For quicker decision-making
By abolishing the system of having Empowered Groups of Ministers and Groups of Ministers — of which there were nine and 21 respectively that he inherited from the UPA government — Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent out an unequivocal message: the new BJP-led NDA intends to end the “policy paralysis” that its predecessor was accused of, and achieve its goal of “minimum government, maximum governance.” A press note issued by the Prime Minister’s Office said this would empower the Ministries, expedite decision-making and usher in greater accountability. The mechanism of EGoMs and GoMs had been created by the first NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee to tackle complex policy issues and resolve the clash of interests that are inevitable in a democracy, more so in a coalition where inter-ministerial turf wars are harder to resolve. However, under the UPA it often became an instrument to delay decisions. At one stage in UPA-II, around 80 such groups were grappling with a vast array of issues ranging from contentious matters such as the creation of Telangana, to the hotly debated ones of food security and land acquisition, to routine subjects such as post-retirement medical schemes and the age of superannuation for public sector workers. In the process, the authority and supremacy of the PMO got eroded, with the last incumbent, Dr. Manmohan Singh, virtually handing over his powers to the Ministers who headed most of these groups — Pranab Mukherjee, Sharad Pawar, P. Chidambaram and A.K. Antony, all men of differing styles and persuasion.
Mr. Modi has made it clear he will brook no delay in taking decisions, and that he will have the last word on policy-making. While this should restore coherence in the functioning of the government, especially as the BJP’s decisive electoral mandate will ensure it is not hampered by difficult coalition partners, Mr. Modi must guard against administration by fiat. The Congress, citing the PMO press release that has asked all Ministers who have difficulties in deciding issues relating to their own Ministry to refer them to the PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat for resolution, has cautioned that this should not lead to an unhealthy “centralisation of power” and an “autocratic regime in the future.” An omniscient super-PMO must not destroy the Cabinet system that envisages decisions through consensus. Rather, Mr. Modi should act as a facilitator, using persuasion and not diktat. He must rely on the collective wisdom of his Cabinet colleagues to create an effective — and harmonious — administration. In order to meet people’s expectations, Mr. Modi must not be tempted to become a single point of power, governing as he conducted his campaign, in a presidential manner, focussing all authority in the PMO. What worked in Gujarat may not succeed all across India.
MODI'S GOVERNANCE AGENDA
Kellogg, Sloan... Next Stop: Modi School of Management
ANUMEHA CHATURVEDI & VIKAS DHOOT
|
NEW DELHI
|
"The PMO can't do everything. It has to keep an eye on critical decisions and also give leeway to people to execute" SRI RAJAN Managing Director, Bain & Co
Here’s some textbook management advice: Not more than four layers for decision-making, 10 governance mantras, no passing the buck and delaying action, clean up office spaces, cut out clutter, improve the work culture (read really long hours).The way the Prime Minister’s Office has been going about its business bears a close similarity to the manner in which a new CEO would set the tone of the new regime in the first few weeks at any large company.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not made any bigbang policy announcements in the first few weeks, barring a hike in rail tariffs and a message that other tough decisions are in the offing to revive the economy, his focus on first fixing redundant and problematic management structures has been welcomed by management experts.
“Narendra Modi is a natural
leader. He understands how to lead and manage affairs efficiently,” US-based management guru Ram Charan, an advisor to the world’s top CEOs, told ET.“Many people could take lessons out of his leadership style.” However, experts also believe that given the overarching role that the PMO is taking on in the early days of Modi’s regime, its effectiveness and the way clout is wielded will play a key role in determining outcomes.
Moreover, given the variety of issues and stakeholders that the PMO would have to deal with, it will be better off focusing on the big picture rather than burdening itself by getting too much into the minutiae of things, they said.For this, it could take a leaf from Malaysia's Performance Management and Delivery Unit, or Pemandu, part of the Southeast Asian nation's Prime Minister's Office.
“In charge of overseeing the progress of key government programmes and reforms, Pemandu works on the principle of setting goals for departments that work in synergy, letting them thrash out the road map for that goal's implementation and stepping in periodically to review the status and make course corrections,“ said Arun Maira, former chairman of Boston Consulting Group and Planning Commission member under the previous UPA government.
In the UPA's 10-year tenure, India had too many economists in charge with virtually no managers to implement their big ideas, Maira said. “We often miss the point that outcomes that economists like to debate on can only be achieved through strong institutions and implementation skills,“ he said.
Lack of leadership skills in the PMO hurt the growth process, even though former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself articulated seemingly apt solutions to the country's economic woes. “It's not that the previous PMO had inept officers or the PM worked lesser hours than Modi. But the leadership and management skills of Singh and the principal secretary in the PMO, Pulok Chatterjee, who had little experience of making policies, were tepid at best,“ said a senior government official.
As Planning Commission member, Maira spent a lot of energy on seeking to fix systemic flaws in government an endeavor that yielded little tangible result due to a lack of political will and the leadership needed to carry out the necessary changes.
Parts of the Pemandu philosophy are already visible in Modi's decision to put a cluster of related ministries such as power, coal and renewable energy under one minister (Piyush Goyal) and inviting ministries with a similar or complementary mandate to make presentations to Modi together.
Getting the right people in the PMO will be as important as using innovative and lateral management strategies to enable ministries to get things done rather than cluttering up the PMO's inbox with requests for decisions or directions.
The concern is that if PMO managers aren't persuasive enough, they could end up having to invoke the PM to get things done and Modi may not even know the sort of instructions being given in his name. This could backfire in the long run.
“The PMO can't do everything. But it has to keep an eye on critical decisions and also give leeway to people to execute. So, finding the right balance is extremely important,“ said Sri Rajan, managing director of Bain & Co., one of the world's largest consulting firms.
If all decisions hinge on the PMO, it could lead to a different kind of policy paralysis, which was the bane of the Manmohan Singh PMO, particularly in its second innings.
“The culture of decision-making by committees resulted in a lack of clarity in the government about who is ultimately responsible for taking a decision.
Consequently , we saw delays and back and forth, sometimes at the cost of business sentiment,“ said Rajan of the previous government.
Modi has already sent a strong message by scrapping multiple ministerial groups and various cabinet panels, opening a direct line of communication with top bureaucrats whose appointments are no longer ministerial prerogative, and practicing “management by walking around“ as an industry captain put it. Officials and, more importantly, his cabinet colleagues are now clear Modi wants the government to be as efficient and agile, if not more, than large corporations that are driven solely by the profit motive. As several corporate chieftains put it, line managers have been empowered to act within the realms of the board's diktat.
With Modi picking Nripendra Misra as the principal secretary flanked by PK Mishra as the additional principal secretary--both of whom have years of experience and adopt a no-nonsense approach--officials expect a much more decisive and proactive PMO.
“One hopes that the Modi PMO will present a different and more effective model,“ said Rajan.
Currently , the PMO has just four joint secretaries and nine directors handling issues concerning nearly 80 departments, 29 states and seven union territories.
Though the PMO is likely to get more officials on board in the coming weeks, it will be critical to pick managers who can delegate efficiently and keep a close watch on outcomes without being overbearing.
Harold Geneen, who established one of the earliest global conglomerates in the 1960s as president of International Telephone and Telegraph, might provide a clue on what not to do. Geneen followed the “invest and extract“ approach with all the country CEOs of the group. “He got a number of accountants who went poking around and pressurised people to deliver.
He used to have big meetings, and ask tough questions. But the people on the ground felt they were not trusted at all,“ said Maira, pointing to ITT's subsequent demise while other conglomerates flourished.
The difference between ITT and the rest was that managers felt empowered in the latter. For the PMO, Maira suggests using a strategy of restrained “contingent power“--officials who deliver are encouraged while those who don't are told about their non-performance.
When the roles involved in decisions are clearly delineated, teams make the right choices swiftly and effectively, Rajan said.
“This works for leading private sector companies and should work for the government as well, provided the willingness to act on decision-making is there,“ he said. In a country as diverse as India, a one-size-fits-all approach and centralization of power are unlikely to work, so the PMO would have to assume the role of a nurturing parent company, empowering and enabling its regional chiefs and subsidiaries to succeed, as opposed to an authoritarian parent.
“Modi's model is a management model.
The people of the country wanted a manager, so that ultimately things get done,“ said Maira.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not made any bigbang policy announcements in the first few weeks, barring a hike in rail tariffs and a message that other tough decisions are in the offing to revive the economy, his focus on first fixing redundant and problematic management structures has been welcomed by management experts.
“Narendra Modi is a natural
leader. He understands how to lead and manage affairs efficiently,” US-based management guru Ram Charan, an advisor to the world’s top CEOs, told ET.“Many people could take lessons out of his leadership style.” However, experts also believe that given the overarching role that the PMO is taking on in the early days of Modi’s regime, its effectiveness and the way clout is wielded will play a key role in determining outcomes.
Moreover, given the variety of issues and stakeholders that the PMO would have to deal with, it will be better off focusing on the big picture rather than burdening itself by getting too much into the minutiae of things, they said.For this, it could take a leaf from Malaysia's Performance Management and Delivery Unit, or Pemandu, part of the Southeast Asian nation's Prime Minister's Office.
“In charge of overseeing the progress of key government programmes and reforms, Pemandu works on the principle of setting goals for departments that work in synergy, letting them thrash out the road map for that goal's implementation and stepping in periodically to review the status and make course corrections,“ said Arun Maira, former chairman of Boston Consulting Group and Planning Commission member under the previous UPA government.
