📰 Government likely to postpone census to 2022
Officials occupied with COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination programme
•The Centre is on track to push the 2021 Census to 2022 on account of the country’s continuing preoccupation with COVID-19, a senior government official has told The Hindu.
•“Our hands are full dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic,” the official stated, pointing out that first it was the measures taken to deal with the pandemic and now the massive vaccination programme underway.
•The first phase of the census — House Listing & Housing Census — and the updating of the National Population Register (NPR) were initially to be rolled out in some States on April 1, 2020, but were postponed due to the pandemic.
•The exercise was to have been conducted in two phases — House Listing and Housing Census from April to September 2020 and Population Enumeration from February 9 to February 28, 2021.
•The office of the Registrar General, in reply to a Right To Information (RTI) query from The Hindu filed in November, said the schedule or the questionnaire of the NPR was “being finalised” and the information about the expected date of first phase of the Census was “not available.”
•The entire process had become controversial after Parliament approved the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019 that sought to give citizenship to persecuted minorities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
•However, the rules required for implementing the CAA have not been framed so far — more than a year after the passage of this key legislation pushed through by the Modi government in the teeth of strong opposition. Diplomatic sources believe that strong opposition from Bangladesh is one of the factors that led to the CAA remaining on hold.
•Tens of thousands of people had taken to the streets across the country protesting the Centre’s decision to update the NPR, which is considered the basis for preparation of a national register of citizens (NRC) that could potentially exclude millions of people born in India. Indian Muslim citizens questioned why they had to prove their citizenship all over again.
•Many young leaders, who took part in the protests, against the CAA and NPR process, now face sedition charges. Several State Assemblies had also passed resolutions against the NPR and NRC.
•On January 9 last year, the Registrar General notified the 31 columns for which enumerators would have sought responses during the House listing and Housing Census.
•Citizenship Rules framed in the year 2003 hold that the NPR is the first step towards compilation of National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) or NRC. Data for an NPR was first collected in 2010 and then updated in 2015. Some States had objected to additional questions to be asked in the fresh NPR such as “date and place of birth of father and mother, last place of residence and mother tongue”.
Company gearing up for the order of 83 indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)
•The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has manufactured the last two Su-30MKIs of the 272 aircraft contracted from Russia and is all set to deliver them to the IAF.
•“One aircraft is certified and inducted for BrahMos modification. Another aircraft has been produced and planned to be certified by February end,” a HAL official said. The delivery formalities for acceptance by the customer are being finalised.
•India had contracted the Su-30s from Russia in batches of which 222 were assembled by HAL at its Nasik plant under Transfer of technology (ToT) since 2004. Of the 272 fighters, 40 are being modified to carry the air launched version of the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos. The IAF has started receiving the aircraft and has deployed some at Thanjavur air base in Tamil Nadu last year.
Last of major ToT projects
•“This is the last of the major ToT projects of HAL,” said R. Madhavan, Chairman and Managing Director as it has completed manufacturing the British Hawk Advanced Jet Trainers (AJT) and for the Dornier aircraft the full design and manufacturing licence is with India.
•Last July, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) approved the procurement of 12 Su-30MKI aircraft from Russia to be licence-produced by HAL at an estimated to cost of ₹10,730 crore. These are meant to replace the Sukhois in the inventory that had crashed over the years. On the progress on this, a defence official said the Russians have quoted a very high (price) and negotiations are under way.
•While the Sukhoi assembly line would largely wind down, the Aircraft Overhaul Division at Nasik would continue the repair and overhaul of the MiG series and the Su-30s. Over the years, HAL has developed over 2000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) vendor base for the Sukhoi project.
•HAL is now in the process of ramping its capacity to overhaul the SU-30MKIs from 15 aircraft per year to 25.
Major upgrade programme
•A major upgrade programme for the entire fleet is under negotiation with Russia to give the aircraft better radar, avionics and weapons among others. Initially, it was envisaged that all upgrades would be incorporated per aircraft at one go but given the cost and time that it would take to cover the entire fleet, the IAF has decided to go for capability upgrades in phases. “Some of the most pressing upgrades would be taken up in the first phase,” the defence official said and some of the modifications being pursued locally are already under way.
•While manufacturing of SU-30s comes to an end, HAL is now gearing up for the order of 83 indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas-MK-1A the deal for which is expected to be signed at the Aero India later this week estimated at ₹47,000 crore.
