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From abject poverty to IIM and now politics: inspiring story of Sarath Babu p.

14

Days of dams are over, now is the time for a water policy based on jal anushasan p.20

Interview: water resources and parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal p.36

July 1-15, 2010 | Vol. 01 Issue 11 | Rs 30

THIS IS CHAMARON KA BAS*, a blot on our democracy.


p.08
*A village of Chamars, a caste slur for dalits

Founders Team

Gautam Adhikari Markand Adhikari Anurag Batra (abatra@governancenow.com) Editor B V Rao bvrao@governancenow.com Managing Editor Ajay Singh ajay@governancenow.com Peoples Editor Anupam Goswami Deputy Editors Prasanna Mohanty, Ashish Mehta, Ashish Sharma Assistant Editors Samir Sachdeva, Kapil Bajaj Special Correspondents Brajesh Kumar, Trithesh Nandan Principal Correspondents Geetanjali Minhas, Danish Raza, Jasleen Kaur Correspondents Shivani Chaturvedi, Neha Sethi, Sarthak Ray, Sonal Matharu Chief of Bureau (Special Features) Sweta Ranjan sweta@governancenow.com Design Parveen Kumar, Noor Mohammad Photographer Ravi Choudhary Sales Sr. Manager Sales Gautam Navin (+91-9818125257) gautam@governancenow.com Marketing Asst. Manager Marketing Shivangi Gupta shivangi@governancenow.com Subscription/Distribution Banisha Verma banisha@governancenow.com Manager IT Santosh Gupta Asst. Manager HR Monika Sharma Design consultants LDI Graphics Pvt. Ltd. www.liquiddesigns.in info@liquiddesigns.in Printed and published by Markand Adhikari. Printed at Utkarsh Art Press Pvt Ltd, D-9/3, Okhla Industrial Area Phase I, New Delhi, 110020. Tel: 011-41636301, and published at 24A, Mindmill Corporate Tower, Sector 16A, Film City, Noida 201301. Tel: 0120-3920555. Editor: B V Rao (Responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act) Volume 01 Issue 11 UPENG03560/24/1/2009-TC www.governancenow.com feedback@governancenow.com Cover photo: Ravi Choudhary

contents

36 Resources are always a constraint

Interview with central minister Pawan Kumar Bansal

40 RTI turbocharged

08 for a change (even in name)


People of a tiny Rajasthan village have been fighting for over two decades against a casteist slur slapped on them by the government itself

RTI on Wheels is simple in its conception and potent in its effect as an NGO has shown

43 No service is common at these centres


14 So that fewer mothers may eat water for dinner...


Abject poverty to IIM Ahmedabad. Thats the kind of success one can rest on for life. Not Sarath Babu. Hes busy charting a career in politics

CSC scheme in Assam is a poor advertisement for both the centres e-gov drive and the PPP model The prissy little football-et called World Cup 2010

20 Four stories, one simple message A radical shift in policy is unavoidable. Dams and
pipelines have outlived their usefulness. It is now time for a water policy based on jal anushasan

50 Last Word

34 Solo gambit of a doubles champ


Even if Narendra Modi had not unleashed an ad blitz in Bihar, Nitish Kumar would have needed to redefine ties with a new BJP controlled by the RSS

32 Hall of shame: Power people who let down Bhopal

Even when you want to, delivering justice is not easy when 15,000 lives are snuffed out and lakhs are maimed. Thats perhaps why nobody tried...

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EDITORIALS

The taming of a good Lokayukta


The resignation of Justice Hegde is not an incident, but a plot by one institution to kill another
arnataka Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde conceded the triumph of politics over propriety when he submitted his resignation on June 23, more than 13 months before the end of his term. Justice Hegde infused life and purpose into his job in a country of dead-as-a-dodo Lokayuktas. Justice Hegde sent many a chill down the political and bureaucratic spines just by using his right to conduct raids: over 700 in just two years. For nearly four years, he played a critical inspirational role and exuded a moral authority that inspired the Lokayukta police, comprising mainly borrowed officers on deputation, to expose a legislator, besides senior officers of the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service. Despite his stellar success in nabbing corrupt public servants, though, he felt systematically stifled by the state government which blocked punitive action against all exposed officials. Catching culprits and seeing them being reinstated in their posts by the government, along with the suspension of one of his own officers on flimsy grounds, finally became too much to bear for the man who famously characterised himself as a toothless tiger. I

