REFLECTIONS

State Planning Commission: Report Submission

Somya Sethuraman — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:45:43 +0000

Dear friends,

I finally managed to finish my report on urban sanitation in Tamil Nadu. As a member of the steering committee on ‘urban water supply and sanitation’ for the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission’s Twelfth Five Year Plan, I was not only expected to submit this paper but also defend my recommendations in front of the committee. The committee is headed by the Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission, and also includes experts on water and sanitation from the government as well as the civil society. The committee meets a couple of times before the plan document is prepared for the next five years. The twelfth plan document for Tamil Nadu is supposed to be finalized by the end of January 2012 and tabled and discussed at the Centre in March.

All in all it was an exciting experience, and how I wish to give you a complete account of what happened within the four walls of the Planning Commission office when my paper was tabled. However, I am afraid you might want to go to sleep reading it. So sticking to only very important stuff: Read my report here. For further details, write to me! somyase@gmail.com

I want to take this opportunity to thank all my friends for their support and enthusiasm from the bottom of my heart. Wish you all a very happy 2012!

My Brother

Somya Sethuraman — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:09:03 +0000

Together, hand in hand, we took our first step,

Into this world, without fear we leapt,

My little brother, my world, my life,

Loves all, from people to food to bikes

A time came when life asked us to part,

It made us to sit in our own respective carts,

Hand in hand slowly became very rare,

Little time did we have to even care or share

But in reality, little time was just an excuse,

Our relation became more of email and abuse,

Love was still there, but was slowly getting clogged,

Reasons many, we thought of, to fight and mock

But the truth is I still quietly circle around him

In this materialistic world, full of fancies and whim

I believe he has his secret problems and issues,

About which I really have very few clues

All that remains are some memories and pictures,

In my life, he still holds a permanent position and fixture

Not only in mine, but also my beloved parents’ world

With my big brother I still walk, but with a twist and a twirl

Self Destruction

Somya Sethuraman — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:01:20 +0000

I woke up with a heavy head. Something had definitely gone terribly wrong last night. Yes, I can remember now…..

No time to clean the fridge or table

Can’t afford to lag behind the super able

I run haplessly from one end to the other

In spite of those lectures by dear mother

That it is high time to settle down she says

But why is that so hard for me to obey

Not like I have much to really give and take

But there are other things in my mind that cook and bake

I am not like the rest of the world I tell

To my friends and family that doesn’t seem to ring a bell

They continue to treat me like I am someone else

Nobody really asks what’s cooking inside my little shell

But to be honest I really don’t know

Whether to stay and where to go

Because I really haven’t had the freedom to think

So many wishes to fulfill, there’s no time to blink

Life goes on and I continue to run around

Without much direction and with conditions abound

I truly wish I could let me mind free

Without people hovering around like bumble bees

Bleaurgh.

Toilets, Toilets!

Somya Sethuraman — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:23:18 +0000

When I wrote the last post on sanitation, I was quite depressed. But a couple of weeks later, good news followed me all the way to Delhi. I learnt that I had been made a member of the steering committee on Urban Water Supply and Sanitation for the State Planning Commission’s 12th Five Year Plan report!

I realized this was an excellent opportunity to write and tell the world about all I had experienced and learnt till now. Not only was I made the coordinator for a report on Public Conveniences, but I was also given the opportunity to interact with people who had spent their lives fighting for this cause. I was extremely grateful to God and decided to work really hard on writing this report.

I also made up my mind to attend all the meetings held by the State Planning Commission during the making of this report. In addition to showing the SPC how committed I am to my work, I also wanted to experience what it might be like (if I ever chose) to work with the government. The last month has been extremely hectic, and I want to write and tell you more about it. But I will stop here. Next post will have further details.

To all those in the development sector: Never think you are not making a difference to the world because you never know when what might change due to your tiny effort! That’s my lesson, what’s yours?

Jobless, but not blogless

Somya Sethuraman — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:52:05 +0000

The entire world is writing, making my writing more and more insignificant. Everybody has a blog. Nobody reads mine, so I stopped posting long back. But I am particularly jobless today.

I feel empty and shallow inside,

No thought or reason to guide,

I walk and pause as I take every step-

Does life have any meaning or depth?

What is mine is actually not mine,

With what I earn I only fine dine,

Those who care and those who dare

Tell me if you have anything to bare?

I have many things to say,

But for now I will put them to bay,

If you have things to talk,

With me, will you care to walk?

Fighting for better public toilets in Chennai

Somya Sethuraman — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:36:59 +0000

I have completed slightly more than a year researching and writing about the status of sanitation in Chennai.

A proposal was written to commence the study and questionnaires were prepared. I visited 55 public toilets to collect data so as to assess local needs and problems. I mapped, along with my colleagues, each of these toilet locations and documented the local conditions and desires. Many slum colonies were covered during this exercise to get an overall picture of the situation. I also had an active dialogue with the government on this issue, for which I had to sometimes wait outside an officer’s room for hours. I did see support coming from all directions – colleagues, media and the civil society.