📰 NITI Aayog's megacity plan for Little Andaman alarms conservationists
The proposed construction of a mega financial-tourist complex on Little Andaman Island will place at risk a fragile ecosystem and result in habitat loss of the vulnerable Onge tribe and rare wildlife
•A plan for the sustainable and holistic development of the 680 sq km, fragile Little Andaman Island in the Andaman and Nicobar group has raised the alarm among conservationists.
•The ‘Sustainable Development of Little Andaman Island - Vision Document’, is the NITI Aayog’s proposal to leverage the strategic location and natural features of the island. This, the vision says, will be done by building a new greenfield coastal city there, that will be developed as a free trade zone and will compete with Singapore and Hong Kong.
•The proposal is pivoted along three development anchors and zones.
•Zone 1 — spread over 102 sq km along the east coast of Little Andaman — will be the financial district and medi city and will include an aerocity, and a tourism and hospital district. Spread over 85 sq km of pristine forest, Zone 2, the leisure zone, will have a film city, a residential district and a tourism SEZ. Zone 3 — on 52 sq km of pristine forest — will be a nature zone, further categorised into three districts: an exclusive forest resort, a nature healing district and a nature retreat, all on the western coast.
•There will be ‘underwater’ resorts, casinos, golf courses, convention centres, plug-and-play office complexes, a drone port with fully automated drone delivery system, nature cure institutes and more.
•An international airport capable of handling all types of aircraft will be central to this development vision because “all successful case studies and references” studied by the visioning team indicate that an international airport is key for development.
•The only jetty on the island will be expanded and a marina will be developed next to the tourist entertainment district. A 100 km greenfield ring road will be constructed parallel to the coastline from east to west and will be supplemented with a mass rapid transit network with stations at regular intervals.
•The vision plan is not in the public domain, even though it is said to have been finalised months ago. The comparison with Singapore, for instance, is one key. It has a map of Little Andaman overlaid on Singapore’s, along with the following statistics: “The population density of the Andaman and Nicobar is 47 people per sq km while it’s (sic) 7,615 persons per sq km in Singapore. Its per capita income is $1,789 compared to Singapore's $55,182.”
Blocks to development
•There are certain factors, the vision document notes, that could prevent Little Andaman from becoming the new Singapore — factors that are “stopping us from developing these into veritable jewels for the country”. These include lack of good connectivity with Indian mainland and global cities, a fragile biodiversity and natural ecosystems and certain Supreme Court notifications that pose an impediment to development. Another key factor is the “presence of indigenous tribes and concerns for their welfare”.
•There are other concrete obstacles that the vision takes note of: 95% of Little Andaman is covered in forest, a large part of it the pristine evergreen type. Some 640 sq km of the island is Reserve Forest under the Indian Forest Act, and nearly 450 sq km is protected as the Onge Tribal Reserve, creating a unique and rare socio-ecological-historical complex of high importance.
•The vision needs 240 sq km (35%) of this land and the solutions suggested are simple and straightforward — de-reserve 32% of the reserved forest and de-notify 138 sq km or 31% of the tribal reserve. And if the tribals become an impediment, the vision suggests that they “can be relocated to other parts of the island”.
Sloppy and inappropriate
•The vision document has maps with no legends or explanations and uses inappropriate photographs plagiarised from the Internet. It talks of conservation of national park/wildlife sanctuary on Little Andaman when none exist here and it has no mention of the geological vulnerability of the place, which was amongst the worst-affected in the earthquake-tsunami combination in 2004. The waves hit Little Andaman so hard that on December 26 the breakwater there was not just breached, it was physically displaced and it’s orientation changed. Ships could not berth for weeks thereafter.
•The plan has no financial details, no budgeting, or inventorisation of forests and ecological wealth and no details of any impact assessment. The nature resort complex proposed at West Bay on the western coast is to have theme resorts, floating/underwater resorts, beach hotels, and high-end residential villas. It is today a secluded and difficult to reach part, one of the most important nesting sites of the globally endangered Giant Leatherback sea turtle which is being studied by the Dakshin Foundation, the Andaman and Nicobar Environment Team and the island administration’s Forest Department.
Forest dept.’s concerns
•In a note dated September 26, 2020, Divisional Forest Officer, Little Andaman, raised serious concerns about this vision on grounds of ecological fragility, indigenous rights and vulnerability to earthquakes and tsunamis.
