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http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/rasheeda-bhagat/a...
At a village primary school in Andhra Pradeshs Khammam district Whither Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan?
By their corrupt acts, politicians are snatching morsels from the mouths of hungry, malnourished children, and denying a lifeline called education to millions of others. For how long are we going to tolerate this shamelessness?
The rate at which mega scams are tumbling out of this Government's cupboard and the humungous amounts that are being systematically sucked out of the public exchequer, prove one thing. Surely, we cannot be a poor country. How can a country that can drain thousands of crores of rupees in a telecom scam here, a Commonwealth Games (CWG) scandal there, through a huge mining disgrace in Karnataka, and a hundred other instances of swindling, cheating and rip-offs across various States, be called a poor country? The Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai, horrendous land grabs in Tamil Nadu, the mining scam in Karnataka, which got the scalp of Mr B. S. Yeddyurappa, the allocation of 20 acres of prime land in Bhopal by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to the Kushabhau Thakre Training Institute Trust on a Rs 1 a year lease six months before the trust had been formed, or grant of 5-acre land in Chandigarh by the Hooda Government to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust at a throwaway rate. Such scams are crawling out of every nook and corner of the country. The latest CAG report points out that the CWG ending up costing 15 times more at Rs 18,532 crore, compared with the originally estimated Rs 1,200 crore in 2003. The report highlights giving contracts to ineligible firms, the involvement of the Delhi CM's office and, in some cases, the active involvement of the CM herself, in purchasing products and equipment at highly inflated rates. All this has sullied even more the already tainted image of the Congress Party that leads the UPA. The Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dixit, has a lot of explaining to do.
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http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/rasheeda-bhagat/a...
Let's take the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme, aimed at the enrolment and retention of every Indian child till the upper primary level. Budget 2011-12 allocated Rs 21,000 crore, a 40 per cent hike over the previous year, for this laudable project, which also seeks to narrow the gender and communal gap in school enrolment. But with such scams rocking the country, and the public image of politicians, and by implication and some evidence, even the bureaucrats, at its nadir, how can anybody believe that huge chunks of it will not be siphoned away? Coming to India's pathetic rank of 119 on the Human Development Index, in a recent address to the Ahmedabad University, Infosys' Chief Mentor N. R. Narayana Murthy blamed Indians for the pathetic state of affairs and our failure to take proactive action, even when the solution to our problem is staring us in the face for a long time. We have political freedom but we still do not have freedom from hunger, illiteracy and disease. It was a shame that about 250 million people did not have access to basic medical care, and around 350 million to safe drinking water, he said.
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Printable version | Aug 9, 2011 1:40:25 PM | http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/rasheeda-bhagat/article2337095.ece The Hindu Business Line
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