A note on Public Procurement

In a feat of digital procurement, Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) witnessed a staggering Rs 1 lakh crore procurement in FY 23-24 through Government e-Marketplace (GeM). A commendable achievement. Now, that the good news is settled, we will be discussing insights on public procurement below:

Given the enormous size and the stakeholders' vested interests, public procurement is entangled in unfair practices. This leads to an entry barrier and a cause for significant transactional costs arising from, for example, delays in payments and bribery required to get them released. One can read Insights into cartels, bid rigging, fr, ads and other corrupt practices: Collusions in Public Procurement (cag.gov.in).

Among the serious issues highlighted by private companies that work on government projects is receivables because the Indian government is an all-powerful entity with the ability to delay/deny payment. Pavithra Manivannan and Bhargavi Zaver who are the researchers at the CMI-Finance Research Group have authored a blog post: How large is the payment delays problem in Indian public procurement?

The government allocations for social welfare have increased over the years, although the utilization of funds has remained low due to procedural difficulties, straitjacketed rules, delays in payments, corruption, and political interference. This disrupts nonprofit operations and undermines nonprofits’ attitudes towards working with the government, which has a more detrimental effect on public service delivery.

This reflects the dichotomous principle of government which on the one hand advocates for greater transparency and efficiency of government organizations and on the other hand refuses to penalize these organizations for huge delays in the payment to the vendors.

Issues created due to poor public procurement:

1. Many firms do not take part in public procurement as the government procuring entities often delay releasing the payments. The firms that are part of the public procurement face working capital shortage since delayed payment affects companies' cash flows negatively. Unless this money is unlocked, the problem of the payment percolates and is reflected in banks' stressed assets.

2. This is like Gresham's law (Bad money drives out good money) but in the public procurement domain. The payment delays impose an unnecessarily heavy burden on small firms, potentially knocking them out of the competition and discouraging them from participating in other procurement processes. Now all that is left are the big firms that are either immune to corruption or the firms that adopt corrupt practices. The more valuable 'good money' gradually disappears from circulation.

3. The government is legally liable to pay on time but the firms don't enter into a dispute for the delayed payments. The dispute with the government creates bad faith for future bids and contracts. If the procuring officials are themselves responsible for causing grievance, there is little chance of the aggrieved bidder getting his due from such a redressal system. In addition to that India does not have an Independent Grievance Redressal Mechanism in the procurement system.

4. It is worth noting that India hasn’t even signed the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) as a member of WTO. Only recently, India has included government procurement in the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

5. Public officials also determine which vendors will thrive and which will fail by setting the terms and conditions under which public procurement takes place. This situation creates a situation of cartelization from the supply side.

Remedies:

1. Every organization has an incentive to conceal perceived areas of poor performance in public procurement. The government has to create independent and effective oversight processes where data on delayed payments is openly & easily available for public scrutiny.

2. Strengthening the monitoring mechanisms must lead to the creation of a strong knowledge management system for establishing best practices and creating institutional memory.

3. A lot of issues can be resolved if dispute resolution and claim settlement are faster.

4. Opening up government procurement to global competition with best-in-class project management and governance practices will help improve the quality of government projects.

Good Governance & Public Policy

What is Public Policy ? Public policy focuses on the processes by which various types of policies and regulations that affect members of the public are created and enforced. Public Policy deals with public goods delivery – political economy, taxation, law and order, good social and physical infrastructure, including better education and health facilities – and facilitate provision of private goods (cheaper power, flexible labour laws and other subsidies). The guiding principles for better public policy include building people’s ownership and participation in the governance and decisions affecting their lives. Regulation, Redistribution and Equity came to the forefront of policymaking.

Resources be it human, natural or financial are limited in a country and a government must utilize them in the most productive manner can achieve the best possible growth. That is the essence of good governance. The first and foremost requirement of good governance is broadly distributed political rights among citizens and the government accountability and and transparency in public administration. An ideal public service institutions will be decentralized, professional and autonomous management structures.

