Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Major concerns related with proposed National Food Security Bill (NFSB) & possible solutions for better planning and implementation!


Major concerns related with food security
What the present proposed National Food security Bill states?
What we (Sanjha Samvad) are proposing?
PROPORTION OF POPULATION COVERED
Legal entitlement to subsidized food grains to be extended to at least 75% of the country’s population - 90% in Rural areas and 50% in urban areas and that too based on the prioritization of APL and BPL
Cover 100% of rural population and 100 % of urban poor (must be clearly mentioned urban poor) irrespective of any prioritization i.e. BPL or APL in distribution of food grains. Prioritization in distribution of food on the basis of BPL & APL has many loopholes and there are BPL families who have APL cards and there are APL families who have BPL cards. So when we discuss for coverage  coverage would not be only limited to the category of people rather it would reach to all and serve the purpose of addressing food security issue.
AMOUNT & PRICING UNDER FOOD SECURITY BILL
The priority households (46% in rural areas and 28% in urban areas) to have a
monthly entitlement of 35 Kgs (equivalent to 7 Kgs per person) at a subsidized
price of Rs. 1 per Kg for millets, Rs. 2 per Kg for wheat and Rs. 3 per Kg for rice

The general households (39% rural and 12% urban in phase 1 and 44% rural and
22% urban in final phase) to have a monthly entitlement of 20Kgs (equivalent to 4
Kgs per person) at a price not exceeding 50% of the current Minimum Support
Price for millets, wheat and rice
Option 1:
In terms of amount of food distributed there could be the possibility of  “supplement” of 10 kgs per BPL
household could be provided by the central government to all states that currently
give 35 kgs to BPL households, for a limited period of (say) three years. This would
be easy to do, since the government has large excess stocks at the moment[1].

Option 2:
To distribute coupon cards to those in need of supplemental food? Cards could be used in retail shops to buy surplus grain or other specific products. The retailers would buy the stock from the governments (union/state) or government sponsored farmer coops. The shops, both large and small, would be allowed a 5-6% mark-up from the price they pay, providing them reason to be involved. It would also save the government from being a direct distributor; they'd send mystery shoppers out to ensure mark-ups are with parameters. As a buyer, government could shape better prices for farmers, and also influence retail prices as a retail supplier. Coupons may deflect inflationary pricing from direct cash payments. And as an aside, grow more tasty amaranth and high amino/protien quinoa, less wheat

Option 3:
Retain and strengthen the Antyodaya programme, as it is.

STORAGE OF FOOD GRAINS
No concrete talk on it
Distribution of food would be possible only when there would be food availability and to make food available in better condition for longer period of time, there is need of proper storage of food grains at Panchayat or village level. It has been noticed that the production of food garins is quite good but food is not able to reach to the needy because we don’t have proper storage system. So it would be vital to work on the storage of purchased food grains at village/Panchayat level on priority basis.

With the current procurement and storage
capacity of a little above 42.5 million tonnes,  providing 68.76 million tonnes of
foodgrain in the first phase and 73.98 million tonnes in the final phase
implies significant scaling up of the procurement, warehousing and supply chain operations. This involves large financial outgo which has not been quantified as
yet.
STRENGTHENING PDS
No discussion on it
It is important to consider the ground reality of PDS system functioning and its reach to the community in need. As the distribution of food grains would be through the PDS, so it would be vital to work on strengthening PDS in terms of availability of food grains, timely opening and closing, proper storage of food grains, quality of food grains, proper listing of beneficiaries and display of the same at the PDS, timely supply of food grains to the PDS shop, allocation of PDS shop to SC & STs on priority basis and the shop owner must be minimum 10th pass.
MECHANISM FOR SELLING OF FOOD GRAINS IN OPEN MARKET ( THROUGH PDS SHOP OWNERS)
No such provisions are mentioned in the National Food security bill to combat corruption
There will be the impact of such large government food grain procurement on the
open market prices, an I turn this may lead to the corruption in terms of:

  • Poor quality food distribution through the PDS
  • Selling of food grains of PDS to the open market and showing no availability at the PDS shop
  • Selling of adulterant food grains at the PDS shop
Considering the above it is vital to work on the combating mechanism of corruption in food distribution at the end level i.e. PDS shops.
ESTIMATES OF FOODGRAINS REQUIRED FOR IMPLEMENTING THE NFSB
Estimation of requirement of food grains is on the basis of estimation of population % of  October 2010






