Dilemma of a village elder

We started our day with a visit to an employment guarantee work in one of the villages.  In the hot and humid summer afternoon a group of persons were desilting an irrigation canal running from the nearby Nagavali river to their village very sincerely.  As we were climbing up the canal bund to greet the workers everyone heard loud shouts from our back.  I was enthused at listening to the shouts because of late, the visits were becoming routine with no major irregularities being detected.  There was this young man who was shaking uncontrollably making some allegations.  After we stabilised him into speaking more clearly we were told that the pretty scene  of 18 people working on the canal is false.  Unable to understand how what we were seeing could be false we probed him further.  The man told us that every day only 8-12 people arrive for work, while the remaining go on a private building contract and all of them agreed that every two days some 6 people will go to earn outside while their attendance is recorded.  The additional wage earned during the day is a bonus.  Looking at the expression on my face which tended to believe this mans version,  all the workers in front of us suddenly started attacking this fellow.  Their defence was that this fellow wanted the attendance to be recorded to his parents in absentia for the same work that day.  They opposed, hence the ruckus.  On verification of the muster roll its noticed that there were some corrections which revealed that there is some amount of truth in what both the parties said. 

As this shouting young man was refusing to keep quiet while we were discussing, one elderly man who was all along standing with us watching the scene intervened, silenced him, and declared that it was all the fault of the field assistant who wouldnt attend to the work daily.  He announced that the husband of the field assistant was in fact the de-facto field assistant in that village who is looking after the works, and that despite she being his brothers daughter he has no hesitation in demanding that she be terminated forthwith to make way for a competent person.  Waiting for such an opportunity we readily agreed to his demand. It was decided in front of everyone that she will be replaced by the senior most mate.

After finishing the rest of the work, while we were about to leave the village this village elder reappeared with his neice all alone.  He pulled me aside and said "This girl is a very nice and innocent girl, do not terminate her. I request  that she may be continued".

The question: Did he do the right thing in requesting for her continuation?

A village elder is supposed to be just.  He was right in identifying the cause of the problem as being the irregular attendance of his neice and the interference of her husband.  He rightly demanded her termination in front of everyone.  Public interest comes before personal bonds.  If he demanded termination of his neice  expecting that we wouldnot agree to it then we can say he did not act truthfully hence unjust.  In case his demand was genuine then he is just.

But then his action is sure to hurt his neice and bring unpleasantness home.  Who should his loyalty be towards? Once he enters the role of a father at home he is supposed to take care of the interests of the family members.  Isnt he just in requesting us as a head of his family to take a lenient view towards his daughter? Answer appears yes.

The conclusion then will be that he is just in demanding her termination as head of the village and he is also just in requesting her continuation as a head of his family.  In the first case its a demand , in the second case its a request.  Demand versus request.

We will view this problem from the omission or commission from the field assistants stand point.  In case the fault of the assistant deserves termination for her wrong she shall be terminated even in the face of a request made by a father.  Justice tells us that overall interest of all families of the village is more important than the interest of one family. Hence justice demands that she be terminated.

Teenmar: A movie with a wrong message

I watch more or less all telugu movies.  This movie caught my attention not because its bad but because its story is based on wrong fundamentals. 

The role of Arjun Palwai is that of an idealist and a virtuous man, one who is courageous, principled, etc.  Arjun fights for good causes.  In one such fight he sees a girl who expresses her interest in him. He loves the girl with devotion.  He confronts her reluctant family with courage and righteousness.  Arjun ultimately succeeds in marrying her against the wishes of her family.  But he does it rightly.  The role shows love, courage, marriage as values worth dedicating ones life for.

The other character of Michael lacks values. Mike works as a cook and leads an utterly useless life of pleasure; a life neither useful for him nor others.  He is a drunkard who keeps changing his girl friends like clothes.  A simple and beautiful girl Meera catches Mikes attention at a pub.  It is to be pressumed that Meera too lacks values because he meets her while she is enjoying her drink at a pub. 

As usual he ends his affair with Meera.  At that time Mike comes across Paresh Rawal who narrates him the inspiring story of Arjun Palwai in bits and pieces as and when they meet.  Mike finds a new beautiful russian girl friend in the meanwhile who loves him sincerely.  But as the narration of Arjun's story progresses, it casts its spell over him.  He once again starts getting drawn to his previous girl friend Meera.  Just as any life of values inspires the one who listens to it, Mike too gets inspired by Arjun's story.  By the time the narration of Arjuns story is complete, Mike changes his way of thinking, gets some clarity of thought, leaves his Russian girl and decides to marry Meera.

But Meera by that time already marries another man.  There is nothing to be faulted with Meera who gets married without waiting for Mike.  Any girl responds to the man she loves in proportion to the feelings the man has for her.  In this case Mike is a confused man who doesnt know either the value of a relationship or the value of permanent attachment with a girl.  Hence Meera is right in assessing the weak bond Mike has with her. But little does she know that some fellow in far off lands is inspiring Mike with the values of a permanent relationship through some Arjun's story.  The teaching of the value of permanency of relationships drives Mike towards realising that he should marry Meera.  So he quits his dream job in New York and flies back to India. 

