Baatir Singh, 73, and Rinjhin Singh, 72, residents of Barog in Himachal Pradesh’s Solan district, regularly visit a mobile healthcare facility run by HelpAge India. It is a convenient alternative to relatively inaccessible hospitals for those living in remote hilly areas, they say.

As Rinjhin looked for a seat to rest her aching body in a nearby tin shed, her husband, Baatir Singh, 73, joined a queue of about 15 people, mostly elderly, waiting for their turn to see the doctor. This had been their ritual every Thursday morning for the past two years.

This was not a primary healthcare centre (PHC) or hospital, but a mobile healthcare unit set up on a bus, complete with a doctor, a pharmacist, a laboratory technician and a physiotherapist. 

One of 11 operated by the charity Helpage India in the state, this mobile healthcare unit provides free consultations, essential medicines, some pathological tests and physiotherapy. There are 26 such mobile medical units in the state, all operated by nonprofits, some part-funded by the government.

Singh and his wife have joint- and back-aches that make it difficult for them to travel to the hospital, an hour from their home. “This facility has greatly benefited me and my wife,” Singh said.

In the hilly regions of Himachal Pradesh, where narrow roads make their way through lush forests, even short distances take long to traverse. It is often difficult for the sick and the aged to travel to PHCs. Sometimes, when they do visit a PHC, there is no doctor or other facilities are missing. 

The National Health Mission (NHM) introduced Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) to bring healthcare facilities to those living in remote and underserved areas. There should be at least one MMU in each district, and a maximum of five, NHM guidelines said. 

Although MMUs are particularly needed in hilly, remote areas, the north-Indian Himalayan states have the fewest, government data from March 2018, the latest available, show. Of a total of 1,427 MMUs in India, nearly a third (415) were in Tamil Nadu, followed by Rajasthan (206), Madhya Pradesh (144) and Assam (130). India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, and the hill states of Uttarakhand and Tripura, had none. Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland had 16 and 11, respectively. 

Himachal Pradesh, by comparison, has 26 across nine of its 12 districts, though only 15 are recognised as MMUs–HelpAge India’s 11 units are registered as ‘clinics’ under the Clinical Establishments Act, hence not officially recognised as MMUs.

Diwinder Singh Balluria, a doctor, conducts a check-up inside a Mobile Medical Unit operated by Helpage India in Kalihatti, Shimla, October 25, 2019.

MMUs attract a steady stream of patients wherever they set up for the day, as we found during our visit across five districts in October 2019. Visitors said they were happy to get checkups as well as medicines at their doorsteps, though in many cases people traveled to visit them from far, saying they found MMUs more reliable than the PHCs closer home.

However, the quality of care varied between MMUs, we found, mostly depending on funding. For instance, some units were equipped with advanced diagnostic equipment, while others did not even employ a qualified doctor.

Public health centres

India ranked 145th among 195 countries in terms of healthcare access and quality, as IndiaSpend reported on May 23, 2018. PHCs, the first point of access to doctors in the public healthcare system, are especially overburdened. 

In 2018, one PHC covered, on average, 32,387 people, though the Indian Public Health Standards recommend one PHC for 30,000 people in the plains and one for 20,000 in hilly areas such as Himachal Pradesh.

Himachal has more PHCs than the Indian average–each PHC serves about 11,000–but these PHCs are often understaffed, and an inadequate road network affects access for general and emergency medical care.

Some 18.6% of PHCs in the state did not have doctors, 84.7% did not have laboratory technicians, and 45.3% did not have pharmacists, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) told the lower house of the parliament, the Lok Sabha, in July 2019. 

Across India, one-third (34.5%) of PHCs did not have lab technicians and 15.6% did not have pharmacists, according to the same Lok Sabha response.

MMU funding

Pharmacist Amit Kainthla at an MMU in Kalihatti, Shimla, dispensing medicines on October 25, 2019.

As per NHM guidelines, the government can fully own and operate MMUs or provide the capital expenditure. It must also provide drugs and other supplies.

In Himachal Pradesh, all the 26 MMUs are run by nonprofits. 

Paryas Society, a Hamirpur-based NGO, runs 15 MMUs in the four districts of Hamirpur, Una, Bilaspur and Mandi. The cost of the van and equipment for 17 units came from the Members of Parliament (MP) Local Area Development Fund–which provides Rs 5 crore per year to every MP for their five-year tenure–of the local MP, Anurag Thakur.

The operational cost of three units is supported through the NHM. Four to five companies cover the cost of 12 MMUs under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations. Two MMUs are not currently operational.

The MMUs run by Paryas Society have a budget of about Rs 12 lakh each per year, Vikas Singh, the doctor in-charge of the MMU programme at Paryas told IndiaSpend. This is  57% lower than the NHM-recommended Rs 28 lakh per unit. The government contributed a total of Rs 10.7 lakh in the financial year 2018-19 for three units, said Archana Soni, chief medical officer of Hamirpur district. This is less than a third of the amount required to run these units, as per the Paryas’ budget.

The NHM recommends equipment such as an electrocardiogram machine, a refrigerator and a steriliser. Paryas MMUs do not have these services.

When asked if the allocated funds were sufficient for the functioning of MMUs as per NHM specifications, state NHM officials said they did not want to comment.

To run an MMU on a lower budget and because of the dearth of doctors with a Bachelors of Medicine And Bachelors Of Surgery (MBBS) degree in the hilly region, Paryas hires Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) doctors, who are not qualified to practice modern medicine as per the Indian Medical Council Act, instead of hiring doctors with an MBBS degree.

Vikas Singh, the doctor who heads the operations of the Mobile Medical Units at Paryas Society, says that it is not possible to hire MBBS doctors in all units within the current budget.

“No MBBS doctor agrees to a salary of less than Rs 1 lakh a month,” said Vikas Singh, “So it is practically impossible to have MBBS doctors in all the units. We have hired an MBBS doctor per district to oversee the operations.”