The theoretical framework however doesn't work smoothly in the real world. Governments in many developing & underdeveloped countries are corrupt and never work in favor of the people. They work for the interests of specific groups. It would be naive to think that governments work for the public all the time. Economics works alongside and interacts with social and political forces framing the policy. Politically motivated decisions, the undisclosed profiteering, the conflicts of interest, the vested interests, & the bad experiments with good intentions can lead to the flawed policy making process. So how the end objective is achieved ?

Policy makers must be open-minded and open-armed to combat such conflicting interests arising due to potentially corrupt motivation. They must have sound knowledge of the local context of a community – its history, politics, social structure, and culture, along with its economics. More the diverse the stakeholders in policy making, the probe in the issue will examine ground realities, re-validate assumptions on which our policies rest, and evaluating  new initiatives. The real impact of policy decisions are measured by three factors:

* Number of beneficiaries covered under the policy
* Number of beneficiaries who experience a positive change with the implementation
* Participation of the people and innovation springing from the outcomes.

Public opinion is varied and contested space, continually shaped and reshaped over time. Popular opinion in India generally overlook corrupt vested interests or don't want to go for long term reform. Hence, Indian state has always insulated public policy from open debate. The bureaucracy in India has never let the control of policy shifts to an autonomous institutions and public has suffered the ill results of lack of knowledge among civil servants. Bureaucracy seldom promotes creativity and, under the cover of neutrality, preserves the advantages of the powerful by dominating the weak. In the government systems, professionals are always crowded out by the imprisoning logic of bureaucracy. As described aptly by Prof Ajay Shah: In the West, leaders choose the direction of public policy. Government is like a car, which goes where the leader directs. But in India, the car is broken, and just turning the steering wheel is ineffective. To do public policy in India, the skill required is that of an engineer and not the driver. It is about opening the hood, understanding what is wrong with the institution, and fixing it.

Each policy must face several test: Are the policies realistic? How will they be implemented? What results will they produce in the long run? Were there more reasonable, less risky, cost effective, user friendly, & more inclusive policy measures that would have yielded as much benefit as the rolled out one ? There is no ultimate policy measure but always a solutions-oriented approach means more innovative outreach and trade-offs in a wiser way. I will be putting more on the non academic and self learned diagnosis of public policy in coming days. Watch this space and hear buzz words like committees, accountability, check and balances, transparency. Have I lost you yet? I will.

Mid Day Meal (MDM) Program

Theda Skocpol, Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard, notes that spending on education and family health care is especially likely to generate social and economic returns. Midday Meal (MDM) program is a school meal programme of the government of India designed to improve the nutritional status of school-age children nationwide. India's MDM program feeds 120 million children and employs 2 million women. It's an initiative that changes lives and provides human-capital investment in millions of children. 

The poorest of the poor are defined as those who can eat only when they get work and who lack shelter, proper clothing, social respect, and means to send their children to school. They have no land, live on daily wages, and need to send school-age children to work in times of crisis. They send children to government schools as this is the only way to ensure one time meal to their wards and the best chance for children to break the cycle of poverty. MDM scheme has many potential benefits: attracting children from disadvantaged sections (especially girls, Dalits and Adivasis) to school, improving regularity, nutritional benefits, socialisation benefits and income support to women .

An impact study has shown that the food stamps alternative or the direct income support is not feasible, for it may lead to adverse consumption choices by the targeted households. This would happen, particularly in countries like India, where educational and awareness levels of the targeted households are low.

Learn more in this animation designed by Rhitu Chatterjee and Mathilde Dratwa.

SECC data is out.

As per Prof Cornel West, Democracy always raises the fundamental question: What is the role of the most disadvantaged in the public interest? The catch in the valid question lies in the definition of the 'Disadvantage Class/Caste'. The definition of "Who are they" varies among politicians, academics, and policymakers. Any major program in any sector can't be effective without a robust information system. The road to social justice for all should be based on solid data for understanding ground realities.