Knowing that she is already married he charges into the house of her husband like a rabid dog.  Here is the problem with this story.  Under no stretch of imagination can we consider Meera's husband as a villain.  He is a man who married Meera after knowing that she broke up with Mike. 

When Mike says that he is going to do what Arjun would have done had he been in his place, I was expecting him to go back to the russian girl and commit to her.  Chadavaka mundu kakarakaya , chadivintaruvata keekara kaya annadanta venakatiki yevado.  Arjuns story is supposed to have taught him values, but I was horrified to see that Mike is a dumb ass who understands that being Arjun means marrying the girl you love even if she is already married.  A man of principles like Arjun would never have gone to attack the husband of an ex-lover with the motive of convincing the wife to divorce her husband and marrying him.  Mike at that time doesnt know that Meera is another dumb girl who herself doesnt understand the value of marriage.  Ultimately when both of them hug one another at the end of the movie I came out with a feeling of disgust which overcomes us when we see a man hugging another mans wife.

The explicit lip lock scene involving the hero though did not give any advantage or disadvantage to the movie, it certainly damaged the image of the actor in real life. 

The movie in essence is a story about how a dumb fellow like Mike can mis-interpret values from the virtuous story of Arjun.  On the whole its a movie of a foolish girl and a foolish man who remain so from beginning till end.

Who deserve to use our doctors?

A dead body is treated by a corporate hospital, a tribal lady is demanded money by the government doctor. We hear a number of such controversies daily through media.  All these controversies are inevitably linked with greed for money and negligence.  In order to understand the origin of these problems let us first search for answers to the three questions viz., purpose of medical science, sections of the society most deserving this art, and the persons eligible to study and practice medicine.  (Medicine in the context of this write up includes surgery).

Intention of Medicine

The twin questions of purpose of medicine and the persons who most deserve this art answer one another.  Just as any other subject, modern medicine started as an art and over the last 2500 years of its evolution became a science.   The need for an art of medicine originated from the illnesses and injuries  affecting the mankind.  Let us go back in time, divide an ancient village into different classes and examine who is entitled to this art.  There exist different classes of people in the village viz., working classes (farmers, weavers, potters, etc.), the traders, the protectors, and the rulers.   Working classes and the armed protectors form the majority population and the traders/rulers the minority of the village.  The life of any village depends on its working classes successfully contributing to its economy.  In order to decide which class should have the first claim lets take the following hypothetical case.  There exists a village with one doctor. One day a farmer, carries a soldier, a trader and the village headman in his bullock cart back from the shandy of the adjacent village.  By the time they travel half the distance its already dark.  The farmer struggles driving through the dark pathway and suddenly finds his cart wheel fall in a huge ditch. The cart over turns and all the four persons receive serious injuries.  They are brought to the village doctor.  Unless each one is attended to immediately he is going to die.  Who should the doctor treat first?  Out of the four persons, the one who produces and contributes to the village is the farmer.  Unless the farmer produces the headman wont have any food for his people, the trader anything to trade, or the protector to protect.  Therefore the farmer should be the first to be treated.  Of the remaining three unless the protector guards the village, the farmer wont be able to produce, so he should go next.  Out of the remaining two the trader plays the role of exchanging the goods between various  producers such as potters, farmers, weavers etc. a function more important than that of the headman.  Therefore the headman should go last.

Thus we can safely say that the first claim to this art of medicine shall be made by the working classes, then the armed protectors of the village, then the traders and lastly the rulers who contribute the least to the village economy.  The working classes/armed protectors are the most deserving of this medicinal art.  Every village will now require a doctor to carry this art to those who deserve it.  Even today a look at any of our tribal villages in the scheduled areas reveals that every 2-3 villages (around150-200 houses) have a 'bhuta vaidyudu' who will be treating the sick.  These were the earliest people involved in this occupation of treating the unhealthy. 

Coming to the present day, we have allopathic doctors almost replacing 'bhuta vaidyulu'.  I will digress a bit to narrate an incident.  Recently there was a conflict between the older generation bhuta vaidyam and todays science of medicine.  One day a young boy from a Savara village near Palakonda  town in North coastal Andhra Pradesh approached the police saying that his father was murdered.  There were no property disputes or political/family disputes.  On enquiry it was revealed that this boy had an elder sister who was a health worker in the village.  This village had a hamlet of 20 houses adjacent to it where some people fell sick due to fevers.  The health worker visited the village, gave some medicines and referred the sick to nearby PHC.  This wasnt liked by the village 'bhuta vaidyudu' who understood it as an insult to his knowledge.  He gathered the villagers who still had considerable faith in him, brainwashed them into believing that the health worker was in fact the cause for all the fevers in the village and that she was a sorceress.  They ultimately decided that her father was the origin for all the black magic.  This father was a poor old man of 70 yrs.  One night while he was returning after answering his call of nature was attacked and hacked to death. 

Do the same type of illness or injuries affect all the classes of people?