“It can be Rs 80,000 or Rs 90,000 per month or even more if they are deployed in tribal or extremely remote areas,” said Rajesh Kumar, Himachal Pradesh head for HelpAge India.

HelpAge India runs 144 such units across 24 states in India, and 11 across seven districts in Himachal Pradesh.

HelpAge India’s budget is twice that of Paryas Society’s, but it still does not provide all the NHM recommended facilities. On average, the charity spends Rs 30 lakh per unit per year, and has an MBBS doctor, a registered pharmacist, a lab technician and a driver. These units have basic medicines, and can check blood pressure and blood sugar.

The units run by Paryas provide more pathological tests than the HelpAge India units and include tests for cholesterol, liver and kidney function.

There are some MMUs that have much higher budgets. The HelpAge MMU in Solan that Rinjhin and her husband visit, for instance, has a budget of Rs 1.3 crore for a period of three years and an annual operating cost of Rs 45 lakh. This unit can conduct most urine and blood tests, and even hold physiotherapy sessions.

Need for regular visits

Gulabo Ram, 86, is diabetic and lives alone in Takrera village of Himachal Pradesh. A Mobile Medical Unit operated by Paryas Society came to his village and provided him with a free check-up and medicines for seven days. He wishes the unit would visit more frequently so that he would not have to travel to the hospital 3 km away 2-3 times a month to fetch his medicines.

On October 22, 2019, a team from the NGO Paryas carried a suitcase and walked to the Takrera village anganwadi (childcare centre) in Himachal Pradesh’s Bilaspur district. In the suitcase was equipment for conducting blood tests. That day, 44 patients came to the mobile health centre.

“We try to set the camp as close to the village centre and in a community building like anganwadis or schools. It is more accessible and comfortable for the patients,” said Ankita Sharma, the doctor-in-charge at the Takrera camp.

Such units could be especially helpful to the elderly who live alone, like Gulabo Ram, 86, who has been diabetic for over 15 years. His wife passed away 20 years ago. His daughters are married and live away, and he is not on talking terms with his son, he said. “I have to go to the hospital 3 km away, alone, 2-3 times a month. It becomes difficult,” he said, leaning on his walking stick. Free medicines are given only for seven or 14 days at a time, he said.

The Paryas team gave Gulabo Ram medicines for seven days, after which he will have to visit a hospital. Gulabo Ram said he wished the mobile unit would visit more frequently so that he could avoid travelling to the hospital.

The Paryas MMU will visit this village after 1.5-2 months, after it has visited all the remaining villages in the assembly constituency of Ghumarwin. Doctors on the team said it can take 4-6 months to revisit a village.

As per the NHM guidelines, the units should frequent an area at least once a month and the deployment should be prioritised in areas with no functional facilities.

Nirmala Devi, 70, travels 13 km to reach a mobile healthcare unit in Barog, Solan district, Himachal Pradesh. She finds the camp more reliable than the government primary health centre where the doctor is available only on some days and does not keep fixed timings.

HelpAge India targets villages identified as having poor health infrastructure or being backward through a baseline survey. “MMUs visit 5-12 of these villages consistently on the same day each week,” said Manoj Verma, social protection officer at HelpAge India’s Solan unit. “This helps us build trust within the community.”

In Barog in Solan district, close to 70% of the patients at the HelpAge India unit the day IndiaSpend visited had come for follow-ups, and had been visiting the camp for longer than a year, they said.

Nirmala Devi, 70, had been a regular for two years, visiting for diabetes treatment, even though her village is 13 km from the clinic. The PHC is 1 km away from her house but “the doctor is present at the PHC only on Wednesdays and that too for a few hours, which are not fixed”, she told IndiaSpend. “Coming here is better than walking to the PHC and coming back with no check-up and medicines.”

All Mobile Medical Units operated by Paryas Society have a laboratory kit that fits in a suitcase. This makes it portable, enabling the staff to carry it even to the most remote villages.

Remote districts at higher altitudes have fewer MMUs

As many as 22 of Himachal’s 26 MMUs are in low-lying areas. Four HelpAge India MMUs–in Kinnaur and Kullu–are in districts at higher altitudes.

“It is more difficult to operate a medical unit in areas with higher elevation,” said Rajesh Kumar from HelpAge India. “It is difficult to find staff there, it is difficult to navigate the roads there and during some days in the winter we might have to stop the operation altogether.”

Source: Seasonal and annual rainfall trends in Himachal Pradesh during 1951-2005

The remaining districts, mostly at higher elevations where PHCs are more difficult to reach for sick or aged people, will get government-run MMUs by 2020, Nipun Jindal, mission director of NHM, Himachal Pradesh, told IndiaSpend. The state NHM team has been trying to get such units operational for 13 years, but there has not been adequate response to the issued tenders, he said, adding, “However, by January 2020, we hope to get mobile health and wellness centres operational in all the districts of the state under the new Jeevan Dhara scheme.” The state scheme aims to set up mobile health and wellness centres in each district to dispense free medicines and conduct up to 50 types of tests.

Mobile units set up under this scheme will have an MBBS doctor and will follow the NHM guidelines, Jindal said. He added, however, that the government’s thrust is on improving PHCs. “In the end, Mobile Medical Units are a secondary service that we can provide to the citizens,” he said. “Our primary objective is to ensure that the primary health centres are well-equipped and operational.” 

Until that objective is met, Baatir Singh counts on the MMU in Barog that he visits every Thursday. Singh, who had worked as a daily wage labourer since 1970, said he stopped working in 2000 after a botched-up surgery led to an infection and four surgeries.

“I have no energy left to work or to travel to the hospital, which is an hour away,” said Singh,  “I am happy that I get such a facility so close to our home.” 

(Shreya Raman is a data analyst at IndiaSpend.)
 