•The note said such large diversion of forest land would cause obvious environmental loss leading to irreversible damage (more than 2 million trees stand in the forest land sought for these projects), that habitats of various wild animals including endangered sea turtles would be affected, and that the impact could not even be assessed because there was no environment impact assessment report and neither were there any detailed site layout plans for the proposed diversion.
•This note of dissent was a minor irritant and was ignored in the plan and vision that seeks to alter the nature of an ancient island bigger than Chennai and Mumbai in area.
•The vision document, described by conservationists as a first bullet through the heart of the island, is to be followed by a second one soon. A meeting is to be held under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary on February 4 to initiate the denotification of the Onge tribal reserve on Little Andaman.
📰 Three-language policy not applicable to Central offices: Home Ministry
Union Home Ministry responds to RTI plea
•The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has said that the three-language policy is not applicable to offices of the Union government. The ministry gave this response to a question filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act on the recent CRPF event at Bhadravati in Shivamogga district, where the plaques unveiled to mark the foundation stone-laying ceremony were only in English and Hindi.
•Goutham Ganesh M.H., a B. Tech student in Bengaluru, had filed an application before the Union Home Ministry under RTI, asking if the ministry had noticed that the three-language policy not being followed at the programme. The reply furnished by the ministry on January 29 stated that “as per the provision of the Official Language Act, 1963, and the Official Language Rules, 1976, the provision of bilingual policy is applicable in the offices of the Central government”.
•Home Minister Amit Shah laid the foundation stone for the 97th battalion of the Rapid Action Force in Bhadravati on January 16. The content of the programme engraved on the plaques unveiled on the occasion was only in English and Hindi. The banner on the dais was also in Hindi. Kannada activists and leaders from the Opposition parties, including former Chief Ministers H.D. Kumaraswamy and Siddaramaiah, said that Kannada was ignored at the programme. Hundreds of people took to social media to criticise the Centre on this issue, while Karnataka Rakshana Vedike conducted a Twitter campaign on the issue.
•Mr. Ganesh told The Hindu that he had observed the developments following the event at Bhadravati and sent the questions to the Home Ministry on January 24. “As the programme was held in Karnataka, Kannada should have got prominence. But the Union Home Ministry has defended its stand citing the rules. I think the only solution could be amendments to the Articles from 343 to 351 of the Constitution which declare Hindi as the official language,” he said.
•He added that the elected representatives of the State should raise the issue and demand suitable amendments so that all languages are treated equally.
📰 Medical board on abortion ‘unfeasible’, says study
82% of obstetrics-gynaecology, paediatric and other specialist posts vacant
•A panel of doctors to decide on termination of pregnancy beyond 24 weeks as proposed in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Amendment Bill, 2020, is “unfeasible” as 82% of these posts are lying vacant in the country, finds a new study.
•The MTP Bill was passed in Lok Sabha in March 2020, and is likely to be brought before Rajya Sabha during the ongoing Budget Session.
•The Bill proposes several amendments, including the constitution of a Medical Board in every State and UT, which will decide on pregnancies beyond 24 weeks in cases of foetal abnormalities. Each board will have one gynaecologist, one radiologist or sonologist, one paediatrician, and other members prescribed by the State/UT government
•The report analysed district-wise availability of specialists, including surgeons, obstetricians and gynaecologists, physicians and paediatricians. It found that for each of the years between 2015-2019, the shortfall in these posts hovered between 71% to 81.8%. For the year 2019, for a total of 21,296 vacancies in the country, only 3,880 were filled, that is, there was a shortfall of 81.8%.
•The data is based on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Rural Health Survey, which provides details of vacancies filled at secondary healthcare centres. Similar data for urban areas was unavailable. The study has been brought out by the Centre for Justice, Law and Society at the O.P. Jindal Law Global School and its chief author is Professor Dipika Jain.
•The shortfall was starker in the northeast where Sikkim, Mizoram and Manipur had a total absence of obstetricians and gynaecologists, and a near total absence of paediatricians. Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya had a 100% shortage of paediatricians.
•“The MTP Bill is not set in a rights-based framework and Medical Boards are draconian and invasive as they strip away autonomy from the pregnant person. Our study indicates a severe lack of doctors across India and this will make the setting up of Boards unfeasible. Even if the Boards are set up, pregnant persons who are in more remote areas of the country will incur many costs in travelling and this will add to their financial burden. This legal reform will make access to abortion more challenging for many people, especially those from marginalised groups,” said Dr. Jain.
