SOIL Report 2011 - ACCESS Development Services

Reflections onLivelihoods Policies3.1. Section I—IntroductionThis chapter discusses the policies of theGovernment of India and some state governmentslike Bihar and Orissa, related tothe improvement (and in some cases thedestruction) of livelihoods of a vast majorityof Indian citizens, both rural and urban.To be in tune with the annual characterof this report, the chapter focuses on newand emerging issues instead of trying tocapture the entire canvass of policy domain.A policy is defined as any, or a mix of, mission,scheme, act and policy declaration,no matter in which way it is presented inthe public domain. Thus, it treats MahilaKisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP),Mukhya Mantri Balika Cycle Yojana,MGNREGA and National Rehabilitationand Resettlement (R&R) Policy as the sameontological category.For an individual household, livelihoodis the challenge of trying to make manyends meet: food, nutrition, income, savings,credit, insurance, education, health,shocks, status, dignity, equity, and the like.While many challenges manifest themselvesto the entire household, there are some thatmanifest to members of the household in aparticular way; the wife, daughter, children,old, disabled, and so on. As the nationtries to meet these multidimensional andmultilayered challenges, it leads to formulationof policies related to credit, savings,wages, employment, education, health, agriculture-horticulture,forestry, non-farmlivelihoods, markets, trades, prices, displacement,rehabilitation-resettlement,migration, food security, nutrition, children,gender, disabled, transgender, etc.However, livelihoods, and particularlythat of the poor get affected not only bythe affirmative actions of the state, a largenumber of macroeconomic measurestaken to stabilize and orient the economyin certain directions also affect livelihoods.This chapter will not discuss those macroeconomicissues. For example, the foodinflation and overall inflation have remainedtoo high affecting livelihoods of people.Increase of diesel and kerosene prices havea direct bearing on poor households. Liberalimport policies, allowing forward trading insome commodities, shrinking flow of creditsfrom mainstream financial institutions andcrises in micro-finance have affected livelihoods.It must be said though that mostmacroeconomic policies in recent timeshave affected livelihoods negatively, and atthis point, it is not possible for us to clearlysay if affirmative actions have the abilityto minimize the negative effects of macroeconomicpolicies.Chapter3