Why India is not progressing as per expectations of its people despite honest leadership under the Hon’ble Prime Minster Narendra Modi?

I had come to Delhi from Lucknow in 1981. My friend took me to a house of an MP. We were chatting with a relative of the MP. I still remember his words - it takes two to three years for a newly elected  MP to understand what all benefits an MP can take from the Government.

2. By and large majority of us believe in extracting maximum benefits from the government. Railways have understood this better. They wrote in the trains Railway aap ki sampati hai '. People started taking fixtures of the train to their homes. Railways now tie toilet mugs with a steel chain and modified their slogan ‘Railway aap ki sampati hai kirpya iska khyal rakhiye’. We forget that bottom 90 percent households live in very poor condition not because they don’t work hard. The main reason for their poor condition is market distortion. If marginal and small farmers and manual labours start getting right prices for their labour, inequalities will be reduced.

3.   Poor Indian mentality is one of the important reasons for the drawbacks in the policy formation and also leakages and poor implementation of government run programmes. Before judging the performance of current NDA government at Centre, we may keep above points in view.

4.  There are so many simple things that can be implemented for the betterment of the country. It is in the interest of all of us to ask the Government to focus on improving productivity and income of the lowest strata. These measures can be- prescribing NCERT text books for all schools; quality school education for all by the government - free for BPL students and for others fee structure of Kendriya Vidyalayas; involving  retired government officers to teach school children once in a week; availability of all lab facilities for all – free for the BPL families and at reasonable prices for non BPL families  at every  Community Health Centre (CHC is a 30 bedded government hospital, catering to approximately 80,000 population in tribal/hilly/desert areas and 1,20,000 population for plain areas) and facilities  of mobile dispensaries once in a week at village level; making arrangements for  fish seeds and marketing facilities for increasing use  of water bodies in villages for fish production; poultry farms on the lines of Suguna poultry; animal hostels on the lines Akodara Animal hostel; close digital monitoring of municipal sewer treatment plants and water treatment plants that are supposed to be used by the chemical  industries; and making mandatory for local governments in the metro cities to digitally monitor use of  garden, kitchen  and other organic waste for making organic manure that can be used by them to make carpet grass for parks and other public places to minimise dust in cities. They should provide details regarding Capacity of sewer treatment plants; Volume of sewer water treated; Quantity of garbage collected; and Quantity of Garbage utilised for making organic manure on their websites.

5. Marginal category (size: 0.002 hectare to 1.000 hectares) and small category of holdings (1.000 hectare to 2.000 hectares) comprising of 73.17% and 15.30% of all operational holdings, constituting 27.7% and 23.44% of total operated area respectively. 85% of bovines (cattle plus buffalo) are owned by landless, marginal and small land holding households. Keeping these facts in view, agricultural cooperatives can play a very important role in transferring knowledge about the latest tools and technology in agriculture and facilitating farmers in storing and selling their agricultural produce. Attractive financial incentives for the best five cooperatives at State level would motivate farmers and force concerned district level government officials and elected leaders to understand the strength of agricultural cooperatives.

6. Suguna poultry model protects and retains the interests of both the farmers and the integrator. The integrator (Suguna) takes full responsibility of providing day old chicks, feed, medicines and supervision to the farmers. In addition, the integrator brings Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), and technical know-how which leads to higher productivity. Last but not the least, farmers are assured of considerable earnings in the integrated / contract farming model.

7. Proper management and balanced feed, as shown in Akodara animal hostel in Sabarkatha district of Gujarat and several other projects, can result in good economic returns through small investments at village level (Around Rs 4 crore would be required for the construction of animal hostel that comprises of fodder storage unit, water storage facility, lockers for farmers, animal shed for animals, gobar gas plant and vermin compost unit). In this model economic returns increases to almost double per milch animal because of (i) increase in volume of production of milk by 15%; (ii) increase in fat content in milk by 1 percentage point; (iii) low mortality, morbidity and infertility results in substantial increase in the number of in-milk cows and buffaloes; and (iv) use of dung and urine in making gobar gas and vermin compost. 

8. Exports of organic food rose almost 25 per cent between 2015-16 and 2016-17, from Rs 19.8 billion to Rs 24.8 billion, when total agri export grew barely one per cent. There is huge demand for organic food both in domestic and international markets. Still we do not understand the importance of converting dung, garden, kitchen and other organic waste into organic manure.

9.  MMTC is an integrated global leader and has comprehensive infrastructure for bulk cargo handling, with well-developed arrangements for rail and road transportation, warehousing, port and shipping, operations. MMTC has become a major fertilizer marketing company in India, through planned forward integration of its import activities with the direct marketing of Urea, DAP, MOP, Sulphur, Rock Phosphate, SSP etc. Government should consider increasing the domain of the MMTC. Medium and large manufacturing units may be asked to place their requirement for the feed stock ( for example ethylene in the chemical sector), which domestic manufacturers are not able to produce because large capital investment is required to produce them, with the MMTC and they should make imports at the most competitive rates and the concerned manufacturing units may produce value added products from the imported feedstock. This would create new employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector.