T N Ninan: And the solutions?

WEEKEND RUMINATIONS

How does one turn the energy and commitment of citizens reacting to the Mumbai terror strikes, in ways that are constructive? The first step would be to understand that the system’s failures when it comes to preventing terror strikes are symptomatic of failures elsewhere in the government; the real problem is the government’s increasing incapacity to function. It could be bureaucratic processes, it could be corruption, it could be plain incompetence and (worst of all) it could be that no one really cares.

Whatever the reason, year after year, government departments are unable to spend the money allocated to them, and this includes the repeated failure to buy armaments that the defence forces need—one reason why the landing at Badhwar Park could not be prevented. Year after year, governments spend money on teachers who don’t teach, and on programmes where leakages are so high that (as Rajiv Gandhi said) only 15 per cent reaches the intended beneficiaries. Look at the environment impact studies done for all major projects (mostly a farce), or at the effectiveness of the ministry for programme implementation which has made little or no difference to the speed and cost effectiveness of government projects. This list can be endless, but the point should be clear: this is a system that works at, to take a number, 50 per cent efficiency or less.

The escape hatch that governments have used is public private partnership, or PPP. This has its pluses and minuses—if Tata Consultancy Services can promise passports in one or two days, through process improvement, there is a net gain. If Sheila Dikshit’s Delhi government doubles the pass rate in government schools, with and without PPP, it shows the way. But if the end result is crony capitalism (do highway project contracts get issued without money changing hands?), the country gets the worst of both worlds.

Citizens cannot work out solutions. But they can look at ways to fix the problem. One is to apply pressure from below—such as from a participative set that demands something in return for their tax money (instead of a middle- or upper-class that seeks escape from the mess that it sees all around it). Another is transparency—like making public every project’s details so that anyone interested can scrutinise the money paid and the work done. A third is accountability—the disciplinary processes within the government are designed to prevent any disciplinary action. How can these be changed? A fourth is choice—give citizens options so that the government is not a monopoly supplier of services—good, bad and ugly. Why not try out school vouchers, equal in value to what the state spends on a school child? Parents can take that voucher to any school they choose, public or private. A fifth is technology, which can be used to ease state-citizen interaction—as experiments have shown with computerised land records, the issue of driving licences and everything in between.

All this requires leadership. The last Prime Minister who thought in a managerial framework was Rajiv Gandhi. He talked about the 15 per cent problem, he set up the National Security Guards, and he got IAF aircraft to carry soldiers all the way to Maldives (when it faced a coup) faster than the NSG reached the Gateway of India last week! His government responded to the 1987 drought faster and more effectively than any government has before or since. If systems are not working, we need managers to be set to work on those systems; that is where old-style politics has to give way to contemporary ways of problem-solving. An active and aware citizenry can push governments in this direction.