Make no mistake. This was not the resignation of a dreamy-eyed reformer whose ambitions got the better of his pragmatic expectations of himself.

feel helpless, he said in the press conference after submitting his resignation, Merely catching people wont serve any purpose. Reinstating the same officials in the same position and in the same places even after the chief ministers assurances of not doing so is a slap on the face of the Lokayukta. Make no mistake. This was not the resignation of a dreamyeyed reformer whose ambitions got the better of his pragmatic expectations of himself. This was a murder most foul, of one institution of democracy by another. I have always argued that the Lokayukta cannot be as effective as it ought to be unless it is granted suo motu power to enquire, Justice Hegde had told Governance Now in an exclusive interview in January. As per the legislation, the Lokayukta cannot initiate an inquiry against any public servant without a written complaint. In the absence of suo motu power to act, therefore, the Lokayukta is toothless even in cases where there is sufficient reason to suspect malpractices. Written complaints in the prescribed format are obviously not readily available in most cases because the officials concerned wield positions of enormous power. That is not the only lacuna. Another hitch is the Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which requires prior sanction of the government for prosecution of any public servant. In practice, this means that the government can shield any misconduct, and it does so as a matter of routine. Justice Hegde had been pleading for cooperation from the

Making a show of ourselves: IPL, CWG, and (possibly) Olympics!


f the IPL scam, by allowing some of our politicians to multiply their crores and get their daughters employed in lucrative jobs, could work up prolonged media frenzy, furore in parliament, and resignation of a minister, Commonwealth Games deserve a bigger honour, thanks largely to an increasing volume of information about the sporting extravaganza now available in public domain. By a rough estimate, based on some ministerial utterances, the central and Delhi governments together have spent over Rs 33,000 crore so far on building stadiums and other infrastructure in the name of Commonwealth Games (CWG). The actual public expenditure is rising every day and is still

unascertainable. There is obviously no such thing as a budget for CWG; its a blank cheque. Delhis budget for the current financial year allocates Rs 4,244 crore, or 38 per cent of the total plan outlay, to the transport sector, mostly subserving the CWG project, while health and education together get Rs 2365 crore or 21 per cent. The Games have been used to justify hikes in taxes, tariffs, and other items that add to the cost of living in Delhi. In bidding for CWG, Indian Olympic Association (IOC) had proposed Rs 150 crore of expenditure on stadiums, which has shot up to at least Rs 3,390 crore, a healthy growth of 2,160 per cent, according to a study done by Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), an NGO.

The HLRN report also says that Rs 265 crore allocated for the scheduled caste sub plan (special component plan) for Delhi has apparently been diverted to the CWG for the year 2009-2010. The targeted revenue from the Games, on the other hand, is Rs 1,780 crore, which, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), is ambitious, says the same report, emphasizing, in fact, that no cost-benefit study of the CWG project was ever undertaken. Aside from the financial extravagance, the CWG project also cocks a snook at democratic norms and constitutional and statutory requirements. Indias decision to bid for the Games was neither transparent nor democratic. It was not discussed in parliament; neither was there any public debate, consultation or opinion poll among the residents of Delhi, says the HLRN report. A committee appointed by Delhi high court confirmed an investigation that found that lakhs of construction workers engaged in CWG projects were

GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

state government all along. Instead, the government shielded the guilty, deliberately sat on the appointment of his deputy, the Upalokayukta, refused to table in the state assembly his voluminous report on illegal mining and even failed to preserve the five lakh tonnes of iron ore seized from the Belikeri port. Clearly, while Justice Hegde did all he could to expose corruption and promote good governance, the state government did all it could to stymie Justice Hegde and the Lokayukta. As he said in the interview to Governance Now, While our anti-corruption work gets maximum publicity, it constitutes just 10 percent of our work. As much as 90 percent of our work is to facilitate good governance, for example to attend to complaints regarding old age pensions, working of panchayats, functioning of corporations and schemes meant for the welfare of poor people. With his resignation, Justice Hegde exposed the political class that couldnt stomach even 10 percent of his work.

