NDA Government—Time to deliver on promises to the poor

One of the biggest chunks of political capital that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to 'monetise' through the demonetisation move is perhaps to be projected as pro-poor, by pushing the narrative that the corrupt rich are being targeted. As things stand, however, the shoddy planning and mismanagement of the demonetisation process has only hurt the poor more. With an aggressive Opposition trying to change the demonetisation narrative to being anti-poor, the Centre has been on the defensive.

“There is no potable water for the poor, no houses to live... What is the relevance of us being here?” Modi was quoted as emotionally telling BJP MPs in the Parliament complex on Tuesday. He apparently promised to take more pro-poor measures during the rest of his tenure. There's nothing wrong with that at all. However, is this just rhetoric? What are the outcomes, so far, of policy announcements for the poor?

With the NDA government already chugging past half its tenure, let's take a look at how it has performed on the two issues the PM has spoken a lot about—housing for the poor and potable water.

Building Hopes, Poor Execution

The very first Presidential address to Parliament, in June 2014, contained the new government’s laudable objective of ‘Housing for All Policy by 2022’. There has been a lot of renaming, revamping of earlier schemes and launches after that. The Centre subsumed the Rajiv Awas Yojana and the Indira Awas Yojana into the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), which is branched out into the urban and rural segments. The parameters of the schemes too have been changed, and private players are included in executing the scheme.

Under the PMAY-Urban, launched in June, 2015, the target is to construct over two crore houses by 2022, that is at least 30 lakh houses per year. On November 20, 2016 PM Modi launched the group housing project for the rural poor—PMAY-Gramin—that will provide 3 crore housing units to those living below the poverty line. There's a specific target of building 1 crore housing units by March 2019, before the present government's tenure ends. Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel though feels that proper execution of the scheme hasn't begun yet and takes a swipe at the PM for "launching the scheme four times".

“The priorities and the objectives are laudable. The NDA government, however, is quick in making announcements but not in following through with clarity,” says leading social activist Harsh Mander, who is the Director of the Centre for Equity Studies.

Housing woes have existed for long; but expectations had shot up with the NDA government making big promises of delivering. On the PMAY (Urban), though, the achievements have been disappointing. In a Lok Sabha reply, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation put forward the data that out of the 6,83,724 houses sanctioned under PMAY-Urban, only 710 houses—or 0.1%—were constructed by May 2016.

“Going by this rate, it will take 35,211 years to reach the PMAY target of 2.5 crore houses,” says Indu Prakash Singh of the NGO, ActionAid.

So, to achieve the target of one crore houses in rural areas by March 2019, an average 11,600 houses need to be constructed per day. Is this feasible? Going by the Lok Sabha reply on the pathetic figures achieved in the urban segment, this seems a far cry. If the housing for all scheme is to become a reality, Indu Prakash Singh says "PMAY should work on a mission mode with clear deliverables and strict outcomes every year." That, though, is lacking now.

Besides, with the next general elections slated for May 2019, there may not be any real accountability as proper data may not be available by then. That leads us to the next question: while the housing targets for 2022 sound laudable, are these really achievable? It's nice to promise schemes, but delivering on them is another matter.

Water Woes Galore

PM Modi’s quoted remarks on the need of access to potable water for the poor actually comes as a surprise to many. “Officially, the government maintains that India has achieved about 94-96% access to potable water,” says Avinash Kumar of WaterAid, a non-governmental body that focusses on water, sanitation and hygiene. The official claims based on certain technical definitions and the actual reality that people face in getting clean drinking water may be different. Avinash Kumar points out that more than half of the country’s 687 districts are chemically contaminated, including 87 districts with arsenic content.

Kumar, though, feels the poor could benefit from the proper implementation of the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). However, with the NDA government implementing the 14th Finance Commission recommendations, it has sort of washed its hands off any responsibility in its implementation. The Gram Panchayats, which face their own challenges of capacities to design and implement a programme, will now make most decisions for implementation. “The basic infrastructure responsibilities should belong to the state or Centre,” says Kumar.

The Budget allocation for the NRDWP has been sharply falling too. In 2015-16, the allocation declined to ₹4,373 crore from Rs 11,000 in 2014-15. For the ongoing financial year too, the allocation has stayed at around ₹5,000 crore.

So, after the demonetisation decision, does the government plan to increase allocation for many of the schemes that touch the lives of the country’s poor and marginal people? How will the delivery system improve? Tangible outcomes are what are “relevant” for the poor, not mere words. A mid-course correction needs to happen, and quickly.

Sebastian PT is Editor-at-large of National Herald. He tweets at @sebastianpt7