Courtesy: India Spend

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Sunita Lokhande* and Sudha Kamble* stand in the corridor one floor above their flats in the Saki Naka police housing complex. Three buildings in the complex have been declared unsafe by the PWD.

In July this year, water seeped into her third-floor flat, damaging her TV, ceiling fan and her bed. “It was like a waterfall inside our house,” Sawant said, “There was water coming in through every corner of the house. We did not know what to do.”

Sawant along with her husband and daughter then had to move into an empty flat on the first floor of the same building. The Sawants are among the only three families currently living in this building, which along with two other blocks were declared unsafe by the public works department (PWD) after a structural audit. The PWD had issued an eviction notice to the residents of the building where Sawant lives in 2017 and for the other two blocks in 2019.

The third floor house in the Saki Naka police-department complex where the Sawants lived. One night, water seeped in from all corners of the ceiling–ruining the walls and the floor of the house.

Those living in the unsafe buildings were allotted alternative flats in Jogeshwari, 10 km away. But the new flats are much smaller–a balcony knocks 20 sq ft off their living area, Sawant complained. And the alternative allotments were only made only a year ago, she added.

“Last year they allocated us rooms in the adjacent wing of the same building and in June (2019), they gave notice to the residents of those wings too,” Sawant said, “We are not encroachers, we are public servants. All we are asking for are appropriate housing alternatives.”

The rooms on the ground floor of Wing C of the Saki Naka police-department housing complex. Parts of the ceiling and walls have caved in. However, police personnel and their families continue to live on the higher floors.

The problems faced by Sawant and her neighbours are not unique to Mumbai. There are not enough houses for India’s police personnel and those who do have accommodation are highly dissatisfied with it, said a recent report by the Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPRD). As of 2017, only 592,406 family houses were available for the police, enough to accommodate just 29.7% of the 1,989,295 civil and armed police personnel.

Of those who have official accommodation, over three in four (75.96%) personnel are not satisfied with it. The percentage level of satisfaction has been consistently decreasing in the 10 years leading to 2016. From 2006 to 2016, the percentage dropped by 6.05 percentage points from 30.09% to 24.04%.

The level of satisfaction is the highest (28.47%) among high-ranked gazetted officials–those between the ranks of director-general of police and deputy superintendent of police. It is the lowest (22.22%) among mid-level officials who are between the ranks of inspector and assistant sub-inspector. The constabulary fall somewhere in the middle at 24.3% being satisfied with their accommodation.

The lowest ranked and the least paid, the constabulary forms the majority of the police force. In a force of 1.98 million, 47.7% (949,011) are constables and 17.95% (357,273) are head constables–a combined 65.6%.

The government has been aware of the need to provide quality housing for the police personnel for over four decades now. In 1977, the government constituted a National Police Commission and its first report pointed out that this need had to be dealt with urgently, especially for those in the constabulary.

“The importance of providing accommodation to the constabulary, who have to perform long and arduous hours of work, who have to be available for taking up duties on a 24-hour-call and who, on some occasions, have literally to be on duty continuously without any relief in a 24-hour period, has also been recognised by the various State Police Commissions and is reflected in the general policy of the State Governments and the Government of India in this regard,” said the report. “We, however, find some serious failings in the implementation of this policy.”

The Indian police and judiciary are struggling with vacancies and rising inability to solve cases–pendency in official jargon. Yet, modernisation budgets are underspent, vacancies remain in most states and police stations and lower courts lack basic infrastructure.

India’s police personnel work 14 hours a day, on average, and only every second police person gets a weekly off. Three in four police personnel believe their workload is affecting their physical and mental health. Despite this, the police and the lower judiciary enjoy among the lowest levels of trust, according to a 2018 study across eight Indian states by the Azim Premji University and Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for Developing Societies.

This story is part of an IndiaSpend special reporting project that combines available data and reportage to evaluate reforms needed in the Indian police and the judiciary.

A 180-sq ft flat, for a family of three

To understand why there is widespread dissatisfaction with police housing, we visited three such residential complexes in Mumbai–Saki Naka in western suburbs, and Worli and Naigaon in south Mumbai. (There are over 22,000 flats available to accommodate Mumbai Police personnel.)

We also spoke to residents of two south Mumbai police housing complexes–in Bhendi Bazaar and BDD chawl.

The responses were the same–the flats were too tiny and their maintenance was neglected.

The houses allocated to the constabulary in Mumbai are dingy and badly maintained, we found. But personnel have no option but to continue living in these because their rent allowance is too low to allow them to shift into private accommodation: As per the Seventh Pay Commission, the house rent allowance for metros like Mumbai is 24% of the basic pay.

The minimum rent allowance is Rs 5,400. But the average rent for a one bedroom-hall-kitchen flat in a suburb such as Andheri is five times as much, around Rs 27,000 as per realty portal Makaan.com.

While there is a shortage of police housing across India, the problem becomes even more acute in Mumbai, where rental inflation is highest and affordability the lowest in India.

On December 1, 2016, the government of Maharashtra passed a government resolution increasing the size of the Type I housing to 40 sq metres or approximately 430 sq ft. These flats are allocated on the basis of rank; the smaller Type I and II houses are reserved for personnel from lower ranks and the highest, Type VI is allotted to the director general of police.

The newer buildings have larger one-bedroom flats but those living in older complexes still have to make do with smaller one-room-kitchens.
“The houses in Jogeshwari are so small, that if we put one bed and a cupboard, then there won’t be any space left in the room,” said Sudha Kamble, Sawants’ neighbour and the wife of a police sub-inspector. Her husband, who is due to retire in four years, suffers from acutely impaired mobility caused by a slipped disc that had to be operated on. He cannot use the public transport and if the family relocates he will have to spend Rs 200 a day on commute, his wife estimated.

The flats are so inadequate that many residents of the Saki Naka housing complex, we found, were using its unoccupied flats as living room spaces. They store their clothes and place their bed in their flat but use the free flat to entertain guests or relax.

