April, 01 has just passed without anybody fooling me around. It was a great fun to wait for this day with some planning during my school and college days. Sprinkling of fountain pen ink on your friends clothes was a major activity apart from some practical jokes played on them. Now, micro tip pens replaced ink pens and the fun (or annoyance depending on which side of the pen you are) is gone.
Indian Government is more serious on this April Fool’s Day. Two major actions have been initiated on this day, which would impact the lives of many Indians for a long time to come. The first activity is the promulgation of RTE (Right To Education) Act. Second is the start of Indian Census 2011 enumeration. Let us discuss them in brief as to how they impact our lives.
Through RTE, the government is trying to bring down illiteracy in the country. The Act stipulates that education has to be provided free to all children between the age of 6 and 14 by the government and it is compulsory. The financial burden has to be shared by the central and state governments in a proportion of 65 to 35. Compulsory education would reduce child labor. Private institutions should reserve 25% of their sears to weaker sections of the society in the neighborhood. The cost of educating these 25% would be borne by the government. This program can succeed only if infrastructures are provided in the nooks are corners of the country with buildings, power, roads and transportation. Now, parents would be part of the governing councils of the school. This would incentivize to manage the school properly. As rural incomes are increasing, the parents may feel less need for their children to work, Hence implementation of the Act would be easy. Hope this project succeeds, since India’s future growth depends on literacy rates of our people.
Census enumeration is started on this day. This is the seventh enumeration after independence. The earlier enumerations took few years to complete. This year, the enumeration is expected to be completed in one year. Thanks to computerization with implementation of handwriting recognition tools and language tools, it is possible to complete within the targeted time. 2,5 million people would be involved in enumerating nearly 1.2 billion Indian people. It is a mammoth task. This census is important, since this data is the basis for UIDN (Unique Identification Number) generation of all Indians. This central database would be connected to all other database, like passport, Income Tax, driving license, car ownership, banking account, etc. Some privacy concerns are raised by activists. I feel it is a must, since there are instances where some persons have multiple passports, multiple driving licenses, many tax returns, etc. This database integration would definitely lead reduction of corruption, duplicity, criminality and unaccountability. Even the doles given to poor sections of our society are not reaching the concerned persons. I, sincerely, hope this would bring down corruption in out society that sullies our image in the eyes of the world. It would reduce the leaks in the scheme implementations and achieve better targeted deliveries than the current figures of mere 15-20%.
India is willing to learn the mistakes and make amends. Democracy is the driving force behind this.
More information can be found on these web sites:
http://www.icbse.com/2010/education-rte-act-2009/
http://censusindia.gov.in/
http://uidai.gov.in/
No comments:
Post a Comment