"Citizens in Nagpur almost never visit the police station, thanks to Yashasvi Yadav's online complaints system", reports Danish Khan in the Mumbai Mirror, in an article and interview with the Superintendent of Police, Nagpur District, titled Gunning for the Web. Mr. Yadav is the recipient of the IACP/Motorola Webber Seavey Award for innovative policing this year.

The Commissioner of Police has a neat message on the Nagpur Police website :

I hope one day, this applies to filing FIRs (First Information Reports) too, which can be a really tedious process, and not always effective. Not so long ago, someone bumped into my car from the back, it was entirely his fault. It left a deep scratch on my bumper. If you've been to Mumbai you'll know that its rare to see a car without a scratch, and normally I'd have let it go, but for the fact that the driver of the other car got really aggressive with me and refused to give me his contact details. The local traffic cop refused to help too, allowing the owner of that car to drive off, saying I must go to the nearest police station, and lodge an FIR, if I wanted to get my insurance company to get the expenses from him. It took me 3 hours of waiting at the Gamdevi police station, before an officer attended my query, and another hour before he got all the tedious paper-work done. He didn't so much as glance at the damage on my car before writing out the report.

I wished then, that I could have done this via an online form.

3:25:51 PM    comment []  trackback []

Much as I hate the politics of the government running Gujarat, it was interesting to read this article in The Sunday Express this morning - Gujarat cracks BPL (below-poverty-line) code, finds way to reach the poor directly.

The creation of a database of people Below-Poverty-Line has been created .. as a result its hands off for any interference from politicians and local authorities. Couldn't find a link to the database .. does anyone know the url? The list of schemes covered is here.

From the article:

"Now, instead of the beneficiaries running from pillar to post to get the benefits, the taluka development officers go in search of them. That is because the system has already generated a list, identified the names of the most needy, with their addresses. The TDO has to go find them and give what is due to them," says Mitra. In the process, ministers, MLAs, local politicians, panchayat presidents and sarpanchs have been eliminated from the system."

On the database:

"The database is on the web and almost all districts and talukas of Gujarat now have access to the Internet. The State-Level Bankers Committee which has 5,000 branches of various banks has already adopted the system, using it to disburse government co-sponsored loans for both farm and non-farm activity. J M Patel, chief manager of State-level Bankers committee (SLBC), Gujarat, says: "It is a very realistic database that is 85 to 95 per cent correct."

Over three years, 68.65 lakh rural households in the 18,000 villages of Gujarat were surveyed by enumerators who gathered details of families without revealing the motive. Then, using a selection criteria of 13 parameters prepared by the Planning Commission and using a methodology decided by the Union Ministry of Rural Development, the households were graded.

Earlier, BPL lists were prepared using income as the main criteria. The Gujarat Government added more parameters to make it more comprehensive_average availability of normal clothing, two square meals a day, type of house, status of household labour force, type of indebtedness etc.

As per the 16-point parameters, families were graded_ a score of 16 points or less: very poor, 17 to 20: poor. When the list was finally ready this July, the Gujarat Government had a ready reckoner at hand: 18,706 households scored 5 or less (poorest of the poor), 1,73,388 households scored 10 or less, 8,50,413 households scored 15 or less and 10,93,534 scored 16 or less."

On how it can be free from political pressure:

"But complaints have started pouring in. An MLA who sent 200 applications of his supporters demanding benefits complained that only three persons he recommended were in the list of BPL or poor families. "He claimed our list is incorrect,í" says D M Baria, of Dangs DRDA. "But now we donít have to bend over backwards under political pressure. Whenever a politician calls me to recommend, I just show the list," he says."

Giving out money is hard. Money is power. It breeds corruption. It is why so many aid programmes fail. I hope this database ensures that the money goes to the right people. I hope.

2:40:32 PM    comment []  trackback []