Thiruvananthapuram: Two decades after the LDF Government took the revolutionary initiative to decentralise financial and administrative powers to the local bodies and even succeeded in achieving it to a great extent, Kerala is all set to witness Peoples Plan 2.0. If in 1996 the emphasis was on creating a decentralised planning and implementation mechanism at the grassroots level, the focus this time is on burgeoning issues confronting state’s 3.5 crore population; waste management, toxic vegetables, organic farming, natural resources management, issues of marginalized sections including dalits, tribals and fishermen, elderly, differently abled and children. The campaign aims at solving these problems with people’s participation backed by strong administrative and political measure.
Waste continues to be one of the biggest problems confronting the state. According to estimates, Kerala generates nearly 7000 tonnes of garbage daily of which biodegradable waste accounts for 70 to 80 per cent and plastic nearly 10 to 15 per cent. With very few cities having effective working garbage disposal and recycling units, tones of waste generated daily is getting piled up all over the state causing environmental pollution besides communicable diseases.
Experts say Kochi generates 300 to 350 tonnes waste per day,
Thiruvananthpuaram 200-250, Thrissur 70 to 80 tonnes, Kollam and Kozhikode 60 to 70 tonnes. The peoples plan will unleash a people's war against waste and emphasise on waste disposal at source. The peoples plan aims at promoting organic farming in a big way. “Our aim is to spread organic farming to an area of 50,000 hectares to attain self sufficiency in vegetable production,” he added. There are about 12 lakh homeless families in the state mostly belonging to the marginalised sections of the society; SC, ST, fishermen, the landless, destitute and women headed households.
Over 2.3 lakh landless families are still running from pillar to post to get a piece of land. The population of elderly in the state has crossed 48 lakh mark. Their sustenance and health issues pose a huge challenge. Environment protection, conservation of natural resources, problems of differently abled, children and marginalised sections will receive top focus. A specific road map is being prepared to tackle these issues effectively.
A state level workshop in Thiruvananthapuram early next month will give shape to peoples plan. “We plan to start the campaign full steam after Onam. Our focus is on specific issues like waste management, organic farming, conservation of natural resources and welfare of the marginalised sections. We hope to address these issues with people’s participation,” said finance minister T.M. Thomas Isaac, the architect of Peoples Plan I.
Through the previous peoples plan, Kerala could achieve a greater degree of devolution of decision making powers to local bodies compared to other states. The biggest achievement was participatory democracy through gramasabhas, development seminars, task force and participatory development planning. “Since the decentralised system of governance has already been institutionalized in the state, it will be easier to focus on specific issues,” said P.P. Balan, director Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA). LDF is keen on evolving a consensus on peoples plan. But opposition is wary of CPM.
“We are not opposed to peoples plan provided it is not for party but for eradicating poverty. We cooperated with peoples plan in 1996. But the CPM tried to use the programme for further their party interests. Hope they keep party politics out this time,” said M.M. Hassan, KPCC vice-president. But the second leg of peoples plan comes at a time when ground reality is not that rosy. The performance of just about 20 per cent of the 1199 local bodies can be termed good in terms of high participation in grama sabhas, enrolment of volunteers, local level planning, project preparation, transparency, administrative efficiency and checking corruption.
The functioning of the 25 per cent of the local bodies is bad as they rank very low in performance parameters. The rest are average. Grama sabhas in majority of the local bodies are defunct, adversely affecting participatory democracy at the local level. Many believe that the second edition of peoples plan runs the risk of turning ineffective if the above issues are not addressed and tackled effectively.