SECC data is out. This census takes caste into account for the first time in any such exercise since 1931. But the government is hiding OBC numbers. The previous government led by the Congress had also decided to conduct a caste-based census, but not to make the data public. The reasons for withholding this data can only be political.  Data on economic indicators, with special enumeration of SCs and STs, is done by the regular census as well. SECC was commissioned because many parties wanted similar numbers for the OBCs to pitch for political mileage. However, it is always tough to digest that SECC was done to mitigate the absence of large-scale, credible, and empirical data for public policy. But, it is a matter of time before the numbers are made public.

There was once a huge hue and cry over caste census as being labeled as divisive by upper caste-dominated groups. Prof. Kancha Ilaiah had explained this in his article: Who’s afraid of caste census? --- "Caste culture is all around us. In the dalit-bahujan discourse, the upper castes are being shown as constituting less than 15 per cent. This could be totally wrong. Even within the lower castes there are several false claims about numbers. Every caste claims that it is numerically the strongest and keeps asking for its “rightful” share. How to tell them that their claims are wrong? When caste has become such an important category of day-to-day reckoning it is important to have proper data at hand to tell communities that they constitute this much and cannot ask for more than their share. It is true that we cannot distribute everything based on caste. But caste census is the right basis for statistics such as literacy rate and issues like the proportion of representation. Once we cite the Census data there cannot be any authentic opposition to that evidence."

There is unquestionable value in a general policy of reservation as merit can't be the only criteria for granting subsidies and quotas. Social Justice and economic barriers also need to be fulfilled for deciding such national/state-level policies. Despite deep affiliation with caste groups, the public is ready and eager to advance toward a more transparent and accountable society. And, making SECC data publicly available would improve transparency in the political debates if not direct action leading to better governance.

The bigger question isn't the availability of the data but the lack of willpower to implement the policy. There is all the required data available for STs in the census yet there is a siphoning of funds allocated to SC/STs. (Systemic denial and diversion of budgetary allocations). Many departments have failed miserably in allocating funds and even spending that minor fund for the TSP as per the proportion of the tribal population of the state. The manipulation made by the bureaucracy and political leaders in making the decision to divert the TSP fund showed a huge contrast between public policy and data-based evidence. Also, there is a deafening silence on Gender Budgeting (GB) in the corridors of power. So we have a country where no one pays heed to independent minds seeking evidence-based policy in the social sector. In such a political system, one has to learn to manipulate rather than simply put the case.

A pure functioning meritocracy would produce a society with growing inequality, but that inequality would come along with a correlated increase in social mobility. Is this really happening across caste and religion? We can only guess policy as there is not yet sufficient data for planning on caste-based issues. SECC data would even regenerate healthy debate between two groups proposing - either 'caste-blind &class-based' or 'caste & class based' type of affirmative action. The best way to improve the quality of the debate is by providing individuals with the data to make informed choices in a democratic country. SECC data is crucial for making sound evidence-based plans, it helps us understand what justice is so that appropriate policy can be made for the Disadvantaged class/caste. 

Why Government Schemes Fail? - 2

India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi's slogan "minimum government, maximum governance" is a serious goal. Its implementation on the grass root level will be tried and tested, and that is where most of the government’s schemes fail. There are myriad of difficulties faced by the government in properly designing and implementing of the public policy. Continuing from the previous article: 'Why Government Schemes Fail?', I will examine same question from another angles.

Design: Let us start with the design of the government schemes. What works well in the coastal belt of Kerala is unlikely to work in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh, or for that matter, hilly lands of Garhwal. Hence, one size fits all schemes must be carefully reviewed. There is a strong tendency for planners to go in for prestige and grand projects. Through this they can leave monuments to their activity, even if defunct. The visibility is major emphasis than actual proposed work. It helps every level of government machinery to justify their budget and performance.