•The World Health Organization also urges nations not to create barriers by including complex authorisation processes and noted that “negotiating authorization procedures disproportionally burdens poor women, adolescents, those with little education and those subjected to, or at risk of, domestic conflict and violence, creating inequality in access”.
📰 Growth with inequality: On Economic Survey 2021
The Economic Survey seems to privilege wealth creation over reduction of income disparity
•The Economic Survey for 2020-21 is an expansive attempt at reviewing the developments in the Indian economy during the current financial year and providing an outlook for its near-term prospects. Spread over 700 pages, the survey opts for a self-congratulatory tone while highlighting the policy achievements of the government in steering the economy through the treacherous shoals of “the most unfathomable global health emergency experienced in modern history”. Citing an approach that used ‘graded public health measures to transform the short-term trade-off between lives and livelihoods into a win-win that would save both lives and livelihoods over the longer term’, the survey asserts that India established a globally unique model of strategic policymaking in containing the COVID-19 pandemic while helping the economy recover quickly from its deleterious impact. There is no denying that the country appears to have not only flattened the curve but also, crucially, so far avoided a bruising second wave of infections seen in much of Europe and the U.S. While it may be debatable as to how much of the turn in the pandemic’s progress could be attributed wholly to proactive policy measures, the survey’s contention that India has turned the crisis into an opportunity to strengthen its long-term growth potential through ‘seminal reforms’ sounds off-key, especially given the ongoing farmers’ agitation against the new farm laws as well as the plight of the struggling small and medium-scale industries and informal sectors.
•The survey goes on to forecast that the economy is currently experiencing a V-shaped recovery that would enable GDP to expand, even by a ‘conservative estimate’, by 11% in real terms in 2021-22. Still, to achieve that level of real growth, retail inflation must moderate substantially to average 4.4% or less over the 12-month period through March 2022, given that the survey has projected nominal growth at 15.4%. Also, while batting for a fiscal push to support the reviving economy, it posits an upside to the growth prognosis predicated on, among other factors, a rapid roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines and a recovery in demand in the battered services sector. However, the document fails in providing an honest assessment of the on-ground economic situation by overlooking key aspects including the extent of unemployment even as it hints at the level of rural joblessness, which followed the return of millions of urban casual workers in the wake of last year’s hastily implemented lockdown. This it does by taking credit for a record 311.92 crore person-days of work generated over the last 10 months under MGNREGA. And in contending that growth should be prioritised over inequality in tackling poverty, when the pandemic has exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor and the Finance Minister is set to present her Budget, the survey seems to privilege wealth creation over all else.
📰 The farm laws need political resolution
It is the supreme authority of Parliament which has the power to solve the issue despite the negotiations outside
•The deadlock between protesting farmers and the government on the contentious farm laws have taken an ugly turn, with incidents of vandalism during the tractor parade by the protesting farmers on January 26. It is as yet unclear as to how the peaceful protest for the last two months was allowed to take a violent turn by the farmers’ union leadership as well as the police administration given that the police were aware of the plans and had approved the parade.
Shadow of mistrust
•While responsibility must be fixed for the administrative lapses and action taken against erring antisocial elements, the events again point out to the growing mistrust and breakdown of any dialogue between the two sides. Attempts by a section of media and representatives of political parties to use the incidents of vandalism to vilify and malign the two-month-old peaceful agitation will only add to the mistrust between the government and the farmer unions. Such a situation is unlikely to lead to any meaningful outcome despite best intentions.
•Even though thousands of farmers have been protesting peacefully for more than two months at different sites on the Delhi border, the issues raised by the farmer representatives are not just limited to the demand for guarantee of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the repeal of the three farm laws passed during the monsoon session of Parliament, in September last year. They are the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
A resonance of anger
•While an impression has been created that the agitating farmers only represent the interests of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, these issues have found resonance across several States in the country where large mobilisations of farmers have been protesting peacefully. There are large variations across States in the way the MSP-led procurement operations are conducted; but there are also variations in States in terms of the role and functions of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC).
•Despite these differences, these mobilisations represent the anger against the political economy of agricultural reforms. The genuine fear of corporate takeover and withdrawal of the state go beyond the three Acts. It is essentially about the trust deficit between the state and the farmers who see the actions of the state as allowing greater control by the private sector which will ultimately dispossess them from the meagre resources and land that they have.
