Making Decentralisation Work for Public Interest

One of the solutions for delivery of public services and development that is being considered and is being implemented across the country is decentralised governance. It is based on the assumption that individuals will want to and can have a say in determining their life and will be interested in and capable of making sure that the services and facilities due to them are in fact available. Whether it be educating their children or building a road to their village, it is assumed that beneficiaries can and will want to make sure that the work is done and will take the effort to monitor or implement these programmes.

What this means is that democracy is limited not just to voting our representatives at various levels, but also in taking an active part in deciding and monitoring what they do while in power and ensuring access to decision-making. Is this a concept that we are ready for? Is this assuming too much? I am not sure since I have not studied this matter, but there are certain doubts on this model of governance or a naive assumption that this will solve everything. I am not ridiculing the idea nor am I suggesting a return to centralised model, but we need to approach this with caution and ensure accountability and transparency while embracing decentralised governance.

If devolution and decentralisation are to work, then there has to be individuals interested in taking up the responsibilities associated with this. For this to happen, these individuals should also be able to devote time and effort for this purpose and this is the responsibility of our panchayat representatives. But then is representation fully fair? In spite of SC/ST and women's reservation, it has been found that these representatives are on many occasions controlled by upper castes and women controlled by their husbands. This defeats the purpose of reservation and the voices of those who require public services the most might not be even part of the decision making process.

In this system, gram sabha is the arena where the panchayat members are held accountable. But if not everyone is aware of how the work is being implemented and cannot devote time to see if the schools are functioning or roads are built properly and cannot attend gram sabha meetings, since they are busy fending for themselves and ensuring their daily survival, how is accountability ensured?

Another assumption is about the skills of the elected representatives who are responsible for planning and implementation of several programmes. There are attempts to overcome this through several training and capacity building schemes, but in their five year tenure, significant time will go towards this and due to rotation of reserved seats, most of them will not be able to contest the next cycle of elections.

If individuals are not educated enough to know the power of each individual and develop their capabilities to contribute, to monitor and hold their representatives accountable through direct meetings and if their social position is a barrier to being granted access and contribute to decision-making, how can devolution and decentralisation ensure good governance? On top of this, there is also the issue of interest and motivation for each of us to take the time and effort to make the system work.

Education, access to levels of decision making, accountability, transparency and public scrutiny is essential to make decentralisation and devolution of powers work towards development and better delivery of public services. This does not mean that we have to wait till the entire population is literate, but it has to be a virtuous circle of greater public scrutiny ensuring better facilities for the people which in turn increases public interest in and accountability of the system.

On biases, prejudice and commitment

Civil Service in India looks for glorified amateurs, jack of all trades but masters of none, generalists and paper pushers and the list of the usual diatribes go on. Without any skills in a specific field, they decide on matters related to banking, defence, culture, environment and energy is the usual argument of specialists who want to make decisions in these fields but are allegedly kept away by the apples of the government's eye.

I have seen specialists (doctors, lawyers, accountants and auditors) vehemently defend their position based on narrow interpretation and interests generated by their profession. It is not a fault or deficiency, but an essential pre-requisite in their professions.

Citing anecdotes is not a scientific way, but I do give them to explain what I am talking about. A doctor friend of mine, who otherwise is quite liberal and forward-thinking, is sensible and took up the profession as a service argued that introducing a course like Bachelor of Rural Medicine would dilute quality, drive real doctors out of their jobs and lead to poor health outcomes for rural population. It is unfortunate that someone I respect a lot and hold in high regards had to fall prey to a narrow view based on her profession. She expressed her views during the strike organised by medical students across Kerala in 2010 against the idea of a BRM course.

Doctors do not want to be posted in deep, unreachable villages where pay is low and living facilities are not adequate. Distance is also a factor when it comes to doctors with families and many have a post-graduate degree. It is primary and secondary care that villagers need urgently, basic health interventions and first-aid- not super speciality care and so appointing post-graduate doctors is not the need of the population and the doctors would also find their skills unused making them look for better opportunities. The only reason many take up such posts is because it is a government job and the inherent job safety. 

 

But the majority of doctors do not turn up at their health centres and have a flourishing private practice. This is true not just of doctors in rural areas but those from medical colleges and hospitals in city too follow this method. In the interior heartlands of the red-belt or Left Wing Extremism affected districts the situation is dire. Absence rate of doctors is more than 50% (validated by several surveys), doctor-patient ratio is 1:25,870 on average in India and they are concentrated in the urban areas. To enforce attendance, a monitoring mechanism by empowering local bodies, who would also pay the salaries for doctors, is being considered. I hope this works, but I am not so sure because I do not think local bodies can pay the doctors enough to attract them to stay in a place with very little amenities and also face the threat of violence.

 

In spite of lack of doctors, high absence rate among existing doctors that amounts to dereliction of duty and low interest in a rural posting, the current medical fraternity are blocking an urgently needed reform in healthcare by providing for a course that directly addresses the healthcare needs of rural population. Their only solution is for the state to appoint more doctors- the fact that doctors are not interested in these postings and are not attending to their duties are not heeded to.

