Last month, I have tweeted a thread in which I tried to find out the origin of a few of the Yojanas (schemes) from a huge list that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced since assuming office a little more than three years ago. Since then, I am flooded with tweets from supporters of the PM suggesting we should not be bothered about the origin of the projects, but its implementation and the end result are more important. Let us do the analysis of few of such Yojanas (re)launched with much hype. The origin of the scheme will be mentioned briefly and we will check the difference it made after it was re-named and re-launched for us to get a clearer picture.
Another RBI circular (RBI2011-12/606RPCD.CO.LBS.BC.No86/02.01.001/2011-12) dated 19 June 2012 informed all the banks to open branches or service facilities in all the villages with a population of 2,000 across the country before March 2012. It has achieved 99.7% of the target. That is, out of the identified 77,199 identified villages, where banking facility was not available, banks opened such facilities at 74,414 villages. The decision to
open bank branches in such places was taken by the Government in 2009.
On 31 March 2014, 24.3 crore existing bank accounts were already BSBDA!
On 28 August 2014, PM Modi announced the launch of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) with much fanfare and lot of publicity. Immediately after the announcement, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram claimed in an article in The Indian Express that the scheme is nothing, but re-naming of the BSBDA for appropriation. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vehemently denied the allegation. But the facts are different from what BJP claims.
This report from Business Standard will clarify the number game further. As on 31 May 2017, the total number of PMJDY accounts stands at 28.76 crore. That means an
addition of just 4.73 crore accounts after the launch of the PMJDY scheme.
When the Government and BJP claim 28.99 crore new accounts opened since the launching of PMJDY, that is a blatant lie. The only thing the Modi government did was renaming an existing scheme, which was successfully implemented by the previous governments, and it started a massive advertisement campaign to claim credit. See page 67, table IV.7 -
FIP Summary in the annual report of RBI, 31 March 2014.
Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao - Old Wine in Old Bottle with New Label.
On 11 October 2014, on the International Day of Girl Child, PM Modi stressed importance of eradicating female foeticide - a rampant practice in most part of India - and asked the general public to post their ideas and suggestions in MyGov.in - Government of India's citizen engagement platform. After two months, on 22 January 2015, the PM announced Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana (BBBPY) with an emotional speech. The declared objectives of the schemes are, preventing sex selective abortion, ensuring survival and protection of girl child and ensuring education of the girl child. Along with this, the same day, at the same venue, one more scheme launched - Sukanya Samridhi Yojana.
A lot of BJP leaders and Union Ministers enthusiastically declared that the PM's initiative is altogether a new one and that is what we are checking here - whether it is a new scheme or was there any previous program similar to this. But a report on financial allocation says that the government is just creating a hype through wide spread publicity stunts.
Read here
There is a circular issued by the Department of Women & Child Development under the Ministry of Human Resources Department (HRD) of Government of India on 26 October 2000. In the second paragraph, the Circular clearly states that "For the first time in India, a special intervention was devised for adolescent girls using the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) infrastructure. ICDS with opportunity for childhood development seeks to reduce both socio-economic and gender inequities. The adolescent girls’ scheme under ICDS primarily aimed at breaking the inter-generational life cycle of nutritional and gender disadvantage and providing a supportive environment for self-development."
That year saw the launch of the "Kishori Shakti Yojana". As the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government understood correctly, just one program was not enough to cover the improvement of girl children. In 2002-03, the Government launched Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls.
Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG) - Sabla - started in 2011 with the same aim as Kishori Shakti Yojana, but with few added points like life skill education and accessing public services. In 2008, the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government decided to celebrate 24 January every year as National Girl Child Day with six objectives and three out of the six objectives were same as the BBBPY.
Advocacy, Awareness and Affirmative action were the points stressed.
The Dhanalakshmi Scheme launched in March 2008 was a conditional cash transfer scheme in which every girl child born after 8 November 2008 would receive Rs5,000 when the birth is registered. For every immunisation completed Rs200 each will be paid with a maximum limit of Rs1,200. On primary school enrolment, the girl child would get Rs1,000 and Rs500 every year till fifth standard. For next three standards, the amount is increased to Rs750. Once the child completes 18 years of age, an insurance maturity amount of Rs100,000 would be given to her.
Beyond all these, the only thing additional and new in BBBPY is its massive advertisement campaign, which the Modi Government undertook. Old wine in old bottle with new label!
Integrated Child Development Services
2011-16 Strategic plan, MoW&CD: http://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/MWCD_Strategic_Plan_10-02-2011.pdf
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan - Nirmal Became Swachh when Govt Changed
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is another flagship project of this Government. The importance of this project is as such that PM Modi himself took a broom and posed on a roadside for photographers! It is said to be the largest cleanliness drive in India with the primary aim making India open defecation free in five years. As the mission was formally inaugurated on 2 October 2014 by the PM, the deadline set was for the same date 2019. As per the plan,1.09 crore toilets have to be built at a cost of Rs1.96 lakh crore within these five years. The project is funded by the central Government, World Bank, corporate houses and public sector undertakings (PSUs) through their mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds and respective state Governments.
