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Setting new standards--planning to improve the implementation of new procedures according to them-- improving the level of excellence according to the quality benchmarks already set in--then moving to create the assets which will help in the operation of the various schemes the government is running and finally monitoring and evaluation of the funds used in all these operations; these are all the things which are being reviewed again and again in the view of 12th plan formulation of the approach towards centrally sponsored schemes under which money is being allocated to the district administration.
Increasingly there is feeling that funds being transferred from centre to states for empowerment of Panchayati raj institutions and for the development schemes run by them are being directed through various grey routes as slush funds for ' employment guarantee' of few vested interests. Everyone talks about social audit of the funds and schemes at the Panchayat, tehsil and district level. Interestingly, recent upsurge of Lokpal Movement also highlighted ' auditing ' at higher levels of administration. Few people in beuracracy feel that social auditing is like plucking a tree after being planted and then complaining that it is not growing. So, a new comprehensive approach is being demanded by beurecrats for smooth functioning of the scheme. This seems to be exactly opposite of the kind of demands social movements are making about accountability and transperency.
Anywhere documenting the problems in details creates huge aspirations in society. Any how, these kind of socially communicated wish lists have its own political benefits. It creates positive pressure groups and waves of proactive actions which ultimately benifits people. While everyone will agree to the fact that details are very important in the planning process, many times we tend to miss the qualitative aspects of nuanced issues. When missionisation of government schemes related to health, education happens, these schemes do come under fire from concerned different ministries. This must be the reason that in the 12th plan there is special emphasis on the moving out of the silos and having harmonious integration of coordination with the ministries while implementing the development schemes and the innovative efforts government is trying to take.
During the consultation processes or working groups of policy formulations many times the experience is that final outcome of draft is very much different from the original unerstanding of the issue. One may call it cumulative improvement about the understanding or the comprehension of the gravity of the issues. But there needs to be a structure while documenting the key issues involved during the discussion of the problem under consideration. The approach of many meetings to explore different kinds of documenting resources, techniques or technologies is very poor considering the kind of challenges being faced in the spectrum of policies. When the broad parameters are designed there should be capacity of the recieving audience to comprehend the details involved in those issues. For that different kind of mapping techniques can be used. This is a matter of mind set change. If we view every issue in matter of text and numbers only we will be definitely missing the larger ground relaities on the ground.
There will be no doubt about the assertion that any policy must be people driven. Normally, we always believe thatv we should create institutional framework and those institutions will take care of the mechanisms, processes and the kind of operations involved in the performance of the specific task. Going beyond this, HRD approach tells us that we should be investing in the ability of the people to deliever. We have to create environment of trust within different stakeholders. Then only they will share key contextual information which will lead towards formation of common knowledge about the problem. We need to consistently train the people. We need to reward the people for their innovative ideas and steps they have taken in their respective domain of work. We need to secure their well being in terms of their basic needs in order to motivate them to contribute them meningfully towards the work they are doing in development projects.
Key question is despite that billions of crores being poured, why the certain areas are always backward. In the era of liberalisation where there is huge increase in indirect taxes, central government is pulling the strings about the allocations of the many development schemes. So central government is calling the shots to motivate the district administration for the execution of all the schemes. But are all these schemes and huge some of money is making effect. The number of centrally sponsored schemes to the states is huge. Previous number was 230, before it was chopped down to 99 and again was increased to 120. It is interesting to note that top 15% of the schemes eat up almost 95% of the money. Do we need more schemes? Or we need fair rationalisation of the number of schemes and funds to have maximum impact on the capacity of the decentralised panchayati raj to solve their problems? Is the approach of only relying on the district administration for approaching all development problems is reliable or we need to go to tehsil and village level by looking at the data in more desaggrigated way so as to have more incisive microplanning? The questions are manifold.
We need to think in the direction of asking the question: is there any other way or choice to strengthen the vehicle of channeling development efforts other than decentralisation? How approach of rural development policies can be made more harmonious by including talukas and panchayats more, going beyond district administration? How we can accomodate rising political ambitions of the Panchayati Raj system to enforce a lot of energy and incentive for creating conducive enviornment of accountability and performance in implementation of the different schemes? Will always roof top solutions will work? Do we ever measure the governance deficit? If we do not measure it, we will lose the opportunity to take corrective measures also. Do we need to concentrate on the qualitative aspects of the issues rather than just looking at the quantitative aspects of the every scheme? Do we only want to fight for the funds or we should be fighting for the creating the enabling environment for having optimum impact of the work being done in perticular area.
Government is relying hugely on different types of Rights acts like employment gurantee, food security, information access and more recently delievery of services. Beyond creating this rights based approach do governments of our times have convergent vision about creating the environment of hope, aspirations and constructive engagement with the issues by more participative way? Do government has shared vision of rural development across the board of ministry of finance, rural development and Planning Commission? Understanding all these questions will only enable to have detailed understanding about microplanning we need to look more seriously towards. Real movers and shakers of development are in the states as recognised by recent state elections and examples like Nitish Kumar, Navin Patnaik, Tarun Gogoi, Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan. Here the name and the political affiliation of the people at the helm is not being highlighted. But the point is that they have the capability, knowledge and socio-political will power and context to mobilise the what I call anthropoligally sound manifesto of development. So, role of centre must become less and less to enable states to do more and more. That is the real spirit of federalism, we dont know word forgotten long ago but burning beneath the surface of the issues like Telengana etc. So, bottomline is centres must respect the political leap of faith expressed by different states in their understanding of the development paradigm they wish to enter in.
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