A room in the police housing complex in Saki Naka, Mumbai. The building is now held up by iron rods that were installed two months ago.

The Kamble family has to deal with another problem. “Because of his condition, my husband has to undress to use the toilet,” said Sudha Kamble, “That means the entire family has to leave the house whenever he has to go. We are fine with it but my son will get married next month. How will my daughter-in-law manage?”

‘Last repairs in 2003’

We heard complaints about poor maintenance work in police housing complexes across Mumbai.

The police housing complex and other buildings in Saki Naka were built in 1995 by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA). “The other residential buildings are perfectly fine but the police complex is dilapidated,” said Sawant. “It is because they have not been maintained properly. The last time these buildings saw any repair work was in 2003.”

Residents of the sea-facing G block police-department housing complex in Worli have been asked to vacate their homes as the building has developed cracks and is unsafe to live in.

In south Mumbai’s Worli police housing camp, residents of the G block were asked to vacate their homes three months ago as the building was declared too dangerous to inhabit. The only maintenance work ever conducted in this camp was in 2004, said Sanjay Borde*, a head constable, who has been living here since it was constructed in 1978.

Residents of G block here have been asked to move to another block, C, in the same compound which is itself undergoing repairs and has no electricity. “They keep asking us to shift to the other place but how can we, without electricity or water supply?” said Rohit Shinde*, a head constable at the Worli police station.

A net has been laid covering the pathway outside G block building in Worli. The net was installed to protect the people who are walking on the pathway from the debris that may fall.

Two years ago, C block residents were asked to move as the building was found to be unsafe. While some left, some stayed back as the building was being repaired.

The house allocated to Rohit Shinde* in C block is under repair. The kitchen counter (left) holds the construction material and there is no electricity connection (right).

Each police housing neighbourhood has a line orderly who handles maintenance-related complaints and is expected to take these up with the PWD. “The PWD generally fixes the problem within 15-20 days,” said the line orderly at the Nagpada police housing who did not wish to be named. “Sometimes, it takes longer because of lack of funds.”

Arup Patnaik, former police commissioner of Mumbai and former managing director of the Maharashtra State Police Housing Corporation (MSPHC), blamed the PWD for the poor state of many housing complexes.

“The PWD does a bad job with maintenance,” said Patnaik, “It has many responsibilities and police housing is not in its top priorities. We (MSPHC) had offered to take up the maintenance of the housing. Although PWD has more staff than the housing corporation, we had proposed that we will outsource the job to private entities, which we will oversee. But that did not happen.”

IndiaSpend tried to contact PWD officials through e-mails and phone calls to seek responses to these comments. This story will be updated if and when we receive their responses.

‘I will have to shift my child’s school’

Residents of three blocks in the Saki Naka complex were asked to vacate their homes on June 28, 2019, two weeks after schools reopened. Suresh Mhatre*, who has two children studying in a neighbourhood primary school, does not want to move mid-semester.

“If we had got the notice in January, we could have looked for a different school for our child, arranged everything and could have left after the academic year ends,” said Mhatre, “I want my children to have a good education, so I admitted them into an English medium school. Although it takes a big chunk from my monthly salary of Rs 9,000, I am ready to pay for it.”

Mhatre will also have to pay extra for transport if he shifts his childrens’ school. “What should I do now–educate my children or feed my family?” he asked. “We have been told that our children will be given transportation to their schools, but we cannot take the risk. What if they stop after 1 or 2 months?”

Mhatre and many of the residents said that they will not leave until April 2020 when the academic year ends.

Unaffordable rents elsewhere

The other option available to residents is to relocate to a private flat in the same neighbourhood. But, as we mentioned earlier, the house rent allowance given to the constabulary does not allow for this.

“Many of us are looking for houses in a nearby area called Sangharsh Nagar,” said Kishore, Deepika Sawant’s husband, “But as soon as the flat-owners there heard that we had been served with the eviction notice, they increased their rents from around Rs 3,000 to Rs 8,000.” These Sangharsh Nagar houses are the cheapest option in this area because they were constructed under the slum rehabilitation project, Sawant added.

Renting a house also requires additional initial investment like deposits and brokerage. “In many buildings, they are asking us to pay the entire year’s rent at once,” said Kishore Sawant, “We do not have those kind of savings.”

Also, banks are averse to providing police personnel with housing loans, Sawant said. “Banks are scared that if we fail to repay the loan, they won’t be able to take action against us,” said Sawant, “So, they just don’t give us loans.”

Those looking for livable flats thus had no choice but to move to distant suburbs with affordable rents, but have to struggle with long commutes. Savita Bhosle*, a woman police constable who is posted at the Nagpada police station in southern Mumbai, lives in a rented flat in the eastern suburb of Ambernath, 60 km from her place of work. “Flats in police complexes are very small and in a bad condition,” said Bhosle, “I could only get a house here with the allowance that I get.”

Bhosle spends 3-4 hours each day on commute. Though work hours for police personnel in Mumbai have been limited to eight hours, overtime is routine. Nearly half of the police personnel in India work overtime regularly and 70% of the personnel in Maharashtra work 9-12 hours a day on average, the study by the Azim Premji University and Lokniti found.

“Housing is especially important for the constabulary as higher officials can manage (rent/purchase) with their pay grade,” said former commissioner Patnaik, “For the constabulary, it is either this or living 50-60 km away and travelling 1-2 hours.”

There are plans to redevelop police housing complexes under public-private partnerships, said Patnaik.

“When I was in the corporation, we had increased the size of the houses,” said Patnaik. “The newly constructed buildings have larger rooms for the constabulary. There is no solution for the older houses. The only solution is to redevelop the older buildings into high rises with bigger rooms. And it is happening. In Mulund, they are planning to build a 39-storey building, that will be a first.”

