SHIKHAR Mains 2023 Day 37 Model Answer English

Updated : 1st Aug 2023

Q1: भारत में सहकारिता सामाजिक और आर्थिक परिवर्तनों की ध्वजवाहक हो सकती है। संवैधानिक प्रावधानों और संबंधित चुनौतियों पर चर्चा करें।

Cooperatives in India can be flag bearer of social and economic changes. Discuss the constitutional provisions and associated challenges.

Approach:

Briefly start with the importance of cooperatives in the context of India.
Mention how the cooperatives are flag bearers of socio-economic change with the example of multiple sectors.
Highlight the constitutional provisions related to cooperatives in India.
Challenges faced by cooperatives in India.
Conclude suitably with the approach of how these challenges can be addressed holistically.

Answer:

India has basically an agrarian economy with 72% of its total population residing in rural areas. The rural people need a lot of services in daily life which are met by village co-operative societies. The village cooperative societies provide strategic inputs for the agricultural sector, consumer societies meet their consumption requirements at concessional rates; marketing societies help the farmer to get remunerative prices and co- operative processing units help in value additions to the raw products etc.

Contribution of cooperatives in India:

In fertilizer production and distribution the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative (IFFCO) commands over 35 percent of the market.
In the production of sugar, the cooperative share of the market is over 58 percent and in the marketing and distribution of cotton, they have a share of around 60 percent. The cooperative sector accounts for 55 percent of the looms in the hand-weaving sector.
Cooperatives process, market and distribute 50 percent of edible oils.
Dairy cooperatives operating under the leadership of the National Dairy Development Board and through 15 state cooperative milk-marketing federations have now become the largest producer of milk in the world.

Considering the eminent importance of the same, there has been following provisions related to the cooperatives in India:

Article 43B:

DPSP (Part IV) focusing on the promotion of cooperative societies.

The Constitution (97th Amendment) Act, 2011:

It provides constitutional status and protection to the co-operative societies.
Added Part IXB for cooperative working in India right after Part IXA.

Article 19(1)(c) under Part III of the Constitution:

The word cooperatives was added.
Right to form cooperatives,’ enabling citizens to form cooperatives.

Mention of cooperative societies in the state list under the 7th schedule.

Despite the availability of multiple provisions, there are several reasons that are adduced to the painful failure of the cooperative movement in the Indian context. These are:

Fund and resources crunch: The cooperatives have resource constraints as their owned funds hardly make a sizable portfolio of the working capital.
Demand-Supply mismatch: The cooperatives have been viewing the problem of agricultural credit from the view point of “supply”. The “demand” aspect is neglected.
Lacking local origin: Co-operative movement in India lacks spontaneity in the sense that it has not been emanated from the people themselves. They usually do not come forward to organise co-operatives on their own accord.
Lack of diversification: Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies are disbursing credit only and have not yet emerged as true multipurpose institutions.
Lack of coordination: Coordination is the key to success of any organization. The best example for this is AMUL which works best because of coordination. The same is lacking across the country.
Vested interests: Conflicting of personal interests with the interest of the cooperatives now this affects the performance of the cooperatives.
Regional disparity: The cooperatives in distant areas such as northeast, West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa are not as well developed as the ones in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Owing to this friction, it affects the working of cooperatives.
Political interference: The Politicians use the sugar cooperatives as their personal property and also they use it to their political advantage.

The new Ministry of Cooperation is supposed to oversee the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies to regulate and control Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCSs). One of the basic principles of collective action is to let the people decide the rules of the game without being influenced or captured by third-party. One of the suggestions is that there should be higher representation of marginal and small farmers in the membership profile of cooperative marketing societies operating in India. The need of the hour is to overcome this problem and extend as many facilities to farmer members as possible.

Q2: भारत मे पर्याप्त खाद्य उत्पादन के बावजूद कुपोषण की उपस्थिति एक विरोधभाषी चरित्र को दर्शाती है । इस कथन के संदर्भ मे प्रधानमंत्री राष्ट्रीय पोषण मिशन के औचित्य पर प्रकाश डालिए?

In spite of adequate food production in India, the presence of malnutrition shows a contradictory character. Throw light on the rationale of Prime Minister's National Nutrition Mission in the context of this statement?

Approach -

Mention the status of food production in India and its role in malnutrition.
Write about National Nutrition Mission.
Conclude with the rationale behind Prime Minister's National Nutrition Mission.

Answer -

The Economic Survey of India 2020-21 report states that in FY 2020, the total foodgrain production in the country was recorded at 296.65 million tonnes, which was higher by 11.44 million tonnes as compared to 285.21 million tonnes in FY19. Also, according to the 2017 Global Nutrition Report, 51 percent of women in the age group of 15 to 49 years in India are suffering from anemia. Malnutrition in India is a very complex issue, according to statistics, about one third of India's population is facing malnutrition, while about 40 percent of children do not even get enough food.

Malnutrition continues to be a problem due to limited access to social infrastructure and food grains.

Prime Minister's National Nutrition Mission;

The chief objective of the mission is to reduce the level of under-nutrition and also enhance the nutritional status of children in the country.
Poshan Abhiyaan is India’s flagship scheme to improve the nutritional outcomes of adolescents, children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
The mission also encompasses mapping of various other schemes related to malnutrition and enabling synergies through ICT-based real-time monitoring system, robust convergence between the schemes, incentivising states and UTs for meeting the set targets, and optimising Anganwadi centres’ functioning, apart from conducting social audits.

The rationale for the Prime Minister's National Nutrition Mission;

The main objective of this scheme is to end the epidemic like malnutrition from the country.
Poor families do not have balanced nutritional food to their children and pregnant.
Children of three years will get a balanced diet under Anganwadi.
By providing balanced diet to pregnant women, malnutrition will be avoided as well as the children born to the mother will also be healthy.
Under this, about 10 crore children and women will be benefited.
The target of reducing the number of underweight children by 2 percent in the first phase will be achieved.
The number of children and pregnant women suffering from anemia is increasing in India. The number of children and women suffering from anemia will be reduced by 3 percent through the mission.
The target is to bring the stunting rate down from 4% to 25% by 2022.

Information technology will be used to implement this mission, which will help the Anganwadi workers. National nutrition mision will not only ensure a solution to the problem of malnutrition, but will also help in achieving the goals of inclusive development, social justice and sustainable development by eliminating gender discrimination.