The diseases of the working classes are different from those of others.  The inherent nature of the work of the working classes keeps their bodies physically fit till a very ripe old age.  We very commonly come across persons above 80 years of age still engaged in farm work, employment guarantee works etc. in the villages.  A talk with any villager will reveal that his primary objective of consulting a doctor is to get back to his work as quickly as possible.  The illnesses of the working classes are confined to injuries and epidemic diseases. 

The same age group persons from other non-working richer classes are usually found engaged in the sole work of prolonging their unproductive life with the help of doctors.  The illnesses of these fellows are related to intemperate habits: sedentary life, indiscipline etc.  The aim of a rich person consulting a doctor is to prolong the life of his unproductive body.  There will arise a question as to whether all persons not engaged in manual work are useless. There are people such as engineers, scientists who lead a sedentary life but are productive.  Such people are supposed to be contributing with their intellect, therefore supposed to be educated.  Any educated person is supposed to have a proper knowledge of his body and the way in which it can be kept healthy with regular exercise and proper eating habits.  If any educated man acts contrary then he doesnt deserve to live beyond what his habits dictate.  Any effort to artificially prolong such a persons life will be a liability to the society.

In order to understand who deserves to use medical science for his benefit I have put in table 1 the desert from the stand point of contribution to the economy and usefulness of the person to the State.  The entitlement of a citizen to medical science in the country is directly proportional to his contribution to the economy.  Workers contribute the maximum to the economy hence they shall be the first rightful claimants to the use of medical science.  The supervisors, professionals(lawyers, engineers, teachers etc.), traders, and owners of business follow next in that order.   The affluent and unproductive persons of the country dont deserve the use of doctors of a State.  Rulers though better than unproductive and affluent people should not use medical aid before a rich man only because they have a moral responsibility to take care of the health of all their citizens.

We can classify the diseases into those affecting the workers and others.  Workers by nature of their work are prone to accidents and epidemics.  The illnesses affecting the others can be sub-divided into either those due to a sedentary lifestyle or due to an indisciplined lifestyle.  Diseases arising out of sedentary life and indisciplined life are preventable.  The persons who are educated are not entitled to suffer from preventable diseases.  They are supposed to prevent the diseases of pleasure and indiscipline with the help of their education.  The epidemic diseases or accidental injuries therefore are entitled to medical science first, then come the sedentary lifestyle diseases.  The diseases of pleasure or indiscipline come last.

Table 1: Purpose served by medical science in treating various sections of society.

Class of People(-->)	Workers	Professionals /supervisors	Kids	Aged	Traders	Affluent classes	Rulers
Contribution to economy	V.Good	V.Good	N.A	N.A	Average	None	None
Nature of work	Physically active	Sedentary	-	-	Sedentary	Sedentary	Sedentary
Is this class supposed to have preventive knowledge of disease(Y/N)?	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Common cause of Illness	Accident/ Epidemic	Sedentary Life	Accident/ Disease	Age related	Sedentary Life	Indisciplined life	Sedentary life
What does medical science do?	Quickly restores health	Quickly restores health	Quickly restores health	Maintains health	Restores health	Tries to restore health	Restores health
Purpose served by medical science	Get back to productive work quickly	Get back to productive work quickly	Quickly resume school	Enable them to do their personal chores	Resume their business	None(to prolong a useless life of personal pleasure)	Resume rule
Purpose served by individual	Get back to work quickly	Get back to work quickly	Get back to school quickly	Ability to attend to their own needs	Get back to business	To resume a life of pleasure	Resume rule

Desert of medical study

The question of who deserves to study medicine from amongst our students has been a controversial one.  In order to arrive at an answer to this we need to first understand the criticisms against Government.

1. It is the right of a doctor to practice where ever he wants in the country; 

2. A talented doctor is not recognised in the Government sector;

3. The rural areas do not have sufficient doctors;

4. The government is not paying commensurate with the private sector;

5. A student pays a heavy fee of 40-50 lakhs to a private college to study medicine;

6. Medical seats in Government quota should be given based on merit alone;

The first issue:  From the aforementioned discussion on purpose of medical science, it is clear that the doctors primary purpose is to treat the workers of the economy.  It is the duty of the State to redistribute doctors as per the geographical distribution of the workers in the country.  Whereever the workers go the doctors shall follow like a 'hutch dog'.  It follows that the doctors then are not free to practice whereever they want.  The location of the practice of their medical science is decided by the workers of a country.

The second issue:  The talent in a doctor can be measured by the upkeep of the health of the workers in his jurisdiction.  A comparison of the loss of working days of workers between the tenures of the previous doctors will give an indication of the effectiveness of the doctor.  Similar other measures can certainly be worked out to recognise the best talent in the government doctors.

The third issue: Lets examine the distortions in todays medical sector.

Some figures: the average doctor population ratio in our country is around 1 doctor for every 2000 people; developed countries have 4-8 doctors per 2000 people; WHO prescribes 3.3 doctors per 2000 people; every 15000 persons in the rural areas of our State(AP) have access to only 1 doctor.

Facts we know: More than 70 % of India lives in rural areas; more than 90 percent families in rural areas are dependent on agriculture.  The inference is that more than 60% of our population are workers and live exclusively in rural areas. 