In the UPA's 10-year tenure, India had too many economists in charge with virtually no managers to implement their big ideas, Maira said. “We often miss the point that outcomes that economists like to debate on can only be achieved through strong institutions and implementation skills,“ he said.
Lack of leadership skills in the PMO hurt the growth process, even though former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself articulated seemingly apt solutions to the country's economic woes. “It's not that the previous PMO had inept officers or the PM worked lesser hours than Modi. But the leadership and management skills of Singh and the principal secretary in the PMO, Pulok Chatterjee, who had little experience of making policies, were tepid at best,“ said a senior government official.
As Planning Commission member, Maira spent a lot of energy on seeking to fix systemic flaws in government an endeavor that yielded little tangible result due to a lack of political will and the leadership needed to carry out the necessary changes.
Parts of the Pemandu philosophy are already visible in Modi's decision to put a cluster of related ministries such as power, coal and renewable energy under one minister (Piyush Goyal) and inviting ministries with a similar or complementary mandate to make presentations to Modi together.
Getting the right people in the PMO will be as important as using innovative and lateral management strategies to enable ministries to get things done rather than cluttering up the PMO's inbox with requests for decisions or directions.
The concern is that if PMO managers aren't persuasive enough, they could end up having to invoke the PM to get things done and Modi may not even know the sort of instructions being given in his name. This could backfire in the long run.
“The PMO can't do everything. But it has to keep an eye on critical decisions and also give leeway to people to execute. So, finding the right balance is extremely important,“ said Sri Rajan, managing director of Bain & Co., one of the world's largest consulting firms.
If all decisions hinge on the PMO, it could lead to a different kind of policy paralysis, which was the bane of the Manmohan Singh PMO, particularly in its second innings.
“The culture of decision-making by committees resulted in a lack of clarity in the government about who is ultimately responsible for taking a decision.
Consequently , we saw delays and back and forth, sometimes at the cost of business sentiment,“ said Rajan of the previous government.
Modi has already sent a strong message by scrapping multiple ministerial groups and various cabinet panels, opening a direct line of communication with top bureaucrats whose appointments are no longer ministerial prerogative, and practicing “management by walking around“ as an industry captain put it. Officials and, more importantly, his cabinet colleagues are now clear Modi wants the government to be as efficient and agile, if not more, than large corporations that are driven solely by the profit motive. As several corporate chieftains put it, line managers have been empowered to act within the realms of the board's diktat.
With Modi picking Nripendra Misra as the principal secretary flanked by PK Mishra as the additional principal secretary--both of whom have years of experience and adopt a no-nonsense approach--officials expect a much more decisive and proactive PMO.
“One hopes that the Modi PMO will present a different and more effective model,“ said Rajan.
Currently , the PMO has just four joint secretaries and nine directors handling issues concerning nearly 80 departments, 29 states and seven union territories.
Though the PMO is likely to get more officials on board in the coming weeks, it will be critical to pick managers who can delegate efficiently and keep a close watch on outcomes without being overbearing.
Harold Geneen, who established one of the earliest global conglomerates in the 1960s as president of International Telephone and Telegraph, might provide a clue on what not to do. Geneen followed the “invest and extract“ approach with all the country CEOs of the group. “He got a number of accountants who went poking around and pressurised people to deliver.
He used to have big meetings, and ask tough questions. But the people on the ground felt they were not trusted at all,“ said Maira, pointing to ITT's subsequent demise while other conglomerates flourished.
The difference between ITT and the rest was that managers felt empowered in the latter. For the PMO, Maira suggests using a strategy of restrained “contingent power“--officials who deliver are encouraged while those who don't are told about their non-performance.
When the roles involved in decisions are clearly delineated, teams make the right choices swiftly and effectively, Rajan said.
“This works for leading private sector companies and should work for the government as well, provided the willingness to act on decision-making is there,“ he said. In a country as diverse as India, a one-size-fits-all approach and centralization of power are unlikely to work, so the PMO would have to assume the role of a nurturing parent company, empowering and enabling its regional chiefs and subsidiaries to succeed, as opposed to an authoritarian parent.
“Modi's model is a management model.
The people of the country wanted a manager, so that ultimately things get done,“ said Maira.
Kellogg, Sloan... Next Stop: Modi School of Management
ANUMEHA CHATURVEDI & VIKAS DHOOT
|
NEW DELHI
|
"The PMO can't do everything. It has to keep an eye on critical decisions and also give leeway to people to execute" SRI RAJAN Managing Director, Bain & Co
Here’s some textbook management advice: Not more than four layers for decision-making, 10 governance mantras, no passing the buck and delaying action, clean up office spaces, cut out clutter, improve the work culture (read really long hours).The way the Prime Minister’s Office has been going about its business bears a close similarity to the manner in which a new CEO would set the tone of the new regime in the first few weeks at any large company.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not made any bigbang policy announcements in the first few weeks, barring a hike in rail tariffs and a message that other tough decisions are in the offing to revive the economy, his focus on first fixing redundant and problematic management structures has been welcomed by management experts.
“Narendra Modi is a natural
leader. He understands how to lead and manage affairs efficiently,” US-based management guru Ram Charan, an advisor to the world’s top CEOs, told ET.“Many people could take lessons out of his leadership style.” However, experts also believe that given the overarching role that the PMO is taking on in the early days of Modi’s regime, its effectiveness and the way clout is wielded will play a key role in determining outcomes.
Moreover, given the variety of issues and stakeholders that the PMO would have to deal with, it will be better off focusing on the big picture rather than burdening itself by getting too much into the minutiae of things, they said.For this, it could take a leaf from Malaysia's Performance Management and Delivery Unit, or Pemandu, part of the Southeast Asian nation's Prime Minister's Office.
“In charge of overseeing the progress of key government programmes and reforms, Pemandu works on the principle of setting goals for departments that work in synergy, letting them thrash out the road map for that goal's implementation and stepping in periodically to review the status and make course corrections,“ said Arun Maira, former chairman of Boston Consulting Group and Planning Commission member under the previous UPA government.
In the UPA's 10-year tenure, India had too many economists in charge with virtually no managers to implement their big ideas, Maira said. “We often miss the point that outcomes that economists like to debate on can only be achieved through strong institutions and implementation skills,“ he said.
Lack of leadership skills in the PMO hurt the growth process, even though former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself articulated seemingly apt solutions to the country's economic woes. “It's not that the previous PMO had inept officers or the PM worked lesser hours than Modi. But the leadership and management skills of Singh and the principal secretary in the PMO, Pulok Chatterjee, who had little experience of making policies, were tepid at best,“ said a senior government official.
As Planning Commission member, Maira spent a lot of energy on seeking to fix systemic flaws in government an endeavor that yielded little tangible result due to a lack of political will and the leadership needed to carry out the necessary changes.
Parts of the Pemandu philosophy are already visible in Modi's decision to put a cluster of related ministries such as power, coal and renewable energy under one minister (Piyush Goyal) and inviting ministries with a similar or complementary mandate to make presentations to Modi together.
Getting the right people in the PMO will be as important as using innovative and lateral management strategies to enable ministries to get things done rather than cluttering up the PMO's inbox with requests for decisions or directions.
The concern is that if PMO managers aren't persuasive enough, they could end up having to invoke the PM to get things done and Modi may not even know the sort of instructions being given in his name. This could backfire in the long run.
“The PMO can't do everything. But it has to keep an eye on critical decisions and also give leeway to people to execute. So, finding the right balance is extremely important,“ said Sri Rajan, managing director of Bain & Co., one of the world's largest consulting firms.
If all decisions hinge on the PMO, it could lead to a different kind of policy paralysis, which was the bane of the Manmohan Singh PMO, particularly in its second innings.
“The culture of decision-making by committees resulted in a lack of clarity in the government about who is ultimately responsible for taking a decision.
Consequently , we saw delays and back and forth, sometimes at the cost of business sentiment,“ said Rajan of the previous government.
Modi has already sent a strong message by scrapping multiple ministerial groups and various cabinet panels, opening a direct line of communication with top bureaucrats whose appointments are no longer ministerial prerogative, and practicing “management by walking around“ as an industry captain put it. Officials and, more importantly, his cabinet colleagues are now clear Modi wants the government to be as efficient and agile, if not more, than large corporations that are driven solely by the profit motive. As several corporate chieftains put it, line managers have been empowered to act within the realms of the board's diktat.
With Modi picking Nripendra Misra as the principal secretary flanked by PK Mishra as the additional principal secretary--both of whom have years of experience and adopt a no-nonsense approach--officials expect a much more decisive and proactive PMO.
“One hopes that the Modi PMO will present a different and more effective model,“ said Rajan.
Currently , the PMO has just four joint secretaries and nine directors handling issues concerning nearly 80 departments, 29 states and seven union territories.
Though the PMO is likely to get more officials on board in the coming weeks, it will be critical to pick managers who can delegate efficiently and keep a close watch on outcomes without being overbearing.
Harold Geneen, who established one of the earliest global conglomerates in the 1960s as president of International Telephone and Telegraph, might provide a clue on what not to do. Geneen followed the “invest and extract“ approach with all the country CEOs of the group. “He got a number of accountants who went poking around and pressurised people to deliver.
He used to have big meetings, and ask tough questions. But the people on the ground felt they were not trusted at all,“ said Maira, pointing to ITT's subsequent demise while other conglomerates flourished.
The difference between ITT and the rest was that managers felt empowered in the latter. For the PMO, Maira suggests using a strategy of restrained “contingent power“--officials who deliver are encouraged while those who don't are told about their non-performance.
