Govt presents rosy picture of flagship schemes to PC team

Did Sayeeda Hamid digest ICDS, NRHM, NREGA lies in J&K?

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Oct 11: Has the Government of Jammu & Kashmir succeeded in telling and selling lies on implementation of the centrally sponsored flagship schemes to the Planning Commission (PC) team, currently visiting the Valley, would become clear only after Sayeeda Hamid and her colleagues are back in the union Capital. What is, however, unmistakably clear at this point of time is that Omar Abdullah’s bureaucracy is literally burning midnight oil to narrow the gap between its PowerPoint presentations and the actual achievements in the field.

Successive governments in J&K have been invariably complaining of non-cooperation and non-availability of funds from the Centre. It is also a common factor of all regimes that they take refuge behind street turbulence, insurgency and hostile weather whenever New Delhi demands performance reports, utilization certificates and other accounts of the Centrally-sponsored developmental programmes.

Incumbent Minister incharge Health could not be singularly to blame for the phenomenal failure of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in J&K. He has statistics to support his claims of success. According to him, Centre had generously committed and provided whopping sum of nearly Rs 1200 Cr for implementation of different schemes under NRHM during Ghulam Nabi Azad’s regime. Not more than Rs 47 Cr was the actual expenditure for over half of the NRHM life span. In the last two-and-a-half years, Mr Sharma has taken it to around Rs 400 Cr.

Even if the official statistics are correct---without questioning how the expenditure was raised---it remains an incontrovertible reality that two-third of the committed outlay, or Rs 800 Cr, is still unutilized and the missions is scheduled to expire on March 31, 2012. Dozens of embezzlement cases have surfaced in the last nine months alone. Irregularities have been galore in everything from engagement of human resource to acquisitions and constructions.

Performance has been dismal particularly in Reproductive & Child Health (RCH), Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) and National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB). All eyebrows raised by common people and media over the way funds are being swindled in the name of Immunization, Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) and National Iodine Deficiency Disorder Control Programme (NIDDCP) have been completely ignored by the powers that be in the last three years.

It may require a thorough investigation and reality check how dispensaries and public health centres have failed to come up due to either lack of initiative by the bureaucracy or conflict of constituency interest between the politicians. Nevertheless, just a cursory look on the wages being paid to the staff would make it clear how a huge gap is existing between what the doctors and paramedics are being paid in J&K and what their counterparts have been taking home in all other states of the country.

In the final year of the scheme, Mr Sharma seems to be out from the long slumber of four years. In the thick of the PC team’s visit, he has announced that, n0w on, Rs 25,000 would be paid to doctors and Rs 15,000 a month to the paramedics to be engaged under NRHM.

Had the officials and bureaucrats not escorted the PC team, members would have seen how only half of the amount reaches the beneficiaries through ASHA. Arguably, over 50 percent of the mothers and pregnant women don’t know what has happened to the amounts drawn in their names and who have swindled it fully.

In the district Sayeeda Hamid visited today to learn about the condition of Anganwari Centres, a Minister of Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet has got his own aunt appointed as Worker-cum-Helper at one of these Centres. Her husband happens to be the owner of two cars, each costing Rs 4 Lakh to 6 Lakh. To cap it all, he is shortly expected to get district franchise of Maruti Udhyog Ltd. In the process, all 30-odd contenders, almost all living below poverty level, have been sidelined. None, repeat none, was invited for interview though nobody’s application was entertained in absence of a postal envelop.

In the same district, Public Analysts of Food and Drug Control Organisation have lately observed that adulterated nutrition items, dangerously harmful to young children, had been provided to most of the 1500-odd centres, imperiling the life of nearly 30,000 children. Samples collected from all the ten medical blocks of the district have been found adulterated. Chief Medical Officer has written to F& DC Organisation for registration of a criminal case but there has been no action. Ignoring the culpability of officials of Social Welfare Department responsible for receiving and supplying the adulterated quantities, CMO has sought registration of FIR under the obsolete Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and not the effective legislative that came into force earlier this year.

Insiders insist that over 70 percent of the centres, claimed to have been opened and operated under Phase-3 of the scheme, are either fully non-functional or function for once or twice a week. Statistics indicate that protest demonstrations occurred at over 100 places this year, latest being in Langet area of Handwara today, but authorities have chosen to remain mute spectators. Even the complaints submitted to Director and State Vigilance Organization have gone unheard. According to insiders, Commissioner-Secretary Social Welfare, Jeet Lal Gupta, is averse to referring matters to SVO simply for the fact that his brother, PL Gupta, happens to be the Vigilance Commissioner. Bureaucracy has been particularly ineffective in stopping the culture of allotment of high-cost constructions without floating tenders by the Directorate.

MN NREGA has shown some positive results in only two districts of the state out of 22. In Kashmir valley, Kupwara alone has some presentable indicators.

END