Most of the schemes even if redesigned are just shadows of past failed schemes. Reforms exclusively based on experience of the past suffer from another infirmity as it fails to factor in the innovations and transformations of the relevant sector. Any government scheme should be designed as a business model with incentives built for each stakeholder. Illegality in transaction slowly crumbles the scheme merely from the fact that the policy was not right from the beginning.

Involvement and Access: More democracy is required in making designs for the schemes! Currently, the only option left with people is of protest on bad implementation of schemes. There must be welcome and feel comfortable atmosphere for non-IAS experts with domain expertise to operate in regulatory bodies and government-run organisations. Advisers from the NGO sector like CRHP, Pradan had helped in shaping better schemes in the past.

Our huge ignorance to understand the functioning of the government and the local institutions is barrier to good governance. There is need for proper channel so that people can mobilize for effective political action to prevent mismanagement of resources by government. A small time broker and politician help poor to navigate a system that gives them so little access. Hence, the complex web of subsidy, entitlements and schemes in a very well intention-ed and well designed scheme hit the rock solid wall of the gargantuan system.

Political Interference: Government ministers announces huge scheme without having a concrete plan. It ends up similar to attempting to build a house without a blueprint. Political parties whenever come to power in central/state governments try to adopt developmental plans to suit their manifestos. This jeopardizes the future trajectory and intensity of implementation of schemes. The politically motivated decisions of fund allocation led by the relationship of the incumbent State and Central governments hinder welfare schemes and huge investments. Most of the time old developmental projects are either ignored or rejected in favour of new political discourse. There is always misalignment between financing of scheme, condition of economy and political campaign promises. This can go hugely wrong and ours current government current fight to hold Fiscal Deficit is one such glaring example. When a subsidy scheme becomes a non-viable financially, no matter how well-meaning, it must be restructured or abolished to extinction.

Planning and Coordination: Planning is done in ad-hoc manner and is generally a mere collection of schemes. This is an under-discussed problem of coordination between the intra- and inter- government departments. The right word is Convergence. Each scheme is being implemented by the respective department in isolation. Hence, it is imperative to make directed and organized efforts for converging such schemes. Convergence improves the deliver-ability of the benefits and services, it also gives better value to the public money. The Perpetuating Problem of Coordination will explain intrinsic details of the issue. The lack of reliable data for planning also causes failure of policies. With many of our allocations in schemes based on unreliable secondary data. There is dire need for collecting relevant data pertinent to all sectors, updating it periodically and planning and allocating financial and human resources based on this data. A new type of public good, Open data banks must be promoted among public, among companies and other non-government entities. With the availability of massive, publicly-held data sets in machine-readable “liquid” form can unlock the potential to spur innovation in all sectors.

Regulating and Implementation: How do you prevent abuse? The old mindset in which the command and control instinct dominated with emphasis to restrict, stifle, manipulate, control and micro-manage with new rule curb both private and public sector.A rule of thumb for efficiency standards is that they should be 'tough' but not panic inducing'. Time and space is needed to react with new initiatives.  There is heavy scrutiny of projects in implementation when problem arises due to poor design. The problem of implementation without clearly defined or sometimes ill-defined rules creates a lot of room for manipulation and hence make it inconsistent and unfair.

If you want to understand how the government functions, you must understand movement of files. All decisions in the government are taken on files through office orders. If projects/ schemes are not moving on file, then all public policy is waste. No person in bureaucracy want to take a decision without any political support and risk career damage. It eventually led to stalled projects and failure of the scheme.

Budgeting and Auditing: Why Development is considered in Terms of Expenditure Done? I am still looking for answers. Nobody is looking for the quality in government and this task has been left to the social audit. The delay in releasing funds and issuing UC (Utilization certificate) deter all the stakeholders involved in the scheme. There is always difference between fund requirement and allotment in budget. Even unimaginative funds required are just 10% increment of previous year budget. Take any scheme in government, the usual discussion in meetings revolves around Target Chase. There is a new idea floating to move away from the usual bureaucratic jargon of “targeting numbers” to “targeting names".

