Madhu Gurung Saroj and Prabhavati are Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA). They are called Asha Bahu or Asha Didi in their village. They have given up covering their heads and being faceless housewives and instead work as community health mobilisers for the government’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). The two ASHAs have been trained by PATH, an international NGO, under its Sure Start programme. Launched in 2005, PATH’S five-year initiative helps poorer communities access quality maternal and newborn health services in rural UP and in slum settlements in urban Maharashtra. Their first stop is Fatima’s dilapidated mud hut. Fatima is a gawky, polio afflicted teenager. She is nine months pregnant. Her reticent husband, Abid Hussain, also afflicted by polio, uses crutches. The couple is expecting their first child. Abid does exquisite hand embroidery which is sold in Lucknow. Nusrat Begum is Fatima’s enlightened mother-in-law. She says she had seven children and had she been more informed she would have ensured Abid got his polio drops as a baby. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
WHAT does Bhilwara have that the rest of rural India needs? A Member of Parliament (MP) who changes with the times. CP Joshi, Union minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, and the MP from Bhilwara, initiated the biggest social audit in India in his own constituency to find out if money meant for providing work under the National Rural Employment Act (NREGA) had been spent as it was meant to. He got the Mazdoor Kisan
Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a
network of farmers and workers,
and the Rozgar Evam
Soochna Ka Adhikar Abhiyan From October 1 for 12 days 135 teams of social auditors went to 1,000 villages in 381 panchayats to find out how NREGA was being implemented. Apart from uncovering corruption, the social audit was a massive exercise in training people in the auditing process. Around 2,000 participants turned up at the venue in Bhilwara. One thousand people from 256 blocks were chosen by the state administration. They will be part of social audits in future. Another 1,000 RTI and NREGA activists came from Sikkim, Mizoram, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
IT is well known that government schemes and programmes meant for the poor fail due to corruption. As aspirations rise, the challenge before politicians is to deliver development. It is people as the beneficiaries of government schemes and programmes who can say where the system is working and where it is not. The social audit makes this possible. When the MKSS first did a social audit, it was dismissed as a kangaroo court. From then till today, much has happened and the social audit is being seen as a tool for good governance. Its political benefits are also being understood. State governments in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan are leading the
way in using the social audit to bring transparency and accountability Aruna Roy spoke to Civil Society after the recent social audit exercise in Bhilwara in Rajasthan. What is the significance of the social audit just conducted in Bhilwara? The social audit has been mandated by the law and supported by the Government of India, and the state government of Rajasthan along with the participation of civil society. A Directorate of Social Audit has been established in Rajasthan. Fifteen hundred people have been trained. Out of them, 700 will directly work with the government. The others will be called upon as and when there is an audit. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MUTHU, 30, pulls out a slithering snake from a mud pot. A group of tourists look on in awe. “This is a very poisonous snake,” he says to his audience. “It is called Russell’s viper.” The snake hisses menacingly. The tourists look on nervously. Muthu carries on nonchalantly rattling off details of the snake. “Now watch while I extract venom,” he says. Gripping the snake’s neck, he holds it over a glass receptacle and the venom dribbles down. Not many can look a snake in the eye but then Muthu is an Irula tribal, a community famous for its knowledge of snakes and forests. He works for the Irula Snake Catchers’ Industrial Cooperative Society located inside Romulus Whitaker’s crocodile farm at Vadanemmeli, Tamil Nadu, an hour’s drive from Chennai. The snake- catchers’ cooperative runs a snakepit here. You pay an entry fee of Rs 10 and the Irulas will introduce you to a range of poisonous snakes sitting peacefully inside mud pots covered with white cloth, neatly arranged in rows. But the snake-catchers’ cooperative does more than amuse or educate tourists. Venom is scientifically extracted from snakes, processed into powder and sold to big pharmaceutical companies to make serum which can counter the poisons of snake bite. