Biraj Patnaik et al, Are Child Nutrition Figures for India Exaggerated? [Economic and Political Weekly, August 24]. The paper notes:

“One of Panagariya’s central arguments is that Indian malnutrition figures are much higher than would be expected, given its child and infant mortality levels. This he shows using data related to every conceivable parameter such as life expectancy, neonatal mortality rates, and infant, child, and maternal mortality rates, very often out of context, and attempting to shock readers into rethinking India’s performance on nutrition.

However, it is important to note that not all undernutrition leads to death. Death is dependent on many factors such as the nature and duration of illness before a child dies, and access to healthcare and health facilities, especially emergency care. Public health measures such as the state of immunisation, and water supply are also important. It is an unfortunate truth that while curative care in India does not address the problem of malnutrition, it does save malnourished children if they land up at a hospital in time. In his article, Panagariya does not appreciate the importance of medical facilities in explaining better mortality figures. Surely he knows that India is a nation in transition, with poor food intake and widespread hunger on the one hand, and relatively well-established healthcare services, especially emergency care, on the other.”

There is a certain intuitive appeal to Panagariya’s argument that when almost all of the statistics suggest that India’s doing better than sub-Saharan Africa and there’s one statistic going the other way,  one has to look closely at that one errant statistic. Yet, as Gupta, Patnaik et al claim, the answer to India’s failure to combat malnourishment in face of its substantial success in bringing down infant and child mortality may be rooted in the peculiar features of its public health system. contours  

This view finds support in Dean Spears’ Coming Up Short in India in Mint, poor sanitation and resultant chronic intestinal infections could explain the persistence of child malnutrition in India.  

National Old Age Pension Scheme

This Economic & Political Weekly article examines the workings of the National Old Age Pension Scheme in the districts of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. An analysis of the impediments faced in the operation of this scheme, revealed rather surprisingly that the evidence of corruption was sparse. Arguing for streamlining the delivery mechanism of the scheme, the author makes out a case for expansion of this scheme and an increment in the amount of pension.

It would be interesting to read this article in light of the Martin Ravallion piece on targeted schemes, and analyse whether this targeted scheme accounts  for targeting costs and will be sustainable in the long run.

http://www.epw.in/special-articles/old-age-pension-scheme-jharkhand-and-chhattisgarh.html?ip_login_no_cache=ced452a0e957eb2aea4c1bfc3d0c9ee7

Neither Small, Nor Green - Hindu Op-ed

Parineeta Deshpande-Dandekar through an example of the Kukke I Hydel Project, proposed to be established in the forest of Western Ghats, illustrates how flawed and misleading the rhetoric of development can be.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/neither-small-nor-green/article5045672.ece

The Unaccounted Costs of Targeting- Indian Express Op-ed piece

Stressing on the imposition of cost on the recipients of targeted social policies, a former World Bank official Martin Ravallion, draws attention to the unaccounted costs of targeting, and argues that while targeting may be a means to alleviate poverty, it is not an end unto itself.

What is opposed by him is not the non-universal nature of the mechanism per se, but the homogeneous lens used by policymakers while framing targeted polices.

http://m.indianexpress.com/news/the-unaccounted-costs-of-targeting/1157291/

More on Delinking Poverty and Government Welfare Programes: UPA's Shift Towards Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Poverty

Mihir Shah, Member Planning Commission attempted to dispel some of the confusion around the official poverty line adopted by the Commission through this piece in The Hindu.

In, what I would call a minimalist, defence of the Planning Commission Poverty Line, Mihir Shah argues:

“All that the Planning Commission has done is to use the most credible source of consumption data available in the country (the National Sample Survey Organisation) to compute poverty estimates that are both on parity with international standards and enable comparisons within India over time and across States. There is no value judgment being made about the adequacy of this amount of money for any meaningful purpose. All that is being done is to provide an estimate (using the very same methodology) that allows one to compare the number of people below a certain consumption level (aka poverty line) in 1993-94, 2004-05 and 2011-12. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He further goes on to aver that:

“What is even more important, however, is to clarify what the poverty line does not signify. Contrary to popular misunderstanding, there is no suggestion whatsoever that the benefits of government programmes will be restricted to those below this poverty line.”

It is important to note that Mihir Shah makes a quasi-official acknowledgement of the need for de-linking welfare programme from poverty line given the limited informational focus of the latter. In fact, he explained the key elements of the ambitious plans of the UPA Government to gradually move away from a uniform poverty line to use of multiple benchmarks for welfare programme through the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC).

“the incontrovertibly clear landmark contribution made by the UPA-II government is that for the first time in the last 20 years, the poverty line has been delinked from entitlements of the people of India. Indeed, with the 12th Plan, this government has taken the first steps in acknowledging that poverty is a multi-dimensional concept that cannot be reduced to consumption expenditure alone. To illustrate, till now if you were to be regarded as a beneficiary of the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) or the Total Sanitation Campaign, you needed to possess a BPL card. The distribution of these cards was plagued by humungous errors of inclusion and exclusion, such that many of the really poor would not be included but those with muscle power at the local level managed to hustle BPL cards even if they were not poor.

During the 12th Plan, all this is poised to change with the enshrining of the principle — “programme-specific indicators for programme-specific entitlements.” This is a clear recognition that poverty has many dimensions, each of which is to be tackled by different programmes and the benefits of each programme will either be universal (as in MGNREGA, health, primary education, sanitation, mid-day meals, etc.) or be based on data on specific deprivations such as homelessness.

The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) conducted by the Government of India, in partnership with all State Governments, is nearing completion. The SECC data will be presented in gram and ward sabhas across the country over the next few months and this will enable a kind of social audit of this data and foster citizen awareness and participation in the process. The SECC contains invaluable information on homelessness, manual scavenging, disability and a host of other deprivations, all of which are major constituents of poverty. These will be used to identify the people entitled to specific benefits. Thus, the homeless will be the beneficiaries of IAY and the disabled will get disability pensions, irrespective of whether or not they have a BPL card. The food security legislation will cover 67 per cent Indians, which is more than three times the number of people living below the consumption poverty line (22 per cent).”

This shift would mirror UNDP's move towards the Multi Dimensional PovertyIndex (MPI) and provide the government a more comprehensive understanding of incidence of deprivation in the country and a more reliable basis for targeting  Nonetheless, the proof of the pudding is in eating and one must wait for more details to emerge before hailing this move. As it is, the SECC process has been plagued by widespread criticisms of its methodology.