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Showing posts from June, 2013

Gujarat per capita expenditure on non-food items fails to rise vis vis India: NSSO

By Rajiv Shah  Given India’s low per capita consumption base, food and beverages continue to account for a large part of any households’ final consumption expenditure. If economists are to be believed, the distribution of consumption expenditure between food and non-food items reflects the actual economic well-being of the population. In general, poor households are expected to spend substantially more on food items as against non-food items. Indeed, the share of expenditure on food items is expected to decline with development and economic prosperity. The latest monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) figures, released by the National Sample Survey (NSS) in its report “Key Indicators of Household Consumer Expenditure in India”, released in June 2013, suggests this trend. Whether it is India or its states, the percentage spending on food items has gone down across the board, which signifies overall prosperity of the population, and the ability of people to spend more on non-food items. N

Gujarat’s urban and rural working people earn poorer wages than other states: NSSO

By Rajiv Shah  The latest National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) figures, released recently by India’s most powerful statistical body, has once again reiterated the long-standing view that Gujarat’s salaried classes as well as casual workers earn much less the all-India average, in fact most other Indian states. Whether it urban areas or rural areas, the NSSO has found that things are not very different for Gujarat. While rural regular wage earners and salaried employees make up not a very big percentage of the working population in Gujarat, the survey, which was carried out over two years, 2011 and 2012, suggests that rural Gujarat’s regular wage earners and salaried employees, on an average, earned Rs 254 per day, as against the all-India average of Rs 298.96. Several “backward” states were found to be performing better in their respective rural areas — Bihar (Rs 411.82), Assam (Rs 302.22), Rajasthan (Rs 305.59), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 276.13), Jharkhand (Rs 478.61). In fact, the surv

A Planning Commission study suggests Gujarat’s poor social sector performance has more to do with governance

By Rajiv Shah  A recent Planning Commission-sponsored study, “Refining State Level Comparisons in India”, by Pranjul Bhandari, who works as economist at the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has found that a “refined” analysis of the performance across 21 major states suggests that Gujarat ranks 16th in health, 14th in education and 11th in infrastructure. The analysis is already creating flutter against the backdrop of the claim by those favouring Gujarat’s neoliberal model, that state’s alleged poor performance in the social sector is more an outcome of “fudged” figures, dished out by the Government India’s different ministries. The “refined” analysis for comparing states is considered a new and a more scientific methodology, adopted in order to find out how well states perform given the availability of resources at their disposal. It differs from the “raw” analysis, under which Gujarat ranked 12th in health, 10th in education and 6

Antenatal care of poor ST, SC Gujarat women 5 times less than non-poor women

By Rajiv Shah  A new study, “Inequity in maternal health care service utilization in Gujarat: analyses of district-level health survey data”, carried out by four prominent scholars, Deepak Saxena, Ruchi Vangani, Dileep V. Mavalankar, and Sarah Thomsen, and published in a Swedish research journal, Global Health Action, has reached the drastic conclusion that “inequities in maternal health care utilization persist in Gujarat”, despite the Gujarat being “one of the most economically developed states of India.” It underlines, “Structural determinants like caste group, wealth, and education were all significantly associated with access to the minimum three antenatal care (ANC) visits, institutional deliveries, and use of any modern method of contraceptive. There is a significant relationship between being poor and access to less utilization of ANC services independent of caste category or residence.” The scholars comment, “Two decades after the launch of the Safe Motherhood campaign, India

Shala praveshotsav myth explodes in Gujarat’s backward Little Rann of Kutch

By Rajiv Shah  The state-sponsored child enrollment drive, shala praveshotsav, stressed on enrolling children from the backward sections in Gujarat. Interview with a few social workers suggests how it would have no lasting impact on educating kids belonging to the backward rural areas surrounding the Little Rann of Kutch. Even as the din around the three-day state-sponsored shala praveshotsav, which has claimed cent per cent enrolment at the primary level in Gujarat, is starting to fade, questions are being raised on how to retain those who have been enrolled. A case in point is enrollment of children during the festival in the rural areas that surround the Little Rann of Kutch. The praveshotsav took place in all the 108 villages that border the Little Rann. Helped by community based organizations and voluntary agencies, nearly all village children were, indeed, “enrolled”. But, apparently, this appears to the end of the roadmap for these small kids. Already, the view is getting strong

