7 Sep 2008         Asha Meeting

Attendees:
Sanjeev, Anil, Gaurav, Devesh, Sridhar, Muthayalu, Rajesh, Santhosh, Anita, Sanjeev, Sharad, Vijay Krishna, Megha, Ram

Muthayalu’s fellowship renewal

Sanjeev introduced the asha-fellowship program:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-category.php?t=6&display=1
Vijay introduced Muthayalu (Mutyalappa). Muthayalu worked on natural resource development, women’s self-help groups, panchayati raj for 8 yrs along with Timbaktu Collective. He was elected at a Sarpanch of Mushtikovilla Panchayat.
Muthayalu’s project page:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=854

Muthayalu gave context of his Panchayat. 
Background of Ananthapur: Is the second most drought prone dist in India. The primary crop is groundnut. Desertification has become a problem with land getting degraded. Migration is an issue here. There are 4 habitations in the Panchayat we are in – 3000 population but it is very remote village. The road is very bad and is 13 kms off from the main road and difficult to develop due to the naxal issue.
NREGA (Natural Rural Employment Guarantee Act) – Guarantees a minimum of 100 days of employment per family per year. This is being used for natural resource development and arresting migration.

Q: What do you do for natural resource development?
A: Work on water (moisture) and soil, straggle trench, earthen bunds, farm ponds, diversion lakes, making hilly and stony land cultivable, de-silting the local tanks to improve storage capacity and make land suitable for agriculture. Horticulture, etc there are 75 works of which the ones suitable are used. 

Q: What is the extent of the outreach in your Panchayat through NREGA?
A: There are 1400 – job-card holders in this area. Being close to NH-7 majority of the people migrated to Bangalore, Mysore, Dharmavaram, etc. But, this has almost completely stopped. We have disbursed 50 lakhs so far.

Q: Do the funds come from central government or state government? Does the Panchayat get access to these funds?
A: 90% from centre and 10% added by state. It goes to the Zilla and then to the Mandal HQ. A panchayat does not have direct access to this.

Q: How does the process work?
A: An individual fills out the application for a job card. If work is not provided within 15 days there is an unemployment provision 20%. It’s the gram panchayat’s duty to gather the labor(manpower) information and hold a gram-sabha (which is the villages getting together) to discuss what would be useful to do as a community. The plan they come up with goes to the mandal assistant. Once a work is approved muster rolls are created with the entry for individuals and the work they did. These are submitted to the mandal commission.

Q: How many Panchayats are there in the mandal? Is there competition for the funds between the panchayats in the mandal?
A: 14 Panchayats in the mandal. No, there are enough funds to cater to all approved works.

Q: How does your Panchayat compare with other Panchayats in disbursements?
A: As far as labor itself is concerned our Panchayat is the first. However, there are also other schemes like the Indiramma housing scheme where the government provides funds for housing, this depends on how many houses were allocated to each Panchayat and there are larger Panchayats. We would be third if it is also considered. Of the 50 lakhs, 44 odd lakhs is employment (labor) and 6 odd lakhs has been towards housing.

Q: Is NREGA money itself enough for people to live?
A: No, but it is a good as an alternative, so along with their other work that people do it is sufficient. 
On the other hand there is inflation in labor and it is difficult to get people for agriculture.

Q: Isn’t this because people have been paid less than minimum wages so far?
A: Yes, the wages are below minimum wages usually. The minimum wage is Rs.80, NREGA pays a little more than min wage Rs.100.

Q: Are you able to work on infrastructure development or do you continue doing more of the same? Does this improve the capacity of the community to provide employment?
A: We change the focus of the work. There are many schemes under the 75 works and we can choose to develop different aspects of natural resource management. E.g. in the first year we had worked primarily on land and water and this year with the new scheme we are working on housing. More recently we have been working on horticulture. 

We have been able to make 10% more land available for agriculture from rocky land. Distilling – not just labor, but excellent soil that can be used for agriculture. Additionally, it creates small ponds that the fishermen have been able to use to grow schools of fish.

Regarding serious infrastructure we have to keep in mind that NREGA is meant to be an employment scheme and is easiest to use for land, water, etc development. Funding for the fixed expenses can be difficult.

This was done for the housing scheme - where material will come from one source and the labor from another. However, the government has banned this process because it was misused a lot leading to gross corruption (through contracting) once the material component went up. 

Presently infrastructure development is primarily in terms of natural resource development.

Q: What are the funds available for the Panchayat?
A: Around 80,000 for drinking water, lighting, sanitation.

Q: Can you hold the PWD (Public Works Department) accountable?
A: No – at present it is a parallel system that bypasses the Panchayat.

Q: You stood as an independent. But, if you were from a specific party would MLA, MP funds from a specific political party be more favorable?
A: Vijay clarified that Panchayat elections technically are independent of political parties as such i.e. they do not stand on a party ticket. They are, however, affiliated with a political party at times.
Even though I am an independent and not affiliated with a political party, the village as a whole has been historically seen as one favorable to TDP. The MLA has some funds – 6 lakhs, for 40 habitats primarily for drinking water so there is only so much favoritism that can happen. The MP on the other hand has 1 crore, and a person from any political party can approach him if they choose (usually, involves a commission).