Expert committee report said that:
NAC has estimated the entitled food grain requirement (PDS) for phase
at 49.36 million tonnes and for the final phase at 55.59 million tonnes. These
estimates are based on the assumption of 85 per cent offtake of foodgrain during
Phase 1 and 90 per cent offtake of foodgrain during the Final Phase. It is
understood that NAC has used the population projections of the National
Commission on Population for October 2010 for estimating the grain requirement for both the phases.
On examination, it appears that the foodgrain requirement projected by
the NAC need to be revised, as population projections for October 2010 have
been used by the NAC for both the phases. To obtain more realistic foodgrain
requirement, EC has used the population projections pertaining to the year for
Which the phases are to be implemented. In other words for phase 1, population
projections for October 2011 have been used and for the final phase, projections
for October 2013 have been used


SUBSIDY IMPLICATIONS

According
to the NAC projections the total subsidy will work out to Rs 71,837 crores in the
first phase and Rs 79,931 crores in the final phase.

In addition to the physical food grain requirement, the proposed NFSB
has large subsidy implications. The total subsidy outgo is expected to be higher
than the projections by NAC on account of a number of factors. Firstly, according
to the NAC projections the total subsidy will work out to Rs 71,837 crores in the
first phase and Rs 79,931 crores in the final phase. However this figure
needs to be revised upwards if we change the population figures to October 2011
and 2013 projections for the two phases and assume 100 per cent off take.


Procurement of FOOD GRAINS  ( Scaling up and MSP)
Plan of scaling up has not been clearly mentioned and scaling up process with Minimum Selling Price (MSP)


To increase the procurement of food grains there is vital need increasing the MSP so that more and more farmers could come and would able to sell their produce, also it is important to establish nodal centers for procurement at village level (which would provide and ease to the farmers to sell their  there produce) , although it may  imply a large fiscal burden which are difficult to quantify. Another option could be think in line with the input, production and produce of the food crops, at present it has been noticed that input cost in the agriculture is increasing on every crop where as the production remains the same, so important is to reduce the input cost in agriculture and to enhance the production cost, for this parallel to the NFSB, govt. could introduce the concept of promotion of organic cultivation and subsidy of organic inputs so that input cost in the agriculture would remain same or become less and the production would keep on increasing as the organic inputs improves the soil health, where as the synthetic inputs decay the soil health.  Once the farmer would have less input cost even with the existing MSP they would be able to get the good profit.


















































































































































































































































[1] Foodgrain stocks stood at 54 million tonnes on 1 March 2012 (the highest-ever level for that date, just before the rabi harvest). They are expected to rise to 74 million tonnes by 1 June 2012.


SANJHA SAMVAD
-a network of professionals and NGOs for the development of communities, context and culture

Sanjha Samvad is a development network, initially started in the form of e-network of two innovative livelihood based projects of Caritas India –LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS and now is taking shape in the form of functional informal network to address various development concerns. At present there are 84 members in this network from 60+ organizations from through out the India. As such till now there is no monetary investment in the operation of this network. Till now we have around 250 sharing and discussions on different aspects of livelihood and government policies related with the livelihood, rural development and practice of LIFE and HARIT PRAYAS.

        sanjhasamvad@gmail.com
                                                            www.liferajasthan.blogspot.com
                                                            www.haritprays.blogspot.com  

Online library of HARIT PRAYAS & LIFE project


With LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS project we have introduced a concept of “learning from the project” on various development aspects and to strengthen the learning aspects we have come out with different short films/videos from the field on various development issues. You all can also online access the videos to enhance and strengthen the learning process.

Also we have developed the capacities of five partners of LIFE and HARIT PRAYAS and any interested organization could visit the organization for specific exposures.


Organizations
Capacity increased & could be resource organization for
RCDSSS-Ajmer
RBM & Linkages ( other NGOS & community are visiting).
JCSS-Jhansi
Systematic Programme quality and quality of documentation ( other NGOS & community are visiting)
SSSS-Satna
Organic cultivation & entitlement in interiors of forest ( other NGOS & community are visiting)
MVSS-Sagar
 Empowered CBOs ( both Farmers club & SHGs)
SJVS-Banswara
Capacity building of Field staff & govt. schemes



1. On Skill development
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4aAvx5cY00&feature=relmfu ( Impact of Rozgar Dhaba in LIFE project)

2. On Government schemes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXF4WGjaBz4&feature=relmfu (Micro-Planning workshop at Banswara)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KhC2Z_0_4&feature=relmfu (Impact of LIFE Project: (Rajasthan): Deva LIFE has changed through RTI)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsBN06REZ4&feature=relmfu (Now I have shelter....and security for food!)




