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| CONSULTATION ON DALIT RIGHT TO FOOD AND LIVELIHOOD, LUCKNOW 2008 |
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| Written by tia | |
| Tuesday, 18 November 2008 | |
Pairvi organized a state consultation on Dalit right to food and livelihood in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh on 28th August, 2008. It was organized in collaboration with Centre for Community Studies and Research. The consultation discussed about dalit education and land distribution pronlems as well as the role of civil society organizations for the cause of dalits.
Mr. H.Dhar- Ex -Member of Planning Commission, Mr. S.R.Darapuri- Retd I.P.S, R.T.I. Activist, Mr. Shailender Sagar- A.D.G. State Human Right Commission, U.P. Mr D.M Diwakar- Professor Giri Institute, Lucknow ,Ms Arundhati Dhuru- (Advisor to the Supreme Court Commissioner on Right to Food, Mr Aftab Alam (Social Activist) and Mr Devi Prasad Verma (Member NREGA State Council), Mr Uttkarash Sinha- Director CCSR were the eminent speakers in the consultation.
Mr. Dhar spoke about the policies which are affecting the poor people especially the marginalized one like Dalit community. Speaking at the consultation Mr. Darapuri said the level of education among dalit has dropped and is towards an all time low in the state in the last decade. Quoting out the 1991-2001 data’s he said that that the level of technical education among dalit is less than 12% of the entire population. The dropout rate of students among dalits has increased and the present government has not taken step to tackle the situation.Talking about the SC/ST commission he said that the commission has become totally ineffective in the state in addressing the concerns of the dalit community. Focusing on the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mr. Darapuri said that still government has not been able to insure total enrolment of children in schools. Mr. Shailender Sagar said that the commission is only receiving cases which are of police atrocities and people do not register cases which involve acts other then it. He assured the civil society members that the commission will actively deal with all cases of right violation in the state and will take proper course of action. He said that the commission is working in cooperation with the state SC/ST commission to pay more attention towards cases of Dalit community. Mr. Diwarkar spoke on the issue of land of dalit population in the state. He said that the figures available for land distribution has being decreasing from the year 1960 till 2000 on various commision reports , the reason behind the decrease in the figures is not known. The reports have spoken about land distribution, but in reality land has not been distributed in the state. Former feudal lords still own hundreds of acres of land either by exploiting legal loopholes or through illegal stratagems. Mr. Aftab Alam spoke about NREGA and highlighted the challenges which are coming out in the path of its proper implementation. He presented the situation of eastern Uttar Pradesh where still job cards have not been issued to people who have registered for jobs. He emphasized on the fact of empowering the gram Sabha for conducting the social audit themselves. The role of civil society organizations should be restricted to empower the gram Sabha by various capacity building measures. Mr. Devi Prasad Verma spoke about the new techniques being brought in the programme. Talking about the delay in payment of wages he said that like Andhra Pradesh where the money is being transferred directly to accounts of people who are working under the programme. The same procedure can be done in Uttar Pradesh to stop delay of wages and also to curb down corruption which is prevailing in the scheme. Fast track courts should be constituted in the state to the deal with the cases occurring in the programme. Mr. Sinha said that the time has come when everyone needs to think seriously about how we can intervene in the matter of right violation effectively. The consultation came to an end with some recommendations which was put jointly by all the participants in the consultation. Pairvi was asked to come forward with such more initiatives and also organize some capacity building workshops for the partner organizations. It was also suggested that a study can be prepared jointly by the organizations on the status of right to food and livelihood in state. Further it can be elaborated on specific issues like dalit education and land distribution. Since Lok Sabha elections were near it was decided that a comprehensive list of changes regarding various schemes or existing policies could be prepared which can be given to the representatives . |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 18 November 2008 ) |
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