But here I am today, sitting at my desk, clueless about what to do next. Public toilets look the same today, if not worse; slum colonies still have poor sanitation, people are still dying of diarrhea, women and children still lack privacy, and people are still talking about the same issues – clearly, things haven’t changed a bit from where I started a year ago. .

When I met retired researchers in Chennai, I always wondered why they were so pessimistic about the state of affairs in this city. But I am beginning to understand why. It is not easy to change anything here. In fact it is almost impossible. Almost because I still have this little bit of hope that refuses to die.

Through a series of posts, I hope to spread some awareness about the importance of sanitation, and also the difficulties of working with the bureaucracy.

The issue brief that I wrote after mapping and surveying the toilets in Chennai can be accessed here:

http://www.transparentchennai.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Public-Toilets-Transparent-Chennai-Issue-Brief.pdf

NSSO’s 66th Round Survey Reveals Shocking Data

Somya Sethuraman — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:08:32 +0000

New employment data released by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) shows that the UPA government generated only 2 million jobs between 2004 and 2009, even as the economy grew at the rate of 8.43 percent annually. The employment numbers present a stark contrast to the Planning Commission’s target of 58 million jobs in the five years between 2007 and 2012. The new NSSO survey numbers have added on to the pile of problems and corruption charges that the UPA has been embroiled in during its second tenure. Many are now referring to this tenure as the phase of jobless growth. The figure, 2 million new jobs, looks worse when one looks at the number of new jobs the NDA government generated between 1999 and 2004 – 62 million.

NSSO’s survey, presently the most credible and widely respected sample survey in India, is now drawing flak from some very influential officials, including the chief statistician of India and the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission. Right from the methodology to the survey process and analysis, everything is being questioned, maybe to sidetrack the nation from real issues in hand.

Let’s look more closely at what the 66^th Round says. According to NSSO data, the employment rate has actually declined in the five year period ended 2009-10 to 39.2 per cent from 42 per cent in 2004-05. This means, if the growth in population is factored out, there has been a decline in employment in absolute terms. When one looks at these statistics along with Census of India projections, it seems that during this 5 year period, only 2 million jobs were added compared with 55 million who joined the workforce aged between 15-59 years.

The report by NSSO also shows an increase in the number of casual workers[1] by 21.9 million, while growth in the number of regular workers nearly halved between 2004-05 and 2009-10, compared with the previous 5 year period. This means that there has been a substantial shift in the structure of labour force in the Indian economy during the period in question. Planning Commission’s Prinicipal Adviser, Pronab Sen, quickly came to the rescue of the UPA government by saying something on these lines– 2009-10 was a severe drought year, possibly forcing some among the self employed (includes farmers) into casual labour.

NSSO’s director general himself spoke of these numbers. He said: “Discussion on these topics in India often loosely uses language of employment and labour market from the more developed world, with misleading and confused conclusions.” He went on to say that these bunched numbers (2 million jobs vs 62 million) hide many distinct structural problems. His explanation suggests that fewer jobs were created because of an improvement in other socio economic indicators; 1. Many young individuals, previously employed in menial jobs have quit, and joined back school. This is evident from increased school attendance and decline in child labour. 2. Fewer people have multiple jobs now because their primary job is enough to help them make ends meet. 3. Participation of women in the labour force has declined sharply, also because of an improvement in other socio-economic indicators (eg: spending more time in school).

However, neither does this explain the increase in the number of casual workers, nor does it tell us about the second jobs that people abandoned. It is still unclear from reports as to what people are finally drawing from the NSSO data. The 64^thRound also hinted that we be cautious, but went largely ignored. Should the government be alarmed? Are there some serious corrections required in the economy, to include rapid growth in labour intensive manufacturing as one of our primary objectives? Should we be reminded of the reforms in the 1990s and promises of new jobs in the factory that were made? Whatever the final verdict is, we know the debate that is being generated in academic circles was much needed. Job creation has again gained the importance it always deserved. It also acts a reminder to the government to check how far we have drifted from our vision of inclusive growth.

All facts/figures stated here have been taken from leading journals and newspapers, as well as NSSO report, and are not views expressed by the author. References upon request.

Somya Sethuraman.

[1] Casual workers are employees who do not enjoy the same benefits and security as tenured employees.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SANITATION

Somya Sethuraman — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:43:18 +0000

The Government of India launched the National Urban Sanitation Policy in 2008 to achieve 100 per cent sanitation coverage in Indian cities, through methods that encourage community participation. In this regard, the Ministry of Urban Development also allotted Rs. 13 crore to support cities to prepare their City Sanitation Plans (CSPs). A district level study was undertaken to rate the level of sanitization on 19 broad parameters called the “urban sanitation indicators”. These Service Level Benchmarks reveal that none of the cities in India, including Chennai, are close to achieving complete sanitization. Chennai, in fact, has been rated as a city that needs considerable improvement in its sanitary conditions. Yet we see very little effort and money committed towards sanitation.

