How to do more with less

We will fail in the effort to address the challenges of climate change and sustainable development unless we adopt an approach that emphasises conservation over consumerism

A song filmed on Hema Malini many years ago in the film Sharafat went: “Sharafat chhod di maine”. The lyrics and their tone implied that circumstances had compelled her to “abandon the path of decency”, as it were. I was reminded of this song the other day when speaking on kifayat, and the refrain that haunted my mind was “kifayat chhod di maine”. It was a gathering of high school children and teachers. I was not sure whether the students would understand the meaning of kifayat. I told them that they should ask their parents, who were bequeathed this value by their parents, but who didn’t think it fit to pass it on to their children, thinking that it was effete and not in keeping with the fashionable trend of growing consumerism. I said, “I plead guilty on behalf of my generation”. 

Kifayat is to understand the value of our resources, use them in such a way as to extract maximum value from every resource that we spend and, in doing so, recognise the right of others who may need that resource. There is a story we had heard in school about Mahatma Gandhi and a matchbox that best illustrates the meaning of kifayat. During the freedom struggle Gandhiji visited a wealthy businessman seeking a donation. The businessman greeted him and made him sit in the drawing room. Meanwhile, an attendant entered the room and started lighting the lamps, as it was getting dark. As the attendant finished his task, the businessman gently rebuked him for using an extra matchstick to light the lamps.

Gandhiji, amused at the businessman’s parsimonious behaviour, asked him with dim expectations for his contribution for the freedom struggle. The businessman signed a cheque and asked Gandhiji to fill in an appropriate amount. Now totally bemused, Gandhiji asked him to explain his seemingly contradictory conduct, stingy about a matchstick and so liberal about the donation. The businessman explained that he was neither stingy nor frugal; he was sensitive to the use of extra resources for achieving the same purpose. The attendant lighted all the lamps everyday using a single matchstick, so the use of the second matchstick that day wasted a resource. That is the essence of kifayat, an attitude that took the form of a value that an entire generation practised and society lived by. If we want to make a difference we need to imbibe the virtue of kifayat.

I have been both finance secretary and environment secretary in the Union government. I have handled resources, both financial and natural, and know how they can be squandered and how they can be saved. By saving I don’t mean preserved or kept unused, but how we can do more with less.

Two of the biggest ideas occupying the human mind and the world community in our times are climate change and sustainable development. The big question before us is, “how do we achieve progress without punishing future generations?” With a great sense of responsibility I would argue that we will fail in our efforts in dealing with both unless we re-engineer our psyche, modify our approach and build it around the value of kifayat, which is based neither on self-denial nor on being stingy.

This is as true of financial resources as it is of natural resources. Both these resources are finite and will increasingly seem inadequate in the face of our growing demands and relentless and thoughtless exploitation. 

The central and state governments spend about Rs 50 lakh crore every year. About Rs 10 lakh crore out of this is spent by the Union government in development schemes for the poor. If we spend this in such a way as to achieve the same result by spending less, we capture the essence of kifayat. We need to change “how” we do things and not always “what” we do.

There was a time when it was said that in the government’s employment schemes only 14 per cent reached the ultimate beneficiary. Without discontinuing any programme or modifying actual implementation, Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) and the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) have brought more bang for the buck. More than Rs 2.26 lakh crore has been paid through PFMS and the number of beneficiaries under DBT has increased from 9.2 million to 520.4 million in the last three years. Total savings due to DBT is estimated at Rs 57,029 crore.

 

This has happened through the “JAM” trinity made possible by technology, appropriately designed programmes, reliable infrastructure and efficient implementation. The Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile trinity is the government initiative that has so far linked 306.7 million Jan Dhan accounts, 1190 million mobile numbers and Aadhaar cards to plug leakages of government subsidies. This integration of technology-based systems has helped in implementing DBT, which is a way of reducing leakage of the money spent on welfare.

The reduction in kerosene subsidy or its total elimination in Haryana and Chandigarh is a good example. Similarly, the linkage of cooking gas, electricity connections and kerosene subsidy is an efficient way of tracking beneficiaries and providing only the one assistance that is required, saving the other two for someone else in greater need. The National Scholarship portal is another example of introducing efficiency by using technology and ensuring better delivery, targeting and saving the effort of scholarship-seekers, who were chasing too many resources for achieving the same result, while the system was unconcerned about being manipulated. Similarly, PFMS is a way of bringing about transparency in public expenditure that helps in reducing the float in the system. By minimising idle funds in the pipeline, the need for borrowing goes down, thereby bringing down borrowing costs.

Hardware applications are essential for finding solutions to the problems that we identify. The question is whether hardware alone is sufficient. How far can it take us without sensible software? That to my mind is the central question to be answered for sustainability. We need to reboot our minds.

The same is true of our natural resources. But I will take that up in my next article.  

The writer was formerly Union Finance Secretary