Beyond shala praveshotsav: Gujarat’s lag in enrolling children remains high

By Rajiv Shah  Another three-day Gujarat government-sponsored Shala Praveshotsav, a “festival” involving the entire state officialdom, starting with the Gujarat chief minister, meant to enroll children at the primary level, has come to an end. An official release at the end of the festival claimed, “The state-wide enrollment drive gained great momentum under the leadership of chief minister Narendra Modi, who himself graced the mahotsav in Mendarada block of Chiroda, Samadhiyala and Rajesar primary school at Junagadh district.” The official release claimed, on the third day, a total of 1,56,884 children in the age group 5+ years were enrolled, comprising 76,802 girls and 80,082 boys. It added, “Thus, in the three days of the enrollment drive, a total of 4,80,556 children consisting of 2,35,263 girls and 2,45,293 boys have been enrolled. Saying that ministers, “IAS, IPS and IFS officers of the state attended programmes at various backward blocks of Gujarat” for the festival, the release

On-site slum upgradation in Ahmedabad: Solution of land tenure is the key

By Rajiv Shah  Even as the Gujarat government is planning to come up with a new slum policy 2013, with “rehabilitation” of the slum-dwellers with the help of private developers as the key thrust, available literature suggests that any effort to uproot slum dwellers would mean further heightening their already vulnerable status. Recently, in a paper, “Low Carbon Green Growth Roadmap for Asia and the Pacific”, providing a roadmap for citywide slum upgradation, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) said that “the poor and the vulnerable in cities and towns can aspire to have security, shelter, basic infrastructure and services with citywide slum upgrading”, adding, “Up to 35 per cent of Asia-Pacific urban residents in slums with proper urban planning can have adequate shelter and basic services through proper urban planning.” UNESCAP believes, this would be possible, only in case of “on-site slum upgrading” which would “mean improving the physica

Rehabilitating urban poor? Draft slum policy lacks focus on in situ slum upgradation

Rajendra Joshi By Rajiv Shah  The draft new slum policy 2013, called “Gujarat Sum Rehabilitation and Redevelopment Policy”, overlooks the issue of slum upgradation altogether, despite the fact that it was found to be working successfully in Ahmedabad in 1990s. The government has not cared to float the draft policy for public debate, which has further constrained any meaningful dialogue on it. The Gujarat government is mulling over the new Slum Policy 2013, and its draft, which has been prepared, has mooted changes from the earlier policy of 2010 in order to make it attractive for the urban poor, who were promised 50 lakh houses in the BJP manifesto during the December 2012 elections. And, in order to provide teeth to do it, it has decided to “manage” slums by making the Gujarat chief minister as head a new authority, Gujarat Affordable Housing and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (GAHSRA), which will have all the powers to “decide and/ or guide matters related to land use, town planning,

Gujarat, Rajasthan: Huge discrimination in delivery of healthcare services to Dalits

By Rajiv Shah  Is discrimination of Dalits in the delivery of basic services an international human rights issue which needs a much deeper exposure than has been the case so far? The question is significant, because, despite lobbying at various levels on the part of the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) during recent years, the Government of India has strongly refused to acknowledge caste discrimination as an international human rights issue, which should be dealt with in the UN. Whether it is water, sanitation or health, the discrimination continues, and government sops have failed to do anything to subdue its impact. A recent www.counterview.org report (click HERE to see it) highlighted how discrimination in the provision of water in the Indian state of Gujarat has meant untold hardships to Dalit women, who cannot access water from the common source in Ahmedabad’s rural areas. This is quite in line with what a UN expert who visited India in 2012. In her annual report, t

Rise in socioeconomic inequalities in Gujarat, a neo-liberal haven

By Rajiv Shah  A well-known international organisation, Save the Children, has quoted official data to suggest how the neoliberal growth model, for which a section of economists project Gujarat as the idea, has failed to bring down social and economic inequalities in India.  A new report, “Reducing Inequality: Learning Lessons for Post-2015 Agenda – India Case Study”, by top international organization, Save the Children, with presence in more than 120 countries and 15 Indian states, has blamed the neoliberal growth model, for which Gujarat is being projected as the best example of success, for the current woes of widening gap between the rich and the poor in India. The report says, “There is evidence to suggest that the poorer sections of India were actually further marginalized under the neoliberal economic regime introduced in India in the early 1990s.” The report, in fact, states that the inequality gaps in India have increased at several layers. It says, “Poorer states like Bihar,