government schemes for downtrodden community!

http://socialjustice.nic.in/ngoschemes.php

Now some of the case studies of LIFE project are on you tube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KhC2Z_0_4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP1KrKwXAz4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsBN06REZ4

...500 crore worth crop loss in Banswara due to heavy rain!

MGNREGA progress in last 3 years (2009-2012) in Rajasthan State

MGNREGA राज्य की प्रगति
MGNREGA Rajasthan progress in last 3 years ( 2009-2012)
क्र.सं	विवरण ( details)	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012
1	जॉबकार्ड धारी परिवारों की संख्या (लाखो  में  ) total job card holders (in millions)	84.68	89.28	92.74	95.02
2	कार्य पर नियोजित परिवारों की संख्या  (लाखो   में ) total HHs involved in work ( in millions)	63.69	65.22	58.24	39.92
3	कुल सृजित मानव दिवस  (लाखो में  ) total man days of work ( in millions)	4829.38	4498.08	3026.65	1379.59
	1. अनुसूचित जाति द्वारा सृजित   (लाखो  में ) Total man days by SC HHs ( in millions)	1390.29	1193.51	771.8	299
	2. अनुसूचित जनजाति द्वारा सृजित मानव दिवस  (लाखो में ) total man days by ST HHs (in million)	1122.52	1011.87	704.93	366.61
	3. महिलाएं द्वारा सृजित मानव दिवस  (लाखो  में ) Total man days by Females ( in million)	3241.03	3009.38	2046.68	942.79
4	100 दिवस पूरे करने वाले परिवारों की संख्या  (लाखो  में ) total families completed 100 days ( in millions)	25.94	17.63	5	0.54
5	औसत रोजगार दिवस (प्रति परिवार)  average work days ( per family)	76	69	52	34
6	व्यय राशि (रुपये करोडो में) total expenditure (in billions)	6175.55	5669.05	3300.33	1690.37
7	औसत श्रमिक दर रुपये प्रति मानव दिवस   Average wage per day per person	89	87	75	92
8	औसत व्यय प्रति जिला  (रुपये करोडो में ) average expenditure per district ( in billions)	187.14	171.79	100.01	51.22
9	औसत व्यय प्रति पंचायत समिति (रुपये करोडो में ) average expenditure per Panchyat Samiti ( in billions)	26.06	23.92	13.25	7.13
10	औसत व्यय प्रति ग्राम पंचायत (रुपये  लाखो में  )  average expenditure per Panchyat Samiti ( in millions)	67	61	36	18.4
11	औसत व्यय रुपये प्रति मानव दिवस  average expenditure per man days	128	126	108	123

Rajasthan State Policy for Development of Livestock

Dear Friends,

Livelihood at large in Rajasthan means "Livestock rearing", many of us are working on development of livestock in our region as to ensure the people's sustainable livelihood. Similarly, govt. of rajasthan is also supporting our efforts in various ways. We all should know the policy of govt. to support our efforts to strengthen and make them effective.

This is link for downloading the Policy. http://india.gov.in/allimpfrms/alldocs/15688.pdf  may be helpful for your to plan and implement your efforts in developing livestock in Rajasthan.

Manish Singh

Coordinator - LIFE Project (Ajmer)

The poverty trap!

By Jean Dreze in 23^rd Sept Hindustan Times ( Delhi edition):

In the good old days, the poverty line was a relatively simple concept. By and large, it was just a statistical benchmark for making ‘poverty comparisons’ — for instance, to track poverty over time, or to compare poverty levels in different parts of the country.

Many of these comparisons are not particularly sensitive to the choice of poverty line, within a reasonable range. There is even a situation going by the odd name of ‘first-order stochastic dominance’, which arises when the relevant comparison holds for any poverty line. For instance, Bihar is clearly poorer than Punjab, wherever one draws the line.

The choice of poverty line, therefore, was not particularly controversial. One widely used initial benchmark was the level of per capita expenditure required to meet pre-specified calorie norms. One may or may not like this benchmark (the calorie ‘norms’ themselves are quite shaky), but at least it was fairly transparent.

There was no claim that reaching the poverty line was a guarantee of being well-nourished (since good nutrition requires much more than calorie adequacy), let alone healthy or well-educated.

Then came the whole idea of ‘BPL targeting’, that is, of restricting various social benefits (in particular, the public distribution system) to households ‘below the poverty line’. This quietly transformed the poverty line from a statistical benchmark into a real-life social division.

The division was all the more artificial as the identification of BPL households was highly unreliable. Indeed, the Planning Commission uses one method to count the poor, and the ministry of rural development uses a different method to identify them. This cannot work. And this is just the beginning of a series of conceptual flaws and implementation problems that plague the BPL census.

It is not surprising that, according to the National Sample Survey (among other sources), about half of all poor households in rural India didn’t have a BPL card in 2004-05. The ‘real-life’ poverty line not only divides people, but it also divides them in a cruel and destructive manner.

The Tendulkar Committee Report further complicated matters by claiming, for the first time, that the poverty line ensures “adequacy of actual private expenditure… on food, education and health” [sic].

That Rs 32 per person per day (the Tendulkar poverty line for urban areas at today’s prices) is wholly insufficient for this purpose is self-evident from a common sense point of view. This is all the more glaring when one looks at the breakdown of the R32 packet, which includes, for instance, just about one daily rupee for health expenditure.

