The unthinking Republic

India is quite touchy when it comes to how it is referred to by other countries. While it is quite happy to call itself a ‘poor’ country or a ‘developing’ nation when it suits its purpose to do so, it is much happier being classified as a ‘newly emerged’ or at best ‘emerging’ country when it comes to pitching for a seat at the top table of the world’s economies.

But whether you consider us developing or recently developed, poor or middle income, one thing is clear – with its trillion dollar budget, money is no longer the problem for the government when it comes to looking for solutions for our many and varied development issues.

This is not to say that the government no longer needs money, or that it can find any amount of money needed to solve problems. Given the size and scale of the economy, as well as the size of our population and the vastness of real poverty, there can never be enough money going around to meet the needs of all.

And yes, we are nowhere near to rustling up the trillion dollars or so needed over the next decade to bring just our power generation and distribution infrastructure, to cite just one example, up to the scale of genuinely developed nations, and will therefore have to depend on foreign investors taking a big enough bet on the India story to make this happen.

MONEY NOT AN ISSUE

But yes, we do have more than enough money to ensure that at least three or four power plants of reasonable size are put up every year, or that a few thousand kilometers of quality highways are built, or that, if need be, no child goes hungry or no new mother or her infant child dies because of lack of access to basic healthcare.

That this clearly is not happening points to by far the biggest problem facing government – and governance – today: the lack of ideas, and the lack of execution capability within the government.

There are those who point to the endemic corruption within the system, and the inefficiency inbuilt into a system of management by non-professionals, which is what your government administrative machinery is essentially, as the root cause for this lack of delivery on the results front. This is largely true of course.

The late Rajiv Gandhi’s statement that of every rupee spent in the name of the poor, only 25 paise reach the intended beneficiaries remains valid even today, direct cash transfers or no direct cash transfers.

It is also comforting at one to hang on to the crutch of corruption, and a nameless and faceless (but rotten!) system to justify this lack of delivery, and the huge sums being spent year after year on projects and schemes which never manage to deliver the promised results.

This way, everybody who is a part of this ‘system’ is responsible, but nobody, specifically and individually, is actually considered responsible enough to be blamed – or punished.

But this implicitly means that the real problem then once again becomes money. If corruption did not leach away money from planned projects and intended beneficiaries, the argument runs, we would be much better off than we would be today.

That same underlying logic drives the single-point agenda of the anti-corruption activists, who have latched on to the idea of bringing in accountability and transparency in government operations as the one-stop solution to all our ills.

Root out corruption, runs their refrain, and you will root out non performance and non delivery, because the money which is supposed to be spent on ‘X’ will actually get spent on ‘X’.

One wonders whether this will be so. Not because the institution of a Lok Pal, or the introduction of tougher anti-corruption laws and greater transparency in government will not lead to better functioning – it will – but because of the assumption that simply ensuring the availability of money is both a necessary and a sufficient condition to ensure the delivery of governance.

SHORTAGE OF IDEAS

It is not. There are plenty of parts of the government where money is not really a constraint – even assuming the standard levels of corruption and leakage. Year after year, the finance minister of the day routinely adds that “sources will not be a constraint” for additional requirements while announcing the allocation for defence.

This is actually true, and push come to shove, the Opposition will cooperate willingly to ensure adequate funds for the country’s defence. That this does not translate into a better equipped and outfitted army or air force is due to various other ‘systemic problems’ which kick in.

Let’s take another example. The city of New Delhi has no shortage of money. It has central, state and corporation level resources to draw on. In addition, it is well represented by MPs, MLAs, corporators and even ward councillors, all of whom have their own, individual discretionary funds to spend.

The trouble is, that since the city is well developed, it can be a little difficult to spend on things which are required, not currently available and at the same time, meet the most important criterion of all – being easily identified as the ‘gift’ of the concerned politician by presumably grateful public which will then express its thanks in the voting booth.

So, while there is no shortage of needed things – better schools, better roads, better sewage and water supply, more buses and so on…the administration, which is responsible for delivery, is unable to come up with suggestions which also meet the third criterion.

As a result, money is often wasted on redundant or pointless things – from weird public ‘art’ installations to a seemingly never-ending supply of park benches for the city’s many (and largely well equipped) parks. In the housing development society where I live, for instance, the park benches in the colony’s parks are now three rows deep, thanks to the munificence of various MPs and MLAs!

It is not as if the problem has not been recognised. Speaking at a seminar recently, Planning Commission member Arun Maira bemoaned the flawed “governance architecture” of the country. Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on infrastructure and innovation, spoke of the need to improve the “innovation ecosystem” within the government.

Yet, the government continues to look for purely monetary solutions. The recently amended Companies Act, for instance, mandates that companies should spend 2 per cent of their net profits on corporate social responsibility initiatives. That will unlock a staggering amount of money.

The question is, are companies in a position to spend it effectively? Are there enough innovative ideas to go around for insuring that the spirit of the new law is observed, not just its letter? Can one actually outsource governance?

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