MUSLIM VISION OF SECULAR INDIA: Destination and Roadmap - 36
05:41AM Mon 23 Apr, 2012
MUSLIM VISION OF SECULAR INDIA: Destination and Roadmap - 36
An Approach Paper aimed atPresenting a Muslim Perspective of India's national goals; andDeveloping a Comprehensive National Plan for Socioeconomic Empowerment of Muslim Indians so that they can play a meaningful role in the national and global affairs
By
Dr. Javed Jamil
Rural Development (contd)
Some of the programmes running in rural areas are as follows:
(1) Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
(2) National Rural Livelihood Mission (NFRLM)
(3)Indira Awas Yojana (IAY)
(4) National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) and Total Sanitation Campaign (TSP)
(5) Integrated Watershed Development Programme (IWDP)
(6)Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)
(7) Rural electrification, including separation of agricultural feeders andRajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY).
Some other relevant observations from the 12th Plan are being copied here, so that Muslim organisations must be aware of the national policies and can develop their own strategies to derive maximum benefits:
"There is a clear case for establishing a pool oflocal "barefoot" engineers/technical assistants who could be trained up through an appropriate mechanism, enabling them to fulfil the need for technical and managerial capacity in MGNREGA, as well as in other rural infrastructure projects.....
Second, it is important that the selection of works reflects the needs, aspirations and priorities of the local people, without which the community will not necessarily have a sense of ownership of the project. The latter is a vital component of the concept of rural infrastructure creation.....
"Rural India has a large population of artisan families, many of whom are from the minority and tribal communities. Most of these artisan farmers do not own any land and many find themselves in a difficult condition with poor access to market linkages and to remunerative 80 livelihoods. Thought must be given as to how the MGNREGA in conjunction with the N RLM programme can help these artisan communities to obtain a decent living while at the same time conserving the base of craftsmanship, which is India's cultural heritage.....
"Taking a cue from the lessons of the SGSY experience, the Government of India has launched theNational Rural Livelihoods Mission in 2011. There is a clear understanding that the SBL programme can only be successful if it is tied up with livelihood programmes such as improved agriculture, dairying, marketing etc. Thus, the SBL and livelihood programmes are complementary to each other and their simultaneous implementation is the key to poverty alleviation. Incomes raised through livelihood initiatives need to be saved. Of these savings, women are the best custodians. These savings must, in turn, be reinvested in livelihood options that raise incomes, setting up a virtuous cycle. The distinctive focus of the NRLM is on Federations of SHGs that become powerful units of economic empowerment, enabling the poor to radically alter the balance of power in the markets they participate in as both producers and consumers....
"Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY): The separation of feeders supplying power to tube?wells from other rural feeders ensures that villages can get full day three-phase power for domestic uses, schools, hospitals and village industries while farmers get around 8 hours of full-voltage three-phase power according to a pre-announced schedule..........
"Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP): Four functional areas, namely (a) institutional development, (b) capacity building (c) monitoring and evaluation and (d) livelihood orientation need to be an integral part of the programme from the very beginning, ....."
"Health and Nutrition:
o Vaccination of all children
o Access to safe drinking water and acceptable sanitation standards
o Widespread testing and provision of nutritional supplements for vulnerable sections, particularly adolescent girls, young mothers and children
o Strengthening the rural health infrastructure, especially Sub-Centres, PHCs and CHS, which includes adequate staffing and ready availability (preferably 24x7) and better mobile linkages (emergency services) to the hospital network."
Creating a cadre of "bare foot engineers"/ technicians as mentioned above is integral to build locally resident skills for design, execution and maintenance of rural infrastructure. o Imparting degree/diploma in farm technology and veterinary science (2-3 years programme) for rural youth with 10 + 2 school education.
"Women and Rural Economy: The Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran pariyojana (MKSP) which is a subcomponent of NRLM was recently launched to meet the specific needs of women farmers, and help them achieve social, economic and technical empowerment. In the Twelfth Five Year Plan very specific attention needs to be given to leverage the enormous potential of empowering rural women in the farm sector, and also in the rural non-farm sector.
