Lost in transit

HardNewsMedia, April 4, 2007

Unless public delivery systems are made more efficient, responsive and accountable, India shining will remain a distant dream for the great mass of the poor in the country

M R Sivaraman Delhi

Over the last 55 years India has spent around Rs 3.5 million crore in implementing its 10 five-year plans and several annual plans. This period also saw an explosive growth in population, dissipating developmental efforts over ever-increasing numbers. Until the end of the 1980s, growth was not even visible amongst the poor, making Rajiv Gandhi lament that not even a quarter of development expenditure reached the people for whom it was intended. No economist dare calculate as to what incremental output this massive outlay should be producing now.

It is only since the 1990s that there has been a notable change in the lifestyles and living standards of people, with a perceptible decline in poverty levels. This is in great measure due to the heroic efforts of our maturing youth and the sudden burst of successful entrepreneurship, helped by policies that favour competition.

While the percentage of population living below the poverty line has declined, the acuteness of poverty has increased. The unchecked suicides by farmers, the brutal attacks by Naxalites, the increase in the number of pavement shops, and the lack of state control in almost 100 districts of the country either dominated by militant separatist outfits or Naxalites, show that there is something fundamentally lacking in our delivery systems of public goods and the reach of welfare programmes intended for rural India, particularly the poor.

Poverty in India now is more an outcome of the lack of responsiveness, accountability, inefficiency and corruption of the state institutions at the field level, rather than due to lack of resources. This is compounded by ineffectual supervision by senior bureaucrats who are content to issue directions, satisfied with paper figures that are out of sync with reality.

It is not sufficient to say that growth reduces poverty. How does this growth percolate to the poor and in how much time? The current type of economic growth makes a billionaire out of a millionaire within a few days, as he is able to buy up an ailing foreign company with the support of the banks that add to his assets. It takes decades, if at all, for this growth in wealth to percolate to the poor in a district like Kalahandi or Jhabua. They are not even assured of daily bread and shelter. The administration in the country is more concerned with the Ambanis and Mittals getting their clearances in double-quick time but not so much with the fruits of government expenditure getting delivered at the right place, to the right people, at the right time.

Planning Commission statistics show an impressive growth in the number of schools, with a corresponding number of teachers and thousands of kilometres of rural roads built in all these years. Yet, literacy is nowhere near the levels of other south-east Asian countries, even after half a century of planning.

Malnutrition, curable blindness and communicable diseases still haunt rural India. Mass migration of poor tribals during summer from the districts of Jhabua, Banswara and Kalahandi (to cite a few examples) in search of employment — with children tagging along having abandoned schools and old people left behind to fend for themselves — is a heart-rending sight. How many times has the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission or its members visited a village in the remote tribal districts to study at firsthand what their plans for inclusive growth have achieved? They seem more content to discuss the theoretical aspects of inclusive growth rather than waste their time listening to a bhil from Banswara in Rajasthan or a Maria from Dantewada in Chhattisgarh who does not know who will look after her old parents when she migrates to Punjab in search of labour.

TN Seshan, when he was secretary in the ministry of environment, toured the interior villages of Bastar that were affected by a proposed hydroelectric project on which a large sum of money had already been spent. After patiently listening to the views of the tribals as to how their daily lives would be affected by the project, he refused to grant approval to the project. The dam was never built.

Urban India has also not treated its poor well. Growing numbers of the poor now occupy pedestrian pathways in metropolitan cities, eking out a miserable living. Land is acquired in no time, even with the use of force, for an industry or an SEZ — but not for constructing shops to accommodate the footpath merchants. There is a commission on the informal sector, with an erstwhile economist bureaucrat as its head. After three years of existence, what has it done for these footpath merchants?

What the finance minister fails to report in his action-taken report, which comes along with the budget documents, is physical achievements in terms of benefits delivered and quality of work executed in the field. His report does not throw any light on where the thousands of crores of agricultural credit have been used and, consequently, how much production has actually increased.

How does the budget delivery system in India actually work? The amounts allocated in the central and state budgets first go to the HODs (heads of departments). They, in turn, are dependent on their underlings — including the financial administrators (FAs) and accounts officers (AOs) — who, in the absence of anything else to exercise their authority over, raise every objection in the world before sending the allocated amounts to the states or field officers.

