The National Advisory Council draws its exalted status from the fact that UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi heads it. But its inability to get its way on three new Bills indicates that its influence is waning
The debate over the Lokpal Bill between civil society and the government has brought into focus not just the role of civil society in Indian democracy, but specifically, the influence of the NAC on public policy. More specifically, it questions whether the council still has the same clout that it did in UPA-I.
NAC’s Bills
Over the past year, the NAC has drafted three Bills: on Food Security, Land Acquisition and the Prevention of Communal Violence. The government does not see eye to eye with the Council on any of these and in the case of Food Security still hasn’t been able to finalise a Bill because of its differences with the NAC over critical issues such as methods to be adopted to ensure food security, the amount of food grain required and financial impact. Instead, in the case of the Food Security Bill as well as the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, it has thumbed its nose at the NAC by indicating that it will go ahead with its own version.
The National Food Security Bill found detailed mention in President Pratibha Patil’s address to Parliament at the start of the 15th Lok Sabha. Once cleared by Parliament, it is expected to ensure food security for all, with every family below the poverty line in rural as well as urban areas being entitled, by law, to 25 kg of rice or wheat per month at Rs 3 per kg.
A major disagreement about who the beneficiaries of this Bill should be. The NAC has proposed that the legal entitlement to subsidised food grains be provided to both ‘priority households’ and ‘general households’. The Prime Minister’s expert committee on the Food Security Bill, headed by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Chairman, C. Rangarajan, however has recommended that in view of supply side constraints, the legal entitlement should only be provided to ‘priority households’.
Land Acquisition has been another bone of contention between the two entities. The NCA presented the proposal of its working group on land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation immediately after the violence over land acquisition in the villages of Bhatta and Parsaul near Greater Noida early in May.
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The 13-point NAC proposal recommended that instead of the current two laws on land acquisition, a single law be drawn up. It also suggested that in the new legislation, compensation for land should be six times the value of the registered sale deed, and that acquisitions should be made only for ‘public purposes’.
On June 3, Business Standard reported that the new draft of the land acquisition (amendment) Bill that has been sent to the prime minister by the rural development ministry differs fundamentally from the NAC version. The ministry’s version says compensation for land should be based on the average of the highest prices of the last three years. Also, it gives the state government the power to determine the need for acquisitions.
The government has also maintained its distance from the NAC’s Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011.The Bill attracted a lot of controversy, with the leader of the Opposition describing it as “even more draconian than TADA”. Only the Congress Party made statements supporting it.
Former Cabinet Secretary TNS Subramanian says that an organisation such as the NAC helps the Congress take two positions: “The NAC allows the ruling party to take two sides on any issue, one from the position of the government and another from the NAC.” Significantly, he adds, “Most of the recommendations of the NAC are not practical. The government provides the practicality.”
Both the NAC as well as Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav say that it is wrong to judge the council merely on the basis of the number of Bills on which it is able to get the government’s nod.
“In the last one year of its existence the NAC has deliberated on 18 subjects. This is a measure of its success. The success of the NAC cannot be judged just on the basis of how many proposals the government accepts,” says Jadhav.
In the UPA-I, when the government had the support of the Left parties, the NAC was able to get the nod of Parliament on two crucial Bills — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right to Information Act. Both were landmark Bills and widely believed to be important factors in the Congress electoral victory in 2009.
However, D. Raja of the Communist Party of India feels that this statistic is a little misleading. “The NAC-I was able to pass important legislation because there was a national common minimum programme. The NAC-I worked based on it. The present government doesn’t have a clear programme and the effects are visible.”
Rejected Recommendations
In March, the NAC achieved a rare success. It prevented the department of personnel and training (DoPT), the ministry that implements the RTI law, from introducing changes in the Right to Information Act, though after much deliberation.
The DoPT favoured a cap of 250 words on the length of an RTI application, wanted each application to deal with just one subject, and sought abatement or an appeal of an RTI application in the event of the death of an applicant. The NAC asked the DoPT to remove these changes – a demand that was rejected.
