The Hindu Business Line : Poverty of resolute action

The ten commandments announced by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, in recent times have pressed the much-needed refresh button for market-driven reform agenda.

The primacy of public services has been undeniably established. Noted economist and Nobel laureate Prof Amartya Sen has been reminding leaders that India’s poor require a radical package.

The market has failed and it is the public services that must ensure the poor have access to basic services.

Dr Manmohan Singh has, on a number of occasions, reminded the nation, in general, and planners, in particular, about the lack of equity and efficiency in the programmes. It is important that we determine how, when and who designs these poverty elimination programmes and who implements them.

To be precise, are the field-level functionaries and policymakers out of sync with ground realities and the theoretical underpinnings of poverty reduction in a global economic environment? In the corridors of ministries in New Delhi, strategies have been reduced to the “nuts and bolts” of sanitised and compartmentalised poverty reduction programmes and interventions per se to suit the decree of either central or centrally-sponsored schemes.

The centralised decentralisation, other factors remaining unchanged, has indeed been a bane for poverty reduction programmes.

The public services delivery mechanism, nonetheless, will form the core for any reduction strategy.

States’ role

In public service delivery, the ‘competent authority’ can make or mar the outcome. We must determine whether these ‘competent authorities’ have the competence to deliver the desired outcome. Certainly, the Prime Minister has not been able to keep the promise of reforming the ‘babudom’.

Many State governments too are not prepared enough to tackle poverty issues. The budget speeches of State finance ministers invariably show determination to realise ‘Incredible India’s Revenue Growth Story’. The resources (chiefly funds) transfer from the Centre to the States, unfortunately, highlights the hair-splitting over poverty estimates. The deficiency of State action in poverty alleviation programmes is visible across India. The high-income growth States, particularly, magnify the distress of the poor and the sordid performance timeline of public services delivery.

Haryana, for instance, recently reported that one in every four households is below the poverty line while a cash surplus of over Rs 63,000 crore was deposited with the RBI.

Grassroots action

Given the spiralling headline inflation rates, without access to basic services even those above poverty line (APL) will join the ranks of the ever-suffering below poverty line (BPL) category at a faster pace.

The bottoms-up approach of governance is the sole viable alternative. Panchayati Raj institutions (PRIs) hold the key to realising policy goals at the grassroots level. The institutional reengineering remedies (73rd and 74th constitutional amendments) were reinforced with the 2006 MoU between the Union Panchayati Raj Ministry and the chief ministers of many State governments. The MoU entails implementation of the 3-F principle, namely, decentralisation of funds, functionaries and functions to the appropriate tiers of PRIs through a series of bottoms-up activity mapping and planning.

As such, the 29 functions in the 11th Schedule and 18 functions in the 12th Schedule can be grouped into five purposeful categories: livelihood; physical infrastructure; social infrastructure; social welfare; and miscellaneous for crosscutting functions.

Safeguards against corruption

Amongst the new approaches to tackle poverty, the Planning Commission’s deprivation index is promising provided it is not derailed by the professional number crunchers, the funding agencies and their mechanisms, and the public services providers.

At the same time, it is important to provide safeguards against corruption. According to an estimate by the Transparency International India, approximately one-third of BPL households have had to pay bribes. Assuming that the number of common people — poor and vulnerable — in 2004-05 was 836 million, as provided by the Arjun Sengupta Committee (national commission for enterprises in the unorganised sector), the task ahead, though challenging, is indeed surmountable by the public institutions.

We cannot, and must not, lose sight of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the more localised SAARC Development Goals (SDGs).

The constitutional responsibility towards economic growth and performance to ensure social justice will certainly demand obligatory public action by the State.

(The author is an independent Trade Related Capacity Building Specialist based in Gurgaon. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)