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| Congress anticipates return of NAC |
| Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi Sep 19, 2009, 00:29 IST |
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Former members say the council should be revived
Will she, won’t she? No one but the lady knows the answer, but the Congress party and some former members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) are living on hope.
Three weeks after the Supreme Court cleared the decks for its reconstitution, there is widespread expectation in the party that Congress President Sonia Gandhi will again head the NAC, which was an out-of-the-box attempt to involve civil society in nudging the government to take pro-people measures.
Gandhi had quit the NAC three years ago after the ‘office of profit’ controversy and the council formally wound up in March last year.
Former NAC members, as well as social sector experts, say the council should definitely come back as it was a good way to keep the government on its toes — an observation that had also often exposed NAC to the charge of running a parallel power structure under Gandhi. Many say the NAC was much more than an advisory body because of the presence of Gandhi as a chairperson.
Former council members say in the absence of a common minimum programme (CMP), the agenda for a new NAC could be the Congress election manifesto, or the millennium development goal, or even a new CMP. Some suggest food security as a priority, while others say a guaranteed income programme for farmers should be the main agenda.
When it started functioning in 2004 under the previous UPA Government, NAC was like a touchstone for the accountability of the government on the promises it had made in the CMP. With Sonia Gandhi chairing each meeting, recommendations going from the NAC carried weight and could not be ignored by the government.
The council also played a key role in drafting legislation like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right to Information Act, but lost its clout after Gandhi stepped down in 2006. Since then, the Supreme Court has upheld exemptions to certain posts from the qualification of office of profit under the Parliament Prevention of Disqualification Act 2006. The NAC chairman’s post has also been exempt from the qualification and hence there is no technical hitch for Gandhi to once again function so.
Former NAC member and activist Aruna Roy recalls that the NAC under Gandhi provided a patient hearing to all views, including dissenting ones. Gandhi listened to all, even when there were volatile arguments. There was a hearing on all issues and as a politically important person, she could push, she says.
Roy says the NAC provided the first official space for dialogue on key policy matters. “Whether it was the rehabilitation commission or RTI or NREGA, we had a series of discussions to which a wide spectrum of people were invited. That bureaucrats also attended these meetings added to the importance of the discussions,” she says.
Jean Drèze, also a former member, agrees the NAC did a great job but cautions that it should not become a parallel power centre and stick to remaining an advisory body. “The National Advisory Council did some great work earlier, such as the framing of several path-breaking legislation, and it can do so again. However, it should retain its advisory character and avoid becoming an alternative centre of power.” says Drèze.
Despite the danger of NAC functioning as a parallel structure, social activists agree that it did provide an official space for dialogue on key policy matters – something that never existed before .
Bhaskar Goswami of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security says it should not become a parallel body, but there is a need for something like the NAC to take the views of the people to the government, especially in the absence of a strong Opposition and the exit of the Left parties from the scene. He hopes that the NAC, once revived, would look at how a guaranteed income can be provided to farmers.
Santosh Mehrotra, economist and advisor in the Planning Commission, feels the NAC should definitely be revived, as a regular dialogue was its key achievement. He feels reviving it would push many key policies like food security.
Roy says the earlier NAC derived its agenda from the promises made by the UPA government in the form of a written document — the CMP. The present government does not have any such document, which Roy feels is a disadvantage. For it to repeat its success, the NAC must have a similar set of written promises so that accountability is ensured, she says.
Madhav Chavan, education activist and a former NAC member, says that the unfinished items in the old CMP could become the new agenda for a new NAC.
N C Saxena, another former member and author of a report on fixing criteria for below poverty line people, however, says the absence of a CMP should not be a hurdle. The millennium development goals provide enough of an agenda for the country to follow and the NAC can see how these can be achieved.
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