CPR-LAND RIGHTS INITIATIVE REVIEWS SUPREME COURT CASES ON LAND ACQUISITION FROM 1950 TO 2016
RIGHTS LAND ACQUISITION
Context:
India faces serious challenges in creating development processes that generate economic growth while being socially inclusive, ecologically sustainable, politically feasible, and in accordance with the Rule of Law. Equitable and efficient acquisition of land by the state for economic development projects, including infrastructure and industry, lies at the heart of these challenges.
Simultaneously, securing constitutionally guaranteed land rights to the poorest and most vulnerable communities in India against the state and other dominant communities, has been considered crucial to their economic and social empowerment. Land is not only an important economic resource and source of livelihoods, it is also central to community identity, history and culture. Unsurprisingly then, throughout India, dispute over state acquisition of land that deprives people of their land rights spans various dimensions of economic, social, and political life.
How do we mitigate this conflict?
The CPR Land Rights Initiative report on ‘Land Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court cases from 1950-2016’, offers some preliminary answers to this question. Not only is this report the first comprehensive country-wide study of land acquisition disputes since India’s independence, but also for the first time ever analyses these disputes along various metrics, such as i) public purpose, ii) procedure for acquisition, iii) compensation, iv) invocation of the urgency clause, v) pendency of claims, and vi) tracks trends with respect to distribution of disputes across geography and time, and central and state laws. The Report also analyses litigation under the newly enacted Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR Act) for the three year period, 2014 to 2016.
Key findings:
Reasons for inequity between state and land losers: The Report concludes that the political and social contestation over land acquisition stems from the inherently coercive nature of the land acquisition process, which creates a severe imbalance of power between the state and land losers. While much of this imbalance was created by the text of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, a considerable part of it could also be attributed to executive non-compliance with the rule of law. The result is a situation of great inequity for the land losers.
Legal reform under the LARR Act should be implemented by government, not subverted to redress these inequities: The Report finds that specific provisions of the LARR Act are steps in the right direction to redress the imbalance of power that was built into the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 in so far as: i) they empower livelihood losers along with title-holders to bring claims for compensation and rehabilitation, ii) bring compensation requirements in accordance with existing reality, and iii) introduce requirements of consent and social impact assessment. The Report shows that litigation helps channelise political contestation of state action into legal as opposed to extra legal disputes. Therefore, by empowering hitherto disempowered land losers to bring claims under the LARR Act, the Act will help preempt extra-legal conflict. Since conflict inevitably stalls or derails legitimate development projects, it is in the interest of the government to comply with, and not subvert the LARR Act.
Legal reforms must be supplemented by administrative and bureaucratic reforms: The Report highlights that legal reform is a necessary but not a sufficient precondition for ensuring greater equity and efficiency within the land acquisition process. In the absence of administrative and bureaucratic reforms, the introduction of the LARR Act will not succeed in eliminating inequities and inefficiencies embedded within the implementation of existing land acquisition procedures. In fact, the increase in procedural requirements under the LARR Act implies an even greater need for securing executive compliance with the rule of law, in order to translate the equities intended by these additional procedures into reality for land losers.
Types of administrative reforms required: Such administrative reforms include building of state capacity to meaningfully comply with the increased procedural requirements stipulated by the LARR Act, and designing institutional structures that incentivise such compliance with the rule of law. This, in turn, requires a serious mind-set shift within the government toward accepting the reform enshrined in the LARR Act, and not subverting it as we have seen in both the LARR Ordinance, and the state amendments to the LARR Act, as also the rules adopted to implement the LARR Act in the states.
Watch (above) a detailed presentation of the findings from the report.
BLOGS BY T R RAGHUNANDAN OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE
POLITICS BUREAUCRACY
Accountability Initiative at CPR deconstructs the Indian bureaucracy through the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer in a series of blogs by T R Raghunandan, a former bureaucrat himself, (referred to as Raghu here on) summarised below:
In the blog Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Additional Crown, Raghu breaks down the hierarchy of the Indian bureaucracy, explaining the various designations at different levels, and what these mean in terms of the power wielded.
In the next blog, taking off from the introductory one, Raghu details the Bureaucratic Review Process, unpacking the elaborate appraisal system, which is designed to ensure that the best talent reaches the top.
The third blog, How Commonplace is ‘Outstanding’?, explains how the gradation of officers during the review process is carried out; the hurdles in it; and the common use of ‘outstanding’ for 90 percent of the officers, reflective of the bureaucracy’s avoidance of confrontation in its internal dealings.
In the following two blogs, A Digression into Ethical Dilemmas and Ambition, Ethical Dilemmas and the Bureaucracy, Raghu shares his views on the ethical factors, which are likely to render ineffective a peer based confidential appraisal system–part of a new set of changes introduced.
In the last two blogs on this topic, The Loneliness Of The Ethical and How Honest Is Honest?, Raghu shares examples of the ‘loneliness of those who take an ethical stand, in the face of large numbers of those who do not’, and explains why a ‘shared understanding of what integrity is’, and a ‘culture of acceptance of honest criticism up the hierarchy’ (both currently lacking) are pre-requisites for a system of 360 degree appraisal to work as intended.
AS PART OF ‘POLICY CHALLENGES – 2019-2024: THE BIG POLICY QUESTIONS FOR THE NEW GOVERNMENT AND POSSIBLE PATHWAYS’
CPR LAND ACQUISITION
By Namita Wahi
An estimated 7.7 million people in India are affected by conflict over 2.5 million hectares of land, threatening investments worth $ 200 billion.1 Land disputes clog all levels of courts in India, and account for the largest set of cases in terms of both absolute numbers and judicial pendency. About 25% of all cases decided by the Supreme Court involve land disputes, of which 30% concern disputes relating to land acquisition.2 Again, 66% of all civil cases in India are related to land/property disputes.3 The average pendency of a land acquisition dispute, from creation of the dispute to resolution by the Supreme Court, is 20 years. Since land is central to India’s developmental trajectory, finding a solution to land conflict is one of the foremost policy challenges for India.
Understanding Incidence and Pendency of Land Conflict in India
Legislative and administrative factors are responsible for the high incidence of legal and extralegal conflicts over land, and judicial factors are behind the pendency of land disputes. Competing historical and current policy narratives of property rights over land, have resulted in the coexistence of numerous, conflicting laws leading to legal disputes over land. This is the legislative factor. This problem is compounded by administrative failure to comply with the rule of law. This is the administrative factor. The pendency of conflict, in turn, is a result of legal and evidentiary barriers in bringing land disputes to court, largely due to administrative and judicial incapacity; this prevents expeditious resolution of land disputes. This is the judicial factor.
