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by admin — last modified 2005-11-21 21:23

Statutory DMP provisions for equal and efficient access for all to healthcare and education have been all but dismantled. Illegal allotments and use of facility sites stand condoned by continuing disregard of efforts since 2000, including PIL of 2003, against them. DMP’s holistic concept of equal access stands reduced to beggarly prayer for freebies for the poorest, with definition of both opened to negotiations, as a result of simplistic PIL. The decks stand cleared for those with their hearts set on providing noble services in global markets – and decisions to reduce or do away with conditions, even sites, needed to ensure access for citizens are unlawfully but freely being taken.

The betrayal of school children, as chronicled in 2000 under a different regime: “… mid-2000… 1818 MCD-run primary schools … functioning out of 1264 school buildings …poorly maintained… In January 2000, “after analysing the problems” Sheila Dikshit’s government, in its inimitable style, had “come to the conclusion that both teachers and students seem to be lacking in ‘motivation'”. To ‘motivate’ teachers delegating financial powers to principals and three-week training were on the anvil. To ‘motivate’ students …‘incentives’ like free uniforms … half way through winter, MCD was getting down to distributing 50000 uniform jerseys amongst its 900000 students. … August… only 50 per cent of the maintenance and repair works that had to be carried out during vacations had been completed… shortage of at least 1000 teachers… In September, MCD conducted a survey and found over 100000 out-of-school children… “established an all-time record by taking its enrolment figures to over 80000”. … its school buildings had place for 55000 students and officials had been directed to assess where double shifts and tents were needed. … prolonged neglect of school buildings has been … making ‘landless’ options the norm … NGOs have been running shanty schools, even street schools, in slums. Now even governments … August 2000 MCD, ‘taking a major initiative’, decided to set up ‘extended schools’ with community help… Necessitated by the decision to enroll 80-100000 students with infrastructure to accommodate only 55000… SCERT and an NGO called Navjyoti coaxed MCD to open one such school in Yamuna Pushta. … In a similar, much larger exercise in Indore in 1999 the government ‘opened’ 103 schools in slums by writing school in chalk on the doors of community halls built under the ODA slum project… part of a larger exercise of ‘rationalisation’ in which, it was claimed, poorly attended schools were being closed and merged to optimise teacher student ratios. … administration was proudly saying these were ‘no-cost’ schools and appealing to charitable organisations to contribute floor mats, etc. (In similar vein, in Delhi in 2000 the Mayor was asking citizens to help make municipal schools in their areas better…) … It is not clear why those …in government and non-government …set up pathetic ‘extended schools’ on illegal community land in slums rather than enforce legal land lease provisions for the same in well-equipped schools. … From the point of view of slum children, who do not have many opportunities to come out of the squalor around their homes, location of their school within their slum is worse than almost any other alternative. For others, such as land mafia, it is better for not using real estate. After all, even many government schools occupy sites that have become prime land and many feel are wasted on the poor. In Delhi the attempt of an unscrupulous builder to grab a school site made news in May 2000. In Indore nearly all schools closed in 1999 – though they had varying levels of enrollment and dilapidation – were centrally located... (Excerpt from “Little People’s Rights”, Ch.3, Slumming India, Penguin India, 2002; 1999 chronicle about Indore Zila Sarkar’s interventions posted here)

DMP gives legal strength to commitment to equal access neighbourhood schools that draft education Bill 2003 and compliance of court order in PIL for free seats have been diluting. PIL on free beds in hospitals, likewise, is confusing equity basis of DMP for charity perspective. NCMP commitments called for progressive implementation of DMP schema for social facilities (also as framework for optimally absorbing resources committed without central law for education).

Instead, statutory DMP provisions for equal and efficient access for all to healthcare and education have been all but dismantled. Illegal allotments and use of facility sites stand condoned by continuing disregard of efforts since 2000, including PIL of 2003, against them. DMP’s holistic concept of equal access stands reduced to beggarly prayer for freebies for the poorest, with definition of both opened to negotiations, as a result of simplistic PIL. The decks stand cleared for those with their hearts set on providing noble services in global markets – and decisions to reduce or do away with conditions, even sites, needed to ensure access for citizens are unlawfully but freely being taken.

Convergence opportunities … missed and subverted

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