Our state has been bogged down with problems relating to agro-farmer, education and healthcare. The problems have been further accentuated by the shortage of electricity leading to power cuts with which the residents have not been familiar for a long time. Rahul Gandhi, during his recent visit, tried to highlight the maladies faced by farmers, by students and by patients. To repeat an expression used in this column a few weeks ago “in an area of darkness, a few spotlights” cannot and do not solve systemic problems. Rahul Gandhi went on to criticise the Chief Minister for not being fully involved with these problems of fundamental nature. Every leader has his style of functioning and the “choice of techniques” is left to the leadership to determine and implement. A Padayatra of a few kilometers may be symbolic or even be charged with tokenism, but it can definitely be looked upon as a means of highlighting certain basic maladies.
The Block Grant problem has led to an agitation by the concerned schoolteachers over the last one month. The movement is shifting its focus from the Assembly or the Secretariat to the district and block level offices. Surely, one month is a long period to find a solution to a chronic problem which is a product of the faulty policies of the Government. As a country, our education and healthcare sectors are still substantially neglected. Infant mortality and maternity mortality rates in India are worse than sub-Saharan Africa. Eminent doctor Devi Shetty makes us wake up to the shocking fact that every ten minutes, a young woman dies during childbirth in India. Three lakh children die in India the day they are born and 1.2 million do not live long enough to celebrate their first birthday. What Dr Shetty is trying to highlight in his recent comment is that these problems cannot per se be solved by increasing budgetary allocation of the State on healthcare. Budgetary allocation may make monetary resources available, but the distortions in the healthcare will not be remedied because of acute shortage of skilled manpower. The entire medical education system is caught in a quagmire created by the irrational diktats of the Medical Council of India.
let’s look at the scenario in the context of our State Odisha. Budgetary allocation may stand increased, but the fond hope that will solve the problems of healthcare will remain a mere “hope” in the absence of the necessary skilled manpower in doctors and paramedical staff. Health insurance scheme Yasaswini conceptualised eleven years ago as a micro health insurance scheme, yielded the necessary results. Farmers paid a premium of Rs 5 per month and the State became the insurer. Today, over four million farmers pay Rs 10 per month, and about 10 lakh farmers have a surgery in well-equipped hospitals.
Dr Devi Shetty makes an unusual suggestion of tapping millions of mobile phone subscribers. If a mechanism is created to get even Rs 20 from each subscriber, according to Dr Shetty, we can cover surgical cost of about 900 millions. In fact, development of skilled manpower and ensuing the basic infrastructure facilities are the answer to the problems in healthcare.
The policies, however, require suitable fine-tuning to meet the needs of ground realities. There has been criticism from leaders of opposition parties in the State that the Chief Minister has not visited the problem spots and has no direct feel of the problem so as to properly diagnose the ailments. To the opposition, a noisy, direct and confrontational mode is the dominant strategy. To our Chief Minister, who has his party under a strict chain of command, a distanced overseeing and announcement-based strategy appears to be the suitable one. Readers may observe that the Chief Minister is always “delighted” to announce schemes and projects, and the public at large are to sequentially understand that appropriate remedial measures are already in action. But the elements of mismatch between the announcements and the implementation continue to expand like yawning gaps. We are left with a situation where, the programmes are attractive, but their translation into reality is not efficacious. This diagnosis holds true in the case of all the social sectors, be it growth of the farming and allied activities or education, healthcare or infrastructure development.
In the ailing child at Sishu Bhawan, Cuttack, Rahul Gandhi found the hidden “spirit” of the children of the State. But this identification is yet to percolate in any meaningful manner to the relevant local levels so as to ignite the “spirits” of the young citizens. The Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party display monolithic characteristics. The leaders remain a “class” apart; the BJD is also leader-centric in its structure and the votes are mostly for the leader than for the party.
There is an unavoidable and inevitable impact of all this on the youth. This large section of our voters is a category apart. Some of them are frustrated; some have been lured and some are blind followers. The acid test came with the repetitive use of Ordinances to reincarnate the colonial hangover of the 1894 land Acquisition Act. A pro-people and pro-agriculture Act suitably protective of the compensatory packages came to the forefront. The requirement of social impact study before selection of the location of industry became mandatory, and, amongst other things, compensatory benefits were extended to those who are otherwise dependent on farming the land, though they may not be the owners thereof. These benefits were meant to be diluted. The BJP had originally supported the new 2013 Act but wanted to dilute it immediately after coming to power. This was stoutly resisted by an almost united opposition. These events gave an opportunity to the Congress and the left parties to zealously pursue their opposition to the amendments pushed in through repetitive Ordinances. At last, the Prime Minister was gracious enough to announce that the Ordinance will not be pursued. But that is not enough for reorienting the farming sector. Structural changes, tenural reforms, suitable area planning by adequate crop selection and provision of locally suitable form of irrigation are all awaiting actions at the grassroots level. We have failed in our water management and we do not have a purposive water policy. This has been highlighted in a book living Rivers, Dying Rivers authored by my senior friend Ramaswamy R Iyer, who did not survive to see the book in its final printed form. Policymakers will do well to dwell on the details of the book for a holistic attitude keeping all the sectoral demands in mind.
But in these exercises required to be taken to gear this State in an appropriate direction, the involvement of the youth power and the dovetailing of their future to the programmatic actions appear to be missing. The political parties are hardly using their youth units as a thinktank or a policy germinating source. The parties and the leadership have looked upon the youth power at their command to demonstrate their numerical strength, often imitating crude muscle power. The universities and colleges are not thinking and expressing themselves regarding the requirements of the State. The teachers, traditionally opinion makers, are busy fighting for their own entitlements. This necessarily leads to a significant loss of the guidance of the teaching community into the system. Each one of us has a responsibility and a concomitant duty towards our younger generation. It is time we entrusted greater responsibility to younger leaders. But that must be preceded by policy and programme formulations through mutual interaction. There should be a meeting of minds regarding the politico-administrative goals that are to be achieved. It will be suicidal for us to sit back, leaving our youth to fend for them in a directionless manner. We cannot delay this anymore. The interactional debates must start so as to further advance the interests of our State. We must act at least now through suitable interventions to mitigate the power cuts. A public debate on possible steps of emergent nature has to be ignited, so as to warm up the ‘spirit’ of the youth to suggest remedial measures. The MoUs for a bunch of power generating units are gathering dust. We have not given adequate attention to the captive generating units. This sector has come to the help of the grid on earlier occasions. We have not fully explored the alternate sources of energy. The shift in this regard does not involve any particular sector of the community. It involves the future of all of us. And this concerns us all!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jayantdas@hotmail.com)