The data from Government says in the first eight months of the project, corporates and PSUs together constructed 89,976 pour flush pit toilets. At the time of writing this article, the website www.sbm.gov.in was under up-gradation and not showing much details other than the total number of toilets built (41,217,590) till date and from the total coverage of 41.9% on 2 October 2014 to 64.18% as on date. Beyond making India open defecation free, cleaning roads, streets, buildings and surroundings and solid waste management in each town were also a part of the mission.
When the Government, all of a sudden, spends huge money for a cause with a lot of advertisement campaigns and a lot of brand ambassadors for one particular project, people tend to think it as something noticeable. The
Government projected SBA as a new scheme and own brainchild terming that successive governments over the years never cared for sanitation; and hence the current dispensation has to go on an over drive mode.
Under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, since 2008-09 to February 2014, about 58,263,896 household constructed toilets or latrines. Community toilets, toilets in schools and other places and toilets constructed in urban areas are not included in this number. The year-wise data shows 11.3 million toilets were built in 2008-09, 12.4 million in 2009-10, 12.2 million in 2010-11, 8.8 million in 2011-12, 9.6 million in next two years and from 2013 to February 2014, slightly higher than 4 million toilets were constructed. In 2014-15, the Modi government constructed 5.5 million, followed by 10.6 million in 2015-16.
We assume that SBA is a standalone mission to construct toilets and clean the cities. This is not at all true. Safe drinking water to every household in rural India is one of the main mottos of India's sanitation campaign for a long time. Where does this Government stand on that? In the last three years, because of the smokescreen created by the ruling party to highlight the number of toilets built, nobody noticed the decreasing budget allocation for safe drinking water program.
It is high time for the Modi government to stop boasting its exaggerated growth figures in pre-existed social welfare schemes by renaming them especially when government's own data shows they are merely appropriating.
Maybe the Modi Govt believes that going to the toilet is more important than having clean water to drink! Here are some links for anyone to check and verify all the Schemes mentioned above…
(The author can be contacted on Twitter at @t_d_h_nair)
"intelligent fanatic" gives credit to others liberally and humbly accepts responsibility for the mistakes committed. Thanks again for the article.
Considering all aspects;damages done r multiple of achievements in 67 years.
In contrast,work done in 3 years is much better in the situation inherited.
It will b very painful to rectify damage done in 67years, will take time & concerted efforts.
Recently ML has given an article about of progress of Air India from top class to worst in 67years. So is the case on all fronts. I m wondering how ML has allowed such a biased & confusing article ! Let us have some prudence to allow a reasonable time before making judgement !
My question to the nation and Bhagat of Modi is simple what happened to all those toilets and Swachh Bharat ?? With cows roaming freely on the streets, how can one keep it clean???
Hijacked is a typically journalistic word to attract attention.
Like "Federer slams Nadal in five sets, with the fifth set ending at 10-8.
Let's focus on supporting a strong leader.
This has not changed. The accountable cost of delivery has increased 35% with the 7th Pay Commission and has been eroded by the resultant inflation.
At the same time, nothing has been done about corruption. India's perverse law continues to describe the victim of extortion (the "bribe giver" as a criminal) while not defining the bribe taker as an extortionist guilty of treason for subverting the law and the state through abuse of power and hanging him or her in quick time.
It stands to reason that no sane person would "bribe" to reciev what is legitimately due to him or her but is denied by the Judiciary, the Bureaucrats and the Police through delay, prevarication, loss of files etc. etc.
Beyond the technological gimmicks and dramatic inconveniences casued to the common man, Modi Sarkar is very much a Constitutional Reservations-Extortion racket.
Nothing will change until:
(1) Inequality under law and exceptions to the rule of (including “reservations†and special privileges for some religions, castes and tribes at the expense of others) are expurgated from the Constitution and laws of India.
(2) Bribe Taking is defined as criminal extortion or treason and made a capital offense with special rules of evidence and special courts with summary powers (akin to a Military Court Martial).
(3) All court proceedings are video graphed and archived for public viewing and can be used as evidence to prosecute Judges and Magistrates at all levels under special laws and special courts with summary powers akin to a military Court Martial, for insouciance, negligence, tardiness, dereliction of duty, disregard for law and propriety, behaviour unbecoming of a Judge such as lack of etiquette and manners,
(4) every job on the "Public" i.e. Government Pay Roll has specific and unique Key Responsibility Areas, Key Performance Parameters and Objectives for which they are held accountable on pain of summary dismissal for non-performance or life imprisonment for treason for sabotage under special laws and special courts with summary powers akin to a military Court Martial and
(5) India creates an Ombudsman Service of reemployed and retrained military officers (Colonel and Below, JCOs and NCOs) who retire before 50 to serve as presiding officers, investigating/prosecuting and enforcement officers at the afore mentioned "Special Courts", one for every tehsil with powers to arrest, incarcerate, try and punish any and all from the President of India to a peon in accordance with the Special Laws framed therefor.
Though, I agree that last govt did not know how to talk about their good work since they had to deal with lot of corruption cases.