Private consultants for public matters


Or, giving corporate governance a whole new meaning
s it that we no longer have the talent within bureaucracy that the government is looking to lease talent from outside? The government has selected a panel of 20 consultancy firms to assist the ministries and departments in achieving their annual targets at Rs 10,000 a day as retainership. The government has already established a performance management division within the cabinet secretariat and it is headed by a professional, Prajapati Trivedi, handpicked by the prime minister himself. The ministries and departments are preparing their Result Framework Documents (RFDs) which are to be submitted to this division for performance appraisal. So when the ministries are themselves setting their targets and already have huge manpower ranging from senior bureaucrats to employees under the central secretariat scheme (CSS), why do we need outsiders? Then there are specialist organisations like the Planning Commission, National Advisory Council and Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister to assist the ministries in their planning and targets. There are also a plethora of committees/councils like the PMs Council on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, PMs Council on Trade and Industry, PMs Council on Climate Change and PMs National Council on Skill Development.

And dont forget, there is an entire ministry of statistics and programme implementation. Plus there are government-funded academic institutions like Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) and the Centre for Good Governance (CGG). Government servants are well aware of the bottlenecks, which are usually due to the political differences between the centre and the states. Private consultants can be of little help in such cases. What can an external consultant do if the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh is not enthusiastic in implementing a centrally sponsored scheme? Yet, if individuals with private sector experience are needed in the government, the government should allow their lateral entry into the civil services. As it stands, the latest move looks more like a lateral entry for crony capitalism. The private professionals attached to the various ministries can only be expected to further private interests. There is no official word on how conflict of interest will be avoided when a professional who advises, say, a telecom player, becomes a consultant to the communication and IT ministry. In the asbcence of answers to these queries it would seem that this is just another exercise to add another layer of governance.

not even paid minimum wages, let alone provided with other mandatory facilities; dozens of them died in unhygienic and exploitative living and working conditions. Constitution, law, and international conventions were violated in forcibly evicting thousands of families from slums to make way for CWG projects or just for beautification of the city. Since 2007, over 7,450 beggars have been rounded up in a bid to clean up the city; they are being tried summarily in mobile courts and locked up. Corruption, bungling and ineptitude in project execution come on top of all that. The CAG, for example, has castigated Delhi Development Authority, which works under union urban development ministry, for providing a bailout package of Rs 766.89 crore to a private builder engaged in construction of the Games village. Large-scale construction activity has played havoc with planning norms and the environment, not to mention the inconvenience caused to the public over several years.

The Lalit Modis of CWG-gate are mostly hidden among our own elected governments. Getting them to face the law or even shaming them will have to be part of a larger struggle for democratic rights and governance reforms.

Many of the projects being executed in the name of CWG will remain incomplete through the duration of the sporting event. The extortionately costly CWG will indeed be a grand show in a country that is home to 27 per cent of the worlds hungry people and the largest population of malnourished children. Meanwhile, Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister of Delhi, has had the brazenness to boast that the city is ready to bid for and host the Olympics! Considering all these facts, shouldnt the CWG misadventure deserve to be a bigger cause clbre than the IPL scandal? Is it not hypocritical of the media not to be making the kind of hue and cry that we saw it making over the IPL scandal? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the Lalit Modis of CWG-gate are mostly hidden among our own elected governments. Getting them to face the law or even shaming them will have to be part of a larger struggle for democratic rights and governance reforms.

www.GovernanceNow.com

photo: Ravi Choudha r y

6 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Opening Shot
Opening

It takes more than an empty container to ensure a fill at Navjeewan Camp, in south Delhis Kalkaji, where the arrival of a water tanker ignites fresh hopes of fulfilling a basic need for at least another day. The stone in the water knows nothing of the hill which lies parched in the sun, goes an African proverb, and much the same appears true of Delhi. While studies show that the metro wastes the maximum amount of water in the country, communities such as the one pictured above continue to be denied their fair share.

shot

It will take all her diplomatic skills


that the two sides might be working towards a deal to bring about freer movement and trade across the line of control, greater political autonomy on both sides of the LoC, and subsequent reduction of troops. Rao has, however, also insisted that dialogue can best progress in an atmosphere free from terrorism, indicating the difficulties besetting the relationship. It is arguably Raos first serious opportunity since becoming foreign secretary to try her diplomatic skills on a very difficult bilateral relationship.