When the roles involved in decisions are clearly delineated, teams make the right choices swiftly and effectively, Rajan said.
“This works for leading private sector companies and should work for the government as well, provided the willingness to act on decision-making is there,“ he said. In a country as diverse as India, a one-size-fits-all approach and centralization of power are unlikely to work, so the PMO would have to assume the role of a nurturing parent company, empowering and enabling its regional chiefs and subsidiaries to succeed, as opposed to an authoritarian parent.
“Modi's model is a management model.
The people of the country wanted a manager, so that ultimately things get done,“ said Maira.
Job half done
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not made any bigbang policy announcements in the first few weeks, barring a hike in rail tariffs and a message that other tough decisions are in the offing to revive the economy, his focus on first fixing redundant and problematic management structures has been welcomed by management experts.
“Narendra Modi is a natural
leader. He understands how to lead and manage affairs efficiently,” US-based management guru Ram Charan, an advisor to the world’s top CEOs, told ET.“Many people could take lessons out of his leadership style.” However, experts also believe that given the overarching role that the PMO is taking on in the early days of Modi’s regime, its effectiveness and the way clout is wielded will play a key role in determining outcomes.
Moreover, given the variety of issues and stakeholders that the PMO would have to deal with, it will be better off focusing on the big picture rather than burdening itself by getting too much into the minutiae of things, they said.For this, it could take a leaf from Malaysia's Performance Management and Delivery Unit, or Pemandu, part of the Southeast Asian nation's Prime Minister's Office.
“In charge of overseeing the progress of key government programmes and reforms, Pemandu works on the principle of setting goals for departments that work in synergy, letting them thrash out the road map for that goal's implementation and stepping in periodically to review the status and make course corrections,“ said Arun Maira, former chairman of Boston Consulting Group and Planning Commission member under the previous UPA government.
In the UPA's 10-year tenure, India had too many economists in charge with virtually no managers to implement their big ideas, Maira said. “We often miss the point that outcomes that economists like to debate on can only be achieved through strong institutions and implementation skills,“ he said.
Lack of leadership skills in the PMO hurt the growth process, even though former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself articulated seemingly apt solutions to the country's economic woes. “It's not that the previous PMO had inept officers or the PM worked lesser hours than Modi. But the leadership and management skills of Singh and the principal secretary in the PMO, Pulok Chatterjee, who had little experience of making policies, were tepid at best,“ said a senior government official.
As Planning Commission member, Maira spent a lot of energy on seeking to fix systemic flaws in government an endeavor that yielded little tangible result due to a lack of political will and the leadership needed to carry out the necessary changes.
Parts of the Pemandu philosophy are already visible in Modi's decision to put a cluster of related ministries such as power, coal and renewable energy under one minister (Piyush Goyal) and inviting ministries with a similar or complementary mandate to make presentations to Modi together.
Getting the right people in the PMO will be as important as using innovative and lateral management strategies to enable ministries to get things done rather than cluttering up the PMO's inbox with requests for decisions or directions.
The concern is that if PMO managers aren't persuasive enough, they could end up having to invoke the PM to get things done and Modi may not even know the sort of instructions being given in his name. This could backfire in the long run.
“The PMO can't do everything. But it has to keep an eye on critical decisions and also give leeway to people to execute. So, finding the right balance is extremely important,“ said Sri Rajan, managing director of Bain & Co., one of the world's largest consulting firms.
If all decisions hinge on the PMO, it could lead to a different kind of policy paralysis, which was the bane of the Manmohan Singh PMO, particularly in its second innings.
“The culture of decision-making by committees resulted in a lack of clarity in the government about who is ultimately responsible for taking a decision.
Consequently , we saw delays and back and forth, sometimes at the cost of business sentiment,“ said Rajan of the previous government.
Modi has already sent a strong message by scrapping multiple ministerial groups and various cabinet panels, opening a direct line of communication with top bureaucrats whose appointments are no longer ministerial prerogative, and practicing “management by walking around“ as an industry captain put it. Officials and, more importantly, his cabinet colleagues are now clear Modi wants the government to be as efficient and agile, if not more, than large corporations that are driven solely by the profit motive. As several corporate chieftains put it, line managers have been empowered to act within the realms of the board's diktat.
With Modi picking Nripendra Misra as the principal secretary flanked by PK Mishra as the additional principal secretary--both of whom have years of experience and adopt a no-nonsense approach--officials expect a much more decisive and proactive PMO.
“One hopes that the Modi PMO will present a different and more effective model,“ said Rajan.
Currently , the PMO has just four joint secretaries and nine directors handling issues concerning nearly 80 departments, 29 states and seven union territories.
Though the PMO is likely to get more officials on board in the coming weeks, it will be critical to pick managers who can delegate efficiently and keep a close watch on outcomes without being overbearing.
Harold Geneen, who established one of the earliest global conglomerates in the 1960s as president of International Telephone and Telegraph, might provide a clue on what not to do. Geneen followed the “invest and extract“ approach with all the country CEOs of the group. “He got a number of accountants who went poking around and pressurised people to deliver.
He used to have big meetings, and ask tough questions. But the people on the ground felt they were not trusted at all,“ said Maira, pointing to ITT's subsequent demise while other conglomerates flourished.
The difference between ITT and the rest was that managers felt empowered in the latter. For the PMO, Maira suggests using a strategy of restrained “contingent power“--officials who deliver are encouraged while those who don't are told about their non-performance.
When the roles involved in decisions are clearly delineated, teams make the right choices swiftly and effectively, Rajan said.
“This works for leading private sector companies and should work for the government as well, provided the willingness to act on decision-making is there,“ he said. In a country as diverse as India, a one-size-fits-all approach and centralization of power are unlikely to work, so the PMO would have to assume the role of a nurturing parent company, empowering and enabling its regional chiefs and subsidiaries to succeed, as opposed to an authoritarian parent.
“Modi's model is a management model.
The people of the country wanted a manager, so that ultimately things get done,“ said Maira.
Planning Comm Should be Replaced: Evaluation Office
NEW DELHI
OUR BUREAU
|
The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has said that the Planning Commission should be replaced with a think tank, endorsing the widely held view in some sections of the government and the BJP that the body should be shut down or its role significantly curtailed.“It is clear that the Planning Commission in its current form and function is a hindrance and not a help to India's development. In my experience it is not easy to reform such a large ossified body and it would be better to replace it with a new body that is needed to assist states in ideas, to provide long-term thinking and to help cross-cutting reforms,“ Ajay Chhibber, IEO director-general, said in its first assessment report to PM Modi.
The IEO, which was set up by the Planning Commission last year, assesses the effectiveness of government programmes, institutions and policies.
Calling it a :control commission“, the IEO's assessment said that the Plan body exceeds the scope of its authority , particularly its influence on the allocation of funds to state governments, and has suggested that its role as an allocator of resources to states should be taken up by the Finance Commission while the allocation of resources among the central ministries should be carried out by the finance ministry .
The Planning Commission has been the interface between the Centre and states, with funds from the finance ministry being routed to states through it.
However, most of the states were of the view that this could be done directly by the ministry and that the Planning Commission should not control the allocation.
BJP has criticised the working of the panel, seeking a change in its role. “Organisations are not to adjust people. We have to see how they are working for the benefit of the people,“ BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain had said on the future of the Planning Commission.
The commission along with its advisors came under severe criticism from within the government for blocking projects. Former roads minister Kamal Nath blamed it for delays in clearing projects.
Former PM had also called for restructuring of the institution.
The IEO suggested that “the Planning Commission be replaced by a new think tank as it is staffed largely by non-specialist bureaucrats who lack the expertise to act as a think tank or serve as an oversight body to review implementation of programmes and policies in the states.“
Other concerns related to its opaque functioning, the lack of parliamentary oversight of its leadership and the lack of accountability of members.
The IEO assessment said the new institution could be called the Reform and Solutions Commission to highlight its role as a driver of new and dynamic thinking. “It can be staffed by experts with domain knowledge to replace the Plan body. This new think tank should be tasked with giving recommendations and with providing a road map of priorities to central and state governments, to Parliament as well as to the private sector. It should report to the prime minister but also have a defined relationship to Parliament,“ it said.
The IEO, which was set up by the Planning Commission last year, assesses the effectiveness of government programmes, institutions and policies.
Calling it a :control commission“, the IEO's assessment said that the Plan body exceeds the scope of its authority , particularly its influence on the allocation of funds to state governments, and has suggested that its role as an allocator of resources to states should be taken up by the Finance Commission while the allocation of resources among the central ministries should be carried out by the finance ministry .
The Planning Commission has been the interface between the Centre and states, with funds from the finance ministry being routed to states through it.
However, most of the states were of the view that this could be done directly by the ministry and that the Planning Commission should not control the allocation.
BJP has criticised the working of the panel, seeking a change in its role. “Organisations are not to adjust people. We have to see how they are working for the benefit of the people,“ BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain had said on the future of the Planning Commission.
The commission along with its advisors came under severe criticism from within the government for blocking projects. Former roads minister Kamal Nath blamed it for delays in clearing projects.
Former PM had also called for restructuring of the institution.
The IEO suggested that “the Planning Commission be replaced by a new think tank as it is staffed largely by non-specialist bureaucrats who lack the expertise to act as a think tank or serve as an oversight body to review implementation of programmes and policies in the states.“
Other concerns related to its opaque functioning, the lack of parliamentary oversight of its leadership and the lack of accountability of members.