While many states have already undertaken the process of writing their CSPs, the state government of Tamil Nadu has been completely irresponsive on this front. None of the cities in Tamil Nadu have been granted any funds to initiate the writing of CSPs for their city. Sources say that the Tamil Nadu government hasn’t been proactive in taking this up. For instance, Chennai which has only 715 public toilets serving a population of approximately 5 million, has done very little to improve access to this very basic public amenity. The informal sector in Chennai, which accounts for 70 per cent of the jobs, goods and services utilized by all, largely depends on the amenities provided by the city for its sanitation needs. 1 million people live in Chennai’s slums and over 1200 declared slums accommodate approximately 23 per cent of the city’s population. They lack all access to adequate shelter and services. Open defecation is still a common practice and women and children feel safer defecating in open fields close to their workplaces or homes rather than having to walk long distances to urinate in dimly lit city toilets. Considering the current status of sanitation, why are sanitation investments so less and programs not pro-poor? Why do sound policies and programs fail to take off in certain regions and states while they do wonderfully well in others?

A recent World Bank study – “The Political Economy of Sanitation: How can we increase investment and improve service for the poor?” discusses operational experiences from case studies from four different countries including India. It shows that the current limited focus on sanitation is driven largely by political motivation in the context of competing demands for resources, and to a lesser extent by technical or economic considerations.

“The case study looks at the political drivers for the success of the Total Sanitation Campaign in rural Maharashtra. Designed as a supply-driven sanitation program, the campaign has a set of defined components that include information, education and communication, community mobilization activities, construction of household toilets and community complexes, and provision of toilets in government schools and anganwadis. The India case study examines why the Total Sanitation Campaign failed to take off in most the states until 2004–05 and provides political economy insights on the Maharashtra success story”

To download the report, click here.

Looking Beneath the Surface: Killed Cats and Vilified Narikuravas

Somya Sethuraman — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:28:51 +0000

By Krithika Srinivasan

This is with reference to the article titled ‘Cat biryani, anybody?’ that appeared in Express Buzz on the 21st August 2010. I would like to respond to both the author of the original article as well as those who have commented on the online version of the article. As someone who works with animals trying to promote their well-being, at first glance, the article does seem to be advocating a very cruel practice.

However, on re-reading it, I find myself unsure about its true motives. The author vacillates constantly between celebrating cat meat and criminalising the Narikuravas, and on the whole, the article appears to tilt towards the latter.

The write-up begins with the question ‘Has your well-fed pet cat suddenly gone missing?’ It goes on to derogate the Narikuravas as thieves, ‘drifters’ and cunning businessmen who steal pet cats from high income neighbourhoods as they consider cat meat a delicacy, and then most bizarrely, culminates with a line that appears to celebrate cat meat – I say ‘bizarrely’ as the overall tone of the article seems to be one that vilifies the Narikuravas for not only their food habits, but also for their nomadic ways of life and trades.

There are a couple of issues that I would like to highlight here. Narikuravas do eat cat meat, but to the best of my knowledge, most of them eat cats that they rear themselves. From what I have seen, these cats live as their companions before being killed to be eaten. This seems to be far less ‘barbaric’ than the practice of eating commercially produced hens, goats or cattle. Now it might be true that there are some cases of theft of ‘pets’, but vilifying an entire community is not the right way of addressing such issues.

Unfortunately, the article seems to have provoked responses that overlook these underlying contradictions. Most of the comments have responded to just those parts of the article that connect the practice of eating cat meat and the purported theft of pet cats by the Narikuravas. While I do agree that it is irresponsible for a newspaper article to be advocating violence of any kind towards animals or humans, I also think that as animal activists, we need to be more considered in our responses to such articles and practices. Is the eating of animals that we are objecting to, or the eating of cats (or dogs), or the theft of pet cats? If it is the purported theft of pet cats that we are objecting to, we should not have any objections to the Narikuravas eating cats (or dogs or any other animal) that they have reared for the purpose. Of course, it is possible that we are concerned about both the human distress from losing a pet and animal welfare, but objections on welfare grounds to cat meat or dog meat in isolation cannot really be justified.

To sum up – the article’s presentation of a legitimate issue is problematic. On the surface, it appears to celebrate cat meat, whereas, the subtext seems to one that seeks to demonize the already marginalised Narikurava community. It is my contention that the article is deliberately trying to provoke negative reactions from the public and the animal activist community against the Narikuravas. Even if the author wished to highlight a particular practice, it is irresponsible to do so in a manner that simultaneously condones violence against animals and incites hatred against a particular human community. And most unfortunately, the article seems to have succeeded in doing that, as the comments clearly show.

Krithika Srinivasan is a doctoral researcher at King’s College London working in the field of animal studies.

Walkathon Diaries – 2

Somya Sethuraman — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:31:40 +0000

It has been more than two months since I wrote the first of my walkathon diaries and life has changed a lot since then. First, my office has shifted from Teynampet to Kanagam, Taramani. Second, I also moved from a paying guest accommodation in Gandhinagar, Adyar to another house in Padmanabha Nagar, Adyar. Third, I have spent two more months in my very own city of beaches, with its amazing culture and simple people – Namba Chennai! All these changes mean that I have a new story to tell, a new walkway to talk about and an opportunity to blog on Transparent Chennai, a platform which brings together the residents of Chennai. Read more at http://www.transparentchennai.com/blog/