•These impressions are not entirely unfounded if one is to go by the experience in different States such as Bihar in abolishing the APMC system. But these fears also gain strength at a time when the economy is slowing down and the agricultural sector has seen severe distress in the last six years, starting with the twin droughts of 2014 and 2015. With a decline in agricultural wages and falling farm gate prices and farm incomes in the last three years, these Acts represent a pattern of state withdrawal from support to the agricultural sector.
Flaws in legislating
•This is precisely why any attempt by the government to resolve the deadlock has to go beyond the nitty-gritty of the three laws; it has to start from instilling trust in the government’s actions and rhetoric of reforms. With a hardening of positions by the farmers and the government’s representatives, any possibility of resolutions through a dialogue with the unions remains a distant possibility.
•Even the attempt by the Supreme Court of India to appoint a committee has failed to elicit any positive response from the farmers. The failure of dialogue and mediation by government ministers and the Supreme Court committee is partly a result of the flawed understanding of the government that this issue is a regional issue concerning only a section of farmers. The attempt by both farmer unions as well as the government to exclude other political parties out of such dialogues and discussions is unlikely to resolve the issues which concern every State of the country ruled by different political parties.
•But it also reflects the process of legislating on important issues without taking into account the concerns of various stakeholders. These pieces of legislation were announced as part of the COVID-19 pandemic relief package when the country was going through a period of severe economic disruption as a result of the lockdown.
•Not only was the timing wrong, but even the attempt to force these pieces of legislation without any discussion in Parliament created an impression of stubbornness on the part of the government to deny any form of dialogue and consultation. The failure to consult State governments, which are important stakeholders, has also created the peculiar situation where six large States have now passed separate pieces of legislation in their State legislatures negating the three central Acts.
Budget session as opportunity
•The commencement of the Budget session from January 29 presents another opportunity to bring back these pieces of legislation in Parliament. An Act of Parliament can only be repealed and amended through Parliament. It is this supreme authority which has the power to resolve this issue despite negotiations outside. While dialogues and negotiations at a time when Parliament was not in session made sense and proved useful in clarifying the concerns of various stakeholders, it is now time to let Parliament take a call. In any case, the Supreme Court has “suspended” the “implementation” of three farm laws for the time being and the government has also offered to put the laws in abeyance for one and half years. While the offer of putting the implementation of the Acts in abeyance for 18 months may have been a strategy to delay the implementation until the Uttar Pradesh legislative elections due in one and half years, it does offer the government the possibility to build larger consensus for the reforms in new form. That will imply repealing the Acts as have been passed in Parliament currently and starting the process afresh with the parliament standing committee steering such larger deliberations.
Need for diverse opinions
•A parliamentary standing committee with representations from different political parties will not only give it more legitimacy but will also allow diverse opinions from States and political parties to be represented. For the government, which is willing to suspend the implementation for one and half years, it will also allow it time, space and the political forum to convince the States and farmers about the benefits of such reforms. More than that, it will be an opportunity to bridge the trust deficit between the government and the protesting farmers. For a government which is serious about reforms in agricultural marketing, repealing the Acts in the current form and starting the process afresh will only reaffirm its seriousness and commitments to the agricultural sector and the farmers of this country.
📰 Building a robust healthcare system
With better governance, northern States can bring their health systems on a par with southern States
•In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been vociferous demands to strengthen the country’s public health system. Many erudite articles have stressed the need to revamp the system quickly so that we are better prepared to handle such emergencies in the future. Once the present crisis is over, however, public health will go into oblivion, as usual. Governments are already behaving as if things are fine and enough has been done on the health front.
•Not surprisingly, the efficacy of the public health system varies widely across the country since it is a State subject. How good a public health system is can easily be judged just by looking at certain health parameters such as Infant Mortality Rate, Maternal Mortality Ratio and Total Fertility Rate for which annual surveys are conducted through the Sample Registration System.
Poor health indicators
•With the numbers given in the chart, it is doubtful whether India will be able to achieve Goal 3 (good health and well-being) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. India failed to achieve the earlier Millennium Development Goals because of the poor performance of the northern States. It is surprising that the Government of India does not hold them responsible and accountable for poor performance but is satisfied with the average. Equally surprising and disappointing is that these State governments themselves are indifferent to their poor performance.