people
Are we witnessing renaissance of philanthropy?
aving pledged a large part of their wealth to charitable causes, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffet seem to making a sincere effort to encourage other billionaires in the US to similarly help the needy. They announced recently that they had met and asked a couple of dozen rich Americans to give away at least half of their wealth to charity. Responding to The Giving Pledge, as the Gates-Buffet campaign is called, at least four billionaire individuals or families are reportedly expected to make the philanthropic pledges. If those pledges materialise, billions of dollars more will flow into meeting needs like education and healthcare. Are we seeing a renaissance of philanthropy, starting from the US? Given the growing rich-poor gap in the world, there is certainly a strong case for it.

t is going to be as much a test of Manmohan Singh governments skill in engaging with Pakistan to bridge the trust deficit between the two countries as of foreign secretary Nirupama Raos competence in preparing the ground work for creative solutions, such as making boundaries irrelevant. As foreign secretaries of the two sides met on June 24 in Islamabad, leading up to the ministerial-level talks next month, Raos recent utterance that boundaries need to be made irrelevant sounds significant; it has been construed to mean

He has shown we can

raised recently by US State Department for his good work against human traffickers, Andhra Pradesh CID officer Sattaru Umapathi has been swimming against the tide. The Departments Trafficking in Persons Report 2010 lauds Umapathi for application of the more stringent sections of Indian law in trafficking cases, but berates India for not demonstrating sufficient progress in its law enforcement,

protection, or prevention efforts. While Umapathi has reportedly helped secure convictions of 85 traffickers in the last one and a half years, Indias overall conviction record has been deemed by the report as poor. Given Indias huge problem of human trafficking, there is little for us to be proud of except that police officers like Umapathi have proven our ability to take on the challenge.

AS officer C Umashankars case is unfolding like a typical Bollywood movie in which the corrupt politicos try their best to make the life for an upright officer hell. The latest scene in this real-life drama shows the Madras high court staying a vigilance inquiry ordered by the DMK government against the alleged amassing of wealth by Umashankar. Umashankar is widely believed to have been victimised for stoutly resisting the abuse of power by

An unfolding drama
the Maran family, which is directly related to M Karunanidhi, the chief minister. As chairman of Arasu Cable TV, Umashankar had taken a stern view of the destruction of the property of the state-owned company, instigated by Sumangali Cable Vision, a rival business owned by Sun TV, which is controlled by Kalanithi Maran.

www.GovernanceNow.com 7

people politics policy performance


Governance In Slumber

A village that cant take its own name


And a state that has slapped casteist slur on villagers and has refused to change its ways
photos: Ravi Choudhary

GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Ashish Mehta

ne of the many inspiring, instructive slogans the government has painted on the walls of some houses in this village says in Hindi: Do not leave the village, change the village. The villagers, however, dont aspire to change much, except the name of their village. This tiny village in Baswa tehsil of Dausa district of Rajasthan has got its share of the usual problems, perennial shortage of water and electricity and so on. They bear them alljust as they smile through droughts that are recurrent in this unforgiving land and walk three kilometres to fetch drinking water though all nearby villages get water. Their name, however, is a different matter. To change it, they are using all their might, which has not amounted to much so far. But why are they so desperate to change the name of their village? What exactly is the name? Beating around the bush will not do, so lets spell it out: Chamaron Ka Bas. Theres more in the name than just a criminal and casteist slur, it is a veritable road block whenever a youngster wants to study further, secure scholarships or get a job. It is the name that keeps dragging them back to the nineteenth century every time they attempt to move on.