In the states, things are even more arduous. Allocations are placed at the disposal of the HODs sometime in May…if things go well, that is. This money now has to go to the divisional level officers and then, on to the implementing officers in the districts. If the expenditure has been approved, they can continue and spend it. Else, they have to go through another protracted process of administrative and financial sanctions. In such cases, by the time the procedures are over, the year is usually coming to a close.

In March there is a mayhem in the offices of the HODs, where all the field officers and grant-in-aid institutions line up for release of funds. Where the funds go, when they are released at the close of the financial year, is usually anybody’s guess. Sometimes, they get spent on the purchase of goods. If the allocation is for roadwork, bitumen is purchased and orders for the supply of metal are placed. Work itself will probably start months later, by which time the metal and the bitumen have deteriorated, or been partly damaged, or even stolen. The result is incomplete roads of poor quality, without side berms.

Irrigation and other construction projects are no exception. Lack of supervision by senior officers — of the quality of the roads, maintenance of buildings and irrigation works — results in the wastage of public expenditure and offers scope for corruption. If the quality of the works is bad, action has to be initiated. The supervisors do not want to do this as they themselves may be partial beneficiaries of any commissions paid by the contractors. So they avoid taking action in cases of poor delivery of benefits.

In the case of an ashram school providing free education for the benefit of the tribals in Kathiwada, a remote forest village in Jhabua district, teachers’ salaries could not be paid for one whole year because the commissioner did not release the grant till this author intervened with the chief secretary. The author also reported to the chief minister on the deficiencies observed in a major project during his walks along the canal banks, as requested of him by the irrigation minister. The result was that he was never asked again to continue the work —even though the minister appeared to be aghast at the deficiencies.

The recent controversies about the Rs 35,000 crore expenditure on irrigation projects not producing desired results — increase in areas under irrigation — is an example of the shoddy delivery and supervisory system in India in every department.

Teachers are appointed to work in remote rural areas with no basic amenities for their stay. Soon, with the help of powerful politicians, they get attached to schools in urban and semi-urban areas. The rural schools’ rolls show a higher number of teachers than those actually available to teach. In Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, where the population is 83 per cent tribal, about 35 per cent of the population of over a million migrate with their children, starting March, every year. Consequently, the retention rate of children, even in elementary classes, is very low.

The hospitals in Jhabua also show far more doctors on their rolls than are actually available to work. Many are attached to other city hospitals. A private cancer foundation that does yeoman service in this region, has more than once pointed out the growing incidence of certain types of cancer due to lack of hygiene, malnutrition and a host of other preventable causes. The collector laments that he cannot do anything about this as nobody listens to his complaints. The field officers, including the collector, get transferred within a year or at the most, 18 months.

The system of delivery at the field level and supervision of the activities by senior officers have all but failed. No one is held responsible except in some high-profile cases. The author, who had the privilege of working with the prime minister, had brought to his notice the miserable situation in Jhabua, and suggested solutions. But these too have gone unheeded, despite the fact that a former collector of Jhabua sits in the prime minister’s office (PMO). If nothing is done before long, Naxalism will spread to this area.

Justifying regression

In order to improve the public delivery systems it is necessary to:

Prepare a district-wise plan for delivery of health, education, water supply and sanitation services, with specific targets.

Identify the officers responsible, train them adequately and assign responsibilities, as per capacity, to deliver. Assigned officers should not be transferred till the goals are achieved. If they need to be promoted, the promotions should be in situ.

Allot funds for programmes at the beginning of the financial year.

Have an independent monitoring unit that will continuously appraise implementation and give feedback to supervisory authorities.

Have an expert agency evaluate the accomplishments at the end of each year.

Based on evaluation and monitoring, take corrective action in programmes.

Establish a chain of communication among all levels of government and amongst professionals and institutions.

Set up separate maintenance organisations to ensure proper maintenance of all buildings, roads, water supply schemes, irrigation works and equipments, with adequate resources.

Reward and punish implementing and maintenance staff, on the basis of transparent objective criteria of achievements.

This will require reorganisation of the existing district administrative setup and would include the elected bodies – for purposes of assigning roles and responsibilities. At the state level, the delivery system – with respect to issuing all kinds of licences, registration of documents, granting of permission for construction of buildings, electricity connections, etc., should be brought under e-governance.

The government’s administrative reforms commission (ARC) is involved with high profile issues rather than public delivery systems that affect the common man. India is unique in being the only country that has not reformed its civil service and delivery systems in order to make them more responsive, responsible and transparent.