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When intent doesn’t meet the objective

Posted in Featured, View Point

Published on July 27, 2017 with No Comments

The report tabled by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) tabled in the Parliament of India has the lid blown off of the claims by the Indian government on Swatch Bharat Abhiyan (A mission to make India clean). The mission started with much fanfare. A program that was launched within weeks of Narendra Modi’s swearing in ceremony a good three years ago. Almost all the ministers at the Centre and various Bhartiya Janta Party joined in with brooms to clean the streets across India and sending a message to maintain hygiene and cleanliness. School children were imparted practical training on how to wash hands and funds were allocated to build toilets, and each household was encouraged to get one built. People may think that a lot has changed in India, but did the government come with that intention? Little did the Indians realize that the effort with the broom and the students came to an end the moment the photographers bid good bye? The toilets do have come up but not at the expected pace and the same old story of the Indian system of knowing the difference between building and maintaining has been exposed. One would have expected the government that cares so much for the sanitation to be even more careful on the quality of the food being served in the Indian Railways-the largest network of railways in the world. Alas that was not the case to be!

CAG has found severe deficiencies in the catering services of the Indian Railways, with several stations and trains serving food items. “Unfit for human consumption is the tag that has been given to the food being served in the trains and at the stations.  The report has mentioned that unpurified tap water is being used for food preparation and the food is left unprotected from insects and rats. The report is based on a joint inspection carried by CAG and Railways of selected 74 stations and 80 trains all over India and had presented its reports based on the findings. The report tabled in the parliament clearly stated, “Unpurified water straight from the tap was used in preparation of beverages; waste bins were found not covered, not emptied regularly, and not washed; food stuffs were not covered to protect them from flies, insects and dust; rats and cockroaches were found in trains” – All this when various elected leaders made Indians believe that they have done their bit and cleanliness is what this government works for.

BJP has been happy presenting a picture that there has been no corruption in its regime. However, CAG has exposed those as false claims too. CAG has found unfair trade practices at stations and in trains. Bills were not provided for the food items served on trains. Waiters and catering managers on the trains did not carry printed menu cards with tariffs. The quantity of the food served was less than the prescribed quantity; unapproved packaged drinking water was the only one available with the staff. Why didn’t the approved company ever complain? That was another mindboggling question. The situation at the railway stations was no better. The report mentions that the weights and prices of the items sold at railway stations were different from the open market, and that the unit price of food articles sold in railway premises was significantly low. The ruling party may argue that these cases are not hinting towards any involvement of any of its ministers, but can it absolve itself when the common man has been deprived and cheated by the very mechanism of a government body?

Hygiene, good quality and reasonable cost of the items and some convenience while travelling is all that a passenger in India seeks, and the government failed to provide all, and thus this report by CAG. The government could have been expected to be sincere with its effort on the Safari Abhiyan and would have worked hard to implement the dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with utmost sincerity. The railways could have been a platform to present as a role model to the world. However, it lost an opportunity and converted the Railways into a case to mock at for failure on all fronts despite charging the passengers heavily with “flexible fare”, that goes higher with each seat being booked.

In order to make India clean, it called for a change in behavior and not just increase the number of toilets. And that change of behavior was even desired for the people who formulated those programs. It called for sincerity on the part of the government and the government machinery and not a photo opportunity that the elected members created for themselves.  Adding bins for garbage collection was a welcome move but that too also failed as there were no robust arrangements for waste management. Waste is being collected from all over the cities and being dumped at one or two locations. The “trash mountain” near north Delhi opposite Rohini is a classic example of shame with vultures hovering around it that welcomes the visitors.

 

The staff that carries out cleaning of the sewage lines,  with the exception of few cities that have machines to do their part of the work; work in the most inhumane conditions. No shoes, no gloves, no body covers and no masks. The clean India mission was a novel program that failed to deliver the results as the intent was not directed at the objective!

 

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