An auditor who alleged corruption and scope of environmental damage in a government scheme that replaced incandescent bulbs with CFL lamps due to their high mercury contend also argues that crores have been invested in a mega hydro-electric power project and it has been delayed due to denial of environment clearance. The concern is not about environment, but merely about audit as an end to itself.

When it comes to holistic decision making- a case where the social, environmental and economic impact is to be considered (I do not include political factors since that is the job of the political executive) someone who is not restricted by a narrow view must make that decision and that can be done by generalists who do not owe allegiance to any specific field.

PS- When I mean decision making, I mean advising the political executive on the course of action on a particular issue since the final decisions and policies are made by them.

Generalist Administration In India

The debate on Generalist versus Specialist in the administrative hierarchy of India has been on since the time of independence. We place the generalist IAS office above specialists in almost all departments and rare is the occasion when an outsider occupies a Secretary post in the Union and State governments and the promotion to the post of Joint Secretary is virtually assured to all in the IAS. This has lead to discontent among the specialists as, for example, the Indian Audit and Accounts Service is headed by the CAG who is an IAS officer, department made of IA&AS officers lead by an IAS officer. Complaints of civilian administrators not heeding the demands of the armed forces chief are common. The question has come up again in my mind due to an article in the Economic Times and the book 'The Honest Always Stand Alone' (by C.G.Somiah who joined IAS in the early 1950s and was the CAG from 1990 to 1996).

I have read about the disagreement artists, writers, social activists and intelligentsia have against banning of certain books and works of art. I have always thought artistic freedom should be absolutely uninhibited and only then will we have a free country. But while reading C.G.Somiah's book, I got a perspective of the other side that has to take the decision on whether to ban the book or not, when he narrated the banning of 'Satanic Verses' in India before it was even banned in Pakistan. To say that administrators are pandering to wishes of fundamentalists and pretentious religious sentiments would border on the blasphemous and be totally unfair to them. Artists, while trying to defend freedom of expression, do not realise that it is not their freedom that is being restricted by the government on behalf of narrow-minded sentiments nor are these sentiments attempting to attack this freedom. What happens is an attempt to defend a blind belief based on false and uninformed interpretation.

I would like to explain using an example. During the Anna Hazare strike in August 2011, there were several individuals who took part in processions and wore support badges for Anna Hazare. But very few of them had taken the effort to go through the Jan Lokpal Bill and the Bill introduced by the government in Parliament. These individuals were also mistaken in their understanding of the bill as they thought this would end everyday corruption that we as the common man experienced. They were also unaware of the severe deficiencies in the bill civil society had come up with. What this shows is that, individuals follow the herd, we accept popular opinion and this may or not be correct and this becomes the voice of the masses, which may or may not reasonable. (I do not attempt to tarnish the power and importance of mass opinion, but I am merely trying to show the dynamics of what happens and how)

Based on this understanding and acceptance, it becomes clear that the demands to ban books and other creative works do not stem always from a reasonable, informed and logical demand but a mass opinion. So the demand is not against artistic freedom but against hurt to their beliefs and we all know that in India and elsewhere in the world, religion is an emotional subject which can get out of control. In the interest of maintaining law and order and protecting society from such out of control interests, the government has had to act at times. Only administrators and government can take a whole view of the situation and come to a decision. Only a generalist can come to such a decision and that is why they are important to any administration as it deals with multitudes of divergent interests that can come into conflict with each other, which if not contained or settled at the earliest, can spread causing widespread chaos and uncertainty. The basic purpose of any administration is to maintain law and order in the country and it is merely fulfilling its duties while taking such decisions on sensitive issues.

Yet, I must add that such decisions must only be sparingly be used in situations like the one I mentioned. Frequently conceding to such demands would give the impression of a weak administration that has little authority over the country or state. It must be used only when situations can spread out of control over an area  beyond the capacity of our law enforcement agencies. Politically twisting such situations for petty gains are also common, as we saw when Salman Rushdie had to withdraw from Jaipur Literary Festival as a death threat was purported to have been issued against him by some religious factions. This was merely done to avoid a law and order issue, which although could be interpreted as a smart way to avert a crisis. It was the threat of violence that prohibited the screening of the movie 'Dam 999' in Tamil Nadu, whereas the Supreme Court in its judgement in the case related to prohibition of the screening of the movie 'Oru Gramathinte Katha' had said that possibility of law and order issues is not a valid reason for such bans. Such ad hoc measures would not do, the government must assert its authority over such issues and should be able to control law and order issues and not be held hostage by threats of violence, law and order and politics.

This is a justification as well as an explanation for the need for generalist administrators in our country. Administrators are in a position to take a neutral view of issues only because of their generalist specialisation and this is absolutely important in a country as diverse geographically, culturally and linguistically as ours. But there definitely is a need to overcome politics, vulnerabilities in enforcing the rule of law and authority over mob mentality and all the facts on the ground must be considered while taking a balanced decision which is what the IAS is meant to do and has been doing (albeit with a few exceptions and individual misfits) in its history.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/editorial/ias-officials-expertise-is-administration-not-finance-banking-technicalities/articleshow/15176674.cms - article in ET blasting IAS officers who are not specialists and the comments show a certain degree of animosity towards them from the public, albeit misinformed and unreasonable