A look at the profile of the medical students indicates that a majority of them are those born and brought up in urban areas.  It is highly likely that such a person will go back to an urban area after completion of his medicine.  These facts and figures indicate that firstly, the availability of our doctors is a quarter of that prescribed by WHO and secondly, even the small number of doctors are available only in the urban areas.  This shows that there is an urgent need to increase the production capacity and produce those doctors from the rural areas of the country . There are two remedies for this problem of shortage in rural areas, firstly to bring in a legislation making it mandatory for doctors either private or government to work only in locations decided under law or secondly to alter the intake ratio of students in such a way that the majority of medical seats go to those students born and brought up in rural areas.  In the second case we have to see that the doctors produced from the rural areas are in proportion to the working class population in rural areas.  More than 60% of our working classes are in rural areas, therefore more than 60% doctors produced every year shall be those who were born and brought up in those rural areas.

The fourth issue:  Doctors in private sector treat diseases of the richer classes of the society.  As we have seen the non-working classes suffer from diseases mostly arising out of indiscipline.  The purpose of  medical science is not served here because any treatment of the non-workers has very minimal contribution to the economy of the State.  I interpret urban private medical care in the following way.  The wealth of the State which is hard earned by our productive classes is squandered in prolonging the lives of unproductive persons who are a liability to the State.  Therefore the Government shall always pay what the doctor deserves as a professional.  Any gap in demand supply shall immediately be rectified by government by increasing production.

The fifth issue:  The Hippocrates(father of medicine) oath taken by all the medical graduates runs like this.

 "I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot."

The essence of this oath in the current context is free teaching by those who have already learnt it, to those who want to learn medicine.  It will be the responsibility of the government therefore to impart free medical education to all those who deserve to learn.  Teaching of medical science in return for money defeats the very purpose of medicine.  It is said patients are the study material for a medical student.  A private medical college which operates for the purpose of earning profits can never treat patients free of cost.  This will exclude all the working classes and the poor from the private medical colleges.  The students coming out from these colleges will therefore be half baked without exposure to the diseases of the poor and the workers.  It is also the responsibility of the State to take care of all the medical needs of the productive citizens free of cost.

The sixth issue:  Should the most talented students get all the medical seats? The desert of a student to study medicine depends on three things, 1.talent 2.love for medical knowledge 3.life long commitment to the purpose of medical science.  Our entrance exams test the talent part alone.  This is resulting in production of doctors who are deficient in knowledge and whose purpose of study of medicine is at variance with the purpose of medical science.  Whereas the purpose of medicine is to treat the producers of the country free of cost, the current doctors end up treating the unproductive persons out of a love for money; whereas the ideal doctor should treat the workers out of love for medicine, the present day doctor treats him out of love for recognition in doing so.

Whats wrong with our BPL cards in Andhra Pradesh

1.1    RATION CARDS

            The ration card in my opinion is the most important part of a persons life in the village.  It is misleading to call it a ration card because it is fundamentally a family card.  The main purposes for which a ration card is used in a village is three fold.  Firstly it establishes the identity of the individual and the family, secondly it is used as the starting point for delivery of all the Government services to the individual and finally to deliver subsidized ration.  The current ration card database is very slow in catching up with real time day to day changes in the families with the result that we are always confronted with an outdated database disconnected from reality.

1.1.1           PDS

            Let us first discuss the last part the Public Distribution System(PDS) as it is the reason for existence of the ration card.  PDS was introduced as a part of India’s overall strategy of poverty alleviation and income redistribution.  The primary objective of PDS is to deliver food grains at affordable prices to the poor households of the country, and to provide food security for the country.  The implementation of PDS saw many problems the most important of which was improper targeting of the poor.  In order to address this problem Government of India (GOI) introduced the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) from 1997.  The problems at national level with the PDS are understood to be urban bias, low coverage in poorer regions, inefficient delivery system with high delivery costs and targeting errors.  However when we look at the problems in Andhra Pradesh(AP) we are confronted with a different set. 

Let us first see some statistics: AP has a monthly allocation of 2.73 lakh MT of PDS rice and an offtake of 2.99 lakh MT of rice; the normal production of rice in AP is 120 lakh MT; 44500 Fair Price (FP) shops exist in the state; there are 2.25 cr cards for 2 cr Below Poverty Line(BPL) families in the state; Rs2/kg subsidized rice was introduced in AP from 2008-09; AP spends 10.2% of countries PDS subsidy for 4.2% BPL house holds in India; as per GOI there exist 16 % BPL families whereas GoAP classifies 60% as BPL; and the income limit for a BPL family was enhanced to Rs.60000 in rural areas and Rs.75000 in urban areas.  These facts indicate certain problems with our PDS system. 

