(1888PressRelease)
October 21, 2009 - This year’s 9-is-mine campaign on 16th-18th October could mobilize more than 6 lakh people to hold the government accountable to its promises. Forgoing all the funfair of crackers and sweets in Diwali, thousands of volunteers of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (Don’t Break Your Promise Campaign) moved around in cities and villages across the country to mobilize people for auditing the performance of basic services in their Parliamentary Constituencies. In the second phase of the “9-is-mine” drive launched by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan in partnership with UN Millennium Campaign, millions of people participated across 156 Parliamentary Constituencies in India. As a reminder to the present UPA government on its own promise of 6 percent GDP on education and 3 percent on basic health services more than 39 thousand people audited the functioning of government schools and hospitals in their respective constituencies on 16th -18th October 2009.
The 9-is mine campaign was launched in 2006 on the eve of World Anti-Poverty Day, with more than 4500 children from across 10 states of India, and representing diverse communities met at the Constitution Club, Delhi joined hands to ensure that the government keeps its promise of eliminating Poverty and Social Exclusion by 2015, and enabling universal access to health and education - as committed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the National Development Goals. The campaign is followed by a signature campaign by more than 5 lakh children and a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister in 2007. This year, the 9-is –mine campaign is undertaken in 29 states across the country through a massive survey conducted by more than 2500 volunteers of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan and partners across states.
The survey sought to gather people’s perception on the adequacy and quality of basic services in Parliamentary constituencies. To our surprise, majority of the respondents who participated in the survey could not name their representative in the Parliament. As a review of functioning of their elected representatives, many people even gave negative marks on the performance. Majority of people surveyed commented that the quality of government services deteriorated over last five years.
Of the total 661651 people participated in the survey over the first two days of campaign, 376381 were from Orissa alone. People of Orissa for a long time have been a victim of government apathy throughout the post independence era. The Campaign witnessed activie participation of youths, students, women and members of the deprived communities in Orissa. The campaign in Orissa was organized jointly by Network for Social Accountability (NSA), Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVA) and Srusti in partnership with Wada Na Todo Abhiyan.
It is in this context, the 9 is mine campaign of Wada na Todo Abhiyan in partnership with Stand Up and Take Action initiative of the UNMC is a landmark initiative of the civil society groups to consolidate people’s aspiration for equitable development. On Diwali days millions of common people across the country joined hands with 9-is-mine campaign to reassert their right to development. The campaign highlighted several demands to be implemented at policy level in order to fulfill the commitments of MDGs by 2015. These include; adequate allocation on economic and social infrastructure, fulfillment of commitments towards the unmet promise to spend 6 percent of GDP on universalisation of education and 3 percent of GDP on basic health facilities, adequate allocation and expansion of NREGS to cover urban areas, protection of basic food security through replacement of the faulty Targeted Public Distribution system (TPDS) with a Universal Public Distribution System (UPDS) at the earliest, doing away with the majority of the tax exemptions and use of the proceeds towards subsidies for the poor and marginalized sections of the society, introduction of a special universal social security package that may include provisions for unemployment insurance to protect the workers who lose their jobs under situations like economic slowdown and a demand for massive skill building on a mission mode to accommodate workers who lose their employability for the want of skill and training.
As part of the 9-is-Mine campaign some of these demands were also circulated by the Global Call for Action against Poverty (GCAP) and Wada Na Todo Abhiyan among all delegates of G-20 Summit at Pittsburgh last month. Massive participation of the people of India in the campaign is an indication of the fact that the people of India are still hopeful that their representatives will manage to achieve the MDGs by 2015 and the rights of the people to equitable development is restored. Let’s be optimistic about the sense of appreciation of our policy makers towards this national process.
Wada Na Todo Abhiyan is a national campaign to hold the government accountable to its promise to end Poverty, Social Exclusion & Discrimination. WNTA emerged from the consensus among human rights activists and social action groups who were part of the World Social Forum 2004 (Mumbai) on the need for a forceful, focused and concerted effort to make a difference to the fact that one-fourth of the world's poor live in India, and continue to experience intense deprivation from opportunities to learn, live and work
in dignity. The abhiyan aims to do this by monitoring the promises made by the government to meet the objectives set in the UN Millennium Declaration (2000), the National Development Goals and the National Common Minimum Program (2004-09) with a special focus on the Right to Liveihood, Health & Education. WNTA works to ensure that the concerns and aspirations of Dalits, Adivasis, Nomadic Tribes, Women, Children, Youth and the Differently Abled are mainstreamed across programs, policies and development goals of the central and state governments.
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