The IEO assessment said the new institution could be called the Reform and Solutions Commission to highlight its role as a driver of new and dynamic thinking. “It can be staffed by experts with domain knowledge to replace the Plan body. This new think tank should be tasked with giving recommendations and with providing a road map of priorities to central and state governments, to Parliament as well as to the private sector. It should report to the prime minister but also have a defined relationship to Parliament,“ it said.
Plan Panel Reduced to Adjunct of FinMin
BHAVNA VIJ-AURORA
|
NEW DELHI
|
WHITTLING DOWN OF PLANNING COMMISSION Finance ministry dealing directly with states seeking demands and fund distribution MODI'S STAND Modi has been publicly critical of centralised planning and of one-sizefits-all approach
The Planning Commission, which used to buzz with activity in the run up to the Budget presentation, is unusually quiet, leading to growing chatter in power corridors that the organisation would turn irrelevant in the Narendra Modi government. The panel, at best, has been reduced to an adjunct of the finance ministry .Top officials in the government have confirmed that a whittling down of the Planning Commission, if not a complete dismantling, is definitely on the cards. It is in keeping with the measures taken by the government to speed up decisionmaking, including scrapping of t h e E m p owe r e d G r o u p o f Ministers and GoMs.
Planning Commission officials said that central ministries and states are sending their demands to the finance ministry bypassing the panel. This is a major departure from previous years when ministries provided budget estimates for plan expenditure for the next financial year only after discussing their respective plan schemes with the Planning Commission.
This year, the finance ministry is sending to the commission only those demands raised by ministries, which need to be rationalised in the context of the overall development programme of the XII Plan. A Planning Commission official told ET that there were indications that the government wanted to do away with the Five Year Plan and just have an annual plan for quick decisions and fast implementation.
Modi's mantra, according to a PMO official, is that “India needs implementation, and not just planning and vision“. Modi has been publicly critical of centralised plan ning and of one-size-fits-all approach. He does not want Delhidriven policies or resource allocations for states but state-specific solutions.
Making a pitch for federalism, and better Centre-state relations, the Planning Commission has been left out of the loop completely where states are concerned. The finance ministry is dealing with them directly for seeking their demands and distribution of funds. The panel has also been left out from discussions to fix the size of the gross budgetary support. The figure was generally arrived at after discussions between the panel and the finance ministry , with the prime minister taking the final call. The panel had been central to the process of projects getting clearance, timely funding and also coordinating with ministries, sectors and states. A senior official said over the years the panel itself had allowed the government to render it ineffective. “Its task was to ensure that all the projects, crucial to the growth and development of the country , got adequate and timely funding. It was supposed to push the finance ministry to the wall to ensure that development programmes did not suffer,“ the official said.
However, in the UPA regime, vicechairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia gave up on the main task of setting a target and compelling the nation to achieve it, alleged the official.
Planning Commission officials said that central ministries and states are sending their demands to the finance ministry bypassing the panel. This is a major departure from previous years when ministries provided budget estimates for plan expenditure for the next financial year only after discussing their respective plan schemes with the Planning Commission.
This year, the finance ministry is sending to the commission only those demands raised by ministries, which need to be rationalised in the context of the overall development programme of the XII Plan. A Planning Commission official told ET that there were indications that the government wanted to do away with the Five Year Plan and just have an annual plan for quick decisions and fast implementation.
Modi's mantra, according to a PMO official, is that “India needs implementation, and not just planning and vision“. Modi has been publicly critical of centralised plan ning and of one-size-fits-all approach. He does not want Delhidriven policies or resource allocations for states but state-specific solutions.
Making a pitch for federalism, and better Centre-state relations, the Planning Commission has been left out of the loop completely where states are concerned. The finance ministry is dealing with them directly for seeking their demands and distribution of funds. The panel has also been left out from discussions to fix the size of the gross budgetary support. The figure was generally arrived at after discussions between the panel and the finance ministry , with the prime minister taking the final call. The panel had been central to the process of projects getting clearance, timely funding and also coordinating with ministries, sectors and states. A senior official said over the years the panel itself had allowed the government to render it ineffective. “Its task was to ensure that all the projects, crucial to the growth and development of the country , got adequate and timely funding. It was supposed to push the finance ministry to the wall to ensure that development programmes did not suffer,“ the official said.
However, in the UPA regime, vicechairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia gave up on the main task of setting a target and compelling the nation to achieve it, alleged the official.
Call for debate on replacing plan panel
The Planning Commission has “largely failed” to address issues consistent with the requirements of a globalised economy, said Rajya Sabha MP and former Planning Commission Member Bhalchandra Mungekar, but cautioned that a “hasty” decision to scrap the body would be a “mistake.”
The former Commission member has called for a “national debate” to arrive at a decision and suggested replacing the commission with a “National Commission for Development and Reforms.”
BJP’s comments that the Planning Commission should not be viewed as a “parking” place for senior leaders has fuelled speculation that the Narendra Modi government may bring the curtains down on the institution.
“The Planning Commission has played an important role in laying the foundation of India’s industrialisation when the saving investment ratio was abysmally low, the country was technically underdeveloped, foreign funds were not forthcoming and entrepreneurial class was minuscule. Regretfully, after the economic reforms of 1991, the commission should have changed its role, method of functioning etc., consistent with the requirements of a globalised economy. My personal experience as a member for five years is that the Commission has largely failed on this front,” Mr. Mungekar said.
He cited two examples as “failures” of the Commission.
“Till the 11th Five Year Plan was formed, hundreds of central and centrally-sponsored schemes were in operation for nearly five decades that were largely unproductive. It was only during the 11th plan that they were reduced by substantial number. Another area of failure was that the Commission was ill-equipped to monitor its own schemes. It does not still have competent evaluators in some of the departments. Civil servants, who have generally exhausted their usefulness elsewhere, are brought in. But, all this still does not mean that a planning body should be abolished immediately, unless there is an alternative economic structure consistent with the needs of the present day economy.”
Job half done
Poor planning is crippling the government’s flagship employment scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). In most states funds for the scheme could not be utilised in absence of comprehensive plans at the panchayat, block and district levels.
MGNREGS, which was introduced in 2006, guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult member volunteers to do unskilled manual work.
But government data shows that only 75 per cent of funds allocated for the scheme have been utilised in the last seven years (see ‘Wasted money’).
The underutilisation of funds has resulted in poor performance. The government has failed to provide jobs to over three million households in the past seven years. The scheme could provide the mandatory 100 days of employment to only 8 per cent of the beneficiaries. The national average person-days is only 42 (see ‘Sorry state of affairs’).
The scheme was one of the main reasons behind the re-election of the UPA government in 2009. With general elections next year, the government last year revived the programme with new guidelines and is calling it MGNREGS-2.
What went wrong
MGNREGS uses a bottom-up approach for planning, in which the gram sabha (every voter is a member) draws an annual list of works the village requires and the number of people it will employ. The village panchayat secretary then makes a proposal on the demands of the gram panchayat and submits it by October 15 of each year to the block panchayat, which has several gram panchayats under it. The block panchayat then analyses all the proposals and draws an inter-gram panchayat proposal and submits it to the district panchayat. The district panchayat draws a comprehensive report and submits it to the state. Besides the annual work plan, MGNREGS operational guidelines also have the provision for a district perspective plan (DPP), which aims to identify works that have the potential of generating long-term employment.
A Comptroller and Auditor General of India report released in April this year pointed out that there is delay in the submission of annual reports at every level. At times, submission of proposal by the gram panchayat to the block panchayat can be delayed by 21 months (see ‘Structural delays’).
The report says 26 per cent districts do not prepare annual plans and 46 per cent districts don’t have a DPP.
Poor district perspective plans
The operational guidelines of MGNREGA call for formulation of DPPs to facilitate advance planning and development perspective for districts.
Rural development ministry is clueless about the implementation of the DPP provision. Aparajita Sarangi, joint secretary MGNREGS, rural development ministry, says: “Many states delay their annual plans so it is hard to think about perspective planning for districts. Regarding advance planning, it is decided in the 12th plan to prepare two-year gram panchayat perspective plans. From this financial year onwards, we have asked states to direct gram sabhas to plan projects with two year shelf life.”
Government documents say only 69 of the 600-odd districts, have formulated DPPs since the launch of the employment scheme in 2006. Also, most of the DPPs for MGNREGS are based on the DPPs of an earlier programme, the National Food for Work Programme. Satish M K, rural policy analyst and vice-president of IDFC Foundation, says: “DPCs can help panchayats in charting out DPPs. Both have a bottoms-up approach and can consolidate inter-panchayat and block programmes by judicious use of local resources.” The foundation recently released the Indian Rural Development Report 2012-13.
Even Tamil Nadu, one of the best MGNREGS performing states, has failed to generate 100 days of work, “despite having accurate labour budget”, says Kumar. In the case of Uttar Pradesh, one of the worst MGNREGS performing states, things have not improved despite regular meetings of gram sabhas because of lack of public participation. “Village residents are not involved in planning so they lose interest during implementation of the scheme,” says Singhal.
“The problem is that the role of panchayat has been reduced,” says Vijay Kumar, former secretary, Ministry of Rural Development. “For instance, when we look at the labour budget that the state proposes, it is predominantly based on the pattern of the previous year. It is not a bottom-up approach based on the grassroots-level assessment of the actual demand.”
He also points out that there is a relatively big gap between what is projected and what is achieved by the states. Even Comptroller and Auditor General of India has observed a large shortfall between planned employment generation and the actual generation of employment. In its audit report, the shortfall in actual employment generation against the projected employment ranged between two per cent and 100 per cent in state annual plans. Kumar says poor planning at the local level has led to inefficient use of funds. “Enough jobs are not being created,” he says. “As a result, while some panchayats utilise the entire amount and still fail to provide 100 days’ work, the remaining do not carry out work and the money remains unspent.”