Table 1:Some factors which affect the BPL list

Factor	Influence
1.  Reducing levels of poverty	Reduce the list
2.  Elections	Increase the list
3.  Marriages and nuclear families	Increase the list
4.  Births	No impact(inclusion of units)
5.  Divorce	Increase the list
6.  Deaths	Reduce the list(deletion of units/cards)
7.  Migrations	Tendency to increase
8.  Introduction of new welfare schemes linked to BPL card status	Increase the list
9.  Poor regulatory framework	Increase the list
10.  Introduction of fail safe systems using information technology	Decrease the list
11.  Magnitude of difference between GoAP issue price and market price(switchover effect)	Increase the list
12.  Changes in income limits for BPL family	Increase the list
13  Improper deletions	Increase the list(temporary decrease in list Occurs)
14. Rising prices of essential commodities	Increase the list

It is accepted that the success of any PDS is directly dependent on the targeting efficiency.  The efficacy of PDS system depends on the geographic penetration of PDS with a strong network of FP shops; good incentive structure for dealers; and a strong fail safe system capable of arresting open market diversions, bogus/duplicate/ineligible/non resident cards, under weighing and sale at higher prices. 

An examination of AP from the standpoint of traditional success indicators of a PDS system is given in table 2. 

Table 2.  Performance of AP on the PDS parameters.

Indicator	Performance(V.Good/Good/Poor/V.Poor)
1.  Targeting efficiency	Very poor
2.  Network penetration in poorer areas	Very good
3.  Incentive structure for dealers	Poor
4.  Delivery system efficiency	Poor
5.  Urban bias(lack of)	Very good
6.  Utilisation of central allocation	Very good

Though AP does not suffer from usual problems of other states such as poor network penetration or urban bias, one of the major concerns of AP is poor targeting efficiency.  Improper targeting in AP occurred due to two reasons, the first being almost universal coverage and the other due to inclusion errors.

The concern of almost universal coverage of families in AP under PDS is a result of a liberal definition of income limits for BPL family when compared to GOI norms.  The result is that almost 60% of AP population is classified BPL whereas GOI classifies 16%.  Therefore this universal coverage appears populist on the face of it.  We will reexamine this problem of almost universal coverage from a different perspective.  The BPL list of AP is bloated when viewed from the standard static parameters of GOI.  Every year sees a substantial increase of white rations cards disproportionate to the increases in BPL house holds.  There are rapid yearly increases in BPL list coupled with ever pending applications for new cards.  Table 1 indicates that there are factors not related to the PDS which put pressure on the BPL list  GoAP has linked up many of its welfare schemes to the BPL card.  Schemes such as housing, educational fee waiver, Arogya sri, etc. can only be accessed with a white card today.  Privatisation of education has led to setting up of a large number of private institutions with exhorbitant fees beyond the reach of common man.  Government as a welfare measure has provided all BPL families fee reimbursement.  The average middle class, not so poor family can neither afford the private education nor has a BPL card.  Under normal circumstances a middle class family which would not have been under pressure to obtain a BPL card is now forced to obtain one by hook or crook.  The increasing prices of building materials have pushed house construction out of reach from the ordinary not so poor family in the village.  This has resulted in a large number of people who are not so poor dependent on a BPL card in order access Government housing subsidy.  Similarly all the not so poor households of a village during the last few years of drought or flood suffered from the ever increasing prices of essential commodities such as vegetables etc.  The rising prices in the economy and loss of agricultural production due to natural calamities compelled the average family to obtain a BPL card.  The current BPL definition of AP we can say has responded dynamically to the current concerns of the common man who is suffering from the distortions of the economy, government policies and natural calamities.  In the absence of proper regulation of prices or virtuous educational/health policies a liberal BPL list is the least that any democratically elected government could have done.  It would be unfair to deny the people in a democracy the temporary advantage of having a BPL card to over come their temporary poverty during harsh times.  

The inclusion errors are due to a weak system of identification, election year pressures, defects in computerization of the database etc.  The aftermath of any attempt to weed out bogus or ineligible ration cards by Government will be a flood of applications for fresh white cards.  The net result of any such weeding out exercise will be further addition to already bloated BPL card list.  The aforementioned factors also exert some pressure on the not so poor people to sneak into the list.

Another concern of AP is the heavy subsidy budget which has increased abruptly from 720 cr in 07-08 to 3000 cr in the current year due to the Rs2 kg rice.  Heavy drawls of food grains from the central pool and inadequate reforms are also considered problems in AP.

Some suggestions given by experts to overcome the problems of AP have been decentralized procurement; diversification of food grain supplies (by including ragi, jowar etc. apart from rice); introduction of either food stamps or food coupons as is being proposed by GOI; redesigning of identification, targeting and delivery; and use of IT tools to put in place a fail safe system.  The pressing problem for AP currently is to reduce its subsidy burden. 

1.1.2           FAMILY IDENTITY CARD

One of the functions of a ration card as said earlier is for use as a family identity card.  It establishes the identity of a person as a resident of AP.  Any data relating to such family cards is gathered and stored either manually or electronically.  This database should reflect the family details truly at any given time.  The composition of a family is subject to continuous changes due to births, marriages, migrations, divorces and deaths.  There exists a lag between the time of occurrence of the family changes and the time of incorporation in the database.  This database is therefore dynamic and keeps adapting to real time changes.  The mechanism/system overseeing the database should ensure three things.  The changes should be made reliably and truly, easily and quickly.  Our challenge is to see that the change which occurs in a family in the remotest corner of the state is easily and correctly captured in the quickest possible time.

