Bureaucrats in Naxal-affected districts, struggling to regain the confidence of the people through development interventions, will now have about 180 non-IAS officers — to be recruited as a separate cadre — to assist them in their work. This would happen in at least 78 Naxal-affected districts, thanks to the new Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows Scheme rolled out by the ministry of rural development.

The scheme — a pet project of minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh, who calls it a backdoor entry into government for civil society, has been packaged in such a manner that the recruits are taken seriously, so that their full potential can be utilised.

 

The ‘fellows’, who could be professionals from backgrounds as varied as engineering, medicine, law, management or post graduates in any subject, will draw a stipend of Rs 75,000 a month, with an annual 10 per cent increment. This would place them close to what a secretary in the Union government draws (about Rs 80,000). The stipends in three years would cost the ministry about Rs 53 crore, while their training would require an expenditure of Rs 6.5 crore.

 

Jairam Ramesh is not alone in using this strategy to lure talent. Sam Pitroda, who heads the National Knowledge Commission, recently advertised for consultants with salaries of Rs 80,000. In fact, Pitroda is known to be averse to having bureaucrats in his team.

Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi has openly criticised IAS officers, saying college students are better equipped to carry out day-to-day administrative functions. Jairam Ramesh has a small team of talented people, including three non-bureaucrats and one from the IAS, the latter being one whose zeal for his work led to his abduction by Naxals.

The response to the advertisements by the ministry for PMRDF has been overwhelming, with 8,000 responses for 180 posts. About three fellows are being recruited for each of the 60 Naxal-affected districts, and they are supposed to do whatever task is assigned to them by the collector.

According to Ashwani Kumar of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, responsible for capacity building of the fellows, the programme will create a new cadre of professionals. “The new cadre would serve as an alternative to the IAS for getting talented people. It would also be a game changer for rural India, as it would offer work opportunity in the rural sector to people from diverse backgrounds,’’ he says, adding there is a lot of excitement in IITs and management institutes regarding this scheme.

The PMRDF, however, echoes another ongoing scheme of the ministry called the Young Professionals — which is run by Capart. The monthly salary drawn by these fellows is a measly Rs 15,000-20,000 and the recruits though graduates from various fields are hardly used fruitfully.

The disparity in salaries between the YPs and PMRDFs has raised eye brows within Capart prompting the ministry to keep the two schemes with different departments. While Capart, would keep YP, NIRD would handle PMRDF. The idea of the YP scheme was to create a new generation of development workers in rural areas. The YP’s graduates were to be given to NGOs or to be assisted to create their own start up NGOs after some service with the government, says Kumar.

While Capart has been using the scheme as a reason to hire contract labour, NGOs have been seeing it as a source of subsidised workforce, a sub-group of Capart reviewing the YP scheme said in a recent report.

PMRDF candidates are being screened by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), and the selection would be done through group discussions and interviews. TISS will be assisted by the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, besides the district collectors from Naxal-affected districts and representatives of the ministry. The curriculum for their orientation will be prepared by TISS with IRMA and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.

TISS has also been entrusted with the task of capacity building of these recruits, and the first batch would be deployed in July this year.

source: http://www.Business-Standard.com / Home> Economy & Policy / by Sreelatha Menon/ New Delhi, January 31st, 2012