Arun Singhal, principal secretary, Department of Rural Development in Uttar Pradesh, holds lack of local participation in the planning process responsible for the poor performance of MGNREGS. “We couldn’t generate enough person-days because of lack of projects at the grassroots level,” he says.
Weak panchayati system
MGNREGS was conceptualised as a people-driven programme where panchayati raj institutions were empowered to plan, implement, monitor and audit the scheme’s progress. But, the panchayati system has been crippled by bureaucratic interference, lack of transparency and accountability, and absence of district planning committees.
A Parliamentary Standing Committee report, which was released in August, recommends district planning committee (DPC) should be involved, along with panchayati raj institutions and gram sabhas, in planning and execution of DPP. DPC is a constitutional planning body devoted to preparation of annual and five-year plans for a district.
“As per MGNREGS operational guidelines, there is no role of DPC, but the formation of DPCs can definitely help in strengthening the panchayati raj system and the planning process,” says S M Vijayanand, additional secretary, Ministry of Rural development. A DPC has elected representatives of rural and urban panchayats, local members of the Assembly and Parliament and designated officials. It is chaired by the district collector.
T Raghunandan, former joint secretary of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, says decentralisation in planning has not happened because political parties are not interested in it. “Independent functioning of DPC would end the patronage model system of delivery. No political party wants this,” he says.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh also believes states do not want to share power with DPC.
“The setting up of a DPC is a Constitutional provision which every state has to undertake, but states are reluctant to share or devaluate power to DPC. In the absence of DPCs, panchayati raj institutions fail to deliver expected results. It is the duty of the panchayati raj ministry to pursue the matter with states to make the panel functional,” he says.
Kumar told the standing committee that some parts of the Act could not be implemented due to poor panchayati raj mechanism. “MGNREGS and panchayati raj cannot be seen separately. It is the need of the hour to strengthen panchayati raj institutions for better implementation of this scheme,” he says.
The standing committee report says that while all states, except for Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, have set up DPCs, most panchayats have failed to formulate DPPs, a necessary condition for effective utilisation of funds available under MGNREGS. Vijayanand says the reason for the failure is that most DPCs are only on paper.
Planning Commission member Mihir Shah has similar sentiments.
Shah believes the poor performance of DPC is because “we lack passion towards strengthening panchayati raj system”. In the 12th Five-Year Plan, rural development ministry volunteered to provide one per cent funds from its big schemes to panchayati raj ministry for strengthening panchayati raj system. We have launched the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan scheme to empower panchayats. The rural development ministry has devoted Rs 6,000 crore to strengthen panchayati raj institutions,” he says.
Kerala is the only state where DPC is functional “to some extent”. “Here 25 per cent of state plans are approved by the DPC,” says Vijayanand.
Raghunandan calls Kerala’s DPC model as “backdoor entry system because the DPC is only approving plans and is not involved in planning or consolidating programmes”.
Arbitrary distribution of jobs One of the biggest fallouts of poor planning is the scheme’s failure to generate enough work to employ all applicants. As a result, there is rationing of jobs. gram panchayats issue job cards and distribute jobs in an arbitrary fashion, leaving out several qualified applicants.
According to IDFC Foundation’s Indian Rural Development Report 2012-13, in poor performing states such as Bihar, many deserving job seekers are facing caste bias. The report also says that in many places, farmers bribe village heads not to give jobs under MGNREGS during the peak agricultural season to get cheap labour.
“It is also an issue of awareness of rights and empowerment to demand work. If individuals do not get jobs within a fortnight, they can move court. A political movement is required to generate awareness about the right-based programme to realise its true potential,” says Rajesh Bhushan, joint secretary, rural development ministry
| Revision of the Code of Conduct for Ministers for both Union and State Governments |
The Cabinet has approved revision of the Code of Conduct for Ministers in the Government of India as well as the State Governments. It is now proposed to include a new para in the Code of Conduct which will read as follows:
“2. After taking office, and so long as he/he remains in office, the Minister shall:-
(f) uphold the political impartiality of the civil services and not ask the civil servants to act in any way which would conflict with the duties and responsibilities of the civil servants.”
The revised Code of Conduct for Ministers will become effective immediately from the date of issue with regard to the Ministers of the Union Government. As regards the Ministers of State Governments and the Union Territory Administrations, the revised Code will be forwarded to the Chief Ministers for adoption.
Layers, still more layers: the governance conundrum
Narendra Modi has so far tried to follow hismantra of Minimum Government, Maximum Governance in the process of Ministry-formation, by restricting the numbers. He has done away with the Groups of Ministers and the Empowered Groups of Ministers, and kept the powers they had exercised under his direct control. While these measures are welcome, what about decision-making at the lower levels of government?
Mr. Modi has suggested restricting the number of layers in the government to four. Considering that most States and the Central government boast of 12 to 15 layers, how can these be cut to four?
In any State, the typical layers in the Secretariat are: Junior Assistant (clerk), Assistant, Senior Assistant, Section Officer, Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Joint Secretary, Additional Secretary, Secretary, Principal Secretary, Minister of State, Cabinet Minister. These make for a total of 12 layers. (This example is drawn from Karnataka; designations may vary from State to State.)
Any government file begins at the lowest level and typically travels all the way up, before travelling all the way down. Assume each layer takes three working days. Your file can take 36 working days or 50 calendar days to reach the top, that is, the Minister. If all the layers have written favourable comments, the file is cleared by the Minister — if he agrees with the proposal. If he gives his approval, it begins its journey back and can take one day at each level.
Some Ministers, owing to ulterior motives, may delay proposals. Others, who have genuine concerns, may ask for more information. That means the file will take another 12 working days, or 17 days, allowing three days for the junior assistant to type the order and get the Under Secretary’s signature, and for the peon to hand it over to you. Thus you wait for about 70 days to get your government order, or GO.
You are fortunate if the file is cleared with no negative observations. However, the file can get delayed if at any one of the layers a negative noting is made. Often one of the layers comes up with adverse comments. Assume that the Secretary raises some issues and pushes the file down. The Joint Secretary may not answer those issues, but push the file down further, which may end up at the lowest level. The file has to again travel all the way up. Hence the file can go on for months before a decision. That could be another six months.
Playing it safe
The file can get delayed due to inaction, and inaction is seldom punished. The bureaucracy plays safe, since only actions are reviewed and officers may be penalised. If the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Vigilance Commission become hyper-active and the officers don’t receive the support of the executive and the judiciary, they will slow down. The bureaucracy has been going through that phase with countless scams, investigations and Right to Information (RTI) questions, that make any bureaucrat take his decisions with lot of thinking and slowly. That implies our assumption that each layer will clear the file in three days is wrong and more delay can be expected.
Can we then say six months to the GO? Not really. There are referral departments in the government, to which files are often referred. If your file is referred to the Finance Department, then another 12 layers can kick in, delaying the GO by another 70 days. Sometimes a file is referred to the law departments, which can sit on it for years. Lawyers and judges often take years to clear files.
Will the government be more efficient with fewer layers? Yes, certainly. As IT Secretary in Karnataka, I ran a lean department with the minimum number staff and only three levels of decision-making. This helped it become one of the most efficient departments and attracted a lot of IT and Biotech companies to Bangalore. If I had followed the usual norms of government I could have recruited a joint secretary, deputy secretaries, under secretaries, section officers and assistants. But the Information Technology Department had one Under Secretary and no section officer. We had one employee in the newly formed Biotechnology Department. He helped set up the Institute of Bioinformatics and eventually joined it as a faculty member. Bangalore attracted a number of biotech firms.
I could function with just three layers because IT and BT were new departments. However, it is not possible to reduce the number of layers in the older departments that have set procedures. The implementation involves studying the pros and cons carefully, simplifying government procedures and identifying surplus staff. The critical part is to take the staff into confidence and find useful places for them elsewhere.
While reducing the layers is a challenge, it is not impossible with political will at the highest levels. I would like to believe that Mr. Modi has the will to make the change. The nation is watching to see how these changes are going to be executed on the ground.
Finance ministry for clipping plan panel's wings The finance ministry has made a pitch for taking away Planning Commission's key role of allocating development funds to central ministries. If implemented, the commission's function will get limited to formulating five-year plans. In the Economic Survey, the finance ministry has said there is "sub-optimal resource allocation" and "diffused accountability" in the current budgetary process where it is involved along with the plan panel in allocating funds. While suggesting a reform of budgetary process to make it more efficient, it has recommended "the unification of budget making at the ministry of finance". Currently, the finance ministry and Planning Commission decide the level of central support to plan schemes and the panel then allocates funds. The statement comes amid a raging debate over the future of Planning Commission as critics argue that the model developed in 1950 is no longer relevant and the commission is a relic of the socialist era. Last month, a report submitted by the newly-appointed Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) had suggested that the Planning Commission be wound up for acting like a "control commission" and suggested that it be replaced by a new think tank manned by experts. The IEO even said the plan panel had blocked attempts to reform itself. It recommended that the function of allocating resources to states be assigned to Finance Commission, which is set up every five years to decide on sharing of taxes collected by the Centre. Interestingly, the Narendra Modi government has refrained from appointing a deputy chairman or members and has been silent over its strategy for Planning Commission. During UPA's tenure, the commission had gained notoriety for holding up key schemes.  Planning Commission officials, however, argue that the agency still has a role to play. They say the plan panel was set up as the government did not want the agency raising resources to allocate funds as well, fearing there will be a conflict of interest and attempts would be made to cut down on useful development schemes. A post-Plan era
India’s first plan was not made by the Planning Commission.
