Civil society groups have recommended that the Approach Paper to the 12th Five Year Plan provide access to essential entitlements and development opportunities for the marginalised and increase investments in public services such as health, education, skill development, training and infrastructure building.
Over 600 social activists, representing Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, people living with HIV, those with disability, the youth, the transgender population and the elderly, in a report “Approaching Equity: Civil Society Inputs for the Approach Paper – 12th Five Year Plan” have rejected the concept of gross domestic product growth alone as a goal of planning and suggested that a comprehensive real-time database on the marginalised and violence against the poor and vulnerable be created to enable more realistic and just planning.
Investments for the poor should be increased and programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana and the Swarn Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana should be strengthened along with the public distribution system, the report suggests.
While welcoming the efforts of the Planning Commission to make the planning process more responsive to the citizens concerns, Amitabh Behar, social activist, said here on Tuesday that the civil society groups had seized this opportunity to make the 12th Plan process more participatory and somewhat representative of the public opinion. The report captures the urgent concerns of the most marginalised and neglected communities. It had emerged from the wide consultations undertaken to identify and reflect on the insights and aspirations of the public, Mr. Behar said.
The report says that special steps need to be taken to make cheaper credit and other financial services available to the poor, who are at present largely unbanked, and calls for more transparency, accountability, and monitoring with establishment of mechanisms for people's participation.
Laws should be strictly followed, especially labour laws and protection laws for children, Dalits, Adivasis and other underprivileged classes. Justice should be ensured through proper rehabilitation and resettlement process for those voluntarily displaced, along with ensuring proper registration and enumeration of migrants, portability of their entitlements and security of their rights, the report says.
The civil society groups held 16 consultations across the country in which organisations representing major communities involved themselves in an unprecedented exercise of addressing all the 12 challenge areas listed out by the Planning Commission and sought that the Approach Paper not only address the key concerns of the different constituencies but also bring to the “forefront these excluded groups in planning.”