"About half of our population is either wholly or significantly dependant for their livelihoods on some form of farm activity - be it crop agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry or fisheries.With low levels of infrastructure and human development, and in a context replete with inequalities and uncertainty, rural India views its future transformation with both hope and trepidation.Expansion of farm incomes is still the most potent weapon for reducing poverty. Non-farm income opportunities such as post-harvest operations, maintenance of farm equipment etc. - offer a virtuous cycle connecting expansion of farm activity to that of rural non-farm income opportunities.
"Agriculture did diversify towards horticulture, animal husbandry and non-food crops, but agricultural GDP growth averaged only 1.9 per cent during 1997/98 to 2004/05. Farm incomes increased even less since terms of trade turned against agriculture during this period, indicating inadequate demand and lack of rural purchasing power. With farm debt increasing more than farm incomes, there was a deficit of hope that was captured tragically by a spate of farm suicides."
There are other steps for rural development suggested in the 12th Plan which include:
1. Vastly superior water management: The steps include:
o Steps to greatly improve governance in water management through Water User
Associations such asPani Panchayats and similar PRI-based institutions.
o A focus on Command Area Development and the rehabilitation and physical modernisation of existing major irrigation systems.
o Extensive rainwater harvesting assisted by space-based maps with active ground-truthing and convergence with other development schemes.
o Comprehensive aquifer mapping and extensive ground water recharge.
o Move towards sprinkler and drip irrigation and away from flood irrigation
o Enable assured irrigation to much more land far beyond the present 42 per cent of arable land oStrengthen drinking water resources
o Integrate these activities with existing surface reservoir based canal irrigation.
Micro-irrigation schemes to reach water access to more areas and encouragement to efficient methods of water?use is a natural extension of the extensive efforts in rainwater harvesting and decentralized impounding of water, including that in farm ponds. Imaginative use of these initiatives can enable an assured protective irrigation for less water intensive crops in the rainfed regions
2. National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) which presently encompasses subsidy on 10 per cent of the premium to small and marginal farmers, with the expense on the subsidy being equally shared between Centre and State Governments. The scheme is demand driven and although a large number of farmers (11.4 million inkharif 2010) availed of this programme (with the total sum insured being Rs. 25,500 crore), the fact is that not enough farmers are availing of this scheme. The reasons are believed to be a combination of lower subsidy, delayed claim settlement, lack of awareness and operational issues. In response to this a modified NAIS has been implemented on pilot basis in 50 districts covering most states, with a slightly different design, including higher subsidy and accelerated settlement. The MNAIS scheme is yet to be rolled out in the rest of the country. It is to be seen how Muslim majority village can maximise benefits from this plan.Another step is the Insurance education for the small and marginal farmers.
3.Access to power has been particularly poor in rural habitations and the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana RGGVY was devised to remedy this problem by providing connections to all villages and free connections to BPL families. There are other schemes which provide electrical connectivity to people below poverty line. Solar lanterns have been distributed at subsidized rates. This again has to be seen that Muslim villages get the power supply without bias.
3.Land acquisition: Poor including Muslims often lose because they are often not showing the real value on papers to avoid taxes and then they end up losers.
4. MGNREGA has directly led to the creation of 987 crore person-days of work since inception. In financial year 2010/11, MGNREGA provided employment to 5.45 crore households generating 253.68 crore person?days--- How many of these are Muslims, has to be studied, and efforts are to be made that they get their due share.
5.Water availability in rural areas (Even if we succeed in bringing about a major rationalisation of water prices, this by itself will not lead to optimal use. For this, a rational pricing must be accompanied by regulatory measures to ration water to different agricultural users, and stronger measures to discourage pollution. It is estimated that up to 13 per cent of drinking water in rural areas contains chemical contaminants, including fertilizer run?offs (particularly urea and its decomposition products). Contamination of drinking water is the principal cause of health disorders, particularly amongst children.)
6.Faster expansion in agro-processing, supply chains and the increased demand for technical personnel for inputs into various aspects of agro-processing.
Reactions
Janab Javid Jamil sahab, Assalamualaikum.
Alhamdulillah, your research has been very useful and I find review by section is impressive.
Since over 60% of our population is in Rural India, it is not a magic science for governing bodies to confirm that we will have to work harder to improve life style of this segment. Except few chawdharies and lanlords most are hands to mouth.