The Bombay Plan of 1944, which became the inspiration for independent India’s first Five-Year Plan in 1951, was the brainchild of several businessmen led by J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Birla and John Mathai. Purshottamdas Thakurdas, then head of the East India Cotton Association, edited the second volume a year later. The main objectives of the plan, outlined for a period of 15 years, were to double the output of the agricultural sector and quintuple those of the industrial sector with an investment of `10,000 crore ($18 billion at the time). The Bombay Plan proposed a significant role for the yet to be formed government in deficit financing, protecting domestic industries from competition, setting up of public sector industrial units and in ensuring a fair distribution of income.
Many experts believe that the Plan suggested a substantial role for government to forestall a full tilt towards socialism and nationalization of private property. Be that as it may, the Plan served as the broad, if unacknowledged, template for nearly three Five-Year-Plans thereafter.
The architecture of institutions involved in economic planning, centre-state financial relations, and resource mobilization and usage was created in the early 1950s. The Planning Commission was the first out of the gate, conceived as an agency of government. The Finance Commission came a year later, established under Article 280 of the Constitution. The National Development Council (NDC) was created in 1952 as a mechanism to mobilize resources in support of the five-year plans and to ensure the fair and balanced development of the country. The Planning Commission and Finance Commission are technocratic bodies, and the NDC, a political one. The NDC is made up of the entire Union cabinet, chief ministers of all states, heads of Union Territories and members of the Planning Commission.
Elsewhere in the world, economic planning has had a mixed ride. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China was conceived as a Soviet-style planning agency. It has been through many restructurings and a rise and fall in importance. After having peaked in impact during the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao era, the NDRC has lost a step under the current President Xi Jinping. In its heyday, the NDRC was called the “number one ministry” in contrast the Planning Commission has been described by some as the worst ministry in government. In South Korea, former president Park Chung-hee used Five-Year Plans to build the industrial capacity of his country into a formidable force. Korea abandoned economic planning in 1996 after it became a full-fledged market economy.
Should the Planning Commission be reformed or junked?
The Planning Commission is charged with creation of Five-Year Plans and implementation of the financial interaction between the Union government and the states. Over the years, the Planning Commission has grown into a large organization which functions as a think-tank on economic matters, coordinates the centre-state financial relationship and acts as the first gateway for access on economic matters with the government. It has also become the employer of choice for officers of the Indian Economic Service (IES) and the India Statistical Service (ISS). The Planning Commission has tried a few times to reform itself. Manmohan Singh, then deputy chairman, tried first to reform it in the mid-1980s. Another attempt was made by its member secretary, N.C. Saxena in 2000 and more recently, Montek Singh Ahluwaliaand Arun Maira gave it a go. To little avail. Maira’s investigations with several eminent persons revealed an organization that, far from leading the country in terms of bold ideas to be explored, was mired in a Jurassic past.
India is evolving and maturing as a country and can learn lessons from other developing countries that have transformed themselves and created prosperity for their citizens. One lesson is that resource allocation—particularly capital allocation—is better left to the market. The government should focus on creating an enabling environment and concern itself with fewer and fewer areas of capital allocation in the economy. The role of think-tanks will be to push the government further into the future in its thinking and to suggest alternative methods of enablement that increase convenience and adoption.
It is better to allow many think-tanks to compete rather than stick with one agency that is granted a monopoly on new ideas. In a fast federalizing India, the other function of the Planning Commission—implementation of the Finance Commission’s allocation—is better housed in a new secretariat organized under a revitalized NDC. Economic ideation and a more politically credible process for financial devolution should therefore be separated. While technically this can be achieved by reforming the Planning Commission and breaking it up into two or more parts, practically it would be much better to junk it and start afresh.
P.S. “To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?” said Shakespeare, in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1
|
Case for Planning Commission 2.0
Even in a market-oriented economy, a body such as the Planning Commission can have a useful role to play
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
Ever since India set out on the path of market-oriented reforms, there has been a growing feeling among advocates of liberalization that the Planning Commission has become an anachronistic and completely incongruous with the emerging market philosophy. As expected, over time the calls for scrapping the Planning Commission have become ever more strident. There are indications that the Planning Commission may be completely revamped and its mandate vastly emasculated. However, before embarking on this ultimate step, it is necessary to deliberate very carefully on the precise role of the Planning Commission in Indian policymaking.
It is of course true that the inception of the Planning Commission in the early 1950s was largely inspired by the Soviet central planning experiment. Even in the heydays of the planning era (1950-1975), the Indian Planning Commission could hardly claim the overarching influence on policymaking that its counterpart—the Gosplan—commanded in the USSR. In contrast to the Gosplan approach of striving for “material balance” at the most detailed micro-level, the Indian Planning Commission confined itself to a broad macro-balance sheet of sources and uses of physical capital and intermediate goods. There was also a most rudimentary exercise to match the demand and supply of financial capital. Broadly speaking over the four decades 1950-90, the Planning Commission engaged in the following four main functions :
(i) Ensuring the maintenance of inter-sectoral balance (via the use of input-output tables—a watered down version of the Soviet material balance tables) in the process of growth
(ii) Drawing out a road map for the long-term vision of the economy (perspective planning)
(iii) Overseeing the inter-state disbursal of public investment with a view to reconciling conflicting demands arising naturally in a federation.
(iv) Acting as a think-tank on leading economic issues confronting the country.
Things changed dramatically in the 1990s. The most noteworthy changes were a virtual abandonment of the first two of the above functions.
Inter-sectoral balances, in the new philosophy of globalization, were perceived as non-binding constraints as any imbalances could always be restored via imports. This is fallacious reasoning, for imbalances can involve non-tradables such as land, infrastructure or skilled services. Besides, if Indian manufacturing is to participate in global supply chains then special sectors or clusters (involving select commodities) have to be developed, for which an assured broad base of domestic auxiliaries is vital.
The second dimension to be sacrificed was the long-term perspective. The intellectual common denominator for this neglect of long-run issues may be located in the post-liberalization policy mood of an overzealous and universal faith in the dynamic efficiency of markets in inter-temporal allocation of resources—a faith totally unfounded in economic theory. Further the fact that the Planning Commission’s composition was dominated by considerations of political loyalty and sectarianism meant that it lacked the plurality of views and capacity to think independently that a high-level think tank would require. On the issue of inter-state disbursal of public investments, the Planning Commission has proceeded on a purely ad hoc and opaque basis with no clearly laid down guiding principles.
However the fact that the Planning Commission could not mark an effective transition from a mixed economy to a market economy should not be construed as a case for its abolition.
In my opinion, the four-fold mandate I have outlined above could still serve as a useful guideline for a revamped Planning Commission, provided some appropriate changes are introduced in line with the changed business environment and policy context. As mentioned above inter-sectoral balances continue to be as important in a market-dominated economy as in a semi-planned one but the attainment of these balances has to proceed in a totally different manner. Specifically, the attainment of macro growth targets has to be via successive rounds of iterative dialogues with industry, labour representatives and macroeconomists, whereby imbalances and bottlenecks associated with various growth trajectories can be worked out in the manner of the French indicative plans. But going beyond indicative planning, I feel that such dialogues would be far more productive if they were informed with detailed input-output and social accounting matrices. Another issue where a reformulated Planning Commission can play a vital role is in devising a long-term perspective on sustainable development, with special emphasis on a national natural resources usage policy and schemata for internalizing various environmental externalities. Finally, it would be worthwhile if a research arm in the Planning Commission could be shaped in the manner of the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US. Such a research division could bring out very detailed and authentic forecasts of important macroeconomic parameters for various forecast horizons, with a view to providing guidelines for public and private investment. It is of the essence that this research arm should involve a broad pluralistic approach, with affiliating scholars selected on the basis of their expertise rather than their loyalty to the ruling party or on sectarian considerations.
Thus even in a market-oriented economy, a body such as the Planning Commission can have a useful role to play. However it would need considerable restructuring and reorientation—in the manner outlined above—to function effectively.
Photo: AFP
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been talking from Day 1 about ministries taking greater charge of their areas of responsibility and being more accountable. Photo: Bloomberg
Arun Maira | Why the Planning Commission cannot be wished away
The thought that planning in India is passé should be consumed with an abundant dose of caution
Photo: AFP
It is fashionable to say that India’s planning experience that began in 1952 and continues to this day, is a costly mistake. (For one recent example, see the editorial in this newspaper, “An idea whose time has come”, 25 June). The thought that planning is passé should be consumed with an abundant dose of caution. The former prime minister and chairman of the Planning Commission, Manmohan Singh, ended his last meeting with the Commission on 30 April with four questions:
•Are we using tools and approaches which were designed for a different era?
•Have we added on new functions and layers without any restructuring of the more traditional activities in the Commission?
•What additional roles should the Planning Commission play and what capacities does it need to ensure that it continues to be relevant to the growth process?
•Governance issues being integral to economic growth, are these areas for the Planning Commission to delve into?
He had asked similar questions about the relevance of the Planning Commission in 2009. A study was carried out then and its findings were discussed with him in 2010. The conclusion was that reform of the Planning Commission was long overdue. Mint’s harsh conclusion about the utility of the planning as being done is not wrong.