Conflicting narratives, policies and land laws create land disputes
There are two conflicting narratives about ownership and management of land in India. The first narrative – inherited from the British colonial state5 – views common land, or land that is not privately owned, as merely a commodity, no different from labour and capital, with the state as the ultimate owner.6 This claim to ultimate ownership gives the state the power to redistribute land at will, as largesse to selected beneficiaries.7 Such state acquisition of land has historically been the source of considerable dispute. According to estimates by CPR’s Land Rights Initiative (LRI), these disputes constitute 30% of all land litigation in the Supreme Court over the past 70 years. LRI’s comprehensive study of land acquisition litigation before the Supreme Court over a 66-year period, from 1950 to 2016, reveals that all litigation is with respect to privately held land. In contrast, data from the Land Conflict Watch project reveals that the vast majority of current, on-ground, extralegal conflict over land is with respect to common lands.8 Thus, it is clear that in the face of state acquisition of land, when people have legally recognized land rights, they go to court. Where their rights are insufficiently recognized by law, they protest on the ground.
The second narrative – articulated by the ‘people’, including farmers, both landowners and tenants; and other traditional communities, such as cattle grazers, forest dwellers, tribals and fisherfolk – views land as an economic, social and cultural resource over which multiple groups exercise property rights. Usually, after intense on-ground contestation, the property rights of certain groups like Scheduled Tribes (STs)and tenants have been protected by the Constitution9 and statute,10 while in case of other groups like fisherfolk,11 their rights are protected by custom and, often, executive action.
As a consequence of these two historically competing policy narratives, the constitutional, legislative and administrative framework governing land is as fragmented as the land holdings in India.12 Enacted at different points of time, land laws clash with each other, because they seek to articulate in law these two competing narratives. For instance, the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, are in conflict with those of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and are also threatened by proposed amendments to the Indian Forest Act.13 Legal conflicts also arise when laws are enacted or amended at different times to appease different stakeholders. For instance, the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act has, in the five years since it came into force, been amended by seven state legislatures.14 This will likely create more legal disputes with respect to land acquisition, because the original RFCTLARR Act provisions had been included with a view to addressing growing conflict over land acquisition.15 Moreover, in many states, we find laws that provide for eviction of unauthorized occupants over public lands coexisting with laws that provide for regularization of unauthorized occupation, thereby creating potential for dispute/conflict at the level of law itself.16
Finally, the legislative landscape is complicated by the fact that many subjects pertaining to ‘land’ are in the ‘state’ and ‘concurrent’ lists of the Constitution, leading to a multiplicity of original and active land laws.17 Yet, there is no official comprehensive database of all land laws in India. A first of its kind, ongoing LRI study estimates that India has over a thousand original and active central and state land laws.18
The problem of ‘multiple laws’ is exacerbated by the fact that these laws are administered by numerous government ministries at the central level, and departments at the state level. These include, for instance, the ministries of Law and Justice, Rural Development, Mining, Industries, Infrastructure, Urban Development, Tribal Affairs, Home Affairs and Defence.
Administrative non-compliance with law also creates and prolongs land disputes
Where laws are clear, disputes and conflicts arise because of administrative non-compliance with the rule of law due to both unwillingness and incapacity. The LRI study of all Supreme Court cases on land acquisition during 1950-2016 shows that 95% of the disputes arose because of administrative non-compliance with the legal procedure for acquisition of land, including the process of computation of market value compensation for land acquired.19 Around 34% of the disputes involved irregularities in completion of the procedure for acquisition. Almost half of such cases concerned with procedural irregularities involved administrative unwillingness to comply with the rule of law. The remaining half of the cases involved administrative incapacity to comply with the rule of law, in part because of governmental failure to regularly update administrative manuals based on changes in the law. Moreover, the government was more likely to lose than win these land disputes before the Supreme Court.20
Additionally, since colonial times, land in India has been broadly administered by the revenue and forest departments. But there have also always existed disputes between both departments as to which land belongs to which department. This in turn creates and prolongs land disputes.
Finally, legal disputes over land are also created by evidentiary barriers for establishing rights over land in the absence of documentary proof21 because of outdated/no land surveys22 and inaccurate/outdated land records23 in most states. The Department of Land Resources has sought to resolve the problem of inaccurate land records through the ‘Digitisation of Land Records Modernisation Programme’. However, unless the government makes a serious attempt to update land records on the ground to reflect the property rights of all landowners, digitizing them would not eliminate the problem of inaccurate land records.
Judicial reasons cause pendency of land disputes
Once a land dispute goes to court, serious judicial incapacity leads to pendency of disputes. First, a major cause for pendency of all disputes is India’s low judge-to-people ratio.24 Land cases form more than half of all civil cases and constitute over a quarter of cases before the Supreme Court; they also have the longest pendency compared to other cases. Hence low judge-to-people ratio particularly prolongs resolution of land disputes. Second, the judiciary, particularly at its lowest levels, lacks the financial, technical and infrastuctural capacity necessary to resolve disputes quickly.25 Finally, poor enforcement of court decisions by the government, and limited judicial capacity to follow up on such enforcement, especially when such decisions go against the government, also lead to prolonging of land disputes.
Policy Recommendations for Reducing Incidence and Pendency of Land Disputes
Eliminate legal conflicts. No government has ever attempted an exercise to rationalize existing land laws. But this is the need of the hour. The Law Ministry and Law Commission are best positioned to conduct or commission such an exercise. This would involve, first, the creation of an exhaustive database of all land laws in India. Once such a database of laws is created, the Law Ministry and Law Commission must identify, and Parliament must repeal, laws that deny rights of certain groups of people, particularly women,26 and eliminate genuine conflicts between laws.
Improve administrative willingness and capacity to implement the rule of law: The government must take steps to ensure greater administrative capacity and willingness to implement the rule of law. In addition, we need greater coordination between government departments dealing with land, transparency of land administration, and better access to land data. This can be achieved by undertaking the following measures.
The Department of Land Resources, currently under the Ministry of Rural Development, is the nodal agency for coordination of land policy across states. But land is not merely a rural concern. As India becomes increasingly urbanized, the government needs to have a more comprehensive imagination of land requirements for rural and urban populations. The creation of a separate Ministry of Land to serve as the nodal agency for coordinating land policy across different types of land is critical.
There needs to be a coordinated effort between the Ministry of Law and Justice, Department of Land Records, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, state boards of revenue, and state forest departments to resolve conflicting land laws and streamline land administration.
All government departments dealing with land, and particularly those involved in land acquisition, must update administrative manuals in accordance with changes in legislation and judicial precedent.
Through dedicated interdepartmental meetings and other coordination, government must resolve land boundary disputes between the revenue and forest departments.
The government must devote financial and technical resources to conduct land surveys and update paper records to reflect property rights of all the people, as opposed to digitization of existing records that are substantially inaccurate.
The government must ensure better skills training so that officials dealing with land have both the knowledge and the capacity to implement the rule of law. Institutional mechanisms should be designed to incentivize compliance with, not defiance of, the rule of law.
