![Action Plan for Gandhinagar]()
Action Plan for Gandhinagar
Posted in Manifesto
My code:
• To be a voice of the people by raising the issues of the most needy during policy debates in the Parliament
• To empower people by continuing to work with all the communities in our constituency, and to help organize them using participatory methods
• To enable people to get the benefit of government schemes by facilitating better awareness and access to the schemes.
• To make politicians accountable by constantly reminding them of their promises made at the time of elections.
• To bring transparency by making information available to people, and by raising awareness about Right To InformationSpecific areas identified for the constituency
This action plan is a fresh way of addressing the requirements of our constituency. I believe that a centralised approach for development is not feasible. If we want to see real development the solutions have to be local and specific to the area. The actions plans below have emerged from the visits to different parts of the Gandhinagar constituency, after meeting over one lakh people. A work in progress, this plan is constantly evolving.
Rural Plan: Gandhinagar, Sanand and Kalol
1. Build eco san toilets in all villages where there are NO toilets. These are stand-alone water saving toilets.
2. Sort out drinking and bathing water issues. Many villages have bad water from the Narmada Canal with high TDS, causing an epidemic of kidney stones. Others have water supplies that either flood the villages or are insufficient—usually both, alternatively.
3. Build drainage and gutters. Most villages lack this and there is muck constantly on the unpaved dusty streets. This leads to mosquitoes and a high incidence of disease. Open drains and unfinished roads are a huge problem and lead to ill health due to water logging or dust.
4. Enable access roads to highways and create infrastructure to reach a health centre within half an hour. Dirt roads and hard-to-negotiate terrain of tiny villages impedes access to main roads, from where a shared vehicle that can take patients to hospitals and health centres is crucial. Lives are lost regularly due to the lack of these.
5. Access to government schemes. Villagers have no idea of what they can access and what is their due—not even the benefits of National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, nor the various housing schemes. They have certainly not got any benefits. Another example is the widow schemes. Even the little that women used to get has stopped and they are unaware of whether or not the schemes are still on and how to get this money.
6. Livelihood generation. Create micro enterprises and provide trained services for small scale industry, to add value to farm produce which fetches better prices for what farmers often have to sell below the production price. Many farmers have sold or lost their land. They have no training for anything else. Many have been thrown out of factory jobs for becoming unionized. There are serious livelihood issues. Alternatives need to be found which can help train them to set up things for themselves rather than hunt or beg for jobs in difficult times.Urban Slums
1. Immediate concerns are toilets, and drinking and bathing water facilities. The same eco san toilet facilities mentioned above need to be introduced. Wherever there are a few pay-and-use toilets, the timings are absurd. In Ramapirno Tekro, where the entire population are rag pickers who leave home at 5 am, the toilets (ten for women in a population of 1.5 lakh) open at 8 am and shuts at 5 pm! The humiliation of the women is unending.
2. Home-based livelihood opportunities need to be created for out-of-work men and youth. In some of the slums, there are entrepreneurs who bring piece-work of making parts for various products, or packaging spoons into packs of 100. This gives good opportunities to slum dwellers who can, if necessary, push up incomes by producing more, at their own convenience. This also makes them independent of the fluctuating job markets. Many more such opportunities need to be created.
3. Schools and PHC at close proximity and regular health camps are very necessary. Equally important are finding the teachers and the health workers for them.
4. Open drains, drinking and drain water getting mixed, and unfinished roads are huge issues and must be tackled with local authorities at once.
5. Women everywhere need self-defence training and the idea is widely welcomed. This is for all women everywhere.
6. Alcoholism is rampant and many areas have more than one illegal brewery. This has been causing violence and threatens women.
7. There is a constant fear of their chawls being torn down. This needs attention. In Sabarmati, 900 have been razed down and people are sleeping on the footpath. In most cases, these people have been living there for decades, and work in the vicinity. When offered by the authorities, alternative housing is far away from where they have lived all their lives and the increased transport costs make the move unviable.Urban Middle Class
1. Basic facilities for urban middle class. In spite of being in apartments which cost between Rs 10 and 30 lakhs, basic facilities are lacking. Champaner Society in Naranpura has not had adequate water supply for over a year-and-half and spend Rs 300 a week on getting tankers to fill their water storage facilities. Ghatlodia has a tank which cost Rs 60 lakh to build, seven years ago, with MPLADS funds. There has not been a single drop of water since it was built.
2. Promote the use of RTI. People are fed up of the road works that they never see completed on time, and which make them ill with the dust and stench. There is a feeling of helplessness and disempowerment. No one seems answerable. They don't really understand the use or power of the RTI.
3. Women feel very unsafe both by the traffic and because of predators of every sort . They repeatedly talked of not being able to let girls go out alone or leave them alone at home. All women, everywhere, need to be taught self defence systematically.
4. Affordable education. People are forced to pay huge donations, and still get a raw deal. Also, to facilitate vocational training programmes for youth.
5. Affordable medical treatment. For the lower middle class, decent medical treatment is unaffordable. Not a single public hospital has been started in over two decades.
6. Price rise is a major concern which needs to be addressed.
7. Non-performance of the justice system in India is a concern. Can we replicate the Haryana experiment of mobile courts?
8. Social justice to the Disabled. The instruments which give them rights remain only on paper, whether it is the area of education or employment or basic health. Implementation of these rights needs attention.
9. Addressing mental health in urban areas, especially among the youth.
10. Old Age Care is an area that needs focus. Well-maintained old age homes where people voluntarily want to live would help those who don't have a support system.Business and Industry
1. Problem of corruption. The business class is reeling under the corruption that exists at every level. Business leaders are open to the idea of working together with workers, consumers and government authorities to combat this, so a dialogue needs to be set into motion.
2. Quality of life. Business community is demanding a better quality of life to match the amount of money that they spend. The quality of life – culture, safety, food, clean and healthy air, traffic – is poor in spite of their spending lots of money.
3. Security against being robbed is a concern for the business community. This needs to be looked at
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Palash Biswas
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