What roles the Planning Commission should perform and how it should perform them were also presented to the prime minister in 2010. He directed that the Commission should henceforth be a “systems reform commission” and not a budget-making body. He also urged the Commission to change its methods of communication, shifting from lengthy plan documents that hardly anyone reads, to more persuasive forms of communication that stakeholders can understand. The Independent Evaluation Office’s recommendation that the Commission should be converted into a Reforms and Solutions Commission (RSC) is consistent with this.
Mint disagrees with this recommendation. Its criticism is incorrect. Firstly, it is not necessary that the knowledge required for solutions should be within this central body. Modern knowledge and solutions systems are constructed as networks tapping into the knowledge of many organizations around the world. The members of RSC, which must be a small node in the network, must have the orientation and the skills to listen to the needs of the country and its citizens, and to tap into the best knowledge anywhere for solutions.
Secondly, placing experts within ministries, as Mint suggests, cannot be the solution. The major challenges the country is facing cannot be resolved by experts within the silos of their own ministries and their own disciplines. Systemic solutions are required that cut across the boundaries of ministries and disciplines. Therefore a capability is required at the centre (in the RSC) to lift these sectoral experts up into a helicopter together, to take a wider system perspective. From this perspective, more systemic solutions will be found, and better collaboration can be engendered between experts, ministries, and states.
Thirdly, the paradigm of “planning” must undergo a change with a dawning “Second Enlightenment” coming into scientific thought. The First Enlightenment, born in 17th century Europe, led to a paradigm of specialization with expertise in increasingly narrow fields. This has led to great advances in knowledge no doubt. But an unintended consequence of it is an increasing incapacity to understand and resolve inter-disciplinary issues. Systems thinking and collaborative implementation methodologies are emerging as effective approaches to address such issues. The RSC will have to be equipped with people with these new systems thinking approaches and collaboration skills to enable the country to accelerate economic growth that is integrated with environmental sustainability and social cohesion too.
Other countries have also found a need for systems reform commissions with longer-term orientations. China changed its Planning Commission, which was founded in 1952 around the same time as India’s Planning Commission, into the National Development and Reform Commission in 1998. Many will be sceptical of an example of China, though it is reforming its planning apparatus faster than India, saying that it originally adopted the idea of planning from the Soviet Union, like India did. They dismiss the very idea of a central planning process in an open market democracy. They would be surprised to know that California, with its grass-roots democracy and vibrant entrepreneurs—the anti-thesis of the Soviet Union—is developing a form of “planning commission” under its “Think Long” initiative.
California finds it necessary to install a form of planning commission to balance the short-termism and populism inherent in electoral democracies. California’s infrastructure, its public services, its environment, and its public finances are suffering due to this short-termism and populism. Not surprisingly, democratic India has problems in the same areas: infrastructure, public services, the environment, and public finances. A proposition to replace India’s large, bureaucratic planning ministry which passes budgets and writes long plan documents, with a nimble, systems reforms and solutions commission, must be taken seriously. The need for it was confirmed in 2010, and the modern processes it should use were delineated by 2013 after studying what other countries have learned too. Some of these, such as scenario planning and the concept of an India Backbone Implementation Network to improve cooperation amongst stakeholders, have already been introduced.
It is high time to move beyond questioning the need for a Planning Commission, which we keep coming back to, and to implement new forms of planning.
Arun Maira is a former member of the Planning Commission.
Why the Planning Commission should go
The Commission played a crucial role once upon a time, but it has outlived its purpose
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been talking from Day 1 about ministries taking greater charge of their areas of responsibility and being more accountable. Photo: Bloomberg
It is an irony of fate. The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) was formally launched in February 2014. IEO is a body—at arm’s length distance—attached to the Planning Commission, under a governing board chaired by the commission’s deputy chairman (which of course begs the question: how’s that ‘arm’s length’?) to monitor and evaluate the efficacy of the government’s flagship programmes. I do not know whether the IEO has published any reports till now—two reports, one on the public distribution system and the other on maternal mortality—were promised to be released this summer, but it is on the front pages of newspapers for the first time because of its recommendation to the Union government to abolish the Planning Commission.
The Planning Commission did have something called a Programme Evaluation Office, which also started life as an independent body, but later became a division of the Commission—and, naturally, ineffectual.
The demand for scrapping the Planning Commission—or at least, dramatically redefining it, from its very mission to its powers—is nothing new. Nearly 20 years ago, an economist associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had written in a magazine opinion piece that the Commission should be wound up and Yojana Bhavan, its imposing headquarters, should be turned into a massive mall for the amusement of the rising Indian middle class. The prime real estate at the heart of New Delhi would be of much greater use that way.
Former finance minister P. Chidambaram had called the Planning Commission “too big, flabby and unwieldy at the moment”. Even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a former deputy chairman of the Commission, had said that “we need to reflect on what needs to be the role of the Planning Commission in this new world.” In his recent book Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions, former Planning Commission member Arun Maira recalls Singh telling him, as far back as 2009, that the Commission should re-invent itself as a Systems Reform Commission. This exact terminology has been used by author and former National Democratic Alliance minister Arun Shourie a couple of days ago.
To figure out what the Commission’s role should be, Maira was given a list of “20 respected citizens of the country”, including former senior bureaucrats, former Planning Commission members, and leading industrialists, who he should speak to. To the question whether the Planning Commission was playing a useful role for the country, all 20 answered: “No.” India was quite a different country now from what it was two decades ago. It was more decentralized, both politically and administratively. Post-1991, the private sector had become perhaps the most significant force in the economy, and was now an important participant in even areas which had for decades been solely the government’s domain, such as infrastructure—from telecom to power to roads and civil aviation. The Indian economy was far more strongly connected now with the global economy.
A group of economists and statisticians deciding which way the country would—and should—progress and allocating funds accordingly, was decidedly a relic of the past. State governments often felt humiliated about haggling with the Commission for more funds or redirecting funds. After all, the state chief ministers knew much more—and first-hand—about what their states needed than these men in Delhi, and in many cases, the political parties of these chief ministers were keeping the Central government still in power.
Besides, clashes between the finance ministry and the Planning Commission were common, though they did not often become public. The Planning Commission deputy chairman saw his role as thinking big, and usually that demanded a lot of money to be invested by the government. The finance minister saw his primary task as keeping expenditures and the fiscal deficit down.
In a letter that then-finance minister Chidambaram wrote to former Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia in August 2006, he objected strongly to the Commission’s proposal to hike social sector expenditure in the 11th plan. using the memorable phrase: “You do not repair a leaking water supply pipe by stepping up the water pressure.” That is, first reform the delivery mechanism, then raise spends.
In an interaction with journalists later (at which I was present), Ahluwalia said: “The analogy is cute but incorrect. If the leak can be plugged in a day, we can maintain the same water pressure. But if it’s going to take years, and we also want more water to reach the other side of the pipe, we need to increase pressure. Both have to be done simultaneously.”
The people that Maira spoke to about what they wanted the Planning Commission to be, told him that there was need for a strategic group of experts, who would act as a sort of radar, look at trends inside India and abroad, and provide insights and advice to both government and industry on the forces that would impact our future, and the shape of things to come. In other words, they wanted the Planning Commission to operate as a a super-think-tank rather than allocate funds and approve proposals with a five-year time horizon, an activity that had become much less relevant and even sterile in a dynamic and complex environment.
This is exactly what the IEO is suggesting, that the Planning Commission be replaced by a Reforms and Solutions Commission, staffed, not by generalist bureaucrats, but by experts. The Commission would report to the prime minister and “have a defined relationship with Parliament” (currently, the Planning Commission is not accountable to the Parliament; in fact, it does not appear to be accountable to anyone).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been talking from Day 1 about ministries taking greater charge of their areas of responsibility and being more accountable. This is certainly a praiseworthy objective. And it will definitely be a quicker, more open and more coordinated way of functioning if the central ministries can deal directly with the state governments without going through the bottleneck of the Planning Commission. This will certainly streamline governance and bring more accountability into the whole process.
The IEO’s recommendations are to be lauded. In a way, it’s a pity that its first act is an attempt to kill its arm’s-length parent, but the Planning Commission, in its present form, has certainly outlived its purpose. It played an extremely crucial role in independent India’s economic history, and its contributions will always be appreciated. But it’s time for it to hang up its boots and appear in a new avatar, more relevant, and perhaps even more crucial.
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
The end of Planning Commission
The Planning Commission is a relic that should be discarded immediately
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
The recently created Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has submitted a report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that recommends scrapping the Planning Commission. If that happens, as it should, it will be a coup de grace for a system of ideas and experiments that did not work in India, or anywhere else for that matter.
The Commission—an extra-constitutional body created by a Cabinet decision—was at the centre of a web of a system of controls that choked the Indian economy for almost four decades. Its other harmful legacy was that of a template for other extra-constitutional establishments (for example, the National Advisory Council) that came to lord over elected governments and states.
The IEO said that since state governments have better information about what is required at the local level, they can carry out investments in important projects on their own.
Three things marred the prospects of planning in India. First, the intellectual framework of the planning process—seen from the vantage of any variant, the Mahalanobis-Feldman, Harrod-Domar or even Karl Marx’s Department I and Department II dualism—relied largely on physical balances in the economy instead of working through prices. Second, coherence in planning, especially if investments are to be made on the basis of a mathematical model requires ruthless execution of plans or a coherent system of allocation- cum-investment. India had neither: its leaders were either democrats by conviction or were subject to constraints of democracy. Finally, the huge diversity of the country made centralized planning an incongruity. It was only a matter of time before the process became incoherent.