The family details reflected in a card are names of head of the family and other members, date of birth, age, fathers/spouses name, address, and income.  We have to first see if any changes are needed in the details currently being captured and then examine how to capture those details.  The capture of the card number of father will help in cross referencing and reliability of data.  A large number of rural families migrate during lean season from their villages.  There is a need to capture both the temporary address as well as permanent address for every family.  This will also help in removal of cards for the same family at two places.  The capture of age should be done away with and capture of date of birth in its place alone should be allowed.  Age capture creates confusion at the field level at a later date when the card is used for other purposes.  An incorporation of date of birth alone should be made and not the age in the database.  When we look at the old aged people not receiving pensions today we come across a large number of very old people with an under reporting of age in the ration cards.  All these people now are kept away from enjoying the benefits of old age pensions.  The date of births of a majority of the 0-45 age group people can be easily captured from birth certificates or SSC certificates.  Those of the older people can be ascertained with the help of rationally designed questionnaires at the village level.  Similarly because of improper deletions of death cases from the ration card a number of widows have lost the opportunity to access widow pensions.  The income assessment is another area where a proper procedure should be adopted.

The changes in the database can happen through three ways viz., intimation by the card member, gathered from databases of other departments such as medical & health, education etc., or gathered by group of dedicated functionaries like revenue/civil supplies machinery.  Most of the applications from members are for correction of errors, addition of new members, change of address, creation of new family units, or removal of members.  There is a need to create a fail safe and universally understood mechanism for this purpose.  Such a system should withstand the dumbest and the most mischievous of our employees and citizens.

1.1.3           ACCESS KEY TO ALL GOVERNMENT BENEFITS

The third main function of a ration card is that of a key which unlocks a host of other Governmental benefits.  All the services of Government revolve around the family unit of which any individual is an integral part.  Today the ration card is being used for identification of beneficiaries for many schemes such as housing, pensions, fee waiver etc.  Each of the benefit needs one type of information from the card database.  Housing requires the income data, old age pension require the date of birth, widow pensions require death data, and some other scheme could need the present address.  Therefore all the basic data provided in the card is equally important.  There is a tendency of the civil supplies department to maintain the family details and income alone with no importance given to correct capture of remaining data like date of birth.  When old age pensioners were limited very few people were concerned about right date of birth.  There was a tendency to give younger age in order to appear young in the village.  With pensions being given to all eligible this item became of paramount importance.  Such incorrect data will affect the quality of other departmental services as well.

For this to happen properly all the departments of the Government must have easy and quick access to the real time ration card database.

Current day needs of a villager in Andhra

Every human being has certain basic needs as an individual.  In order to fulfill these needs efficiently and survive, they gather into societies.  The most elementary form of such a grouping is the village.  The villages as we see in rural India are the most ancient and surviving human habitations anywhere in the world both in their age as well as the principles on which they are built.  These villages have been part of hundreds of years of human history in those areas.  Their fundamentals also have not changed much from the times when they have been founded in ancient times. 

Every one of us needs food, shelter and clothing to survive.  Provision of food, shelter and clothing to all the inhabitants was therefore the cornerstone on which habitations started to evolve.  The responsibility of the habitation as a collective is to ensure adequate provision of the three basic needs to each and every resident.  The economy of an elementary habitation should therefore involve exchange of goods and services relating to food, shelter and clothing.  A look at any of the villages in our country will make this very clear.  Even today the social, political and economic life in a village revolves around food production or agriculture.  A typical village of 300 houses will have some 1000 acres of agricultural land, wherein some 250 houses will be agriculturists, some 30 houses agricultural labour, 20 houses of washermen/hair cutters/priests/traders/weavers/potters/builders etc.  The payments to the artisans are even today made in kind, in terms of bags of paddy by the agricultural families.  Agricultural produce is the currency of the village.  A drought year or a flood year will hit the village economy very badly.

            There are two ways of looking at the needs of a human being, one as an individual and the other as a village; these correspond to 'at home' needs and 'at common place' needs'. We will confine ourselves to the current day assessment of human needs from governance stand point here. 

INDIVIDUAL NEEDS(at home needs)

            On todays date the individual basic needs are reflected in the three activities of our government viz., ration cards, housing and pensions.  Then there are other needs relating to credit, revenue record keeping, certificates of caste/income/birth/death/marriage, electric connections, telephone connections, etc.  These are needs which can be satisfied, carried back and enjoyed at home.

VILLAGE NEEDS(at common place needs)

            A village is similar to a living being having its own needs.  There are certain needs specific to the village as a unit and some needs for a group of villages. These needs can be classified into intra-village needs and inter-village needs.  We will examine these needs from the stand point of services rendered by our government.

            The basic intra-village needs for survival of a village are drinking water, sewer disposal, rain water disposal, internal roads, garbage disposal, electric supply, and dead body disposal.  Then we have other important village needs such as education, health facilities, place for governance, places of worship, places of gathering, place for conduct of business, place for common facilities, rations shop, and veterinary facility. These needs can only be satisfied and enjoyed at common places in the village.