90 per cent of the government is now covered by the CAG, but much of this has been done through executive orders, not an amendment in our act. All PPPs, Panchayati raj institutions and NGOs getting government funding under need to be brought under the ambit of CAG. Due to no expertise on this topic, I will refrain from putting more words on the blogpost.

We are seeing that NRHM, NREGA & NRLM are delivering better result than government departments. Mission mode is working relatively well in the new order of scheme design. Accountability mechanisms and examples of government schemes that worked are quite low in our country. We need solid discussion on reports to understanding of the policies, scope, mechanisms, drivers and benefits of various schemes across different states and sectors. Everything has an expiry date, no matter how good their past performances. There is logic for having a provision to discard schemes once their utility is over. All programmes need strong monitoring, which is absent most of the times. A separate blog post is entirely needed to showcase the problem of monitoring and evaluation. That is a another story for another time.

PRI Capacity Building & Training

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments ushered in the Panchayati Raj in India. Panchayati Raj Institution(PRI) is a three-tier system in the state with elected bodies at the village, block, and district levels. The rural mathematics of the vote in the Panchayat election has become highly political in nature due to the channeling of government scheme funds through PRI. There are voices emerging on corruption at this basic level. Budget expenditure for Panchayat elections runs in lakhs for no other reason. Many gram pradhans are becoming powerful by grabbing resources meant for the welfare of the people whom they represent. In my opinion, PRI has embarked on one thing for sure i.e. decentralized benefits of corruption. Looking on the positive side, there is infrastructure development and money returning back to the village economy through this arrangement. PRI has brought more of a sense of local governance to rural India.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” - Lord Acton, English historian and moralist of the 19th century

“All power corrupts, but some must govern.” - John le Carre, British ex-intelligence officer and novelist of the 20th century

Gram Panchayat is getting involved in planning and execution and monitoring of the various public schemes. There is a lot of funds available at the level with the decentralization of the power through PRI. Barely educated Gram Pradhan is dealing with huge money under social security schemes namely MGNREGS, BRGF, TFC, SFC, Indira Awas Yojna, etc. PRI representatives are not professionals but the only voices of the people. Management takes money and people. With such an amount of cash flow, processes can't be left on the shoulders of either overburdened representatives or volunteers in the committees. It is more necessary in investing human resources with knowledge and raising the amount of operational expenses (salary). A Nayab Sarpanch gets less than a thousand rupees per month as an honorarium in Odisha. How can such a person give full attention to the responsibilities?

The idea of a managed transition of power in Panchayati raj is still a delusion unless leaders of the community don't emerge by breaking conservative, male-supporting, social structures. Most of the elected representatives of PRIs are illiterate and semi-literate. They have negligible knowledge about PRIs and no operational skills required for local governance. Capacity building and training (CB&T), particularly in an ongoing process that focuses on creating new leaders especially women, and knowledge transfer at the grassroots level of democracy

I have attended few training sessions in conference halls given to PRI members. Most of the training focuses largely on content and has a minimal focus on the mode of delivery. Lectures/ Powerpoint Presentation mode of training is theoretically sound, but may not be absorbed well by an audience with bare minimum literacy amid rural backgrounds. Research has demonstrated that adults learn six to seven times more through practice and feedback than through lectures, yet far too many capacity-building programs consist of classroom sessions or self-study modules. I don't have backing on any conclusive study but exposure visits and study tours conducted have more recipient in rural India.