Later, in March, the DoPT and NAC reached an agreement and all but one recommendation of the NAC were accepted (DoPT ensured that the clause restricting RTI applications to one subject each was retained).
Other than the RTI, the recommendations of the NAC to link the wages paid to workers under the NREGA to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 have also been rejected by the PM.
Even a letter from Sonia Gandhi to the PM asking him to make the change to ensure better salaries for workers didn’t do the trick. Instead, the PM in his reply to Mrs Gandhi explained that instead of linking the wages of NREGA workers to the Minimum Wages Act, the government would link them to the Consumer Price Index. Harsh Mander, a member of the NAC, described it as a “50 per cent success”.
In September 2010, NAC members Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy wrote to then Rural Development Minister CP Joshi, raising objections about the decision of the ministry to link the unique identity (UID) or Aadhaar numbers to be given out by the UIDAI, to job cards, without consulting the council. The government ignored the advice and went ahead with the project.
Other recommendations, such as having a separate law to stop manual scavenging, have been dismissed by the PM, who believes better implementation of existing laws is needed instead. The ministry of tribal affairs has not accepted the recommendations with respect to amendment of rules and guidelines under the Forest Rights Act. Also, NAC’s objections to the Posco plant were not implemented. NC Saxena, a former bureaucrat and twice member of the NAC, agrees that the council is not as powerful as the media makes it out to be.
| A TALE OF TWO POSITIONS |
| Food Security Bill |
| NAC: NAC’s Bill on Food Security says the legal right to food must be given to both priority and general category households |
| GOVERNMENT: PM-appointed C Rangarajan Committee wants only priority category households covered due to supply constraints. Differences also exist between the government’s version and the NAC’s draft on issues such as methods to be adopted to ensure food security, the amount of food grain required and the financial impact |
| Manual Scavenging Bill |
| NAC: NAC wants a new law to tackle the problem of manual scavenging |
| GOVERNMENT: PM has rejected the need for a new law, favours better implementation of existing laws |
| Parity Between NREGA Wages and Minimum Wages |
| NAC: NAC wants workers under the NREGA to be paid minimum wages as notified under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. |
| GOVERNMENT: PM favours linking of NREGA workers' wages to the Consumer Price Index |
| Unique Identity |
| NAC: NAC members have objected to the decision of the rural development ministry to link the UID to job cards |
| GOVERNMENT: Rural development ministry went ahead with its decision |
| Land Acquisition Act |
| NAC: says compensation for land should be six times the registered sale deed value; secondly, acquisition should be done for ‘public purposes’ |
| GOVERNMENT: The draft Bill that the rural development ministry has sent to the PM wants compensation to be the average of last three years' highest price. Also, it leaves the purpose for acquisition to the state government |
| Forest Rights Act |
| NAC: The NAC, noting that there are difficulties in implementing the Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006, has suggested a number of amendments to improve implementation |
| GOVERNMENT: The tribal affairs ministry has not committed itself to the NAC’s demands |
“The NAC is just a recommendatory body. The NAC in the previous UPA was more effective, as it was involved in the process of drafting new laws such as the RTI, NREGA, etc. Now, our work largely involves improving the already-drafted Bills. Most of our recommendations, such as on the wages of the NREGA workers and Tribal Rights Act, have not been accepted by the government,” says Saxena.
On Wednesday, soon after the NAC meeting was over, council member and economist Jean Dreze asked NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi not to extend his membership. In March, in an article in an English daily, Jean Dreze wrote, “The NAC-I was instrumental in ushering constructive legislations and policies that would, in all likelihood, never have seen the light of day through normal government channels… The second version of the NAC, however, has been convened in very different circumstances and does seem not to have the ear of the government.”
According to political scientist Yogendra Yadav, the problem with an institution like the NAC is that it is too dependent on Sonia Gandhi. “I am not worried that most of the proposals of the NAC are being rejected. I would be more worried if all their proposals are accepted, as it will undermine democracy. The question is will the NAC be taken seriously if Sonia Gandhi is not the chairperson? I see no clear answers,” says Yadav.