For six months now, IndiaSpend has been waiting for a response from the managing director of the MSPHC but has yet to be given any information about its redevelopment plans. This story will be updated when we get a response.

(*Names have been changed to protect identities)

(Shreya Raman is a data analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

The post Leaky, Dingy, Tiny: Police Homes In India’s Financial Capital appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Savita Gaikwad’s husband committed suicide three years ago because of debt. Since then, she has been cultivating the land owned by her father-in-law. Women in India rarely own the land they till. This costs them access to government programmes and benefits, and leaves them economically and socially insecure.

With no money and no place to go, the then 20-year-old borrowed money from a neighbour in Thanapada village of Nashik district in Maharashtra, to take a shared taxi to her parents’ home in Gawandh village, 18 km away. Kadale was a farmer who cultivated the six acres her husband owned.

Now, she cultivates the two acres her father owns. Essentially, her situation is no different–she remains without a title to the land she tills, and, hence, without economic or social security.

“I worked all day at my husband’s farm in Thanapada. He did help me with the ploughing and selling the produce, but I did most of the work,” said Kadale, 32, listing out the relentless cycle of sowing, weeding and harvesting that farming entails. “If I had owned at least a part of the land, he would have thought really hard before abandoning me and my children. Also, it would have secured my children’s future.”

Pushpa Kadale, 32, with her daughter, 14, and son, 12. Kadale, a farmer from Gawandh village in Nashik district of Maharashtra, was abandoned by her husband 12 years ago. With no land to her name, she now looks after her children and her ailing parents by cultivating her father’s two acres of land.

Like Kadale, many women farmers in India do not own the land that they cultivate. In a country where 73.2% of rural women workers are engaged in agriculture, women own only 12.8% of land holdings. In Maharashtra, 88.46% of rural women are employed by agriculture, the highest in the country. In western Maharashtra’s Nashik district, women own only 15.6% of the agricultural land holdings, amounting to 14% of the total cultivated area, as per the Agricultural Census of 2015.

Research has long established that women who own land have better economic and social security. “By diminishing the threat of forced eviction or poverty, direct and secure land rights boost women’s bargaining power in the home and improve their levels of public participation,” said a 2013 report by the United Nations.

Land acts as a bargaining tool for women, said Anita Pagare, a women’s rights activist based in Nashik. “With no land to their name, women are completely at the mercy of their husbands or their family.”

Land transfer in India occurs mainly through inheritance and this is mediated through a series of religion-centric personal laws. As per the Hindu Succession Act (HSA), after a male Hindu’s death, the land has to be divided among the widow, the mother and the children of the deceased. HSA is also applicable to people following Sikhism, Buddhism or Jainism.

Muslim women under the Muslim personal law get one-third of the share in property, while men get two-thirds. This is not applicable to agricultural land, except in some states. As per the Indian Succession Act, 1925, Christian widows will get one-third of the property while the remaining two-thirds will be divided equally between the children of the deceased.

Despite the legal rights, social and cultural forces deny women ownership of land.

In Gawandh village, Jijabai Gawli, 40, has been cultivating her husband’s 10 acres for 20 years. However, after her husband’s death seven years ago, she was not given the primary ownership of the land. “The land is firstly owned by my sister-in-law, then my mother-in-law, then my children,” said Gawli, “And as their guardian, I am named last.”

Jijabai Gawli, 40, with three of her daughters. Gawli cultivates a 10-acre piece of land that her husband owned. After his death seven years ago, the farm was transferred to her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. She says she could have secured her children’s future had she owned a piece of the land.

“In our culture, women do not have the right to land,” said Gawli, “My eldest daughter got married two years ago and works on her husband’s land. They will not transfer their land to her. She is an outsider.”

With four daughters and a son, Gawli said she would have been able to manage her expenses better and could have secured her children’s future had the land been in her name.

As many as 29% of the wives of indebted farmers who committed suicide were not able to get their husband’s land transferred to their names, said a 2018 study by Mahila Kisan Adhikari Manch (MAKAAM), an informal forum working to secure rights of women farmers in India. Of the 505 women that were covered in the study, 65% were not able to get their houses transferred to their names.

Savita Gaikwad, 31, has been cultivating the 15 guntha (0.375 acre) of land that her father-in-law owns in Nashik’s Songaon village since her marriage 13 years ago. Three years ago, her husband committed suicide because he could not pay back a Rs 1.5 lakh farm loan. Since then, she and her two sons, aged 12 and nine, have been dependent on her husband’s family and her father-in-law’s land.

After her husband’s death, Gaikwad asked her father-in-law to transfer the land to her name, but he refused. He asked her to make do with the yield from the land. “The farm requires an expenditure of Rs 10,000-Rs 11,000 annually and the returns depend on the yield. Last year, there was not much yield so I could not earn anything,” said Gaikwad, adding, “I need at least Rs 2,000 per month to take care of all the basic necessities for me and my sons.”

In order to make ends meet, Gaikwad takes up work as an agricultural labourer for a daily wage of Rs 150, in addition to working on her farm.

Savita Gaikwad’s husband committed suicide due to farm debt three years ago. Gaikwad and her two children are now dependent on her father-in-law’s land for survival.

Gaikwad also worries that someday she may be asked to vacate her house. Two years ago, her father-in-law took a loan on the land to build a new house where he, his wife, his son and daughter-in-law live. Gaikwad lives independently with her children in a house made with tin sheets held up with wooden beams.

Savita Gaikwad working on land that her father-in-law owns. Two years ago, her father-in-law took out a loan on the land to build a house (right). Gaikwad, who lives independently with her children in a house (left) made with tin sheets and wooden beams, worries that someday she will be asked to vacate the farm.

Gaikwad’s land was insured under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme or PMFBY) last year, but the insurance amount was transferred to her father-in-law who owns the land. “Government schemes may have helped farmers. But since my father-in-law owns the land, he gets all the benefits,” says Gaikwad.