            The Sarpanch or the village headman(in case of a dummy Sarpanch), the ration shop dealer and the Village Revenue Office(VRO)  form the governing trio of the village.  These three people influence the major decision making in the village including whom to vote for during election times.  The other functionaries who become important politically at village level are anganwadi worker, the priest, Self Help Group (SHG) leaders and community leaders.  They too can exert some influence during voting in an election.

The governance of a village requires a panchayat where the governing body and the panchayat secretary are located and an office for a VRO where different certificates/documents are issued.  Ration shop is another focal point in a village where people frequent for issue of subsidized food grains and is located at a convenient place fixed by Government.  The ration shop dealer also exerts his influence on other matters relating to the welfare benefits to inhabitants such as pensions, housing etc.  The health of the inhabitants is taken care by the local community health worker and the health assistant.  The educational needs are satisfied in the anganwadi centre, the primary school / high school.  The anganwadi worker is another functionary who has influence over some young ladies.  Rachabanda is usually where people gather in the evenings for deliberations and santha(shandy) is the market place where conduct of business takes place.  There are certain common facilities such as warehouses, threshing floors, drying platforms, cold storages etc. which are used for the livelihood activities in the village. 

            The inter-village needs are those which are common to a group of villages such as connecting roads, transport facilities, irrigation systems, major rural water supply systems etc.

Fight against Corruption: What are we fighting against?

Corruption has been an issue which has been increasingly affecting our country(India) for the last half a century.  It has currently assumed proportions threatening to tear the very fabric of our society apart, hence the need to respond in an urgent and coordinated manner by every citizen of our country.  When we talk of corruption we mean immorality, dishonesty, lack of integrity etc. and pictures of corrupt government officials and public representatives come to our mind.  These officials and public representatives of our Government form the ruling class and are none other than the guardians of our country.  What we are concerned about is then corruption in our guardians. 

If we try to find the location of this entity called corruption we have to zero in on one guardian and try to find it there.  This thing called corruption is obviously located in the mind of our guardian.  In order to understand the nature of this entity let us compare a corrupt mind with its opposite i.e. an ideal mind.  This opposite as we see cant be anything other than a virtuous mind.  Corruption as we understand is lack of integrity, justice etc. and therefore what we are talking here is the lack of something called virtue in the guardian.  By virtue we mean morality, compassion, integrity and the like.

If every citizen is desirous of this entity called virtue in our guardian let us examine why it doesn’t exist in him.  Our guardians are a representative sample of our society and assigned that role through a process of selection (in case of officials) or election (in case of public representatives).  As every citizen recognizes and understands the evils of corruption we can safely assume that our citizens know how virtue looks like.  Our citizens i)know what virtue is, ii)want this thing called virtue in our guardian, and iii) know that it doesn’t exist currently in his mind.  Therefore the missing link here appears to be a lack of effort to inject this virtue thing into our guardian’s mind.

Is this something which can be put into a human mind and if so at what age should it be done?  Everyone knows that we learn virtue from our parents/teachers and that virtue is something which can be taught.  That which can be taught is said to be knowledge; and knowledge can be given right from childhood to old age.  Let us divide the life of our guardian into two parts one during childhood where he can be taught by his parents/teachers, second after assuming the role of a guardian where he can be taught by the State.

If we examine how far the teaching of virtue is happening in the current day homes by parents we find it happening at very few homes.  Part of our society has transformed from version 1.0 where everyone was living and working to satisfy the true human needs, to version 2.0 where the desires for luxury took the place of basic needs.  However this transformation hasn’t taken place for the whole of the population of our country.  There still remains a very big but so called outdated and underdeveloped version 1.0 of the society.  These two versions coexist currently each unaware of the existence of the other.  The version 1.0 continues to exist in the vast lands of our rural areas and version 2.0 has taken birth and is growing rapidly in the towns and cities.  It is highly unlikely to find our virtue thing in version 2.0, therefore it can be found only in the version 1.0.  The version 1.0 itself has started to melt and before it vanishes we need to find our virtue thing and preserve it for replication and future use. 

 Coming back to our guardian chap, after stepping into that role he gets a taste of version 2.0.  Since it appears to give a lot of pleasure to his senses he starts aspiring to become a successful member of version 2.0 getting rid of whatever little virtue thing he has in him.

Therefore the origin of this entity called corruption is nothing but absence of a thing called virtue in our guardian.  This again has its origin in two things, one failure of parents/teachers in educating their kids in virtue and the other in the failure of the State in imparting virtue to its guardians and valuing it.

Corruption: A symptom or disease?

Virtues like morality, honesty, courage, wisdom etc. are applied to an individual, whereas we always understand corruption in the context of the affairs of a State.  For corruption to exist we need a State or a society where some form of governance exists.  In the absence of Statehood the word corruption loses its meaning.  Therefore a Government is a necessary condition for existence of corruption.  Similarly we know that the same is true with justice as well; in the absence of a State justice doesn’t exist.  In a perfect State, like Rama Rajyam, justice is said to stand on four pillars.  Such a State will be devoid of corruption.  The introduction of certain amount of injustice into such a State cant be said to bring in corruption.  But once the injustice in a perfect State starts increasing there reaches a stage where something called corruption enters the scene.  It is therefore the withdrawal of justice from a State which brings in a variety of evils one of which is corruption.  Injustice is of many forms viz., immorality, inequality, dishonesty, lack of integrity etc.  Corruption is one such class of injustice where our guardians earn money in an unjust manner. 