Given the low success rate of government appeals, the government must carefully evaluate the likelihood of success of an appeal before pursuing it. Government officials must be incentivized to not appeal cases that have little likelihood of success following such an evaluation. This would go a long way in reducing pendency of land disputes.
The government must wholly commit to transparent land administration and comply with its obligations under the Right to Information Act, 2005, to make digitally accessible all land laws, executive notifications, rules, circulars, etc. pertaining to land administration. In addition, the government must open up to public scrutiny departmental data on compliance with land laws.
In addition to legislative and administrative reforms, judicial reforms can go a long way towards reducing the pendency of land litigation in India. The first step in this direction would be the implementation of key recommendations of the Law Commission.27 These include:
Changing the base for determining sanctioned posts for judges from ‘Judge: Population Ratio’ to ‘Rate of Disposal Method
Filling up all existing vacancies
Increasing the retirement age of subordinate judges to 62; and those of High Court and Supreme Court judges to 65 and 68 years respectively.
Greater financial allocations to the lower and higher judiciary, to enable infrastructure, technical and skills upgradation
Some states like Bihar have created separate land tribunals for expeditious resolution of land revenue cases. This model should be studied, and if found effective, should be replicated in other states.
Conclusion
Land conflict in India, both legal and extralegal, has existed from colonial times because of the imposition by the British state of the notion that all land not privately held belongs to the ‘state’. This concept has been continuously resisted by the ‘people’ who were disempowered by the colonial state’s deprivation of their legal property rights under precolonial administration. Over time, competing ‘state’ and ‘people’ narratives over land have led to conflicting policy and legal interventions. This has, in turn, led to legal disputes over land. Even when laws are clear, administrative failure to comply with the rule of law, due to unwillingness and incapacity, contributes to the incidence and pendency of land disputes. Serious judicial incapacity in turn prolongs pendency of land disputes.
Due to the increasing population pressure on land, and the corresponding demand for land to fuel the development engine, the scale and scope of land conflict today has assumed gigantic proportions, stalling development projects and threatening livelihoods and investments. Equitable and efficient intergenerational management of land is necessary not just for India’s economic development, but also for its political and social stability. Therefore, working towards resolving land conflict, in light of the above policy recommendations, is an imperative agenda for the new government.
Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:
The Future is Federal: Why Indian Foreign Policy Needs to Leverage its Border States by Nimmi Kurian
Rethinking India’s Approach to International and Domestic Climate Policy by Navroz K Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani
India’s Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World by Shyam Saran
Need for a Comprehensive National Security Strategy by Shyam Saran
A Clarion Call for Just Jobs: Addressing the Nation’s Employment Crisis by Sabina Dewan
Time for Disruptive Foreign and National Security Policies by Bharat Karnad
Multiply Urban ‘Growth Engines’, Encourage Migration to Reboot Economy by Mukta Naik
Schooling is not Learning by Yamini Aiyar
Clearing Our Air of Pollution: A Road Map for the Next Five Years by Santosh Harish, Shibani Ghosh and Navroz K Dubash
Protecting Water while Providing Water to All: Need for Enabling Legislations by Philippe Cullet
Interstate River Water Governance: Shift focus from conflict resolution to enabling cooperation by Srinivas Chokkakula
Managing India-China Relations in a Changing Neighbourhood by Zorawar Daulet Singh
Beyond Poles and Wires: How to Keep the Electrons Flowing? by Ashwini K Swain and Navroz K Dubash
Regulatory Reforms to Address Environmental Non-Compliance by Manju Menon and Kanchi Kohli
The Numbers Game: Suggestions for Improving School Education Data by Kiran Bhatty
Safe and Dignified Sanitation Work: India’s Foremost Sanitation Challenge by Arkaja Singh and Shubhagato Dasgupta
Safeguarding the Fragile Ecology of the Himalayas by Shyam Saran
Female Labour Force Participation: Asking Better Questions by Neelanjan Sircar
Towards ‘Cooperative’ Social Policy Financing in India by Avani Kapur
1 Land Conflict Watch, https://www.landconflictwatch.org/.
2 This is based on preliminary findings from a CPR Land Rights Initiative study, and is also consistent with findings from a comprehensive quantitative study of the Supreme Court’s caseload between 1993 and 2011. See Nick Robinson, ‘A Quantitative Analysis of the Indian Supreme Court’s Workload’, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies,10(3) (2003): 570-601.
3 Daksh, ‘Access to Justice Survey, 2016’, http://dakshindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Daksh-access-to-justice….
4 Namita Wahi et al., ‘Land Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court Cases from 1950 to 2016’ (New Delhi: CPR, 2017).
5 Articles 294 and 295 of the Indian Constitution stipulate that the Indian state succeeds to all property, claims and assets of the British state.
6 B.H. Baden Powell, The Land Systems of British India (Oxford University Press: 1892); B.H. Baden Powell, A Manual of Jurisprudence for Forest Officers Being a Treatise on Forest Laws (Calcutta, 1882).
7 An LRI study estimates that there are 102 laws of land acquisition alone, including state amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Supra note 4.
8 ‘Land Conflicts in India: An Interim Analysis’, https://rightsandresources.org/en/publication/land-conflicts-india-inter….
9 Article 244(1) and Article 244(2), read with the Fifth and Sixth Schedules respectively, create special protections for land rights of Scheduled Tribes in geographically demarcated areas, known as Scheduled Areas.
10 Starting with the Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885, almost each agrarian state has laws protecting tenancy rights. Similarly, the Forest Rights Act, 2006, recognizes land rights of Scheduled Tribes and other forest dwelling communities.
11 A prolonged movement has sought the enactment of a Fishing Rights Act, along the lines of the Forest Rights Act.
12 86.21% of all land holdings in India are small and marginal holdings taken together (0.00-2.00 ha). See Census of India.
13 Nitin Sethi et al., ‘Modi government plans more draconian version of colonial-era Indian Forest Act’, The Wire, 21 March 2019, https://thewire.in/rights/modi-government-plans-more-draconian-version-o…
14 These include the states of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand. See Namita Wahi, ‘How central and state governments diluted the historic land legislation of 2013’, The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/how-centra….
15 Jairam Ramesh et al., Legislating for Justice: The Making of the 2013 Land Acquisition Law (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015); Namita Wahi, ‘The Story of Jairam Rajya’ India Today, June 2015, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/books/story/20150622-jairam-ramesh-la….
16 Ongoing LRI study on ‘One Thousand Land Laws’.
17 Article 246 read with the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India.
18 CPR ‘Land Laws’ Database; see: https://www.cnbctv18.com/legal/hundreds-of-indian-land-laws-cause-confus….
19 Wahi et al., ‘Land Acquisition in India’.
20 Ibid. p. 28.
21 Sections 61-64 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, emphasize that documents must be proved by primary evidence, that is, presentation of the document itself. However, many people with legally recognized land rights do not have documentary proof for the same. This makes judicial resolution of land disputes extremely difficult.
