Soon after the installation of the Congress-led UPA government with Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister in New Delhi, the UPA government’s 100-day agenda was unveiled by the inaugural address of the President of India, Mrs. Pratibha Patil to the joint session of the parliament on 4 June 2009.
Outlining the priorities of the new government for the next 100 days, the President dealt with slew of measures to be undertaken by the government and prominent of them are summarized below:
- Early passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill providing for one-third reservation to women in state legislatures and in Parliament.
- Constitutional amendment to provide 50 percent reservation for women in panchayats and urban local bodies.
- Concerted effort to increase representation of women in central government jobs.
- A National Mission on Empowerment of Women for implementation of women-centric programmes in a mission mode to achieve better coordination.
- A voluntary national youth corps which could take up creative social action for river cleaning and beautification programme beginning with the Ganga.
- Restructuring the Backward Regions Grant Fund, which overlaps with other development investment, to focus on decentralised planning and capacity building of elected panchayat representatives. The next three years would be devoted to training panchayati raj functionaries in administering flagship programmes.
- A public data policy to place all information covering non-strategic areas in the public domain.
- Increasing transparency and public accountability of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) by enforcing social audit and ensuring grievance redressal by setting up district level ombudsmen.
- Strengthening Right to Information Act by suitably amending the law to provide for disclosure by government in all non-strategic areas.
- Strengthening public accountability of flagship programmes by the creation of an Independent Evaluation Office at an arm’s distance from the government catalysed by the Planning Commission.
- Establishing mechanisms for performance monitoring and performance evaluation in government on a regular basis.
- Five annual reports to be presented by government as Reports to the People on Education, Health, Employment, Environment and Infrastructure to generate a national debate.
- Facilitating a voluntary technical corps of professionals in all urban areas through Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to support city development activities.
- Enabling non government organisations in the area of development action seeking government support through a web-based transaction on a government portal in which the status of the application will be transparently monitorable.
- Provisions of scholarships and social security schemes through accounts in post offices and banks and phased transition to smart cards.
- Revamping of banks and post offices to become outreach units for financial inclusion complemented by business correspondents aided by technology.
- Electronic governance through Bharat Nirman common service centres in all panchayats in the next three years.
- A model Public Services Law, that covers functionaries providing important social services like education, health, rural development etc and commits them to their duties, will be drawn up in consultations with states.
- A National Council for Human Resources in Health as an overarching regulatory body for the health sector to reform the current regulatory framework and enhance supply of skilled personnel.
- A National Council for Higher Education as recommended by the Yashpal Committee and the National Knowledge Commission to bring in reform of regulatory institutions.
- Develop a “brain gain” policy to attract talent from all over the world into the 14 universities proposed in the 11th plan to position them as “innovation universities”.
- A roadmap for judicial reform to be outlined in six months and implemented in a time-bound manner.
- Targeted identification cards would subsume and replace omnibus Below Poverty Line (BPL) list. NREGA has a job card and the proposed Food Security Act would also create a new card.
- A Delivery Monitoring Unit in the prime minister’s office (PMO) to monitor flagship programmes and iconic projects and report on their status publicly.
- Suitably institutionalised quarterly reporting on flagship programmes as “Bharat Nirman Quarterly Reports” where ministers would publicly report on programmes through the media.
In the wake of these ambitious plans, the new government has a lot of challenges before it, internal and external. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has promised to work on 100 days basis and monitor the performance regularly. Almost every department of the government already has a handful of issues to be resolved in the first 100 days.
For the Home Ministry, the very first problem P. Chidambaram encountered was the violence in Punjab by the followers of a sect following the attack on their priest in Vienna. Nevertheless, the situation in Punjab has been brought under control. But the bigger challenge facing the Home Ministry is of Internal Security, i.e. the dual threats from terrorism as well as communalism. Also equally challenging is the growing naxalism and resurgence of militancy in the North Eastern states.
In the wake of mounting Maoist violence in Lalgarh, West Bengal, the Centre lost no time in sending para-military forces there to restore normalcy and also imposed ban on the Maoist outfit. In the aftermath of 26/11 attacks, there is dire need of equipping the para-military forces with latest sophisticated weapons to effectively deal with terrorism and internal security challenges.
More challenging tasks lie in the economic sphere where the country is already facing the heat of global economic meltdown. Though the economy managed to grow at the rate of 6.7 percent in 2008-09 fiscal, but it is not a matter of satisfaction, as the bigger task is of saving the jobs and further job creation. India’s ability to somewhat cushion its economy from the global economic slump is only due to the strong public sector, nationalized banks and the social sector programmes of the government. The bigger challenges like job creation, economic revival, fiscal consolidation, bringing down inflation rate, narrowing down deficit and eliciting FDI await new Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. His forthcoming budget will determine the direction.
To handle External Affairs, this time we have new incumbent as Mr. S.M. Krishna. Though he has no experience in foreign affairs, he has already proved his statesmanship as the Chief Minister of Karnataka. He was the protagonist in making Bangalore a global IT hub. Within days of joining, he has got his first task to tackle the increasing racial attacks on Indian students in Australia. Diplomatic efforts are on. There is assurance from the Australian government in this regard. Larger challenge facing the ministry is the chaos in the neighbourhood. Pakistan, as usual, is reeling under anarchy. Notwithstanding the Taliban a bigger threat to it, the Pakistan armed forces are still obsessive about India. They see us as a far bigger threat. Moreover, it has not made any serious effort to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. Amidst the demand from all quarters of resuming peace talks with Pakistan, the MoS External Affairs, Mr. Shashi Tharoor has clarified that there would be no talks till we find that Pakistan is sincere on the issue of fighting terrorism.
Another bone of contention is Nepal, where India is accused of destabilizing just one year old Maoist government by not supporting its argument of civilian supremacy over military. It is necessary that India come clean on the issue & support the democratically elected government.\
Sri Lankan army, though, has won the conventional war by defeating the LTTE. But the bigger war is to be fought on humanitarian front. India has a key role to play in humanitarian assistance for rehabilitation as well as the political settlement of Tamils by devolution of power to them.
On agricultural front, though the agricultural growth last year was fair, thanks to good monsoon, but a serious effort is needed to sustain the growth by the use modern technology, better seeds, fertilizers, providing better irrigation facilities & cheaper agricultural credit. Farmers’ suicides have come down. The loan waiver scheme of the previous government also gave much sought relief to the farmers. But the government has to find a permanent & sustainable solution to this problem. Another challenge is the proposed Food Security Act & cheap rice & wheat to the BPL families as promised in the manifesto of the Congress. Hopefully, Mr. Sharad Pawar, an agriculturist himself, would provide a good deal to the farmers & people this time.
Mr. Kapil Sibal, the HRD Minister, has the task of bringing Right to Education bill, aimed at universal elementary education to children 6-14 years of age. Besides, he has to revamp of higher education system & make it globally competitive. For this, the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission have a great role to play.
All other departments too have their respective challenges. If all the departments work in tandem towards the larger goals of the country, I am sure India can sooner than later become a developed nation.
By Dr. Arvind Kumar, Prisident, India Water Foundation