We understand corruption to have taken place only when there is involvement of pecuniary gain to an official in the public sphere.  However there are a large number of unjust acts happening in day to day governance of the State which often go unnoticed.  Corruption is the end result of some of such unjust acts.  Let us take certain examples of unjust acts and examine if people call them corrupt practices (public official here includes elected representatives).

1. Demanding of money from a citizen by a public official for performing his duty.  This is bribe taking and hence corruption.

2. Public official uses his office for personal financial gain.  This is corruption.

3. The public official doesn’t demand money but accepts voluntary payment by a citizen for performance of duty.  This again amounts to bribe taking and hence is a corrupt practice.

4. Official accepts a voluntary payment for helping a citizen beyond his call of duty.  There is an act of voluntary help and voluntary payment- a just act and an unjust act.  However as an unjust act can never be a compensation for a just act, this should be treated as a corrupt act.

5. The father of an official was the subject of injustice at the hands of a Government official because of which he loses his life.  The son becomes a Government servant and resorts to illegal earning in order to take vengeance.  An unjust act can never be undone by another act of injustice.  Hence this amounts to corruption and cant be defended.

6. A public official uses undisclosed knowledge of the State (say the alignment of a ring road or setting up of an industry) in order to make legal investments and thereby makes legal money.  This isn’t regarded as corruption by many people.  However on further examination this is an act of stealing information of the State and encashing it- an unjust act viewed from any angle.

7. A rich public official used to moving in a BMW car privately, purchases the same vehicle for public use.  This is indiligent action which can be termed unjust.

8. A public official uses his office in order to help his relatives or friends earn money legally.  We cant call the official corrupt.  Is this an act of injustice?

9. A public official uses his office to help people belonging to his community earn money legally.  This isn’t a corrupt act.  Is this injustice?

10. Certain communities were historically subject to injustice under various forms of governance.  The current democratic regime has offered protection to such groups.  A public official, not necessarily belonging to these groups, uses his office to help persons from these groups gain benefits beyond that agreed under law, to the exclusion of deserving persons from other groups.  Is this an act of injustice?.

11. A public official at his discretion shows undue favour towards individuals belonging to certain class (say a community or region or language) to the exclusion of other equally deserving classes.  The official is not corrupt.  Is he unjust?

12. A public official decides on a policy action with the sole objective of earning votes.  Is this injustice?

13. Public Officials thrust their wrong opinions in making decisions out of intellectual arrogance; out of a feeling that what they know alone is right without following a process of consultation.  Is this injustice?

14. A public official allows unjust acts without pecuniary gain but in order to retain the job or assignment of his liking.  Is this injustice?

15. Doing an unjust act in order to undo historical injustice: An example is facilitation of occupation of private lands by those persons subject to injustice at some point in the past.  Is it a just act?

The three benefits: demolition of virtue in the rural folk:-  Government of Andhra Pradesh six years ago adopted a policy of saturation to all the eligible beneficiaries in the welfare schemes in the State.  Welfare pensions, housing and ration cards have therefore become within the reach of every rural household.  The policy is very virtuous, almost redefined the meaning of a virtuous policy.  For the first time a State  in India has done something for which the State came into existence on this planet viz., to take care of the basic needs (food, shelter and clothing) of its citizens.  The State has promised to provide food, shelter, and support to the old and infirm to all the eligible citizens.  This extremely virtuous policy-white as milk- had to be implemented through the dirty hands of our guardians.

Now as justice demands, this policy should have blessed all those eligible viz., those without a house, those newly wed without a card, and those old and infirm without a support.  We can see that the common factor in all these three classes of citizens is eligibility.  As usual the guardians from the cutting edge to the district level (sarpanch to the local public representatives to the officialdom) have taken note of the immense opportunities this virtuous policy has thrown.  The two mouth watering dishes any politician survives on, goodwill from the citizens and money for the self, presented themselves all of a sudden without asking.  The huge machinery of the guardiandom consisting of the public representatives and officials took the lead as usual in implementing the policy in right earnest.  The lead they took is two pronged, in one direction they taught the ineligible ones in the process of purchasing an eligibility, and in the other direction they trained the eligible ones that money alone can make their eligibility visible to the eye of the guardian.  Having thus succeeded in training their citizens they started the plunder of goodwill and money from this policy bowl.  The policy being virtuous, suffered silently at being contaminated by the dirty hands of our guardians.  Today we have citizens demanding benefits under this policy for the following reasons

1.      The eligible has not received the benefit despite payment of money

2.      The ineligible has not received the benefit despite payment of money

3.      The ineligible has not received the benefit despite the fact that a fellow ineligible has received.

4.      The really eligible and innocent has not received the benefit without any payment.

The beneficiaries from this are the public representatives- in goodwill and money, and officials-in  terms of money and postings.