Women’s access to government schemes and other facilities is curtailed when the land they till is not in their name, said Seema Kulkarni, a member of the national facilitation team at MAKAAM.

The National Policy for Farmers, 2007 recommended a broader definition of a farmer, including labourers, tenants and other workers, but the government’s definition is based on ownership of land. The revenue department defines a farmer based on the land title records and the agriculture department follows the revenue department’s definitions, Kulkarni said. “Hence, most of the schemes require the submission of land title record, limiting the beneficiary base to landowners,” she said.

Access to institutional credit is also limited with no land ownership. The only funding options available to women with no land are self-help groups (SHG) and microfinancers, said Kulkarni, “With limited funding at SHGs, most women go with the microfinancers and accept their high interest rates and borderline inhuman recovery processes.”

In cases of farm suicides, access to institutional credit is of increased importance. After the death of the husband, the burden of paying off the debt falls on the widow. Most (58%) of these widows are younger than 45 and only a handful (1.7%) had other sources of income than agriculture, said the study by MAKAAM.

Gaikwad said she has not yet been able to repay her husband’s debt. “Some people had come to ask me for the money. But I told them of my situation. So they left,” said Gaikwad, “They might come back and I don’t know what I will do or how will I pay them.”

The Maharashtra government provides an ex gratia amount of Rs 1 lakh to the family of an indebted farmer who commits suicide. However, the death must be declared as farmer suicide for the family to get the money. “Documents stating the details of the loan have to be submitted to the committee constituted under the collector. After the committee approves it, the family gets the money,” said Raju Desale, working president of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), a farmers’ union.

Gaikwad said she has not yet received the ex-gratia amount and that she has no idea about the procedure to get it.

To increase women farmers’ access to government schemes, the Maharashtra government on June 18, 2019 passed a government resolution to transfer the land title (called the 7/12 extract in Maharashtra) to the widow of the farmer who committed suicide. The resolution also states that widows will be given priority in access to government schemes and assistance cells shall be created at district level for the widows.

IndiaSpend tried contacting the officials at the Maharashtra revenue and forest department to know more about the implementation of the resolution but has not received a response yet. We visited the office of the principal secretary, Manu Kumar Srivastava, sent the office two emails and tried contacting him via the telephone five times. We will update this story if and when we receive a response.

(Reporting for this story was funded as a part of the Impact Journalism grant.)

Correction: An earlier version of the story erroneously said that the agriculture department defines farmers to include labourers, tenants and other workers. We have now corrected it to say that the National Policy for Farmers, 2007 recommended that definition.

(Shreya Raman is a data analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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Faridabad: A farmer inspects his crops after rains left them damaged.

If all countries managed to achieve all their climate commitments, the earth will still get 3°C warmer by 2100, twice the 1.5°C limit agreed upon in the Paris Agreement of 2015, according to the report released by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a consortium of three research organisations that analyse climate-change policies of 32 countries.

The report was released on December 11, 2018, in the recently concluded 24th Conference of Parties (COP24) of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change. Representatives from 196 countries and European Union met in Katowice, Poland to set guidelines to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement. The countries signed the Katowice Climate Package after a two-week long discussion and negotiation.

“The guidelines contained in the Katowice Climate Package provide the basis for implementing the agreement as of 2020,” said Michal Kurtyka, economist and President of COP 24. But states already dealing with devastating floods, droughts and extreme weather made worse by climate change said the package lacked the bold ambition to cut emissions the world needed.

“Urgent adaptation needs of developing countries have been relegated to a second-class status,” said Wael Aboulmagd, Egyptian ambassador and chair of the G77 plus China negotiating bloc comprised of developing countries.

Countries clashed on how to recognise the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on 1.5°C and whether to clearly state the need for greater ambition to stay below this temperature limit, Carbon Brief, a UK-based website that covers climate science and climate and energy policy, reported on December 16, 2018. Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C, said the IPCC special report released on October 8, 2018.

Efforts Taken By Countries To Fight Climate Change

Source: Climate Action Tracker

CAT rates the policies of the countries it analyses in terms of the temperature rise they could lead to. None of the 32 countries featured in this analysis have policies that will keep global warming under 1.5°C. Only Morocco and The Gambia complied with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Also, global CO2 levels rose in 2017 after a three-year break and greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high as per the Emissions Gap Report, 2018 by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released in November 2018. There is no sign this trend will reverse, the report noted, adding that nations would need to triple their efforts to meet the Paris Agreement targets.

Unless emissions are rapidly reduced, temperatures are expected to rise, leading to runaway climate change as early as next 10-12 years, predicted a November 2018 report by Climate Trends, a Delhi-based climate research firm. Events related to global warming such as floods, droughts, heat waves and cyclones will impact the world’s poor more and will push them into further poverty, stated the report, released on November 30, 2018, in New Delhi.

Poor worst affected by the impact of global warming
People exposed to natural hazards in low-income regions are seven times more likely to die, and six times more likely to be injured or displaced, compared to those in high-income regions, said the Climate Trends report.

Although absolute economic loss is higher in high-income areas, it is the poor who will lose a bigger part of their assets and income, as per a 2016 World Bank report titled, ‘Shock Waves, Managing The Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty’. Poor communities tend to hold most of their wealth in forms like housing or livestock which are less resistant to natural hazards. In a flood, for instance, houses in a slum are more likely to be destroyed than those in the more affluent quarters of a city.

Natural disasters also mean exposure to diseases and loss of livelihood for the poor.

Half of India could have moderate to severe climate hotspots
India is the 14th most vulnerable country to impacts of climate change; 2,726 people died in India in 2017 because of extreme-weather events. And such casualties are expected to rise in the future. Around 44.8% of India’s current population (600 million) live today in locations that could become moderate or severe climate hotspots by 2050 if climate change efforts remain at current levels, said a June 2018 World Bank report titled ‘South Asia’s Hotspots : Impacts of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards’

By 2050, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh will be the top two climate hotspots and the living standards in these states will reduce by 9%, predicted the report. Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra take up the other three places in the top five.