In practice, there were only two plans that were intellectually underpinned by a planning model: the second and third Five-Year Plans. The first plan was basically an assessment exercise. After the third plan—plan holidays and all—ad-hocism prevailed until, of course, the private sector gained a bigger role than the state-sector. The later plans just became collections of targets and wishful thinking.
Understood from this perspective, the Commission was a national investment commission—tasked with deciding on investments. Instead, over time, the Commission turned into a spending commission, defeating even its original purpose. Instead of rational investments, it became an organization dispensing “favours”: an airport here, a project there became the norm instead of the exceptions due to political exigencies.
There is a strong case for strategic planning in India—say over a 20 or a 25 year time horizon. This involves, for example, thinking and planning about energy security and national security in changing geo-strategic conditions. There are other issues that need equal attention as well. But this requires an organization endowed with a different talent pool and imagination. The Planning Commission, staffed by civil servants and cherry-picked members, is incapable of fulfilling this role.
The IEO says the task of long-term economic thinking and coordination can be carried out by a think tank in the government. “This institution should be staffed with experts with domain knowledge and kept free from a ministerial administrative structure. It is also recommended that it should have full-time representation of major trade and industry organizations, civil society representatives, academics etc., so as to capture their concerns and benefit from their expertise in formulating long term strategy.”
Hence the IEO’s suggestion for creating a Reforms and Solutions Commission (RSC). This is not a useful idea. Most of the roles of a RSC—as a repository of successful ideas, experiences from different states and identifying new challenges—can be undertaken by different ministries. An RSC, if created, will become another collection of secretaries and members who write reports that no one reads.
The idea of planning had meaning at one point in India’s evolution as a nation-state. The process largely led to mistakes, an important part of learning. But it was costly learning. India is far more mature now and the discarding of an institutional relic is part of learning too.
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
Strengthening India’s rule of law
Despite its importance, reform of India’s legal institutions has been seen as a ‘second order’ issue
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
India is a young nation long ruled by old laws—its police, for example, are governed by such colonial-era statutes as the Police Act of 1861, which predates independence by nearly a century. And its expanding economy requires forward-looking regulatory mechanisms to foster markets while curbing crony capitalism. India is also a nation that must come to grips with an ever-widening gulf between the laws on its books and the dysfunctional, partial and often corrupt manner in which they are applied.
On paper, India’s commitment to the rule of law distinguishes it from many of its peers and neighbours. According to 2012 World Justice Project data, India fares well on openness of government and democratic controls. In the category limited government powers, which evaluates the checks on government, India ranks 37th of the 97 countries surveyed around the world, is first among five in its region, and comes in second out of 23 lower-middle-income countries.
Yet the rule of law that exists on paper does not always exist in practice. When it comes to procedural effectiveness, India fares poorly. In the categories of absence of corruption and order and security, India ranks 83rd and 96th globally. Every element of India’s rule of law supply chain—including the legislators who draft the laws and the police, prosecutors and courts who enforce them—is problematic. Indeed, the supply chain, never strong to begin with, has become deeply broken—threatening not only the rule of law but a belief in the value of law itself.
The country’s legal undergirding is badly outmoded and constrained by a tendency to pass new laws rather than modify or eliminate old ones, like the colonial era Police Act. Weak laws yoked to an even weaker enforcement system virtually guarantee that the powerful will transgress with abandon. India’s investigative agencies have become politicized and starved of resources, infrastructure and leadership. While the judiciary has many bright spots—including the Supreme Court—the courts on the whole face challenges ranging from vacancies and backlogs to flawed efforts at self-regulation.
Just how bad the situation has become is underscored by the fact that nearly a third of the state and national legislators, the very people charged with writing the laws, faced criminal charges at the time of their election. Yet efforts to bar these lawmakers are often stymied by fears of how politicians would use new rules as cudgels against their rivals.
The damage from the dysfunction extends far beyond the legal system. Although external factors have certainly contributed to India’s recent economic slowdown, the principal culprits have been weak institutions, corruption and legal and regulatory uncertainty. A large part of India’s population, not least its nearly 600 million women, are worried about their basic safety. A spate of major corruption scandals has shaken the faith of the country’s citizens in government itself.
The next government must acknowledge India’s weak performance in enforcing the rule of law and take immediate action to close the widening gulf between principle and practice. What follows is a brief look at the legal system’s problems and suggestions for corrective action.
Outdated laws
The first element in the dysfunctional supply chain is India’s archaic laws. Unfortunately, India does not employ sunset clauses that require the expiration of certain laws after a fixed period of time. Instead, its lawmakers—urged on by a zealous civil society—typically rush to enact new laws without repealing existing ones.
Because many laws at the central level were poorly drafted—and are now riddled with ambiguities, amendments, clarifications and exemptions—they have inevitably led to conflicting interpretations, spawning endless litigation. As for state laws, which number in the many thousands and directly affect the day-to-day lives of citizens and workings of business, India still lacks a reliable inventory.
The multiplicity and complexity of laws make compliance, deterrence, and effective enforcement difficult if not impossible. The result is circumvention by citizens and businesses, making them vulnerable to harassment from state functionaries.
Solutions: The revising, repealing, and updating of old laws are sorely needed—and greater precision in the drafting of replacement language is essential.
One example of legislative consolidation and simplification is the model established by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission. The Commission was given two years to evaluate and modernize the sector’s regulatory framework, identify overlaps and inconsistencies, and develop a lasting unified code. Divided into multi-disciplinary groups, it developed objectives for each area of the financial market, identified the sources of market failures, critically assessed the role of government, and evaluated the costs and benefits of redrafting legislation. This approach can be replicated across multiple sectors.
Lawmakers or lawbreakers
The fact that many of India’s leading lawmakers are also its foremost lawbreakers has an insidious effect on the rule of law. To address the problem, the Supreme Court recently issued three landmark judgments.
The first found that any sitting member of a state legislative assembly or of Parliament would be immediately disqualified from office upon being convicted of a crime. A Bill introduced in Parliament to supersede the court’s judgment came under fire. The government then flirted with introducing an executive ordinance but dropped that plan as well.
The second judgment found that any individual who was in jail or in police custody would no longer be allowed to run for office, even without a formal charge. Parliament swiftly passed a Bill, later signed by the President, which negated the court’s ruling. The court’s ruling was indeed problematic, given the temptation of politicians to misuse the police to punish rivals.
Solutions: Beyond the matter of how to treat politicians who are convicted or jailed is a larger scandal, lawmakers rarely face conviction because of shortcomings in the justice system. The Supreme Court ruled in March that lower courts must conclude trials of lawmakers charged with serious crimes within a year of charges being filed. The fulfilment of this directive is essential; cases against indicted members of Parliament currently in office have been pending for seven years, on average. To comply with this ruling, the government should consider establishing special electoral tribunals charged with adjudicating serious criminal cases against politicians. This would be tantamount to a fast-track court—a policy of last resort—but there is hardly a better case for speedy justice than when it comes to those making the laws. The Election Commission of India has recommended additional changes to curb the nexus of crime and politics, which the new government should champion, relating to the potential de-registration of political parties that circumvent campaign finance regulations or file false disclosures.
Police and prosecutors
The primary objective of the police in India is maintaining law and order rather than preventing crime, a holdover from the days before independence when crowd control was key. Colonial-era laws, deep politicization, and an overcentralized hierarchy have also burdened the police.
Over the years, several attempts at reform have failed. Caught in a vicious cycle of demoralization, low popular support and pinched resources, the police remain understaffed and undertrained. They also lack many of the technological capabilities necessary to perform quality investigations. All of these factors, in turn, contribute to the low conviction rate that discredits both the police and the courts.
Prosecutors too suffer from a variety of maladies. In almost every case where the defendant has deep pockets, there is a major mismatch in legal counsel. Government lawyers are poorly briefed, while corporate and political defendants have a battery of highly paid lawyers who often have more time and competence.
Solutions: Reform commissions set up by successive governments have articulated steps that both the central government and the states could take. The reforms must include greater autonomy and more accountability, personnel, and material resources. One police reform experiment in Rajasthan found that simple fixes such as freezing the transfers of officers and professional training had positive effects both on public satisfaction of police forces and the quality of actual police work.
Courts
The single biggest affliction of the justice system is the snail’s pace at which it proceeds. Each year, the courts take on more cases than they are able to process. As of June 2012, they faced a backlog of roughly 32 million cases, with perhaps three million more than a decade old.
There is also the issue of judicial capacity, which raises questions about staffing levels—in the US, there are 108 judges per million citizens, compared with a mere 12 judges per million in India—as well as quality.
In many ways, the judicial process itself has become the punishment. The extraordinary alacrity with which the courts grant adjournments has ensured that the powerful will always outlast the weak, making a mockery of justice.
Solutions: The new government must streamline the process. For starters, it should simplify case management, in part by outsourcing. At the trial phase, courts should enforce a strict timetable with the imposition of costs to ensure compliance. To staff the courts with judges who are both competent and have integrity, one solution worth pursuing, recommended by the Law Commission and endorsed by several advisory bodies, is to create an all-India judicial service.
Conclusion
For far too long, reform of India’s legal institutions has been seen as a “second order” issue that could be addressed once critical economic reform measures were dealt with. This sequencing was shortsighted, given that the rule of law is the sine qua non not just for sustaining economic activity but also for upholding democracy itself.
Many of the reforms recommended here do not entail huge budgetary outlays. Higher court fees, especially in the case of appeals, can help to address resource shortfalls.
It is time for India to reinvest in its rule of law machinery. The situation is so dire that even modest changes will have a dramatic impact.
No comments:
Post a Comment