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Shreyasi Singh ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DEVELOPMENT schemes fail for want of delivery. How does one connect with people? How is that troublesome last mile to be negotiated? We were introduced sometime ago to the work of PATH, an NGO, in the area of mother and infant health. PATH has been helping the National Rural Health Mission by educating families and creating a demand for health services. It is an approach which requires going deep within communities and reversing old biases. Our decision to make it this month’s cover, Reaching Mothers, is based on our belief that government needs to work much more closely with voluntary organisations if it wants to come closer to realising its development goals. To communicate, convince and build trust is a delicate task. Official agencies mostly don’t have what it takes. They need the innovative spirit of voluntary organisations to find solutions and make connections on the ground. And they need to do this in real time. The social audit undertaken in Bilwara in Rajasthan, which is our opening news story, is also a great example of how people’s groups can be involved to make governance more meaningful. CP Joshi has used the MKSS to assess how the national rural employment guarantee scheme has been working in his own constituency. But more importantly, the social audit in Bilwara shows how government has to go beyond itself to assess its own performance and create faith in its intentions and ability to deliver. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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COLLABORATION between General Motors
and the Reva Electric Car Co. will for the first
time make battery-operated cars widely available
in India. Yet close to a decade after it was launched, the Reva accounts for a mere fraction of the vehicles on Indian roads. Even in car-crazy Delhi only 200 are on the road. Altogether, 3,000 Revas have been sold in India and abroad. Under the tie-up with GM, the Spark will go electric using Reva technology. The Reva will continue to be produced as a separate car. Both cars will be available at all GM dealerships. The arrangement will most likely end the Reva’s isolation in the automobile industry. Another version of the Reva, redesigned by Dilip Chhabria and with a new battery that will ensure more mileage, will on offer abroad. For GM too this is a boost. Long known for producing guzzlers, it needs Reva’s cutting-edge technologies at a time when the world wants smaller and cleaner cars. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
NIDHI Arora, Anirban Gupta and Arindam Dasgupta were poised for long and successful corporate careers. They had post-graduate degrees in management from prestigious colleges. But hefty pay packages and international postings left them cold. Instead, in 2004, they co-founded Dhriiti, a nonprofit in Delhi that works to build the spirit of entrepreneurship among the next generation of Indians. Dhriiti believes unleashing entrepreneurial zeal is the real long-term solution to India’s two biggest challenges – unemployment and underemployment. Over the last five years, Dhriiti has trained more
than 1,500 young people between the ages of 16
and 22. They have helped launch 93 enterprises
that have, in turn, created 235 directs jobs and provided
incremental income to another 1,500 people.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
EVERY single gadget we use will
sooner or later end up in a trash
can. Computers, mobile phones,
DVD players, TV sets, will all be junk. From a computer penetration density
of less than 10 per 1000 population
in 2005, India will exceed 60 per 1000
in 2010. Mobile phones will touch
300 million and TV sets over 140 million.
Even today, despite its low density
in electronics, India produces
over 400,000 tonnes of electronic
waste each year and this is rising
three times faster than the municipal
waste stream. Globally, between 20 to 50 million tonnes of electronic scrap is generated annually. This e-waste is one of the most hazardous waste streams worldwide. Electronics contain over 50 hazardous chemicals or heavy metals. A cathode ray tube (screen) could have over 1.5 kilos of lead. Inside the box there can be mercury, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium, while the plastic casing can contain brominated flame retardants (BFR). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
THE Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) is a bit of a miracle. In an era where mainstream broadcast outlets hold sway, the organisation has taken less than a decade to emerge as an influential player on the Indian independent documentary filmmaking scene. It has created an effective and viable alternative platform to promote diversity of modes of expressions, highlight the concerns of a complex nation and empower independent documentary makers, especially those that are young. Indeed, PSBT’s relevance in the current scenario cannot be overestimated. In recent years, the Indian media industry has developed in leaps and bounds and its commercial returns have multiplied dramatically. But in the mad scramble for eyeballs and profits, the stories of real people that are crying out to be told have dropped out of the frame. PSBT has done much to rectify the situation thanks to the weekly slot that it has for its films on Doordarshan. So every year, it delivers 52 socially and politically relevant films to the national broadcaster. Veteran filmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner Shyam Benegal, a member of the PSBT board of trustees, had said a few years ago: “PSBT in less than five years achieved for the documentary film in India what other organisations have not been able to do in fifty.” He wasn’t exaggerating. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ About Us | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | ©2007 Civil Society....................................... .Webmaster Vishwanathan ( vishu4@rediffmail.com ) |
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