the farm loan waiver scheme will be disastrous and a non-starter. Does the UPA government's last Budget disappoint you, as it was its last chance to redeem the Common Minimum Programme promises?
No, it just makes me cynical. Expectations were high.
Education and health were supposed to get six and three per cent of GDP, according to the Common Minimum Programme. But there is barely an attempt to reach there.
The funds for education are now 0.6 per cent of GDP and if they were to be even 1 per cent, the allocation would be Rs 53,000 crore. The allocation for health is just 0.25 per cent. Mid-day meal funds have gone up by just 9.2 per cent. Where is the money to cover an additional 34 million children if the scheme is to be extended to secondary schools? If you announce something, you should provide funds for it.
What about Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and its target of having anganwadis for every 80 children?
The allocation for ICDS has gone up by 32 per cent but that is primarily due to salaries of the workers. It was to go up by 50 per cent but the Ministry for Women and Children is fighting with the government over centralisation of food supplies. It does not want hot cooked meals for children aged below three. And so the money is stuck.
You have been critical of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) and the decreasing allocations for wage employment, which helps the poorest of the poor.
There are three problems with NREGP. Allocation is the first problem. It has come down following withdrawal of the food component from wage employment. That was the expensive part. Therefore, the government now wants to universalise it because it does not cost that much. But universalisaton is the second problem I have with NREGP. It is going to places where there is no demand. And where there is demand, the work should be done after preparing the community. For development works in a village, you need a four to five years perspective. Implementation problem is there, but the more important problem is that of conception. Not enough groundwork has been done. NGOs can be used for this but there is not enough money for all that.
The National Advisory Council (NAC) was there to suggest all this. Do you think it is defunct now after the exit of Sonia Gandhi? Will it be dissolved after March 31?
It is difficult to say if it has been futile. But I don't think it will go beyond March 31. It will most probably come to an end this month.
What has gone wrong with ICDS? Why is it that anganwadis are unable to raise nutrition levels of children and India still has half its children underweight?
ICDS has to shift focus to babies, children who are under two years. And the focus also must shift from anganwadi centres to families on the pattern followed in Thailand where there is one trained honorary worker for every 20 families. The number of underweight children below three years dropped from 50 per cent to 25 per cent there in just 10 years from 1980 to 1990. The problem in India is we are too inward-looking. We don't know what happens in Bhutan or Thailand, and we don't want to learn from others.
Social security measures have been limited to health insurance. Do you think it will have an impact?
Health insurance for the poor is a bad idea. The government says it will pay for the poor. If I have 100 cars, should I insure all of them? I will have to pay Rs 8,000 a year per car. That is Rs 8 lakh a year. It makes no sense. The probability of an accident is very little. With that money, I can buy two cars a year. What the government should do is provide free medical treatment for BPL category of people and pay the bills as and when they come.
Maybe it can target just the aged?
Gujarat, in fact, has done that. Under its Chiranjeevi programme, it has provided free medical treatment to all women reaching maternity. Treatment is free for every delivery. In six months, institutional delivery in the state has seen a big jump in tribal areas like Sabarkantha and Banaskantha. Doctors get between Rs 300 and Rs 400 per delivery from the government. It is much better than the Aam Admi Bima Yojana.
Will smart cards help improve the public distribution system (PDS) and ensure that the right people get their entitled amounts of grains?
It is a good idea. But smart cards alone won't suffice. There is no targeted PDS now. It is available for all who have ration cards. If all are entitled to 35 kg of foodgrains, then we need 85 million tonnes. But the government is distributing only 25 million tonnes. So large numbers are not getting anything.
Is there a solution?
The top 20 per cent of the income brackets should be kept out. And the ration should be reduced to 25 kg from 35 kg to all. It is known that 50 per cent of the BPL category people have no cards. Nevertheless, the BPL category must continue. What you need is another category which is just above BPL.
Why has the food security position worsened?
We are at the same level as 1970. The Economic Survey has acknowledged it. The consequence is decrease in consumption levels. In Vietnam, the per capita figure is lower but the consumption is higher at 20 kg per month, whereas ours is 12 kg per month. Exports must stop immediately, or if we give one million tonnes of basmati rice we must get in exchange 3 million tonnes of ordinary or broken rice.
Are you happy with the loan waiver?
Not at all. Farmers won't be happy too. It will be disastrous and a non-starter. The euphoria will end in a month. Those who have borrowed from moneylenders have been ignored. Besides, those who have paid off feel cheated. The co-operative banks will refuse to recognise the waiver. Banks will say that the government must pay them first. But they won't be able to recover the money too. Even those with more than 5 acres land will refuse to pay now. The government should have instead given pensions to widows, and free treatment for farmer families through an MoU with some hospitals under PPP.
