Social sector will take a hit if govt falls

If the UPA Govt fails to prove its majority in the Lok Sabha following Left's withdrawal, its reforms agenda for the social sector would be the worst-hit, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jul 10, 2008, 01:11:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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If the Congress-led UPA government fails to prove its majority in the Lok Sabha following withdrawal of Left support, its reforms agenda for the social sector would be the worst-hit.

Different ministries have lined up series of programmes for betterment of the socially and economically weaker sections for Cabinet approval. Failure to prove its majority would be a deterrent for the government to approve these plans.

Leading the show would be the HRD Ministry, which has its vast education expansion plan ready for the Cabinet’s approval. The ministry has already circulated Cabinet notes for approval of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, which is a programme similar to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for secondary education, seeking approval of six new IITs for which admissions have been done and additional funds for higher education institutes to implement the OBC quota.

The ministry has also prepared Cabinets notes for a new special scheme for disabled children in the age-group of 14-18, a revamped madrassa modernisation scheme, a plan to open 2,500 model schools in educationally backward districts and a Rs 5,000 crore scheme for vocational education. The ministry has already received approvals for these schemes from the Finance Ministry.

To improve the nutrition level in Indian children, the Women and Child Development Ministry has sought the Finance Ministry’s approval for a restructured Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). For the girl child, the ministry will soon seek the Cabinet’s approval for the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme of Empowerment of the Child Girl.

The social sector agenda has more from the Social Justice Ministry, which would soon seek the Cabinet’s approval for increasing the income limit to define the creamy layer to Rs 4.5 lakh per year.

To provide better facilities in rural India, the government would be finalising the National Rural Housing Policy soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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