India will witness two contrasting trends in the future: There will be more extreme rainfall which will lead to floods and a weaker monsoon which will lead to less rainfall over central India, said the report by Climate Trends. Such erratic rainfall patterns will affect the food security in the country where 56% of the farms are unirrigated.

Rural India, farmers will be more acutely affected
A 1°C rise in temperature reduces farmer incomes by 6.2% during the kharif (winter) season and 6% during rabi (monsoon) season in unirrigated districts, IndiaSpend had reported on March 22, 2018. And for every 100 mm drop in average rainfall, farmer incomes fall 15% during the kharif season and 7% during rabi. This will affect India’s food security, leaving its poor more vulnerable to rising food prices. It will also impact over half of India’s population which is dependent on the agricultural sector.

Climate change affects those living in rural areas more those in urban areas, said the Climate Trends report. This is because rural communities–with less access to market, capital and insurance–have fewer resources to cope with a disaster and rebuild themselves.

More than 100 million pushed into poverty
The impact of climate change is not just limited to those living in extreme poverty. By 2030, the income of the bottom 40% people will reduce in comparison to scenarios without climate change, predicted the 2016 World Bank report. More than 100 million people may be pushed into poverty, it added.

This widening of the wealth gap and the impact of climate change on worsening poverty will be much smaller in countries where development is rapid, inclusive and climate-informed, stated the report.

The 2016 World Bank Shock Waves report considered two scenarios–‘prosperity scenario’ and ‘poverty scenario’–to understand the effect of the world’s current choices in fighting climate change. Prosperity scenario assumes that extreme poverty in the world will have been reduced to less than 3% by 2030. The poverty scenario assumes that 11% of the population will continue to remain in extreme poverty.

The effects of climate change on poverty are significantly reduced in the prosperity scenario as compared to the poverty scenario, the study found.

Impact Of Climate Change On Poverty

Note: Increase in number of extreme poor people due to climate change in the high-impact climate scenario (% of total population)

Governments need to choose pro-poor and inclusive development policies to reduce the long-term threat of climate change, stated the report. Further, targeted actions in agriculture, health and ecological sectors to make those living in poverty less vulnerable to climate change may help reduce the wealth gap.

(Shreya Raman is a data analyst with IndiaSpend.)
 

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No more than 6% of criminal cases against India’s MPs and MLAs ended in conviction, according to data submitted by the Centre to the Supreme Court.

Of 3,884 such cases–conviction for which results in a six-year ban from contesting elections–guilty judgements were pronounced in 38 and 560 were acquitted, the Centre told the Supreme Court on September 11, 2018.

Source: Centre’s affidavit in Supreme Court, dated September 11, 2018

In 18 of 29 states and two of seven union territories, there were no convictions for criminal cases against MPs and MLAs; the cases include murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, hate speech and criminal intimidation.

The highest number of acquittals were in Kerala (147 acquittals, 8 convictions), Tamil Nadu (68 acquitals, 3 convictions) and Bihar (48 acquittals, 0 convictions).

The highest number of convictions were in Orissa (10), Kerala (8) and Uttar Pradesh (5).

The affidavit was submitted during a hearing of a two-year-old public interest litigation, which demanded a life ban for politicians convicted in criminal cases. On December 14, 2017, the court ordered the Centre to set up 12 special courts to deal with such cases, asking the courts to start working from March 1, 2018.

With a budget of Rs 7.8 crore, courts were established in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal and two special courts in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The other 19 states and one union territory were to fast-track pending cases.

Six months after the March deadline, 40% (1,233) of these cases were transferred to the special courts, of which judgements were pronounced in 136 (11%); 89% (1,097) cases so transferred are pending.

Source: Centre’s affidavit in Supreme Court, dated September 11, 2018
Note: The notification to set up a special court in Tamil Nadu was issued on September 6, 2018, and the special court in Uttar Pradesh started working from August 21, 2018. Transfer of cases to both these courts continues.

The highest number of pending cases among the states where special courts were set up was in Bihar (249), followed by West Bengal (226) and Kerala (233).

In Kerala and West Bengal, only one case each has been disposed. In Uttar Pradesh, which had the highest number of cases (565), the special court started functioning on August 21, 2018. In Tamil Nadu, where 402 cases were filed against legislators, the notification for the special court was issued on September 6, 2018.

Source: Centre’s affidavit in Supreme Court, dated March 12, 2018

*Data for Maharashtra and Goa sourced from Centre’s affidavit in Supreme Court, dated September 11, 2018

These cases should be fast-tracked, especially as four state elections (Mizoram, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh) and the Lok Sabha elections will be conducted over the next eight months, Major General Anil Verma (Retired), National Coordinator of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an advocacy, told IndiaSpend.

In 2014, ADR, along with National Election Watch (NEW), a campaign comprising of 1,200 non-governmental organisations working on electoral reforms, analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 542 of 543 winners in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and found that a candidate with a criminal background was almost twice more likely to win than a candidate with no criminal background. The winning chances of a candidate with criminal background were 13%, while those of a candidate with no criminal background were 5%.

“People feel these legislators with criminal backgrounds have clout, and they are able to get work done from bureaucrats or lower level functionaries of the government,” said Verma, “In rural areas, people do not give too much importance to criminal cases. They think, ‘if he gets our work done, it is okay, we will vote for him.’”  

The petition in the Supreme Court argued that current provisions of the Representatives of People’s Act (1951) for convicted legislators are not enough. The petitioner and a spokesperson of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Ashwini Upadhyay, told IndiaSpend that a ban for six years is not enough.

“The bar for legislators has to be set higher than that for other civil servants,” said Upadhyay. “Civil servants are suspended the moment the police files a chargesheet against them and are allowed to resume work only when the court acquits them. But so many politicians continue to hold posts despite several cases against them, including those of rape, kidnapping, murder and hate speech.”