22 Much of the northeastern part of India, including the state of Assam, has never been fully surveyed. The last full land survey for the state of Bihar happened in 1950s-1960s.
23 Former Minister for Rural Development notes that the state’s failure to fairly compensate those who lost land under the 1894 Act arose due to inaccurate land records, rampant undervaluation of sale deeds, and absence of land markets in many rural areas. See Ramesh et al., Legislating for Justice.
24 Two reports – the 245th Law Commission Report on ‘Arrears and Backlog: Creating Additional Judicial (Wo)man) power’ (2014), http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/Report_No.245.pdf, and the 230th Law Commission Report on ‘Reforms in the Judiciary: Some Suggestions’, http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report230.pdf – highlight this as a major cause for disputes.
25 Ibid.
26 Bina Agarwal, ‘Gender and Legal Rights in Agricultural Land in India’, Economic and Political Weekly A39 30(12) (March 1995).
27 Supra note 24. (Q: Pl give direct source)
28 245th Law Commission Report, 29.
BLOG ON FINDINGS OF JOURNAL ARTICLE (BASED ON A STUDY IN SMALL TOWNS OF ANGUL AND DHENKANAL, ODISHA IN THE YEAR 2016-17) BY RANJITA MOHANTY AND ANJU DWIVEDI
A global study at the beginning of the decade indicated that one billion people—15% of the world’s population—practice open defecation (OD), of whom 626 million live in India. OD, however, is not only practised by those lacking toilet facilities. Even among those who have toilets, some prefer OD. Data shows that the practice of OD is related neither to education and literacy status nor to poverty. The reluctance of the Indian poor to use toilets, and their preference for OD, poses a sanitation puzzle.
The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM-U), launched in 2014, strived to make urban India open defecation-free by 2019. It aimed to provide sanitary toilets to all urban households. In Oct 2019, India has been declared Open Defecation Free by Prime Minster, Narendra Modi. But does construction of toilets necessarily promote usage? Why do people in urban slums show reluctance to use toilets? To what extent, and in what ways, do sociocultural norms, behaviours, and practices influence the toilet behavior?
Purity and Pollution
Traditional norms of purity and pollution are crucial in determining sanitation practices in India. Hindu norms of pollution and purity have many dimensions that centre on connotations of dirt and pollution, purity and cleanliness, physical spaces as pure or impure, and the human body as a site of purity and impurity.
Dirt: Viewed as polluting and disorderly, there are two connotations of dirt: physical dirt, such as human excreta and garbage, and cultural dirt, such as that associated with menstruation, birth, and death. Sometimes, the boundary between physical and cultural dirt is thin. Human excreta is considered physical dirt, but even when modern toilet technologies make the dirt invisible and destroy its toxic potential, toilets are still considered ‘unclean’ by Hindu households. Therefore, toilets are built at a distance so as not to pollute the pure, such as food cooked in the kitchen, and sacred spaces where deities are kept for household worship. Not only is human waste considered defiling and impure, the body also becomes impure during the process of defecation, which is a release of dirt. Both men and women are required to bathe after defecation so that their bodies are purified.
Space: The purity of the inner space of the house must be guarded by assigning separate spaces to different kinds of dirt: the toilet is kept outside the house, shoes are left outside the entrance, and menstruating women stay away from spaces of worship and cooking. The inner space is ritually purified following the pollution of birth or death. Similarly, the body has to be purified through a ritual bath after menstruation. As women are assigned the responsibility of maintaining the purity of the inner space, they have to bathe in the morning before their household chores so that they are ritually pure to worship or to cook.
Caste: The castes that deal with materials considered polluting—human waste, dead bodies, dirty clothes, human hair, and the hide of dead animals—are considered impure and untouchable. Those who deal with human waste and dead bodies are considered the ‘lowest of the low’ and work as sweepers and scavengers, and are the traditional bearers of night soil. The castes rendered untouchable live in hamlets on the outskirts of villages, away from the upper castes. In cities, they live in peripheral, common places such as railway lines and riverbanks, close to morgues and slaughterhouses. The casteist notion of cleanliness is thus more social than physical. Social order is maintained through ritual cleanliness, which may not necessarily be a matter of hygiene.
Tradition, Modernity and the ‘Non Negotiable’
The connotations of physical dirt and ritual dirt influence sanitation behaviours in urban spaces with varying degrees of compromise and adaptation. However, even the urban environment cannot make people compromise on what can be called the ‘non-negotiable’ aspects of culture. For example, when a toilet is constructed within the house and it coexists with the pure spaces, the place for defecation is barricaded from the living inner space of the house. While the middle class can separate some rooms, such as puja ghar (place of worship), kitchen, and living space from the toilet, the poor do not have sufficient space to construct separate, barricaded spaces for what is considered pure.
Regardless of their location and technology, toilets carry the connotation of ritual impurity. Hence, toilet behaviours remain the same in middle-class as well as poor households. All castes, whether rich or poor, employ manual scavengers from the untouchable castes to clean their septic tanks and pits.
Traditionally, women are considered the custodians of the purity of the inner, private space of the house. In slums, women continue to perform that role. They keep the space physically clean by removing dirt and household garbage. They change into separate clothes during defecation, regardless of whether they practise OD or use a toilet. Women refrain from performing puja when their bodies are considered impure, such as during menstruation and after delivery. The inner space is not only the space inside the house; it includes the outer space attached to the house. Every Hindu household worships the tulsi plant grown outside.
Why Open Defecation?
OD is a common practice despite its inconvenience and physical and health risks. It is practised not only by those who do not have toilets. Those who have toilets use them selectively: at night, during illness, and in the rainy season; in addition, old people and women, particularly pregnant women, old women, and adolescent girls often use toilets.
There are many reasons why those who have toilets do not use them: the fear that the pit will get filled too soon; the high cost associated with cleaning the pit; the feeling that the dirt, though underground, is too close to living, cooking, and worship spaces in small dwellings; cultural notions of purity and pollution; and social norms of shame and avoidance that regulate defecation in the presence of the elderly, males (in the case of women), and guests. Water is also a significant constraint in the use of toilets at home, since water supply in slums is erratic and inadequate.
Infrastructural Constraints
The majority of slum households use pit and improved pit toilets. Many of these toilets are poorly designed and lack adequate technology. Some households have toilets that are connected to drains and canals, where they discharge their effluents. Not all toilets used for defecation have a superstructure. Some are without the superstructure altogether, while others have half-erected ones covered with clothes, rags, and plastic bags.
Slum dwellers prefer to spend their money on houses rather than on toilets because they see houses as necessary for safety and shelter, but toilets as replaceable with alternatives. The construction of a toilet at home is determined by many factors, such as financial resources; the availability of physical space; the needs of the old, the sick, and the women in the family; and considerations of purity and pollution that become particularly constraining in small houses.
