Limits to centralised planning

As the process of preparing the approach to the Twelfth Plan gathers momentum it is difficult to miss the extent to which the planning process has been transformed over the years. From the all-knowing models that marked the early plans we have moved to planning through dispersed policy interventions.

Much of this transformation has, however, not occurred through explicit debate. As a result a number of practices are accepted without sufficient attention being paid to the questions they throw up. And, one of these is the extent to which the process of decentralisation has now been centralised.

DECENTRALISATION IMPULSE

The progress towards decentralisation since the 1980s has been driven to a substantial degree by centralised intervention. Cynics would argue that the Congress Party's pressure for decentralisation leading to the 73{+r}{+d} amendment to the Constitution was driven by its desire to bypass state governments.

Similar political motives could also be attributed to the stipulation that at least 50 per cent of the MGNREGA funds should be spent through gram panchayats; a norm that has provided financial muscle to rural local bodies. The initiatives of the Left parties towards decentralisation too could be viewed as a step towards increasing the control of centralised party machinery over local institutions.

But whatever the causes, the fact is that there is today a wide network of decentralised institutions that have the potential to play a significant role in local economic transition. This throws up a critical question for the Twelfth Plan: how does a Plan list norms that are relevant for one-sixth of humanity and yet sensitive to conditions on the ground. The convenient answer is to make the norms so broad that they cover even the most remote and unique set of conditions that may exist anywhere in the country. But such a broad list would inevitably result in norms being interpreted in ways that were not intended.

POLICY DISTORTIONS

Such distortions are possible even when an intervention is conceptualised with as much care for inclusiveness as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. In addition to guaranteeing a hundred days employment per household, the Act has the potential to make a fundamental difference to agriculture even as it strengthens decentralised institutions.

There are States where the emphasis on decentralisation is quite pronounced – nearly all the expenditure on projects under the MGNREGS in Karnataka is through the gram panchayats.

But the implementation of the scheme, even when it is consistent with centralised norms, throws up a very wide range of results on the ground, not all of which are intended by the Act. At one extreme we have villages in the northeast of Karnataka where very few are aware of the scheme, which ensures there is no demand for work.

It could be argued that an effective social audit will serve to improve awareness. But social audits that are imposed from above are typically exercises that go through the formalities with little involvement of the people of the village.

At the other end of the spectrum we have the parts of Karnataka that had successfully implemented land reforms. A generation later, many of these beneficiaries are profit-oriented farmers. They have now made use of the fact that the MGNREGS allows the beneficiaries of land reforms to work on their own land. By claiming MGNREGS wages for working on their own land, the scheme is turned into a labour subsidy. There is little effort to use the scheme to develop much needed agricultural infrastructure.

The diversity in the effects of the MGNREGS across a single State emphasises just how difficult it is come up with a single set of norms for different regions. The limitations in the implementation of the MGNREGS thus make a case for greater decentralisation, not less.

INFORMATION GAP

The problems of awareness demand a focus on the relationship between the gram panchayat and the voters of its villages, that is, the gram sabha.

And in this task it would help if we went to the much-ignored writings of the man the scheme is named after. Mahatma Gandhi did try, without much success in his life time, to point out that democracy was about giving power to the ordinary citizens of remote villages. But merely handing over decision making to the village community would not be enough. It could lead to more inefficient utilisation of funds, as in the case where the MGNREGS has been turned into a labour subsidy.

If this distortion is to be avoided, the knowledge available at the local level would have to be improved. And it is this knowledge gap that appears most difficult to overcome.

It would require intellectual support to address questions that relate to the local rural reality. But over the last two decades the Indian intelligentsia has made a decisive move away from studying the rural. And what effort is made too is designed to gain recognition on the global stage rather than cater to the needs of diverse rural realities.

The Twelfth Plan would make a significant contribution if it could help ensure that the search for intellectual elitism does not result in a social elitism that ignores the rural reality.

(The author is Professor, School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced

Studies, Bangalore. >blfeedback@thehindu.co.in )

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