Yet, the experts managed to rustle up technical arguments to substantiate their startling claim.

Consider, for instance, the argument they invoked to establish “food adequacy” at the poverty line. Briefly, it consists of observing that food expenditure at the poverty line is typically higher than “normative food expenditure”.

The latter is defined as follows (hold your breath): “When estimated population from NSS [National Sample Survey] is ranked according to ascending size of food expenditure per capita, normative food expenditure per capita is defined by that level of food expenditure per capita that corresponds to cumulative share of population from NSS that equals the index of malnutrition derived from NFHS-III [third National Family Health Survey] for that state.”

The “index of malnutrition”, for its part, is an unweighted sum of the proportions of underweight children, adult men with a low body mass index (BMI), and adult women with low BMI.

If you didn’t understand that, relax. Because it makes no sense.

However, this woolly-headed argument (somewhat tangential in the report) serves the government’s purpose quite well, since it helps to justify BPL targeting. Indeed, the adequacy argument is the central plank of the Planning Commission’s recent affidavit to the Supreme Court, defending the use of official poverty lines for PDS allocations.

To be fair to the Planning Commission, it is not quite saying (at least not explicitly) that the PDS should be restricted to BPL households. It is just saying that the central government’s commitment ends there.

But the writing is on the wall, not just for the PDS but also for other social programmes that are being quietly ear-marked for BPL targeting, conversion to cash transfers, and “self-liquidation” as the official poverty estimates go down.

The way forward is not to “fix the poverty numbers” but to find a way out of this  bankrupt approach of BPL targeting. That is the appeal of universal entitlement programmes such as school meals, integrated child development services (ICDS), and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

Many states are now moving away from BPL targeting in the PDS too — not only states like Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh that have a long-standing commitment to universalism in social policy, but also, increasingly, other states such as Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh  where the PDS extends well beyond the BPL category. The PDS tends to function much better in those states, because everyone — or almost everyone — has a strong stake in it. This approach is expensive, but at least, it tends to work.

Beyond this, there is a need for informed debate on the future of social support in India. Do we want a divisive, unreliable and exclusionary system of targeted transfers that self-liquidates over time? Or do we want to build a comprehensive social security system inspired by constitutional principles, fundamental rights, and ideals of solidarity and universalism?

The whole experience of the last 20 years is that over-reliance on economic growth for social progress is a recipe for disappointment. Even Bangladesh and Nepal (starting way behind, and with much slower economic growth) have made far more progress than India during this period, in terms of a wide range of social indicators. Greater attention to social support and economic redistribution is long overdue. Poverty lines, for their part, are best sent back to their statistical kennel.

(Jean Dreze is honorary professor at the Delhi School of Economics. The views expressed by the author are personal)

...mining made easy in forest!

...who is poor? who is not? it seems really difficult for Indian government to identify!

..much more on NGOs....

My visit to LIFE project villages of Banswara-knowing the ongoing activities ( training on sustainable agriculture, farmers club meeting, wall painting, livestock, female participation etc.) of the project in Khadlee, Amblipada, Gadlee and Ambapada villages!-Vinod Pandey

President of India visit to Rajasthan

18^th Sept 2011: PTI: President Pratibha Devi Patil arrives in Jaipur on Sunday on a three-day visit to Rajasthan. Patil will be visiting Ajmer, Jhunjhunu and Sikar districts during her visit, an official said on Saturday.

After visiting the holy shrine of Sufi saint Khawaja Moinudeen Chisti,

she will attend a function in Mayo college in Ajmer on September 19.

She will unveil a statue of Maharao Shekha ji in Sikar and a statue of martyr Satyavan Singh Yadav in Jhunjhunu on September 20.

National Old Age Pension (NOAP) Scheme

                                     

Privileges and Benefits

Old age pension for the general public

Under National Old Age Pension Scheme, Central Assistance is available on fulfillment of the following criteria

• The age of the applicant (male or female) should be 65 years or more.
• The applicant must be a destitute in the sense that he/she has no regular means of subsistence from his/her own source of income or through financial support from family members or other sources.

The amount of old age pension is Rs 75 per month. This scheme is implemented in the State and Union Territories through Panchayats and Municipalities. Both Panchayats and Municipalities are encouraged to involve voluntary agencies as much as possible in benefiting the destitute elderly for whom this scheme is intended.

(Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, NSAP Guidelines for State Governments)

Old Age Pension Amounts
Name of the State	Current amount of pension (Rs per month)	Minimum age of eligibility (in years)
Andhra Pradesh	75	65
Arunachal Pradesh	150	60
Assam	60	65 (males) 60 (females)
Bihar	100	60
Gujarat	200-275	60-65 +
Haryana	100	60
Himachal Pradesh	150	60
Jammu & Kashmir	125	60
Karnataka	100	65
Kerala	110	65
Madhya Pradesh	150	60 (males) 50 (females)
Maharashtra	100	65 (males) 60 (females
Mizoram	100	65 (males) 60 (females)
Orissa	100	65
Punjab	200	65 (males) 60 (females)
Rajasthan	200-300	58 (males) 55 (females)
Tamil Nadu	150	60
Uttar Pradesh	125	60
West Bengal	300	60
West Bengal	300	60
Chandigarh	200	65 (males) 60 (females)
Delhi	200	60