Having a toilet in the house does not mean that the household members’ defecation practice is hygienic, as most people use unsanitary toilets. These, along with spatial constraints, blur the lines between ritual and physical dirt for the urban poor. The poor, therefore, prefer to construct toilets outside the living space. When a toilet is located inside a very small house, people are more likely to refrain from using it.
Bridging the Gap
Culture does not operate alone, but interacts with a host of other factors: the availability of physical space, financial resources, and access to infrastructure and technology. Behavioural change is conceptualised as the shift required in practices of purity and pollution that deter Hindus from using toilets. But behavioural change does not take into account these factors. Hence, we find that among households with toilets, their use is determined by existing technology and the availability of physical space and water.
Due to the SBM-U’s emphasis on the physical target of a specific number of toilets that need to be constructed within a specified time period, any localised, complex, or nuanced understanding of culture escapes the current policies. There is no scope in the policies to accommodate how culture manifests in the local context. A lack of community consultation and participation further limits information about the specific needs of people. The failure to adapt to local requirements also restricts implementers from customising policies. Women play a significant role in both private and public sanitation but are seldom consulted about their needs and choices.
It is imperative that policies expand their scope to include understanding culture. It is likely that the governance of sanitation at the local level will follow.
Several mega-trends are visible in international affairs on the cusp of the third decade of the 21st century. After a trillion dollars spent on the 18-year old war with the Taliban in Afghanistan following a similar amount expended in Iraq and Syria, the US is drained of its wealth, stamina and will for military confrontations of any kind. A reactive and retreating America under President Donald Trump, besides generating unprecedented levels of uncertainty and anxiety, has accentuated the conditions of unusual flux in the international system. Second, with the old certainties gone, traditional alliances (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), trading regimes (Trans-Pacific Partnership), schemes of regional peace (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), and technology and supplier cartels (Missile Technology Control Regime, Nuclear Suppliers Group, et al.) are all alike in disarray; their concerns are now matters of contestation with China staking claim to the pole position vacated by the US. And finally, these developments are compelling major countries to try to protect themselves the best they can by handling things on their own, in coalition with other similarly encumbered nations, and by exploring new security/military cooperation agreements. There is particular urgency in Asia to blunt China’s hegemonic ambitions and preclude its domination from taking root.
State of Play
Unfortunately India finds itself on the wrong side of these trends in the main. This is because it has, in the new millennium, accelerated its efforts to join the very same nonproliferation regimes and cartels that had victimized it all along. Worse, by sidling up to the US and virtually outsourcing its strategic security to Washington, India’s historical role as prime balancer in the international balance-of-power set-up – courtesy its hoary policies of nonalignment and its latter-day avatar, strategic autonomy – has been imperiled. This is at a time when doubts about the US commitment to other countries’ security have increased along with the apprehensions of allies and friends. With security made a transactional commodity by the Trump administration, treaty alliances have been weakened, unsettling West European and Far Eastern states traditionally close to the US.1 India’s trend-bucking policy, in the event, will only cement the growing perceptions of the country as unable to perceive its own best interests and to act on them. Its downgrade, as a result of its more recent strategies, to the status of a subordinate state and subsidiary ‘strategic partner’ of the US means that India will have restricted strategic choices. Its foreign and military policies will therefore lose the freedom and latitude for diplomatic manoeuvre that they have always enjoyed.
Thus, the 2008 civilian nuclear deal, for all practical purposes, signed away India’s sovereign right to resume underground testing and froze its nuclear arsenal at the sub-thermonuclear technology level (as the 1998 fusion test was a dud). Agreeing to the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement and the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement – the so-called ‘foundational accords’ – will, respectively, permit the US to stage its military forces out of Indian bases and embroil India in its wars in the extended region, and (ii) to penetrate the most secret Indian communications grid, including the nuclear command and control network.
The Indian government’s eagerness to cement the partnership is astonishing considering the trust deficit evident in a long history of duplicitous US behaviour and policies.2 By clinging to a feckless and demanding US, India’s profile as a fiercely independent state has taken a beating, distanced the country from old friends such as Russia (which is pivotal to balancing China and the US) and Iran (central to India’s geostrategic concerns in the Gulf, Afghanistan and Central Asia), lost the nation its diplomatic elan, and has seriously hurt vital national interests.
Placating China is the other imprudent theme that Indian foreign policy has latched on to. It has mollycoddled its most dangerous adversary and comprehensively capable rival in Asia with giveaways – such as non-use of the Tibet and Taiwan cards, refraining from nuclear missile-arming states on China’s periphery as a tit-for-tat measure for Beijing’s missile-arming of Pakistan, giving the Chinese manufacturing sector unhindered access to the Indian market through a massively unfair and unbalanced bilateral trade regime, etc. On the other hand, it has treated Pakistan, a weak flanking country, as a full-bore security threat when, realistically, it is only a military nuisance. This strategy is at the core of India’s external troubles. It has practically incentivized Beijing to desist from peaceful resolution of the border dispute. It has also undermined India’s credibility and credentials as ‘security provider’ to and strategic partner of a host of Asian littoral and offshore states fearful of an ambitious and aggressive China, as well as complicated the country’s attempts at obtaining a tier of friendly nations around it as buffer.
A topsy-turvy threat perception has also meant a lopsided Indian military geared to handle Pakistan but incapable of defending well against China, even less of taking the fight to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on land, air and distant seas; it is also laughably unprepared for future warfare featuring cyber pre-emption, remotely controlled armed drone swarms, robotic weapons systems managed by Artificial Intelligence, space-based weapons platforms, and clean micro-thermonuclear bombs. In the context, moreover, of a recessive foreign policy and a military that seems unable to wean itself away from imported armaments, it is almost as if the Indian government and armed services have given up on national security. This bewildering state of affairs is in urgent need of drastic overhaul and repair.
Geopolitical Vision and Strategy
Strong nations in the modern era have transitioned into great powers not only through expansive national visions, but also, more significantly, by pursuing policies disruptive of the prevailing order and multilateral regimes they had no hand in creating. India in the 21st century, on the other hand, seems content with the existing international system, measuring its foreign policy success in terms of entry gained or denied in congeries of international power (UN Security Council) and trade and technology cartels (Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, etc.). In other words, it covets a place at the high table on terms set by other countries. It is not a mistake made by China or the US (or, to go back in history, Elizabethan England, Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union and now Vladimir Putin’s Russia). The Indian government is hampered by its mistaken belief that upholding the current regional and international correlation of forces and mechanisms of order, and stressing its soft ‘civilizational’ power, will make the country great.
