Numbers… don’t impress me much

Reading newspapers can be annoying at times for those who think. Here are two news reports recently published. One says that now farmers will cultivate marketing skills with the help of a World Bank project. The Maharashtra Agriculture Competitiveness project costing Rs. 650-crore includes animal husbandry, dairy development, fisheries besides agriculture and marketing. The scheme is meant for 33 districts in Maharashtra. The World Bank will loan 415-crore for this project, half of it will be interest- free and the bank will impart all the required proficiencies to our farmers… how kind the World Bank is! And, how interesting, that it repeatedly seeks to solve debt- caused problems by disbursing more loans!

The second one was about the deals signed by the Reliance Power with the Arunachal Pradesh state government. Four deals for hydropower projects have been signed. The piece reports that, with these deals, Reliance Power’s hydropower portfolio reaches 4,620 MW in Arunachal Pradesh. The author claims that it is one of the largest in the country’s private sector, compared to that of the state-owned NHPC’s 5,175 MW installed capacity.

So, what is annoying about these?
The first report projects a Rs. 650-crore World Bank scheme as the superlative plan to help debt-ridden farmers. And the second report seems impressed by the huge figures of installed capacities. But, neither of them evaluates the information on the basis of root-causes. And hence, do not leave space for the reader to form his opinion, but merely serve to promote the interests of project proponents.

The World Bank may teach our farmer marketing skills, but, is it only lack of marketing skills that has put Indian agriculture in trouble? Or do Indian farmers need to learn the know-how of farming their own soil from the World Bank?
What will be the cost of farm produce that will reach us consumers through sophisticated marketing channels? Will we afford it?
Instead of endlessly taking up such costly training schemes, how about reviewing and revising our misguided agricultural policy?

What is our ‘real’ requirement of electricity? Do we need large hydropower projects to fulfill it? Is it essential to have them in an ecologically fragile state like Arunachal? Did the government or the company check the ecological viability of these hydro power projects before signing the deals? And, what is the earlier performance of this power company?

Has the Maharashtra government taken these farmers into confidence, or that of Arunachal Pradesh, its local populations?
Can all strata of our society bear the environmental costs of such projects? Rather, in the first place, are we aware of the fact that electricity generation has a huge ecological cost, and so it is with modern agriculture and marketing techniques?

- Reshma