An analysis by ADR in April 2018 found that 48 legislators had criminal cases filed against them for crimes against women. In another report released in April 2018, ADR found 58 legislators have cases registered against them on charges related to hate speech.

(Shreya Raman is a data analyst at IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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Yet, a third of teaching posts are vacant in India’s central universities, no Indian university–India has 36.6 million university students–finds a place in the global top 100 and the highest rank achieved this year was 420 by Indian Institute of Science, a five-year low.  
 

Source: Centre for World University Rankings
 
The rankings of Indian universities have steadily declined over four years to 2018. In 2014, the highest rank an Indian university reached was 328, in 2015 it was 341, in 2016, it dropped to 354 and in 2017, it was 397.
 

Source: Centre for World University Rankings
 
These ranks primarily focus on the quantity and quality of research papers–55% of the weightage–how many appear in top-tier or influential journals and how many are cited by other researchers.
 
Professors play a leading role in conducting academic research, apart from teaching duties. But India is short of professors, with 5,606 posts vacant in central universities, a shortfall of 33%, Satya Pal Singh, minister of state, ministry of human resources development (HRD) told the Lok Sabha (Parliament’s lower house) on July 23, 2018. At the flagship Indian Institutes of Technology, 2,802 (34%) teaching posts are vacant.
 

 
Vacancies affect quality of teaching, research
 
Vacancies have been affecting the quality of teaching and research, professors told IndiaSpend. “For the last 15-20 years, universities have been neglected,” said Laxmi Narayan, a sociology professor from the University of Hyderabad. “There have been no teacher recruitments. A majority of the posts are vacant. When there are no teachers in the university, the quality of education will be low.”
 
Permanent teachers have the “time and responsibility” for research since they are not concerned with job security, Narayan said. But “nowadays, the entire system is made up of contract teachers”.
 
Professors who do not have a permanent job–called “ad hocs”–find themselves on a contract that can range from four months to a year. “Recruitments have not taken place for a number of years now,” a Delhi University professor told IndiaSpend on condition of anonymity. “A lot of teachers have been working as ad hocs. The ministry has not given a nod to the recruitment process. Even if the recruitments don’t take place, the teaching has to go on. So a huge number of ad hoc teachers are hired, who don’t have a sense of belonging to the institution.”
 
The government said recruitment is controlled by universities, and the ministry and Universities Grants Commission only monitor the process. “Occurring and filling up of vacancies is a continuous process,” India’s HRD minister Prakash Javadekar told the Lok Sabha (Parliament’s lower house) on July 23, 2018. “Universities being autonomous institutions, the onus of filling up of vacant teaching posts lies with them.”
 
“Universities are empowered to take a decision to engage contract faculty, if the recruitment is delayed due to court cases or such other contingencies,” R. Subrahmanyam, secretary of higher education in the HRD ministry, told IndiaSpend over email.
 
The question of money
 
Funding appears to be a key issue in filling vacant teaching posts.
 
“The government says they don’t have enough money to recruit professors,” said Narayan. “So, instead of hiring one permanent teacher, which costs around Rs 100,000 to Rs 150,000, the universities hire three to four contract teachers.”
 
Western nations typically spend a greater proportion of their budget on higher education and a higher proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) on education, as the chart below indicates.
 

 
India spent 4.13% of its GDP on education in 2014, according to HRD Ministry data. This is lower than the UK, US and South Africa–countries that spent 5.68%, 5.22% and 6.05% respectively, of GDP on education. Fifty one of the top 100 universities in 2018-19 were from the US and eight from the UK.
 
The Indian government does plan to increase higher-education funding, with an increased focus on research. “Government has embarked on improving the funding for research, among other measures, to make the universities more competitive at (the) global level,” said higher-education secretary Subrahmanyam.
 
(Shreya Raman is a data analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Vehicles pass by a government of India poster around the World Hindi Conference in September, 2015. In its first 52 months in power, the National Democratic Alliance government spent Rs 4880 crore on publicity.
 
These were some of the things that could have been financed with the money that the current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government spent on publicity in the four years it has governed India.
 
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government spent Rs 4,880 crore ($753.99 million) on advertising its flagship schemes in the 52 months between April 2014 and July 2018, according to the information made available to the Rajya Sabha (Parliament’s upper house) by Rajyavardhan Rathore, minister of state (Independent Charge) for information and broadcasting.
 
This amount is double the sum spent by the government’s predecessor in 37 months: The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government spent Rs 2,048 crore ($377.32 million) between March 2011 and March 2014, according to this 2014 response to a Right To Information (RTI) query filed by activist Anil Galgali.
 
Of the Rs 4,880 crore the NDA spent on publicity, Rs 292.17 crore (7.81%) went to advertising four public schemes in three years–Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme) for crop insurance, Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission) for a nationwide cleanliness campaign, Smart City Mission and Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (Ideal Village Scheme for Members of Parliament) for urban and rural development.
 

 
When these figures came to light in July 2018, the government was criticised for not investing the money in public utilities.

 
 
 
IndiaSpend calculations showed that the money spent by the NDA on publicity could have been used in critical government projects ranging from child nutrition to public health and sanitation.

 
There’s been a 34% rise in govt ad spend in four years
 
Government expenditure on advertisements rose 34% from Rs 980 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 1,314 crore ($203.89 million) in 2017-18.
 
In 2016-17, the government cut down on print advertisements and channeled money into audio-visual publicity instead. But in 2017-18, it did the reverse–it spent more on print ads than audio-visual campaigns.
 
The 2017-18 trend seemed to have continued into this financial year too. The government’s bookings in the four months to July 2018 show that it has spent double the money on print advertising over audio-visual publicity.
 
(Shreya Raman is a data analyst with IndiaSpend.)
 
Courtesy: India Spend

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