India with its many infirmities is in no position to undertake system disruption by itself.3 For India to rise as the premier Asian challenger to China and as the other economic-political-military power node in the continent in the shortest possible time – which should be the legitimate national aim and vision –it requires a subtle but telling approach. It needs a double-pronged strategy. One prong should stress absolutely reciprocal positions and policies. Thus, Beijing’s insistence on ‘One China, two systems’ should be met with a ‘One India’ concept. Similarly, the non-acceptance by Beijing of all of Jammu and Kashmir (including the Pakistan-occupied portion) as inalienably Indian territory should lead to formal recognition of and relations with Taiwan; it should also spark off New Delhi’s world-wide advocacy of a free Tibet and a free East Turkestan, and of campaigns against ‘cultural genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Tibet and Xinjiang.4 And China’s nuclear missile arming of Pakistan should, even if belatedly, trigger India’s transferring strategic missiles to the states on the Chinese periphery, so that China too thereafter suffers permanent geostrategic disadvantage.
Hamstringing China should also involve meta-measures to carve out separate, loose and specifically anti-China security coalitions from the two important groups India is part of. BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) is an entity dominated economically and trade-wise by China. This is something that arouses wariness in the other three countries, which can be mobilized to form a smaller, informal, security-cooperation-minded coalition, BRIS (Brazil-Russia-India-South Africa). It will assist in hedging Beijing’s military options and affect China’s economic expansiveness. Likewise, the US’s importance to international security has to be whittled away. The Quadrilateral (US-Japan-India-Australia) proposed by Japan’s Shinzo Abe to contain China in the Indo-Pacific is problematic owing to the centrality accorded yo the capricious US. India could propose a different set-up – a modified Quadrilateral or ‘Mod Quad’ with India, Japan, Australia and the leading littoral and offshore states of South East Asia (Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore) disputing China’s claims in the South China Sea; a cooperative Taiwan could be accorded ‘observer’ status. This would at once define the strategic geopolitical face-off between ‘rimland Asia’ and a hegemonic ‘heartland’ China, and reduce the uncertainty attending on America’s security role (given that the US and China, owing to their close economic and trading links, are inseparable). Mod Quad will clarify the strategic calculi of member states, while encouraging the US to contribute militarily to the extent it wants to at any time but as an outside party.5
BRIS and Mod Quad are extremely practicable geopolitical solutions to share the cost, divide the danger, and generate synergy from the wide-spectrum capabilities, singly and together, of the member states in these two collectives. At the same time, they would stretch China’s military resources and minimize the uncertainty and confusion attending on any US participation. These new arrangements adhere to the time-tested principle of vision shaping strategy but geography driving it, which makes for cohesion and sense of purpose. BRIS and Mod Quad will enable their member states to be less inhibited in cooperating with each other to deal with the overarching security threat posed by China, but without the intimidating presence of the US (which, typically, pursues its own particular interests). They will instill in the Indian government’s external outlook an outcomes-oriented, competitive bent. It may result, for instance, in getting the east-west Ganga-Mekong connectivity project – as a rival to China’s north-south Belt & Road Initiative – off the ground.6
But BRIS and Mod Quad leave Pakistan out of the reckoning. Pakistan is strong enough to be a spoiler and, in cahoots with China, pose a substantial problem. More than 70 years of tension and conflict with India haven’t helped. For a lasting solution it is essential to break up the Pakistan-China nexus. The military palliative for terrorist provocations – air and land strikes – will only drive Islamabad deeper into China’s camp. A Kashmir solution roughly along the lines negotiated with General Pervez Musharraf in 2007 that Prime Minister Imran Khan has said Pakistan will accept, is a reasonable end state to work towards.7 But India can lubricate such an offer with policies to co-opt Pakistan (along with India’s other subcontinental neighbours) economically, by means of trade on concessional terms, and easy credit and access to the Indian market for manufactures and produce. This will obtain the goal of unitary economic space in the subcontinent and lay the foundations for a pacified South Asia – the first step in India’s long overdue achievement of great power. Such actions should, however, be preceded by several unilateral and risk-averse military initiatives (outlined later) to establish India’s peaceful bonafides and to denature the Indian threat that Pakistan perceives. Simultaneously, prioritizing strategic and expeditionary military capabilities against China and for distant operations jointly with friendly states in the Indian Ocean Region and in Southeast Asia will secure India’s extended security perimeter.
National Security Policy Priorities
Lack of money has never been the hitch. Rather, the problem has been and continues to be the misuse of financial resources by the three armed services with their faulty expenditure priorities. Intent on equipping and sustaining inappropriate force structures geared to the lesser threat, they have squandered the colonial legacy of expeditionary and ‘out of area operations’. Consequently, they have shrunk greatly in stature even as they have increased in size.8 Persisting with thinking of Pakistan as the main threat long after it credibly ceased to be one post the 1971 war has resulted in an Indian military able to fight only short-range, short-duration, small and inconclusive wars. Indeed, so geared to territorial defence and tactical warfare are the Indian armed services that they have paid scant attention to strategic objectives and to the means of realizing them. The political leadership, for its part, has shown marked lack of interest, failure to articulate a national vision, and inability to outline a game plan and strategy in this respect. It has chosen the easy way of relying on the armed services professionally to do the right thing by proffering the right advice – which they haven’t.
Breaking the Pakistan-China nexus is an imperative. It requires the Indian government to first seed a conducive political milieu by making certain safe unilateral military moves. What the Pakistan Army most fears is India’s three Strike Corps; if this ‘threat’ is denatured, a milieu with enormous peaceful potential can be created. Considering the nuclear overhang and zero probability of the Indian government ever ordering a war of annihilation – which is the only time when these armoured and mechanized formations will fight full tilt – three corps are way in excess of need. They can be reconstituted and the resources shifted to form a single composite corps adequate for any conceivable Pakistan contingency. The rest of the heavily armoured units can be converted to airborne cavalry, and to light tanks with engines optimized for high-altitude conditions; three offensive mountain corps can thereby be equipped to take the fight to the PLA on the Tibetan Plateau. The nuclear backdrop can likewise be changed for the better by India removing its short-range nuclear missiles from forward deployment on the western border and perhaps even getting rid of them altogether, because hinterland-based missiles can reach Pakistani targets with ease. These two moves made without demanding matching responses will cost India little in terms of security, establish a modicum of trust, persuade Pakistan of India’s goodwill, and confirm China as the Indian military’s primary concern. It will hasten normalcy in bilateral relations.
