Thinking big

But the govt should be more careful while setting targets

There is no doubting the Narendra Modi-led government’s ability to launch ambitious programmes. In sector after sector, numbers of mind-numbing scale and size are being thrown about, and targets of unusual ambition are being set. Some of these have been criticised for one reason or another – such as the 100-gigawatt target for solar energy by 2020, at an estimated Rs 6.5-lakh-crore price tag. This has been accused of being uncompetitive. But that need not be the primary concern. The main question that should be asked is: are these targets being transparently and rationally arrived at? Or are they merely ideas, with ministers competing to set big, quantitative targets? Is there an analytical framework from which these large numbers emerge?

The problem is not restricted just to the setting up of targets to generate solar power. For Coal India, a target of a billion tonnes of production by 2019-20 has been set, around double the current production. To achieve this, Coal India has to invest Rs 1.28 lakh crore in five years. The energy ministry has promised to double the production of energy, from one to two trillion units. The total target for production from renewables is 175 gigawatts in seven years, with investments worth Rs 16 lakh crore. In the roads sector, a target of doubling the rate of road construction has been set in a year to 30 kilometres a day. The ministry has at various points suggested it will invest Rs 3 lakh crore this financial year, and Rs 5 lakh crore over five years. In housing, the numbers are even more ambitious: 20 million affordable housing units in urban India, and 45 million such units in rural India have been promised in seven years. This will cost at least Rs 3 lakh crore in the next few years, according to analysis at the time of the prime minister’s launch of three related urbanisation missions last week. There is no question that the essential aims are laudable: 24x7 electricity and housing for all. The problem is that the link between these aims and the quantitative targets, and the links between the quantitative targets and the qualitative policy decisions, are far from clear. There is a lack of coherence to much of this that causes a lack of faith.

The deeper question, of course, is whether quantitative targets in the absence of an analytical framework are sensible in the first place. The real way to ensure housing for all or 24x7 electricity or the end of outdoor defecation is not to ramp up production without proper planning. It is to examine the constraints and to remove them intelligently. What prevents private investment in the low-cost housing sector? Why are toilets once built, not being used? Why is power offtake low even today, as compared to generation capacity? These are policy questions that demand attention, and will take time, intellect and political capital to solve. Once they have been addressed, that is the time for due diligence as to their effectiveness, and then reasonable and credible quantitative targets that are transparently set. The worry is that the National Democratic Alliance seems to have got this process backwards.