There is a growing focus on the development of a two-tier cadre of resource persons i.e. the master resource persons and district/ block resource persons. Most of the states do provide short duration inputs (5-15 days) with the help State Institutes of Rural Development (SIRD). Training sessions in government workshops have created a pool of trainers but the quality is lacking in the human resources. There is no long-term systematic strategy employed by the government. The lack of a strong monitoring and evaluation system for training doesn't help in seeking the impact of such training. The effective establishment of PRIs as a strong node for local governance remains a distant reality until these gaps are not filled properly. Organizations (NROs) such as Tripti(Odisha), SERP (AP), Jeevika (Bihar), and Kudumbashree (Kerala) are slowly grooming the leaders through Livelihood Mission who has sufficient knowledge of PRI & various other schemes.

Kaushik Basu (in October 2013): "Overall economic growth is important, but the poor should not have to wait until its benefits trickle down to them; with the right anti-poverty policies, governments can encourage trickle-up growth as well." Building public institutions is a slow process, with frequent regression, but over time PRI will become a strong, inclusive, and democratic institution in the spirit of the constitutional amendment. Progress is a painstaking task and we have a long way to go!

Why Government Schemes Fail?

All claims of the development by the government appear to be a hoax ...obviously ! Because we always see huge margin of difference between announcement and implementation. Let us redefine government for our own understanding. It is a crucible of interest groups, rather than a black box of noble intentions. So, the responsibility of failure of schemes lie with various stakeholders in the development process.

Growth can never be inorganic and the system needs to learn before they grow. Now replace the system’ with a ‘welfare scheme’. Example: Gradual improvement (IRDP - SGSY - NRLM) is better approach for development. Not all schemes are so much lucky. They are renamed and often termed as 'old wine in new bottle'. Sometimes if any scheme is a completely prone to the corruption, we have hinged for its immense benefit to power holders. Bad schemes is like giving perpetual gifts that has made people into beggars rather than partners. India's government programmes are riddled with corruption and leakage. The main source of corruption arises from the identification of beneficiaries. Identification is not a statistical exercise, but is a major political activity. Nitin Pai has written an article focusing on this issue only - Where are the Poor?.

Rajiv Gandhi’s famous and oft-quoted statement that out of every Rs 1 spent on development only 15 paisa reaches the poor. Monitoring and Evaluation is often the weakest part of the chain of the schemes. Officials are getting salary for what they are supposed to serving the people. They get away clean either with not doing anything at all or doing with bribes. This is the most damaging aspect of the government jobs. Even harsh reviews and suspension does not mean anything to them.

Unused knowledge is a buried treasure. Government officials at block levels have brilliant expertise but they rarely display an ounce of integrity. The block level officials and extension workers are inadequately available and most of the posts were vacant. So, the staff is always overburdened by additional charges. None of govt official will talk openly of their exasperation with the stiff deadlines. But off the record, most are forthcoming. And, their feedback is rarely taken serious. There is also lack of specialization at the top level of bureaucracy. Same officer can look sports affairs with equal expertise as livelihood ! Such is the way of functioning government. This system has began to change positively from the last 10-15 years with the incoming flux of new officers. 

The reformers calling for heads of government servants and public representatives are not free from all blame. I will not give detail here in the corrupt practices of NGO sector but will take a dig on activist mode workers. Most of the activist are either committed right Swadeshi or a leftist social workers . They are staunch and passionate persons who are anti-globalization, anti- market and assumed that all decisions however big or small had to be taken in GramSabhas and will turn up invariably the right ones. Hence, not all feasible solutions are put on table and negotiation becomes ideological battleground.

Poor can not be served poorly; Government must stop thinking that PRI as low-cost and voluntary. People’s Participation for Empowerment and Good Governance may sound like a jargon in the reading but it is not. It is a simple process of taking voice of an important stakeholder i.e. public. There will be corruption in the early years, but surely spread of awareness will happen in upcoming years.