Tackling China at a time when it is widening the gap with India in all respects necessitates India using the playbook the Chinese successfully used against the US – Pakistan against India, and North Korea against America – when facing an adversary with a marked conventional military edge. It means resorting to Nuclear First Use (NFU) and deploying weapons to make this stance credible. Emplacing atomic demolition munitions in Himalayan passes to deter PLA units ingressing in strength across the disputed border is one tripwire. Another is to declare that any forceful Chinese military action that crosses a certain undefined threshold may automatically trigger the firing of canisterised medium- and long-range Agni missiles, now capable of launch-on-launch and launch-on warning. Additionally, the large numbers of Chinese missiles positioned in Tibet should be seen as the third nuclear tripwire. As there is no technology to reliably detect and determine the nature of incoming warheads, any missile PLA fires will reasonably have to be assumed to be nuclear-warheaded. Such a hair-trigger posture leaning towards action will create precisely the kind of uncertainty about the Indian reaction and response that will bolster its deterrent stance.9
Exorbitantly priced aircraft carriers are unaffordable and, in the age of hypersonic and supersonic missiles, a military liability. The Indian naval budget should instead prioritize nuclear-powered ballistic missile-firing and attack submarines, and a surface fleet of multipurpose frigates. The Indian Air Force needs to radically cut the diversity of combat aircraft in its inventory, rationalize its force structure and streamline its logistics set-up. This will be facilitated by limiting the fleet to just two types of fighter planes – the multi-role Su-30MKI upgraded to ‘super Sukhoi’ configuration in the strike and air superiority role and progressively enhanced versions of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft for air defence, the follow-on Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft for longer reach and bigger punch, and lease-buying 1-2 squadrons of Tu-160M2 ‘Blackjack’ strategic bomber from Russia as the manned, recallable, vector in the country’s nuclear triad.
Politically, the most difficult policy decision for the government will be to resume nuclear testing. This is absolutely necessary to obtain tested and proven thermonuclear weapons of different power-to-yield ratios. India has got by with a suspect thermonuclear arsenal for 20 years. It is time India’s strategic deterrent acquired credibility.
Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:
1 An unreliable US, in fact, so concerns its NATO allies that the French defence minister Florence Parly in Washington asked a little plaintively, ‘What Europeans are worried about is this: Will the U.S. commitment [to NATO] be perennial? Should we assume that it will go on as was the case in the past 70 years?’ See ‘French defense chief questions US commitment to NATO’, AFP, RadioFreeEurope, Radio Liberty, 18 March 2019, https://www.rferl.org/a/french-defense-chief-questions-us-commitment-to-… 2 Bharat Karnad, Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015), 187-219. 3 For a detailed analysis of its various infirmities that preclude India’s becoming a great power anytime soon, see Karnad, Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet). 4 China sees itself as the main protector of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Visiting Islamabad during the Pulwama crisis, the foreign minister Wang Yi declared: ‘No matter how things change in the world and the region, China will firmly support Pakistan upholding its independence and territorial integrity and dignity.’ See Sutirtho Patranobis, ‘China firmly with Pakistan, says Beijing as Islamabad raises Kashmir in top talks’, Hindustan Times, 19 March 2019, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/china-firmly-with-pakistan-say…. 5 Bharat Karnad, ‘India’s Weak Geopolitics and What To Do About It’, in Bharat Karnad, ed., Future Imperilled: India’s Security in the 1990s and Beyond (New Delhi: Viking, 1994), 19-20. 6 Bharat Karnad, Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition (New Delhi: Penguin-Viking, 2018), ch. 4. 7 Imtiaz Ahmad, ‘2-3 solutions available to Kashmir issues, says Pak PM Imran Khan’, Hindustan Times, 4 December 2018, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/2-3-solutions-available-to-kas…. 8 Karnad, Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet), ch. 5. 9 Bharat Karnad, ‘Shifting the Nuclear Security Focus to China’, in Lieutenant General A.K. Singh and Lieutenant General B.S. Nagal, eds., India’s Military Strategy in the 21st Century (New Delhi: Centre for Land Warfare Studies and KW Publishers, 2019); Karnad, Staggering Forward, 344-349.
CII-CPR NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SANITATION
SANITATION
The Conference was held against the backdrop of the first year anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission to deliberate on issues and draw out an effective course of action to make Swachh Bharat a reality. In particular, the Conference focused on engaging the private sector in sanitation service delivery to India’s cities and villages – covering both, existing initiatives and future possibilities.
The study report can be accessed here.
Inaugural Session (full video at the top)
The inaugural session saw speeches by Mr Ajay Shriram, Immediate Past President, CII (click here to watch the video); Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President, Centre for Policy Research (click here to watch the video); and Mr M Venkaiah Naidu, Minister for Urban Development, Housing and Poverty Alleviation and Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India (click here to watch the video).
Plenary Session I: The Sanitation Economy: Roles & Opportunities
This session set the tone for looking at scope and varied opportunities the sector holds for different stakeholders in the emerging sanitation economy. Click here to watch the video.
Mr. Shubhagato Dasgupta (Senior Fellow, Centre for policy Research) presented the key findings of the report. This report will be useful for both- the government and the corporate sector to understand models of industry engagement in sanitation and to inform policy and research. Click here to watch the video
Plenary Session II: The Essentials: Behaviour Change and O&M
In this session models were presented that have successfully transformed poor infrastructure; interventions that brought about effective behaviour change; lessons learnt from the ground; and discuss policies and regulations that can enable sustained maintenance of community/public toilets and waste management facilities. Click here to watch the video.
Plenary Session III: Transforming the Ecosystem – Partnerships, the Road Ahead
The session focussed on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for achieving sustainable sanitation. Panellists discussed the institutional arrangements and innovative strategies that can help forge such collaborations, the roles different parties can take and examples where such PPPs have achieved the desired outcomes. Click here to watch the video.
LISTEN TO FULL TALK AND DISCUSSION
URBAN GOVERNANCE URBAN SERVICES
Listen to guest speaker Tripta Chandola’s full talk (above) about using the methodology of listening to study the everyday experiences and encounters of slum dwellers in relation to the space they inhabit, and how this shapes their sense of self and identity. While her research situates the position of the slums within the broader urban ecology affected by economic liberalisation, political movements, and evolving cultural practices, it also intends to highlight the sub-cultural practices of slum-dwellers negotiating their own space and self amid these transformations.
To listen to the lively discussion that followed, tune in to the Q&A session here.
This is the 65th in a series of urban workshops organised by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, and Centre for Policy Research.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the intelligence displayed by machines such as computers by observing and learning from the environment, in a way similar to humans. It is based on the idea of building machines that can think, act and learn just like human beings and thus accomplish tasks that have historically required human intelligence. Whether it is the application of digital personal assistants, personalised recommendations for content on the Internet, the usage of applications like Google Maps for directions or the automatic categorisation of emails into ‘important’ and ‘spam’ folders – all these are simple instances of AI.
Ethical and Legal Concerns
AI has permeated the realms of ordinary life without us realising. While the above may be minor examples in the way the technolgy is used, there exist several larger breakthroughs. AI has noteworthy applications in various fields including healthcare, agriculture, transportation, aviation, finance, education, marketing etc. The most interesting use of this technology is in the development of self-driving cars. While consumer cars with the autopilot function that can park, steer and brake by themselves exist today, there is a race to see who can create a car that is absolutely driverless. This has created an ethical dilemma that is worth probing: In case of an unavoidable accident, who does the AI save – the pedestrians on the road or the passengers in the car? How is such a decision, concerning human life, made? Is the machine playing God by making such choices? And, in such an accident, who is to be blamed and punished, considering the absence of a driver.
