Partnership building with local organisations will be the “defining feature” of the 12th Plan to promote development, Union Planning Commission Member Mihir Shah said here on Tuesday.
Citing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's observation that “outcomes are not commensurate with outlays,” Dr. Shah lamented that universalisation of several programmes with huge outlays was not genuinely successful. “Government cannot be the final agency and there is a need to function in partnership (to make the delivery system of programmes effective).”
The programmes could be implemented with the help of civil groups and also Panchayati Raj institutions. He offered his services to promote pilot projects for rural development, which could be replicated if found efficacious.
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He was delivering the keynote address at the launching of the Canadian International Food Security Research-supported project on ‘Alleviating poverty and malnutrition in agro biodiversity hotspots,' conceived by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF).
He said India, despite being one of the fastest growing economies, had failed to achieve “inclusive growth”. Hence, the focus of the 12{+t}{+h} Plan must be on reform in implementation or governance reform by building partnerships outside the government. “We need to deepen the anchoring of these projects in local institutions.”
He urged the Foundation to extend the current project to tribal and naxal-infested districts in Central India.
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M.S. Swaminathan, chairman of the MSSRF, launching the project, made a fervent appeal for shifting the focus from Green Revolution to Evergreen Revolution to ensure food security. While the former focussed only on improving production, the latter was for increasing productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm.
Dr. Swaminathan, who pointed out that price volatility hurt a chunk of the population very seriously, explained the reasons for such a situation, including speculative trade. “Trade should not be free alone but also be fair.”
He gave a number of suggestions for ensuring stable food price, including building up stocks at the world and regional level and saving lost crops and traditional wisdom.
There should be governmental intervention to improve domestic food supply, prevent increase of domestic food prices, support access to food and reduce vulnerability of the country and household.
He mooted enlarging the ‘food basket,' introducing the lifestyle approach to nutrition safety net, and fostering community grain banks.
Noting that the draft Right to Food Bill was in the works, he pleaded that “humanitarian motivation” was a must for ensuring food security for the poor.
S. Bala Ravi, principal investigator of the project, said that India was the home of the largest number of hungry people in the world. Chronic malnutrition, which afflicted human and intellectual development, was more common in India. Almost 79 per cent of children under the age of three, 56 per cent of women and 26 per cent of men in India were malnourished and anaemic.
More than one third of the world's children, who are stunted and wasted, lived in India. “A right connect between agriculture and nutrition at local and national level is important to address this major problem”.
The current project will cover 4,000 households in three locations — Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu, Wayanad in Kerala and Koraput in Orissa. The 42-month project gets Canadian assistance of 4.9 million Canadian dollars.