The hunger and poverty that one sees all around must be tackled with better designed scheme. Structural transformations at the top to allow local actors to participate with their potential is required. We must focus on convergence of existing schemes of the government rather than launching new schemes. Only then, we can roll back redundant schemes and put in their what is required. Even we got a new scheme. "The Implementation Part" is key to measure any success of intervention rather than allocation of fund. I will leave readers with quote by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi in his article "The contractor state": The government of India is a government of contractors, by contractors, for contractors.

Government Schemes and Development Programmes

Livelihoods Initiative at CMF has complied a list of government schemes that focus on livelihoods promotion, broken down by state that is updated by latest August 2013. I am updating here name of schemes implemented in Odisha.

Social Security

• Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)
• Annapurna Scheme
• Anganwadi Karyakartri Bima Yojana
• Emergency Feeding Programme
• State Old Age Pension (SOAP) Scheme
• National Social Assistance Programme for Social Security Pensions
• National Old Age Pension Scheme
• National Family Benefit Scheme
• Balika Samriddhi Yojana (BSY)
• Jana Seva Divas - Streamlining of the process of Pension Payment
• Programme for Care of Older Persons
• Day care Centre
• Prevention of Alcoholism and Substance (Drugs) Abuse.
• Scheme for Welfare of Orphan and Destitute Children
• Orissa Disability Pension (ODP) Scheme

Welfare

• Rehabilitation of distressed women
• Balika Samridhi Yojana
• State commission for Women
• MVSN
• An Integrated programme for Street Children
• Training & Rehabilitation of Persons with Disability
• National Programme for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities (NPRPD)
• "Preservation and Promotion of Tribal Dialects, Culture & Livelihood"
• Special Programmes for KBK(Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) Districts
• Multi Sector Development Programme(MSDP)
• Multi Sector Development Programme(MSDP)
• Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF)
• Gopabandhu Grameen Yojana

Health

• Janani Express
• The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
• Scheme of Awards to Angawadi Worker
• Kishori Shakti Yojana
• National Nutrition Mission
• RevisedNational Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP)
• National Leprosy Elimination Programme (NLEP)
• Iodine Deficiency Disorder Control Programme (IDDCP)
• National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP)
• National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB)
• Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP)
• Immunisation Programme
• Reproductive Child Health
• National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)
• Infant Mortality Rate Mission
• Navajyoti

Livelihoods Promotion

• UDISHA - The National ICDS Training Programme
• Women's Empowerment Programme - Mission Shakti
• Swayamsiddha
• Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP)
• Women's Economic Programme (WEP) - Swablamban (NORAD)
• Swadhar
• Supply of Special Aids & Appliances
• Training Centres for Teachers for Students with Disability:
• "Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihoods Programme (OTELP) (EAP)"
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
• National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)

Education

• Midday Meal Scheme
• Special Schools for children with disability:
• Construction of 1000 new Girls Hostels

Decentralisation - Chronology of Attempts and Committee Reports

The details of the history of attempts to promote decentralized planning from the first plan onwards to the mid-eighties is summarized in the table below:

Why Decentralization?

The main problem of centralized governance is lack of knowledge about local circumstances due to the geographical distance. It also creates psychological distance of government officials from citizens of the remote part. Best case in favor of decentralizing government is that it creates the inclusive institutions. Autonomy for local population to have a voice in government for decision making enables development. But, Political decentralization has no meaning if there is no fiscal decentralization.

Taking from the blog post written long back - As Oates (1993) explained, "the basic economic case for fiscal decentralization is the enhancement of economic efficiency: the provision of local outputs that are differentiated according to local tastes and circumstances results in higher levels of social welfare than centrally determined and more uniform levels of outputs across all jurisdictions.Although this proposition has been developed mainly in a static context (see my treatment of the "Decentralization Theorem,' 1972), the thrust of the argument should also have some validity in a dynamic setting of economic growth." Fiscal Experts have also concluded that decentralized government poses a threat to the macroeconomic stability and is incompatible with prudent fiscal management. (See Prud’homme, 1995; Tanzi, 1996). Among the fiscal experts a broad consensus has been arrived in the context of Musgrave’s trilogy of public functions, namely, allocation, redistribution, and stabilization, that the function of allocation can be assigned to lower level of governments, the other two would be more appropriate for the national government. Therefore, the macroeconomic management, particularly stabilization policy largely consider as clearly a central function (Musgrave, 1983; Oates 1972). [OP Vohra : Fiscal decentralization and devolution of financial resource]

Governance and Accountability: A to Z

This Governance and Accountability (GAC) is taken directly from the PPT of world bank team.

