Public leaders and bureaucrats play a major role in making democratic process more efficient, feel experts.
At a talk-cum-interaction held on Saturday here at the Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies (NCDS), Professor N Rangaswamy, a public finance expert, discussed different voting procedures in a democratic system. NCDS Director Professor Srijit Mishra chaired the meeting.
Prof Rangaswamy pointed out as to how in a democratic setup public leaders and bureaucrats are responsible in making the process more efficient. He also emphasised the role of peoples’ participation at different stages to strengthen the democratic process. He concluded saying public awareness and training programmes are needed to make the system more transparent and efficient.
The second event of the day was a seminar on “Effect of Developmental Interventions on Adoptive Capacity of Households to deal with Natural Disasters” delivered by Dr Unmesh Patnaik, Assistant Professor, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai.
Dr Patnaik examined the developmental intervention under the Western Odisha Rural livelihood Project (WORlP) to enhance the coping/adoptive capacity of households in addressing natural disasters like climatic aberrations and extremes.
Dr Patnaik’s talk was based on a primary survey conducted in four blocks of Balangir district. Dr Patnaik evaluated the impact of the WORlP on income enhancement and migration and observed a reduction in absolute poverty, migration with an increase in income. However, there is no statistically significant result to indicate that this increase in income has led to higher adaptive/ coping capacity of households.