The Hindu : Pep in panel reports

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Sunday, May 18, 2003

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Pep in panel reports

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 17. There is a refreshing change in the manner in which reports of Parliamentary Committees are now being prepared, with an attempt to breathe life into the bulky and often unreadable presentations.

At least, that appears to be the case of the reports submitted by the Standing Committee on Science and Technology and Environment and Forests during the Budget session this year.

A perusal of the reports relating to the Demands for Grants for these Ministries show each of them containing a fair sprinkling of quotations/comments of eminent scientists, thinkers and national leaders on related subjects which have been juxtaposed with observations of the committee.

For instance, while dealing with national river conservation, including the Ganga Action Plan in the report of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the committee quoted a report by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, which in the year 2000 after analysing the river water, remarked "that water of the Ganga is polluted with concentration of chemicals twice as high and the concentration of chrome a thousand times higher compared to the sewer in Norway.''

Recommending that the efforts at the Government and community levels be redoubled to clean the rivers, it also dipped into mythology to observe that `Bramhanda Purna' had prohibited 13 actions to maintain the purity of the Ganges.

Another report pertaining to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, an entry dealing with Ayurveda quotes Philadelphia's Dr. G.E. Clarke who in 1929 said: "if the physicians of the present day world drop from pharmacopoeia all the modern drug and chemicals, and treat their patients according to the methods of Charaka, there would be less of work for the undertakers and fewer chronic invalids in the world.''

The report also relied on a seven-decade-old entry in the Indian Medical Gazette on the subject and also quotes Mahatma Gandhi having said in 1921 that "the condition of indigenous medicine is truly deplorable.

Not having kept abreast of modern research, their profession has fallen largely into disrepute.''

The committee felt that intensive efforts should be made for acceptance of herbal medicines as complementary to modern mainstream medicines. Besides, it also felt that a regular watch had to be kept on those agencies that patent Indian traditional formulations and claim them as their own.

There are several other instances, in each of the reports pertaining to the Departments of Space, Bio-technology and Ocean Development.

In fact, the Committee Chairman, C. Ramachandraiah of the Telugu Desam Party, appreciated the work put in by officials and the value additions made in them saying that the reports were a blend of substantive information with literature.

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