A: Awareness on GAC - Good project management is promoted by adopted governance and accountability. However one needs to generate awareness on GAC .

B: Benchmarking - The benchmarking on what can be delivered has to be done with due consultations with stakeholder who would deliver the service.

C: Capacity Building - A training module needs to be developed which empowers the entire project staff and participating institutions at all level with basic activities under GAC, tools to be used under GAC.

D: Deterrence - A clear cut policy which includes measures for prevention, detection and punitive action needs to be defined.

D: Documentation - Documentation of procured assets, field processes, accounts, book keeping etc. are integral part of GAC.

E: Effective Service Delivery - The deviation against the benchmarks have to be captured regarding the service delivery.

F: Focal Point for GAC - It would be necessary to identify a focal point for GAC at each level right from State, district, block and community.

F: Feedback System - An effective feedback system has to be evolved in the project. Community Score card is one such feedback tool.

G: Grievance Redress System - GRS will include complete redress mechanism, which can be used by community members also to report on any form process deviation , corruption and complain.

H: Human Resource Policy - Human Resource Policy and Codes of Conduct needs to be defined.

H: Help desk - Help Desks are necessary to provide help / information to stakeholders.

I: ICT - ICT will serve the backend support for improving governance and accountability.

J: Joint efforts - The GAC initiatives have spread across multiple sectors and verticals hence all efforts have to be jointly done by the project staff at the respective levels.

K: Knowledge Management - Knowledge Management helps in learning , sharing and thus necessary for better governance.

L: Learning - Doing by learning is necessary for GAC by a gradual learning-by doing approach.

M: Monitoring for GAC - Monitoring systems have to be in place good governance.

N: Non–Negotiable - Project non–negotiable are key to GAC.

O: Operational guidelines - It would require operational guidelines to be prepared and disseminated at all levels for the staff and community institutions to understand the entire gamut of GAC.

P: Process Audit - Process assessment can become a participatory method to understand the processes adopted at the community level.

P: Public Disclosures - Public Disclosure will be ensured with desired frequency, medium and responsible units.

Q: Quality Control - Quality control is necessary for improved service delivery.

R: Right to Information - RTI emphasizes on complying with provisions on suo-motto disclosure of information under RTI Act, 2005, rather than limiting to only on-demand access to information.

S: Sanction Policy - Clear sanction policy for fraud, corruption, and other malpractices needs to be outlined. Reporting cases from the field and mandatory checks needs to be institutionalized.

T: Transparency - Transparency will have to be ensured strictly at the procurement, financial and project implementation level.

U: User Report Card - The user report card can be done annually or at a regular frequency to capture the feedback from the SHG members through a survey or group discussion method on service delivery in the livelihood project.

V: Verification mechanism - A foolproof verification mechanism has to be developed under GAC for verifying key risk areas like social inclusion, adherence to non negotiable, transparency in project etc. and to identify the loopholes.

W: Window for GAC - A window for GAC concept has to be promoted to provide insight into the practices and innovations in GAC.

X: Xtra Ordinary efforts - Governance and accountability requires an Xtra Ordinary effort.

Y: Yes to GAC - Governance and Accountability is mandatory part of the project and cannot be termed as extracurricular activity, hence each stakeholder has to fall in the line of saying Yes to GAC.

Z: Zeal for GAC - Taking up measures related to governance and accountability requires a Zeal for GAC, amongst the project decision makers and management.