•Since health is a State subject, the primary onus lies with the State governments. Each State government must focus on public health and aim to improve the health indicators mentioned above. It is disappointing that some of the States have skewed priorities such as cow protection and ‘love jihad’. More mothers are perhaps dying for want of care than cows. Are these governments not concerned? Unless they give health the highest priority, rapid improvement is not possible. Instead of talking in generalities, they must start looking at numbers. To start with, the above parameters are good enough. Their close monitoring at the highest level may improve things.
•These data are revealing. The northern States are performing very poorly in these vital health parameters. In Madhya Pradesh, the number of infant deaths for every 1,000 live births is as high as 48 compared to seven in Kerala. In U.P. the Maternal Mortality Ratio is 197 compared to Kerala’s 42 and Tamil Nadu’s 63. The percentage of deliveries by untrained personnel is very high in Bihar, 190 times that of Kerala.
•Another vital parameter that has an impact on poverty, Total Fertility Rate, is very high in Bihar (3.2) against the stabilisation rate of 2.1. Tamil Nadu and Kerala have done so well that their population will decline over the years. This has been made possible thanks to the effective Maternal and Child Health and Family Welfare services provided by these States.
•Some of these States are performing so poorly that they are comparable to the poorest countries in the world, pulling down the average for India. The Government of India is just looking at the averages which are somewhat reasonable thanks to the excellent performance of well-governed States. Unless all the States perform well, there will be no dramatic improvement in the health system . It is sad this is the outcome despite Finance Commissions pouring non-Plan funds into these States in addition to substantial Plan allocation from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the Empowered Action Group States. More money does not and cannot produce results. Only clear focus and better governance can.
Tamil Nadu’s example
•How did the southern States achieve this? It is because of enlightened political leadership which was interested in the health and well-being of the people. I vividly remember the family planning drives and innumerable camps organised to eradicate cataract in the 1970s. The district administration was spearheading these health initiatives because of the government’s focus and drive. The government encouraged a healthy competition among the districts by giving prizes to the well-performing ones. By the 1990s, family planning drives were no more necessary, and all that was needed was some fine-tuning of the Maternal and Child Health programme. The result is that the Total Fertility Rate of Tamil Nadu is among the lowest in the country (1.6) comparable to that of Germany (1.57) and Japan (1.43). In addition to a clear focus by the political executive, Tamil Nadu has the advantage of a public and preventive health structure. A good administrative structure could therefore deliver to the demands of the political executive, benefiting the people of the State.
•The governments — both at the Centre and the Empowered Action Group States — should realise that public health and preventive care is a priority and take steps to bring these States on a par with the southern States. The Government of India has a vital role to play. With his huge mandate and popularity, the Prime Minister should get involved in this fundamental task of improving the health of the people. Public and preventive health should be his focus by holding the Empowered Action Group States accountable to the SDGs. They must be asked to reach the levels of the southern States within three to five years.
•Volumes have been written and hundreds of studies have been conducted on what needs to be done in each of these States. One wonders whether they are even read. Instead of slogans and promises, hard work is needed. Perhaps what was started in Tamil Nadu as early as the 1970s needs to be done in these States now. When Chief Ministers are focused on health and the district health administrations are held accountable, performance is bound to improve.
•An important measure that can make a difference is a public health set-up in these States that addresses primary and preventive health. Many studies have stressed its importance to deliver better with the given resources. Tamil Nadu manages its public health set-up with just about 150 public health professionals. Therefore, it cannot be difficult for other States to build a public health cadre quickly.
Giving health importance
•Unless we invest in human capital, FDI will not help. It will only increase the wealth of the already wealthy and accentuate income disparity. Investing in health and education is the primary responsibility of any government. It is time the governments — both at the Centre and States — gave health its due importance.
•Announcing piecemeal schemes may help to get publicity but will not make a lasting improvement. Improving health of such a large population requires concerted efforts over years. The southern States started early and are enjoying the benefits, but they can still do more to reach the level of developed countries. The Empowered Action Group States must start in earnest at least now. There are no short cuts; only persistent and focused efforts at the highest level of government will improve preventive care and primary healthcare.
📰 The problem of ageing dams
India’s ageing dams can threaten water security, affect farmers’ income, and increase flooding
•Dams and reservoirs are believed to secure our water needs for the future. However, data and studies show that they can threaten our water security. Here is how.
