By-elections in
India, especially in Tamilnadu are festivals – more of prestige affairs, may
not change the composition in the Assembly, there are times when opposition
have turned away from contesting – yet good amount of money flows. There is the much touted Thirumangalam
formula – that of money distribution – and now parties are complaining and
seeking action by EC alleging that the ruling party is distributing wads of
money to voters in Srirangam.
Freebies
are nothing new to the State – way back DMK rose to power with slogan "Moondru padi latchiyam, oru padi
nichayam" (3 padi is the goal, 1 padi is for sure). That was a time when
rice was in short supply and there were winding queues in front of ration shops
– after coming to power the Govt did implement ‘one rupee, a measure’ which had
to be withdrawn later.
Goods are rationed
and made available in fairprice shops. The Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies
Corporation was formed as private Company in 1972 under the Companies Act 1956.
From 1975 the Corporation becomes a Public limited Company and caters to the settled policy of the Government to procure,
purchase, store, process, move and distribute the food grains and other
essential commodities under public distribution system. Similar systems exist
in almost all Indian States. With
passage of time, more things became free.
The DMK Govt issued free color TVs ~ the next Govt bettered it and now
the freebies include – cycles for Corporation school children, laptops, mixers,
wet-grinders, table fans ……. Last year,
the TN Govt allocated around Rs 3,100 crore towards procuring laptops, electric
fans, mixies and grinders.
With this lengthy
background, Chattisgarh Govt’s sewing machine became a laughing issue – not
because of the item per se or its distribution but for its recipient. According to the New York times, the oldest
woman on this planet, Jeanne Calment of France died in 1997 at the age of 122
and the Ecuador times reported that the oldest woman alive, Ms. Misao Okawa of
Japan, celebrated her 116th birthday on March 6 this year.
The Hindu, TOI and
host of Press reported that - according
to the information provided by the Chhattisgarh Labour Department under the
Right to Information (RTI) Act, Pushpa Sahu, a resident of Abhanpur area in
Raipur, is the world’s oldest woman at the age of 732, and she received a cycle
under ‘Mukhyamantri Cycle Sahayata Yojana’ (CM Cycle distribution scheme) last
year.
According to
information obtained under the RTI Act,
over 7000 women from Raipur district in the age group of 100-732 years have
benefited through Chhattisgarh government’s women welfare schemes. The two schemes,
Mukhyamantri Silai (sewing) Machine Yojana and Mukhyamantri Cycle Sahayata
Yojana were initiated in 2008 by the state government to support women labourers
working in the unorganized sector under which cycles and sewing machines were
distributed to the female members of the identified families. According to the
Chhattisgarh's Labour Department, the state government distributed around 19398
sewing machines and 4936 cycles to the women worker from unorganized sector in
Raipur district, but as per its own data, 6231 out of 19398 beneficiaries
(sewing machine scheme) and 1368 beneficiaries out of 4936 (cycle scheme) were
aged above 100 years including 532 year-old Usha Jamgade.
Chhattisgarh Labour
Department blamed “software glitch” for
the “faulty” data. “It happened because of software discrepancy. We had
outsourced the work of data entry. There was a data entry gap which culminated
in the process of one RTI activist getting some wrong data,” Labour Commissioner
of Raipur is quoted as saying.
Padi is a local measure approx
equivalent to 1.5 kg. Azhakku, Kuruni,
Padi, marakkal were all measures of olden times. 5 Azhakku = I kilo; 8 Azhakku
1 padi !
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
9th Feb 2015.