3. On women empowerment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw_1FIyWOzY&feature=relmfu (Impact of LIFE project: SHGs now addressing the development issues of other villages also)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP1KrKwXAz4&feature=relmfu (...moving together, making together a better tomorrow)

4. On Sustainable agriculture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WMGdyXRJ1M&feature=relmfu (Double benefit from LIFE project to the community)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3f9orfGW-g&feature=relmfu (LEARN ORGANIC FARMING FROM LIFE PROJECT TEAM OF BANSWARA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yze6oOdobLw (Organic cultivation revolution in Majhota village through HARIT PRAYAS)



Enjoy learning through watching!

For more information you can log on to www.liferajasthan.blogspot.com or www.haritprayas.blogspot.com or www.caritasindia.org (blog) of follow us on Facebook with LIFEcaritas and HARIT PRAYAS.



Thursday, May 17, 2012

      Village changes its name to HARIT PRAYAS

था मुस्किल, ना कुछ भी आसान था,
कठिनाइया थी, फिर भी हिम्मत नही हारे हम,
कदम बढ़ाया, और असंभव को संभव कर दिखाया..

-विनोद पांडे

The impact of HARIT PRAYAS project Sustainable Agriculture and entitlements has gone so deep amongst the community of Majhota village ( a HARIT PRAYAS project village in Chatarpur) that community members of Majhota village and Panchayat  of the villages ( Silone Panchayat) has passed resolution ( on 20th April 2012) in the Panchayat to have the village name HARIT PRAYAS instead of Majhota. All the HHs of the Majhota village has also submitted an application to the Panchayat to have their village name HARIT PRAYAS, Panchayat has also passed resolution in the Panchayat meeting and send it to the block.

“The residents, none of whom own designer watches, eat at restaurants or use computers, wanted to thank HARIT PRAYAS for giving them something that they consider a luxury – Sustainable Agriculture with low input cost ( reduces input cost to 86%)”

We call it our biggest achievement and impact of HARIT PRAYAS project. It’s the love and ownership of the village community for the HARIT PRAYAS project.  Now for coming 100s and 1000’s of year the village would be called as HARIT PRAYAS. Probably future generation would also query about the reason for the name of the village.

Now officially Majhota is known as HARIT PRAYAS i.e. even on the postal address it would be written as:

Village: HARIT PRAYAS ( Majhota)
                                                  Panchayat: Silone

There would be a formal/official inauguration of the village with name HARIT PRAYAS on 9th June 2012 where in Block official, PRI members & village community would be participating. We along with our Donor Agency (Caritas Spain-Supporting for HARIT PRAYAS Project) would also be attending the event.



About Majhota:
In total around 120 Farming families (includes mainly SC ,OBCs & Gen) , Target HHS 70 ( SC & OBC-small, marginalized & landless farmers), comes under Silone Panchayat of Bijawar block.

How all this has happened?
This is all the effort of our HARIT PRAYAS team at Chatarpur, with their regular vist to the Majhota and intervention on promoting sustainable agricultuire, which has shown greater impact on reducing the input cost ( by 86%) and increasing the production by 25% has developed a concept of organic low cost agriculture revolution amngst the farmers. Now not only the farmers from Majhota, buta also the near by 28 villages farmers comes to HARIT PRAYAS (Majhota) to learn organic cultivation.

Agriculture is the backbone of farmers from Majhota village, but input  ( in the form of DAP & Urea) and the input  cost on agriculture is keep on increasing and production remains the same, which in turn leads farmers to leave agriculture and migrate to near by cities to do other labour work. Seasonal migration as per the baseline was 50% of total population in 2011, With our intervention on promoting sustainable agriculture ( through the formation of Farmers club and linkages with agriculture department and KVK) , initially it took time for the farmers to understand the concept, but once they understood that concept of low input cost through the usage of locally available organic resources, they have started using it and the motivation seeded by our team members was so high that out of 110 HHs Majohota village in the very first year around 50 farmers have done organic cultivation in their entire land and in resulkt they have received good production with very minimal cost. Non-availability and high cost of urea also supported our intervention. The increase in production and benefit from the agriculture  has now reduced migration  to hardly 5-6% ( in the recent application of monitoring tools-March 2012).