What we need is a model which will take care of fundamental rights and requirement. We all agree that among them most important is:
Guarantee food, shelter and clothing.
Clean drinking water,
Hygienic sanitary and drainage system.
To achice these basics, government has main responsibility to create facilities and conditions to find work, reasonable education and basic health care system.
A step further will be minimum electricity and communication system
This need funding, honest utilization of public funds and good executors.
I believe this will be possible if we work on
Decentralization of power, each panchayat is given responsibilities with strong accountable system and frame work and execute approved project. Funding must be a mechanism based on private and public participation.cotporatebworld must chip in and for that there must be a format which is again not very difficult to develop.
Muslims will inshallah benefits most as as present the community is economically back word. Such approach is practical and goes with our constitutional theme.
Thank you
Abdul Rahman Siddiqui
Mediaquestcorp
janab Dr. Javed Jamil Saheb,
Pl. explain how is"There is unequal distribution of wealth, with 1pc holding 99 pc of the wealth" is true, as mentioned by you.
In urban areas 10% of population has over 46% of wealth and rural areas 10% of population has 55% of wealth.
I was surprised and guess it was atypographical mistake.
Tariq Umar Farooqui
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Dear TariqFarooqi Sahib,
I didn't mean it word by word. When I wrote it, I had the slogan of "1 pc holding 99 pc" given by Occupy Movement in my mind. However, if we study the true state of affairs, we will find it not too much off the mark. The figures given by you are only for public consumption. Once I collected the data about the wealth of the richest 57 Indians and the combined wealth of them was enough to make every Indian household (of around 10 members each) a lakhpati. I feel there is a need to challenge the figures given by the agencies. To know the exact situation requires a more through analysis.
Thanks any way for pointing. Till alternative estimates are available, we must stick to the official figures. I will make necessary adjustments in the text.
Regards
Dr Javed Jamil
- Dr Javed Jamil is Executive Chairman, International Centre for Applied Islamics, Chief Editor, "Islam, Muslims & the World" and Director PEACE. He is also author of more than a dozen books including "Islam means Peace", "The Essence of the Divine Verses", "The Killer Sex", "Rediscovering the Universe", "The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism" and "Islamic Model for Control of AIDS". Also has more than 200 articles and papers to his credit. His soon-to-be-published works include "Scientific & Social Principles based on Qur'an" and "Westernism: the Ideology of Hegemony". He can be reached at doctorforu123@yahoo.com. Phones: 91- 8130340339
Contents
Preface 3
1- Introduction: 6
2- What has gone wrong? 11
3 - Time to Reverse the Tide: Objectives to be achieved15:
4- Changes in Government Policies & Economic Ideology Required: Economic Disparity to be drastically reduced, Steps required for countering commercialisation of human weaknesses, Emphasis on Rural Development, Emphasis on Development of undeveloped urban areas particularly civic amenities 26
5 Political Empowerment & Governance
Radical Steps needed by Muslim Community 55
6- Religious Education: Applied Islamics, Mosques as Islamic Centres, Khutbas, 55
- Modern Education: Primary, Secondary, Higher 65
7. Scope of Islamic Economics in India 88
* Dynamic Theory of Economics: Wealth Generation
* Exploring the scope of large scale Muslim participation in Corporate Sector, especially the Consumer Market: People's Corporate India
* Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
* Economic Relations with Muslim Countries
* Islamic Finance
* Shariah-compliant stock exchange
8- Health Infrastructure: Special Efforts on Health Front needed by Muslim Community 139
9- Urban Development 184 Civic Amenities, Peace Cities
10- Rural Development 194
11- Social Empowerment and Security: 206 Reservation, Unity of Muslims, Interfaith, Equality, Campaign against Social Evils, Employment.
12- Empowerment of Women within Islamic Parameters 222
13. NGO Sector 241
14- The Fourth Estate: Let Muslims also Own it
15- Management of Awqaf Properties 264
17- Security Issues: Psychological, Physical and Social 273
18- Roadmap: Need for a National Level Organisation of Muslims 296
19- Muslim Perspective of National Development and Socioeconomic Empowerment of Muslim Indians: Measures Suggested (more than 170 measures enlisted here)
20- Last Word
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