Q: Given the village is in a naxal effected area – does it have any priority and advantage?
A: The Indiramma scheme is operating in phases. In the first phase congress related villages did get selected. However, we were covered in the second phase due to being in a Naxal effected area.
The scheme is supposed to be for village development covering many aspects. However, in practice a good part of the funds goes into housing. However, previously, the MLA was allocated the right to decide who would be given the 400-600 houses. But, in this scheme it is limited to BPL and people with mud-huts so in that sense better. There is Rs. 50,000 allocated per house. A total of 480 houses allocated in my Panchayat – of them in 355 the construction has started.

There have been a few more benefits from the scheme, The pension scheme for old age, disabled, widows was previously a fixed number 58. Unless someone died another can’t get pension. Through this scheme this is based primarily on who is eligible and this has gone up to ? 304 individuals.  

However, there is a lot of corruption in the housing. You need to get each aspect approved in the scheme and around 10% of the funds end up going for corruption.

I have asked the people to be patient and not give in to bribes, but there are always some individuals who will pay to get their work done. However, the majority has been organized to get it done as a collective without much of this hit. The Works Inspector of our Panchayat has changed many times because they are not able to get bribes from us. The people have been working together because of the success in the NREGA implementation.
Q: What would be your top five priorities? Is the emphasis on education in the next year a priority in the village? 
A: The top priorities would be natural resource management, education, health and sanitation. Another priority would be infrastructure, but this is something that we don’t have much control on.

Something about STSC – schools existing, but the children are just made to attend and stay there, but not much is achieved.

Perhaps, before we get into education we can go over health and sanitation.

Q: What are the situation of health and sanitation?
A: We have organized health camps for children. There have been quite a few cases for health issues for women. The hysterectomy operations are very expensive - Rs.10,000 – 15,000 in expenditure. There is a sub-center II stage PHC in the Panchayat. There are many more women are getting it, but it’s not completely clear what the reasons are. One big change has been the heavy use of pesticides and there is a correlation between the women working on the fields. Additionally, this is not a problem only at the village level it is more wide spread around Ananthapur.

Q: Is Flouride also a problem?
Yes, the borewells have this problem, though open wells are not too bad for Flouride.

Action Item: Talk to Mary to understand their read on the situation regarding the women’s issues.

Q: Education?
Read more at:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/854/edu_plan.doc
A: Among schemes mid-day meal – scheme implemented through the women self-help group. Menu is not well controlled - egg, raw-banana curry. This requires more monitoring. Form food, sanitation, etc committee in the school. Try to encourage teachers to utilize the recent equipment - TV, library, CD , play materials provided to the schools – but it is under lock and key. We can utilize these materials for the children. The parents committees are very weak, need to work on this and get them more involved with the school.

Q: There was an issue of the toilets in the schools in the visit just before the school opened?
A: Rs. 20,000 for being a model village for sanitation and this has been addressed to through this.

Q: The resistance of the teachers through the union to some of the changes, how do we counter that?
A: We are hoping to build a relationship with them. In cases like the buses timing being off we make concessions. Let them know that they have a good role to play and that they are very capable.

Q: Do the parents feel it is not worth it?
A: Girls drop out at  5th. But, now the children go up to 7-10th.

Q: Are their private schools in that area?
A: Not accessible, due to the remoteness to the village.

Q: Do any children study further?
A: 10 children passed and went into intermediate. Only three girls have gone for the degree.

Q: How early do girls get married?
If they can stay in 10th then it is delayed. Else the girls are married off early.

Q: Are there any vocational training centers?
A: Apprentice system rather than specific vocational skills, training.

Q: What is the access to higher education?
A: The closest would be 40 km away.

Q: How many children and how many teachers?
A: The teacher student ratio is not so bad:
 - 38, 45 children in primary schools with two teachers each.
- 144 children – 7 teachers.

Q: Are the teachers in the school local? How about aanganwadi?
A: The teachers in the schools are not local. The teacher in the aanganwadi are local.

Q: How would you say the fellowship has contributed to all these developments in the village?
A: In Andhra the Sarpanch position is honorary with Rs. 600 for all expenses. However, this is simply not enough to be effective and be full time. The fellowship has helped me concentrate on my work rather than spend time to figure our how to get a job and not have any time to devote to this. Also being from the development background I had decided to oppose any corruption and part of being able to be successful and strong in this aspect is that my family was accounted for by the fellowship.

Q: Is there any effort to decentralize or gather more rights for the Panchayats?
A: Yes, we have a Sarpanch group and have organized ourselves to ask the state government to give more rights to the Panchayats. We held a state level meeting and discussion followed by a dharna in Hyderabad. The next state level meeting is on Oct 2nd.

We had a discussion and felt that building relationships rather than confrontational between teachers and parents perhaps is a best idea. The efforts from Timbaktu in organizing the children’s camp are welcome, but we need to continue to work and brainstorm on how to get the communities and teachers closer. We should broadly treat Subba for guidance.

It was planned to do the brainstorming session during the planned camp at Timbaktu for the children who have formed their groups as part of Timbaktu’s Chiguru Extension program.

The fellowship was approved with 7 – yes, 3 new volunteers abstained and wanted to read more about the project.

Action Item: It is possible that Aanganwadi teacher will be more coorperative with the children and incorporate the Montessori system since the person is local.