Real Heroes for this change!
Rajesh & Vinod: From bring the change: Our field staff- Rajesh Stnami ( Cluster Coordinator) and our Project field Supervisor Mr. Vinod with their daily visits interaction with community, they formed a cultural team of HARIT PRAYAS along with the community members, and started promoting the organic cultivation through cultural evenings in the form of folk songs. Its Majhota community, who has developed the themes song of HARIT PRAYAS accentuating on its process promotion on sustainable agriculture and women empowerment


HARDEEN: From the beginning Hardeen, a small farmer from Majhota has taken interest in the sustainable agriculture and from the guidance through HARIT PRAYAS various trainings he has done organic cultivation in his entire 5 bigha of land  and reaped good production ( increase of around 25% in compare to the usage of Urea and DAP). He has moved to other villages and shared the concept of organic cultivation, in his own village he has demonstrated the usage of organic cultivation on his field to many farmers and also given organic inputs (manure, amrit pani, neem pani etc) to other farmers.  Watch Hardeen on:

Ms. Asha Devi: Sarpanch of Silone Panchayat, who has from the beginning supported HARIT PRAYAS project and even made HARIT PRAYAS Silone VIC as the Panchayat Resource Center for facilitating community on various development government schemes.

Ms. Preeti:  The Project Coordinator of HARIT PRAYAS has developed a systematic plan and keeps the team moral high to have sustainable impact of HARIOT PRAYAS . She has on an average 18-20 field visit, which in turn has made her a household girl in the project villages. Community of HARIT PRAYAS (Majhota) own her like  their village daughter.

Fr. Joseph: He has given ample space opportunity and high level of motivation to the staff of HARIT PRAYAS project to bring a sustainable change. He himself has visited Majhota village many times (coming from Satrna-165 kms). His proper follow-up of the change happening in the project villages has contributed a lot for bringing change like HARIT PRAYAS (Majhota).

What else is the out put of HARIT PRAYAS at HARIT PRAYAS (Majhota)?
  • At present we have one farmers club ( 17 members, including 10 Male Farmers and 6 female farmers),

  • One Mahila Mandal with 16 Members-quite active and gone beyond saving and credit, address village level issues in Panchayat.

  • We have also facilitated trainings on entitlement in HARIT PRAYAS ( Majhota) and in terms of result in compare to only 20 Job Cards ( in baseline) now all the HHS have Job cards, and now to get job in NREGA farmers demand the job through written application that too in the off season ( of agriculture).

  • We have also trained women as an enterpenuers in Agarbatti making and now Women of HARIT PRAYAS Majhota are dealing with Agarbatti Making with brand name-HARIT PRAYAS.

From Caritas India who all has visited HARIT PRAYAS Majhota?
Ms. Shimray & Mr. Vinod Pandey (4 times in year). Ms. Shimray has conducted a quite interesting training ( in Nov 2011) cum workshop their on the birth of boy child or girl child and explained so well that now almsit each and every village community has clarity on the formation of girl and boy child, and hope it is spreading to other villages and we hope in long run the small workshop of an hour would have impact on reducing female feticide in Bundelkhand region!

सिर्फ़ हंगामा, खड़ा करना, मेरा मकसद नही
sirf hangama, khada karna, mera maksad nahi
सारी कोशिश, है की ये, सूरत बदलनी चाहिए
saari koshish, hai ki ye, soorat badalni chahiye
मेरे सीने में नही, तो तेरे सीने में सही
mere seene mein nahi, to tere seene mein sahi
हो कही भी आग लेकिन, आग जलनी चाहिए
ho kahi bhi aag lekin, aag jalni chahiye

Poet Dushyant Kumar wrote above lines on bringing change-describes that its not only we talk about change…but instead we must bring change!  And with Caritas HARIT PRAYAS and LIFE project we have tried to bring some of the institutional changes (which probably not happened earlier)!


For more on HARIT PRAYAS log on to http://www.caritasindia.org/ (blog-HARIT PRAYAS) or www.haritprayas.blogspot.com  or on Face book (HARIT PRAYAS).

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Mahila Mandals (Women groups) now moved ahead of saving & creadit@HARIT PRAYAS Sagar

Village: Parasai Khurd ( Sagar, Madhya Pradesh)
Mahila Mandal: Ganga MM

Ganga Mahila Mandal, Parasai Khurd formed in October month of last year is now moving a step ahead rather than by doing monthly meetings and savings, they now started taking the challenges related to development of their village.

Mrs. Chitra Bai(MM member) initiate the expansion process by taking a serious issue of the village of converting paper maps into reality of building toilets in Primary School of the village.

 Later Mrs. Khevati Bai and Tara Rani (also MM member) unite with her and move ahead for the work of Mukti Dham Boundary wall. Now MM has become so capacitate and powerful that now they start taking Panchayat Level work on contract basis. Members of MM themselves got occupied in work and don’t need outer labours.  

At present Ganga Mahila Mandal formed model Mandal for other females.  Looking this aspect of MM, other female of that village also formed MM to move forward this development process.