Drought & deprivation

By Sudhanshu Ranade

THE WAY politicians rush pell-mell to the site of any disaster, be it a rail accident or a bomb blast or the brutal murder of civilians by armed gangs, with reporters and photographers in tow to record their carefully-posed concern, makes the blood boil. The same sort of posturing is to be seen in Parliament whenever we are hit by a cyclone, earthquake or drought. This is why people find themselves hoping that such crises, at least, will be kept `above politics'. What is required, above all, is to let harried local officials get on with their job; instead of adding to their problems with all the drama, and placing on them the additional burden of the need to `keep up appearances'.

But in fact such relief or rescue operations are often beyond the capability of the local administration; they require the quick and coordinated action of a variety of specialised departments at a number of different levels of the State and Central hierarchies. In such cases, even the most cynical and self- promoting shows of `concern' do help to get things moving, on the scale and urgency required.

To give one instance, even the most dedicated of efforts by local officials would be of no use to people in affected areas if abundant quantities of water, food or fodder are made available to them at prices that are beyond their reach. Droughts, cyclones and earthquakes do indeed wreak some of their havoc by the disruption of supplies. But a more grave problem is the way such disasters abruptly terminate normal sources of income for the masses, even as the realisable value of their already negligible assets drops sharply on account of distress sales.

Supplies at least can be rushed in, at comparatively little cost, from other areas, far or near, that have remained unaffected. All that is required is a sense of crisis and the gearing up of the departments concerned for quick, coordinated action on the required scale. This is not an easy task; but it can be done. The disruption of income sources, however, has to be tackled locally.

The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, has ordered the rushing of supplies of water, fodder and food to the drought- stricken areas; and efforts will no doubt be made to ensure that these supplies are quickly and fairly distributed. Orders have also been issued to begin food- for-work programmes expeditiously, on the required scale. But this is an intrinsically slow and clumsy way of `rushing' across additional `purchasing power' to people who have suddenly been deprived of their usual sources of income.

The dispersed incidence of deprivation makes the food-for-work programmes expensive and difficult. Besides, only about half the relief money can be used to cover wage costs, the rest is reserved for material and equipment. This halves the number of people you can cover, and leads to the creation of make-work `roads' that will get washed away or blown off before they are ever used.

Severe costs are inflicted on beneficiaries, such as commuting to work, foregoing alternate uses of their time, and having to labour long hours in the hot sun; at a time when they are already stressed because even the scanty supplies of water and fodder that are normally available for their own use in summer have dried up. And young, old, sick and disabled people remain beyond the reach of food-for-work programmes; no matter how quickly and efficiently they are implemented.

Why should not relief money, which is specifically intended to be given away, be simply given away? Accountability can be ensured - disbursal on the spot in villages in the presence of panchayat representatives can be monitored. This can be supplemented by a determined effort to create an `accountability trail', so as to increase transparency by making the record permanently available for perusal with a fine comb in less stressed times.

Simply giving away relief money, instead of going in for food-for-work programmes, would help critical categories of needy people who would otherwise be left out; would more than double the number of people who can be helped with any given amount of money; would reduce administrative difficulties and costs; would increase the transparency of relief operations; and would greatly reduce the costs that are inflicted on beneficiaries of food-for- work programmes - unintentionally by some people; and deliberately by others, who believe that the rich can be kept out of relief programmes only by the deliberate infliction of pain on the poor.

Though such streamlining of policy is necessary, it is unlikely to happen in the near future. But it would help if the Union Finance Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, at least rolled back prices of essentials supplied through the public distribution system (PDS) in affected areas to pre-Budget levels, with immediate effect.

The Government has announced that to tide over the emergency, `above poverty line' (APL) families in the affected areas would be entitled to draw rations at rates applicable to `below poverty line' (BPL) families. It has offered no price cut for BPL families, who are the hardest hit. It seems that Mr. Vajpayee has, against his better judgment, let himself be persuaded by his administrative or financial advisors that this would create a bad precedent, and make it impossible to resist pressures for a general rollback of prices to pre-Budget levels.

Such solicitude for the well-being of relatively better-off people while turning a blind eye to the suffering of the poor is in keeping with the logic that led to the hike in PDS prices for BPL families in the first place. After all, the hike in PDS prices, `to reduce the burden of food subsidies', basically passes on to the poor the costs of subsidising the rich: the costs of keeping food prices high in the interests of relatively rich surplus farmers; the costs of maintaining the excessive stocks of food that come into being on account of high procurement prices; and the costs of shoring up the gargantuan Food Corporation of India.

An abundant, reliable and well-publicised supply of food through PDS outlets normally helps to keep prices low, by keeping artificial shortages in check. But passing on the above three sorts of costs to PDS users anyway raises prices, permanently, beyond levels to which artificial shortages might otherwise have raised them, temporarily.

These higher price levels now become the new baseline with reference to which market prices are set. In addition, the sharp and sudden nature of the hike of PDS prices, by something like 50 per cent, right on the eve of the drought, is sure to increase the room for the `free play of market forces'.

The Congress(I) president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, obviously, is not the only one who has been crippled by the quality of advice that she gets. Mr. Vajpayee too seems to be facing serious problems in this regard. Why else would he have put up with such want of imagination in respect of issues concerning the poor? Why else would he have allowed the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, to sweep him off his feet in quest of `world glory', instead of limiting our foreign policy objectives to the cost- effective pursuit of issues that are important to us? Why else would he have allowed the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, to pursue the disastrous policy of slowly, steadily and deliberately imperilling the security of the minorities, in order to `keep them in line'?

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