Sarva Shikshya Abhiyaan: a success?????

According to a latest report by CAG over the implementation of Sarva Shikshya Abhiyaan (Midday Meal Scheme), the funds meant for the scheme were grossly siphoned off by the officials in charge for their personal benefits. CAG found that even petty officials owned large expensive imported cars like Skoda, grossly above what their compensation permits. Despite a consistent large annual increase in fund allocation for the scheme since its inception, the quality of food given out to students has only deteriorated. Students in various schools throughout the country have often complained of falling sick after consuming the low quality food given out under the scheme. Apart from being another incidence of taxpayers hard earned money being siphoned off by corrupt government officials, the incident brings to the forefront the apathy of our politicians towards bringing efficiency in the system. All political parties have been unanimous in consistently demanding more funds for the scheme, resulting in increased burden on taxpayers. Our super-intelligent politicians fail to understand that a more efficient Public Distribution System (PDS) will itself take care of the increased scheme requirements without mandating any increase in funds allocation in the short term. Only once the required efficiency creeps into the system, increased funds should be allocated. The only purpose the increased allocation has served is to enrich our loyal bureaucrats beyond what they already are. Increased allocation is a better populist measure and will generate more publicity for our dearest politicians than what increased efficiency can ever do for them.

Rajiv Gandhi once famously quoted that out of every 1 rupee allocated; only about 17 paisa reaches the eventual beneficiary. Today the condition is even worse. Corruption has already become a part of our culture. It’s high time our government does something about this menace before it becomes incurable. Involving private sector in public schemes is one of the methods that promise increased accountability and enhanced efficiency from our hard working bureaucrats. Infosys has been associated with the scheme in some districts in the state of Karnataka both as a logistics provider and a large sponsor of the scheme. In these districts the scheme has been a great success. The people concerned have been able to provide good quality food to school children while keeping costs extremely low even lower than the districts where the scheme has been a large failure on account of huge costs involved. This shows that effective leadership is the foremost criteria for making any scheme a success and our politicians have to show the way here to our bureaucrats. This year government fund allocation for the scheme went up from INR 7324 crores last year to INR 8000 crores this year. It was one of the few bills that found support from political parties across the board, without the efficiency of funds utilization being questioned. It’s high time our government and other politicians move up from mere populist measures to achieving efficient governance. I hope our politicians take a note of this.

2050: Global Warming won’t be a threat anymore????

This month Time magazine for the second time in its history had a cover border other than red. It had a green border reflecting its new found focus on global warming (it has had a black border previously to mourn 9/11) . It was to signify that the magazine has gone completely green and urged its users to also go green to fight global warming. Last year Nobel Peace prize was another extension of the World’s enhanced focus on global warming. Debate on Global Warming has eclipsed the US presidential elections this year, it is topic even bigger than Terrorism. This year, US for the first time admitted to being one of the biggest culprits of global warming and is now willing to do its bit although that might mean a slow down in US growth. What does this really imply??? Is the world coming to an end because of global warming??? Well right now it isn’t....but it will if nothing is done in this regard. Looking at the volumes spoken, the huge coverage given and efforts being done throughout the world to curtail global warming, i am relieved and sure that we will win this war sooner or later. Global Warming is too large a phenomenon to ignore and a lot needs to be done even before we can reach anywhere close to curtailing it. But a start has been made. Today heavy polluting industries are highly taxed (Direct carbon tax, Carbon credits etc.) whereas low polluting industries enjoy huge tax subsidies. Consumers are more environment conscious, not averse to paying more for environment friendly products. Eco-friendly products and services are a multi-billion dollar sustainable industry whereas many polluting industries are struggling to survive. Toyota, GM, Honda etc. all have hybrid vehicles in the market, Virgin has even tested a biofuel driven aircraft and plans to use the technology commercially by 2012. Renewable energy sources like wind, hydro etc. are being used more than ever to produce clean energy. Germany has already cut its emission by 18% below its 1990 level and is working towards achieving even more efficiency. Other countries like France, UK have also enhanced their emission cutting efforts. International climate treaties like Kyoto, current food crisis have further forced world governments to take climate change seriously. We humans have always fought, no matter what the circumstances and have always emerged triumph. Looking at this determination and the current efforts being made, I am assured that although not in the short term but in the long term we are poised to win our war against global warming. All of us are obliged to do our bit to fight global warming and once done so, global warming won’t be a threat anymore. I am not playing down the dangers of global warming, the only point I am emphasizing is that collective efforts will win us the battle against global warming and world is clearly showing signs of doing that.