•It is not a secret anymore that India’s dams are now ageing and concomitantly, reservoir water is being replaced by soil, technically known as silt or sediment.
Becoming obsolete
•India is ranked third in the world in terms of building large dams. Of the over 5,200 large dams built so far, about 1,100 large dams have already reached 50 years of age and some are older than 120 years. The number of such dams will increase to 4,400 by 2050. This means that 80% of the nation’s large dams face the prospect of becoming obsolete as they will be 50 years to over 150 years old.
•The situation with hundreds of thousands of medium and minor dams is even more precarious as their shelf life is even lower than that of large dams. Krishna Raja Sagar dam was built in 1931 and is now 90 years old. Similarly, Mettur dam was constructed in 1934 and is now 87 years old. Both these reservoirs are located in the water-scarce Cauvery river basin.
•As dams age, soil replaces the water in the reservoirs. Therefore, the storage capacity cannot be claimed to be the same as it was in the 1900s and 1950s.
•To make matters worse, studies show that the design of many of our reservoirs is flawed. In a paper, Supply-side Hydrology: Last gasp, published in 2003 in Economic & Political Weekly, Rohan D’Souza writes that the observed siltation rate in India’s iconic Bhakra dam is 139.86% higher than originally assumed. At this rate, he wrote, “the Bhakra dam is now expected to function for merely 47 years, virtually halved from the original estimate of 88 years”. Similarly, the actual siltation rate observed for the Hirakud, Maithan and Ghod dams are way higher at 141.67%, 808.64% and 426.59%, respectively. Studies in later years showed similar findings.
•Almost every scholarly study on reservoir sedimentation shows that Indian reservoirs are designed with a poor understanding of sedimentation science. The designs underestimate the rate of siltation and overestimate live storage capacity created.
•Therefore, the storage space in Indian reservoirs is receding at a rate faster than anticipated. Reservoirs are poised to become extinct in less than a few decades with untold consequences already under way.
Consequences
•When soil replaces the water in reservoirs, supply gets choked. The cropped area begins receiving less and less water as time progresses. The net sown water area either shrinks in size or depends on rains or groundwater, which is over-exploited. Crop yield gets affected severely and disrupts the farmer’s income. In fact, the farmer’s income may get reduced as water is one of the crucial factors for crop yield along with credit, crop insurance and investment. It is important to note that no plan on climate change adaptation will succeed with sediment-packed dams.
•The flawed siltation rates demonstrated by a number of scholarly studies reinforce the argument that the designed flood cushion within several reservoirs across many river basins may have already depleted substantially due to which floods have become more frequent downstream of dams. The flooding of Bharuch in 2020, Kerala in 2018 and Chennai in 2015 are a few examples attributed to downstream releases from reservoirs. The nation will eventually be unable to find sufficient water in the 21st century to feed the rising population by 2050, grow abundant crops, create sustainable cities, or ensure growth. Therefore, it is imperative for all stakeholders to come together to address this situation urgently.
📰 Garbage-to-power plant in veggie market gets PM’s pat
Modi mentions biomethanation unit in his address
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Sunday radio address - Mann Ki Baat - has mentioned about the garbage to power plant being commissioned inside the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Agriculture Market in Bowenpally where vegetable and fruit waste is being used to generate power to the extent of 500 units a day and 30 kilos of green manure.
•This is being done by making use of 10 tonnes of left over market waste. The power generated is being used to light up the market and also to run the canteen in the premises enabling the market committee to make substantial savings in power bills. ‘Isn’t it amazing” that the Bowenpally vegetable market instead of letting the vegetable rot, spreading unhygienic conditions - is utilising it to generate power, he said. “This is the power of innovation, it was nice to learn about it. This is the journey of turning garbage into gold,” the Prime Minister remarked while explaining how the traders decided to make use of the vegetable waste usually left to rot in markets elsewhere. CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) has designed and patented the high rate biomethanation technology based Anaerobic Gas lift Reactor (AGR) for this Rs. 3 crore project funded by the Department of Biotechnology and the State government’s Agriculture Marketing Department. ef scientist A. Gangagni Rao and his team had already commissioned 20 such projects across the country and 10 more are under construction. While the Bowenpally vegetable market garbage to power plant story has been featured in these columns few days ago (Jan.18), the pioneering work being done by the IICT team from the pilot project stage was also reported extensively here over the years.
