On October 2, we had the occasion to remember Gandhiji and Shastriji as both of them were born on the same day. Advertisements were issued at public expenses holding out promises of measures that would change the face of our society. This has become an annual ritual. There is hardly any meaningful stocktaking to assess the prevalent trends and the expectations. The present scenario throws up visible indicators and symptoms. These need to be analysed in a causative manner so that there is an evaluation of the achievements relating to the promises our leaders have held out.
Coming to our own State, certain indicators need immediate attention. Despite long years of implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, there are no roads to about 15000 villages of our state. There is no facility of electricity in about 1,600 villages. We profess that we are self-sufficient in the energy sector, but we cannot properly explain the rampant power cuts and power failures, more dominantly in rural areas. Utilisation of power for augmented production in agriculture has remained a distant dream. We have, however, not forgotten to hike the electricity duty in our anxiety to willy-nilly collect revenue for satisfying our habitual indulgence in tax and misspend. Women have continued to feel more and more insecure in the State’s most of the important areas. Despite all schemes, which are stated to cover from birth to death, infant mortality and malnutrition among women, children and the aged have been putting us to shame. General condition of safety and law and order is crisis-ridden. The recent daylight bank loot in the heart of the State capital city is an indicator of the failure of the Commissionerate system and of the public safety arrangements. Most of the metal-based industries are presently in a state of slump. The industrial ethos is rather dull and non-innovative. Medicare, except for the rich, is in a state of disarray. Around 10,000 more doctors are a minimal requirement to make things function at a rudimental level. In the education sector, the scenario is one of turmoil. Teachers have reasons to feel neglected and exploited as a class. In all the sectors, the employees are subjected to exploitation through the contractual appointments, which are illegally prevented from being converted into regular ones. Alongside, disturbingly enough, the number of persons in the record of the employment exchanges as “unemployed” has reached an alarming level. Esoteric ideas of skilled development have paraded themselves ignoring basic grassroots level structural alterations so as to make skill-acquisition attractive and eventually remunerative.
A week from October 2, i.e., October 9 is the day on which Utkalmani Pandit Gopabandhu Das was born. In the language of Gandhi, “In this godforsaken region, the one real leader is Gopabandhu Das” (April 10, 1921). Neither of these personalities would have wanted a state of affairs to be what it is in our part of the country after seventy years of Independence. Both these remarkable leaders looked upon the “villages” as the basic unit, from which the edifice of our society has to be restructured and reoriented. If there had to be development emanating from the grassroots, i.e., the villages, agriculture and rural based industrial activities including handicraft and cottage industries would not have received lip service in the manner hitherto demonstrated. No substantial investment has been made in extending irrigation facilities. The infrastructure at the rural level for input management and utilisation, warehousing and trade linkage are still a far cry from being at the level of critical minimum.
Going back to symptomatic indicators, paddy procurement centres have not been functioning properly. Either they are not opened, or there is delay in opening them. There is absence of godown facilities; there is non-calibration of weighing machines; and there is lack of intimation of the actual dates of procurement to farmers. Against a marketable surplus of 8,512 quintals, 17,981.51 quintals, i.e., 9.469.07 quintals of excess paddy was stated to have been procured from 25 farmers, 1,914.19 quintals was stated to be procured from 19 farmers, who have no agricultural lands. The payments to farmers were either harassingly delayed or not effectuated. A study of the case of 2,635 farmers involving a procurement of 18,001.96 MT of paddy reveals delay in payments ranging from 2 to 188 days. The Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation procured paddy valued at Rs 25,509 crore during 2010-15, and on account of utter lethargy and negligence, a subsidy of Rs 581.6 crore relating to this period was not released by the Central Government as the accounts could not be finalised. Sample and test-checks of 26 cases revealed that societies were tagged to distant millers ranging from 12 to 185 km despite existence of nearby ones resulting in excess payment of Rs 6.14 lakh towards transportation. In two districts, which were subjected to evaluation, there were excess payments towards custody and maintenance charges amounting to Rs 42.90 lakh. During 2010-14, there was short delivery of 0.72 lakh MT of custom milled rice. There was also misappropriation of 11.243 MT valued at Rs 40.78 crore by 20 millers in the selected districts of study. These indicators demonstrate lack of good governance.
With all this in the background, we now have the issue of Mahanadi water on our laps. Blank fires by political parties, including the ruling one, are a ruse to cover up and divert public attention from the continuous neglect of the vital sphere of water management and appropriate assertion of our rightful share. Recent newspaper reports indicate that the Chief Minister has written to the Prime Minister to intervene in the matter, and that has become an excuse for stalling an in-depth and extensive preparation for a visible purposive legal action that the State is entitled to take under our Constitutional scheme. The Cauvery water dispute episode has also involved an attempt by the Supreme Court to expect the PM to facilitate bringing the parties to some form of reconciliation. The situation has even reached a state that Karnataka (in both in its executive and legislative fronts) has indicated that contempt of the Supreme Court may stand invited. Article 144 of the Constitution is being muted and mutilated as Karnataka expresses its inability to abide by the order of the Supreme Court while proposing filing of a review petition. The latest is that the Centre is projecting its helplessness in handling the problems of an inter-State river dispute. This indicates the weakening of the unitary character of our federal structure. litigation appears to be unavoidable. We should learn from these contemporaneous events and evolve our strategy to protect our entitlements. It looks as though a citizens’ initiative is probably called for to give the government a blueprint. But the linkage between the ordinary citizen and the ruling elite is wide and is further widening. It is, therefore, unlikely that a blueprint or a working paper at citizens’ initiative would be an acceptable modality to the government. This inference is also partly conditioned by the professed attitude of the government “to go it alone”.
In our anxiety to shout aloud that we are wronged, we are not guiding the youth force appropriately. They are again being pushed around in a misdirected manner so as to be “agitationist” without knowing the essence of the intricate details of what is really irking them. The only vehicle which is supposed to be at work and is expected to yield the required results for us is the State Government machinery. Participation of experts and inputs flowing from them are the need of the hour. For once, all the people of the State are prepared to stand united. The leader of the ruling party should appreciate that he, having acquired the status of the leader of the Assembly, is further getting an opportunity to metamorphose into being the unquestioned leader of the people. Such a situation entitles the leader to be the commander-in-chief of the state of affairs. The policy of isolationism is not compatible with the interests of the sudden up-rise of unity asserting a common cause. There is a legitimate expectation that a ruling party with massive majority would not lose this opportunity of turning its sectarian / regional leader into an undisputed leader of the people of the State. The move could also inspire the dream of a greater importance at the national level. Instead of convergence, we see proliferating divergences. A reversal of this trend is necessary for the benefit of all of us. The leadership must carry with it the entire society to serve the common cause. But alas, that is not the writing on the wall. Surely, 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)