The Way Forward
While AI is slowly replacing human beings in tasks that can be observed and learned, one must question whether it can really ever replicate human emotions and interaction? Clearly, our relationships with each other are undergoing a change as AI gets better at modelling human behavior. We must recognise that a line should be drawn when it comes to the use of such technology. At a time when even groceries can be ordered using AI, eliminating any need for human contact, it is evident that AI is changing the functioning of society as we know it. While this technology offers innumerable positives, it is essential to exercise some caution so that unknowingly we are not controlled by a technology that was invented to simplify our lives. It is also important to tackle the challenges that come with the use of AI, such as privacy and security concerns, the lack of awareness, lack of data, and high costs of adoption. This would enable a smooth transition for all, as people slowly migrate from traditional technologies that AI will now replace.
This learning video has been produced by Centre for Policy Research as part of the Metamorphoses- Talking Technology project, being executed in partnership with the India International Centre and NITI Aayog.
PART 2 OF A BLOG SERIES BY THE CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH (CPR) AND PRAYAS (ENERGY GROUP)
ENERGY RESEARCH
The series is titled Plugging in: Electricity consumption in Indian Homes.
Electricity consumption in Indian homes has tripled since 2000. The percentage of households with access to electricity has increased from 55% in 2001 to more than 80% in 2017. In 2014, an electrified Indian household consumed about 90 units (kWh) of electricity per month on an average; enough to run four tube-lights, four ceiling fans, a television, a small refrigerator, and small kitchen appliances with typical usage hours and efficiency levels in India. This is three-fourths of the average monthly household consumption in China, a tenth of that in the USA, and a third of the world average. In this post, we take a closer look at data on India’s residential electricity and the disparities in access and consumption across states. We also reveal some inconsistencies between different sources, pointing to the need for better data.
All states show considerable increase in total residential electricity consumption in recent years according to data compiled by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) from distribution companies (see Figure 1). Between 2004 and 2015, states like Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand with low initial household electrification showed a high growth rate of their residential electricity use (about 11%-16%). States with higher household electrification like Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu grew at lower, but still substantial, rates (6%-8%), with high absolute numbers.
Figure 1: Residential Electricity Consumption growth in selected states (2004-2015)
Source: Annual General Reviews for individual years (CEA).
The CEA data along with the census data and the rural electrification data can be used to estimate average monthly electricity consumption of an electrified household in different states. We validate this against the tariff orders issued by state regulators and find interesting results (see Figure 2).
Three insights emerge:
One, an electrified household in Delhi consumes about 250-270 units or kWh of electricity per month on average, approximately the same average amount consumed by an electrified household in Germany. At the same time, such an electrified household in Delhi consumes significantly more than other Indian cities (Chandigarh: 208 units; Ahmedabad: 160 units; Puducherry: 150 units; and Mumbai: 110 units). This is in part due to high ownership of air-conditioners (12% of total households) and air-coolers (70%), and tariff subsidies in Delhi. Yet, other socio-economic reasons still need to be examined.
Two, electrified households in larger states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, with higher rates of electrification, consume on an average a lower amount of about 80-90 units per month. Karnataka is on the lower end with about 60 units. On the other hand, households in Punjab (about 150 units) and Haryana (about 110 units) consume much more. . While there may be some discrepancies in the data due to incorrect reporting on use and number of consumers by distribution companies, the scale of these discrepancies is likely to be small given the limited number of un-metered and illegal connections in the residential sector.
Three, states like Uttar Pradesh (UP), Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh show high monthly household electricity consumption. It is unlikely that states with a high share of newly electrified households and low reliability of power supply consume as high as an average household in Chandigarh or Mumbai. The reported household consumption is high possibly due to metering issues. For instance, 40% of the total residential connections in UP are rural un-metered connections. As their actual consumption is not metered, the distribution companies estimate their consumption based on norms approved by the regulator (currently the norm is 144 kWh/kW/month, a high number). Distribution companies have not conducted any sample studies to justify this norm despite being asked by the regulators. High estimation of consumption from un-metered connections as well as measurement issues in metered connections can mask the actual consumption.
Finally, the electricity consumption within states also exhibit significant inequity at the household level. According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)’s surveys, about 20% of electrified households consume less than 30 units of electricity per month, while about 80% consume less than 100 units per month. In rural areas, 90% of the electrified households consume less than 100 units. This distribution varies with states. In most states, about 15-20% of all the households consume less than 30 units per month. The states consuming the least electricity are Karnataka, West Bengal, Bihar, and Jharkhand. For more details on results see our recent report.
Understanding the factors that lead to such variation in consumption patterns across states and households is important for managing future electricity demand (and to monitor the performance of schemes such as UDAY for the financial revival of distribution companies, and Saubhagya for providing electricity connections to all un-electrified homes). This requires accurate and comprehensive data on electricity consumption which, at present, is a serious area of concern (particularly the limited reporting by distribution companies).
In the next two posts, we look at the most basic use of electricity in Indian homes – lighting – and how the provision of lighting services are changing in the country.
This piece is authored by Aditya Chunekar and Sanjana Mulay from Prayas (Energy Group).
This blog series is also available on the Prayas website here.
This article was republished in Eklavya Magazine in Hindi under ‘स्रोत विज्ञान एवं टेक्नॉलॉजी फीचर्स’, and can be accessed here.
To subscribe to email updates on the series, click here.
Other posts in this series:
Electricity Consumption in Indian Homes
India’s LED Lighting Story
Illuminating Affordable Homes
The Efficiency of Appliances
Appliances used in Affordable Housing
Electrifying the National Capital Region
Exploring the different uses of household appliances
Role of human behaviour in driving electricity use
As an international tribunal in The Hague rejected China’s claim to sovereignty over most of South China Sea, ruling instead in favour of the Philippines, and China refused to abide by the decision, CPR faculty comment on it:
In an interview to Rajya Sabha TV (above), Shyam Saran unpacks the various aspects of China’s claims over the waters of the South China Sea; deconstructs the tribunal ruling and its impact; and contextualises China’s response geopolitically.
G Parthasarathy in an interview on NDTV analyses China’s dismissal of the tribunal decision rejecting its claims to the South China Sea and how this is likely to lead to increased tensions internationally, including commenting on how India should respond.
In China’s Challenge to the Law of the Sea, Brahma Chellaney writes that China’s refusal to accept the decision of the tribunal is indicative of its ‘incremental approach to shaping the region according to its interests’ through ‘confounding, bullying and bribing adversaries’.
