The sustained backwardness of Odisha within adequate outreach of the Government schemes for the poor and marginalized is due to lack of awareness among a majority of the grassroots functionaries of Government who are in responsibility of the implementation process.
In most of the villages, during interaction with the beneficiaries, it is mostly found that the local officials who are in charge of the schemes and programmes are unaware and ineffective in carrying the mission to the deserving poor masses. Rather they sway with vested interest and lack transparency in the whole execution process. Their techno-managerial knowledge and financial and administrative accountability are limited to the formal job obligation and not inspired by the spirit of nationality and public service.
The Government jobs are seen as opportunities for personal benefit and security rather than scope of serving the poor masses and fellow country men and women. The bureaucracy continues to follow an outdated and colonial model developed by the then ruling elites which needs to be transferred to a democratic one through administrative and governance reform in the spirit of constitutional values and morality at par with global standards.
In order to bring desired change in socio-economic condition of the poor in village it is equally important to change our executive in the proper perspective. Take the example of functioning of three most important grassroots public institutions delivering service, Tehsil, block development office, and police station which matter in the development and protection of the poor and marginalised communities.
It is one of the important duties of the Tehsil office to ensure land for the poor for housing, livelihood and habitation purpose but to a large extent these revenue offices are very rarely serving the landless poor who are in need of the support of this important office which matter in their life. It has been observed that many of the letters, circulars and Government orders from the Secretariat and Heads of the department are not being carried out by local level officials.
Take the case of Government land distribution programme. letters from the Chief Secretary and the Revenue Secretary on important matters such as homestead land to landless, village linking road and use of commons are being pending in Collector and Tehsil offices with inordinate delay, even without execution for many years.
As a matter of personal experience of this writer, a letter from Revenue Department addressed to district administration for providing a linking road to Sukida Dalit hamlet in Machhagaon block of Jagatsinghpur district was not carried out. Inhabited by 20 families of bamboo workers for last three generations, the village has no all-weather road. The villagers are facing serious difficulties in daily travel. The matter has not taken seriously for urgent action considering the problems of the poor Dalits. There are a number of such cases in districts of Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Khurda, Puri and Cuttack in which the letters and orders are lying for years without any action.
The homestead land distribution programme “Vasundhara” has been continuing since last ten years but thousands of prospective beneficiaries have not been yet covered under the scheme to construct house. Many Dalit and tribal hamlets in rural village have no linking road and commons such as water bodies, cremation ground, playground and community land and other infrastructure that deprived them of their rights to commons land.
There are also issues of half-implementation with distribution of Patta without land demarcation and lack of other ancillary facilities to make productive use of land.
Many schemes are inter related such as people having Patta are only eligible to avail housing schemes for poor but these poor landless beneficiaries are getting deprived of house, sanitation and other schemes due to lack of Patta land.
There has been no reform in police administration. The police stations are still cast in the British mould and the police personnel are no better in their behavior and body language in dealing with public, especially the poor and marginalised SCs and STs who are often visiting police station to register cases of atrocities against them by the dominant caste and class in the village. The power of police very rarely is used to protect the poor and low caste Dalit, Adivasies and women in rural areas. There are a few police officials who sometimes show caste affinity and religious bias towards the victims which affects the investigation and thus fair trial under criminal justice administration. There are reports of forced settlement with influence of police officials in favors of the perpetrator.
The public-spirited role of police and respect for human rights laws has been missing in police stations. Experience of the rights activists shows that the police officials are not regularly updating themselves on protective laws and its amendments.
The block development offices in existing development administration process have a major role in ensuring social security, food and nutritional security, education and sanitation, healthcare, drinking water, communication and infrastructure development of the rural area and people with focus on the poor and marginalised. Most of the welfare schemes and development programmes are being executed by the block office but there are complaints about transparency in beneficiary selection and timely release of benefits to the beneficiaries. The most popular housing scheme for the poor has not been implemented properly and a large percentage of houses remain half-made while beneficiaries are routinely visiting block offices for instalments. There are fake beneficiaries and many genuine beneficiaries are deprived of their due. The poor, elderly men and women, widows, PWD and children and women are the worst sufferers.
It has been told that there must be convergence of Government schemes for its maximum benefit to the poor by linking land with livelihood, employment, income generation, increase in production, housing, sanitation and infrastructure development for an overall sustainable impact but such process has been neglected due to lack of inter-departmental coordination and rigid official procedure. The poor and marginalized are linked to so many process and they are getting harassed while dealing with a number of officials.
The elected people’s representatives, MPs, MlAs and PRI members are mostly involved in the functioning of these block level offices and head various committees and bodies with responsibility of planning, monitoring and execution of various Government schemes and programmes.
They customarily belong to various political parties and sometimes are guided by vested interest in favour of their supporters by influencing local Government officials which affects the normal function of officials. Therefore it is highly needed that the Government must provide training, awareness and orientation in regular interval to grassroots officials on constitution, laws, policies and schemes and programmes. The grassroots officials must be given protection while discharging their duty in dealing with anti-social elements. It is also required to bring social diversity in local Government offices by recruiting people across social groups. The social diversity must be ensured in recruitment of grassroots service providers and social inclusion of members of SC, ST and women in various committees with their orientation. The special projects and macro projects and provisions such as TSP and SCSP for the marginalized groups must be properly looked into with special care. The convergence of various Government programmes and schemes is needed by promoting inter departmental coordination and collective efforts of various stakeholders. Above all political will is needed to compliment the practice.
(Email-manasbbsr15@gmial.com, Mob-09437060797)