How a village is born in records

When the village was just a hamlet, existing blissfully outside government records, people used to refer to it as Kuwan Ka Bas, after two old wells. Ramswarup (he winks when he says with a smile that he must be at least 60) remembers the time when they used

to tell their visiting relatives to ask for Kuwan Ka Bas, a stones throw away from Hingota village. Three hamlets and two villages made up the Hingota gram panchayat. In the early 1980s, the state government undertook a delimitation-like exercise, in which expanding hamlets were recognised as villages. Apart from Hingota and Bavdikheda, which existed on records, three more villages got an honourable mention in the government books: Garhmedhya Ka Bas, Kharin Ki Jhonpadi and Chamaron Ka Bas. We did not even know for threefour years that our village had got a new name, Ramswarup recalls. Later we realised what had happened. A patwari (a revenue official also known as lekhpal) called Gopiram Sharma had come. He did not visit this village, he stayed for a while over there, he says, pointing to the village across a barren field. He stayed there in Kharin Ki Jhonpadi. He asked the people there they are all Meenas he asked them what this village is called and they said it is called Chamaron Ka Bas. With one stroke of a pen of a lazy, lowly sarkari clerk, the name, identity and fate of an entire village were changed. We have been struggling ever since to get the name changed, says Ramswarup. But now that Chamaron Ka Bas was etched in government records, reversing the atrocity was not easy. Government procedures, you see...! Naresh Mehra, a graduate in his early 20s, says: And the problem is, we are not Chamars. This village is more than a 100 years old, nobody has done the work of a Chamar here. We are from Bairwa community, which is a Scheduled Caste, but we are not Chamars. That of course is not to say that the name would have been justified if the caste was right. Chamar is a casteist slur which attracts the provisions of a very strict Atrocities Act. But when the law breaks the law, it takes 30 years (and counting) for a return to sanity. Bairwa in Rajasthan, numbering 931,030 according to Census 2001, is one

of the five major castes that combine to form 69.6 percent of Rajasthans total SC population. Chamar tops the SC caste list in terms of population. As the men sitting on a charpai farmers or farm labourers, like everybody in this villagediscuss caste details, Mohini Devi, in her 40s, turns to the other women sitting on the ground and says in a hushed voice: It (the name of the village) is insulting. It surely shames us.

How a name can hurt you in the real world

The name of this village, of course, hurts much more than an insult can. A boy listening to the elders talk finally clears his voice and says, I have lost my scholarship because of it. The class 12 student had applied for a state scholarship meant for needy students but he preferred not to mention the name of the village in the application form and mentioned a nearby village, as many others do. It didnt tally with his other documents and therefore he did not get the money. Puran, in his late 20s, too speaks up. I am making a living as a labourer because of this name. I left studies. I could not mention this name anywhere. The school here has classes only till fifth. Then we go to a neighbouring village. (Other villages have smaller population but they have got secondary schools.) We fill up the form and they say he is from Chamaron Ka Bas. We feel belittled. I would have none of that. I was rather good in studies. So I wanted to sit on one of the front benches but teachers used to say you are from Chamars (Chamaron Ka Bas), sit in the back row. I often got scolded for arguing with teachers. So I quit studies. Chetram adds that teachers from other parts and other castes do not want to teach at the only school in this village. Even if they come, they leave soon. Naresh, among the few who have completed BA from a college in Bandikui town, recounts insults and ignominies. Look for a room

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people politics policy performance


Governance In Slumber

Whats there in a name? Lets ask them


Narendra
My scholarship was cancelled because I did not like to mention the name of the village in the application form and had written the name of a neighbouring village.

Puran
I am making a living as a labourer because of this name. I left studies. I could not mention this name anywhere. The school here has classes only till fifth. Then we go to a neighbouring village. We fill up the form and they say he is from Chamaronka-bas. I would have none of that. I was rather good in studies. So I wanted to seat on one of the front benches but teachers used to say you are from Chamars (Chamaron-ka-bas), seat in the back row. I often got scolded for arguing with teachers.

Naresh
When I went to Bandikui for college studies and looked for a room on rent, they asked which village did I come from. I said Chamaron-ka-bas and they said how can we let you stay here? The name hurts when we apply for studies, when we apply for a job.

Ramswarup
We feel humiliated when we write the name of the village in some form or for some document in the presence of children. When we go to meet an official, if we are asked which village do we come from, we lose half of our confidence. Our work wont get done.

on rent and they ask where you are from. Name the village and they shut the door on your face. We find it difficult to bring the name to our lips. In college, we fill up forms for various things and we get branded. The name tag keeps hounding them not only through student days but also later on job hunts. It is a severe problem especially for those of us who are young or educated, he says. Surendra chips in, We have to bear with all the slurs, they can tell us this... since the name is on record. Thus, calling somebody a Chamar can lend one in jail under the SC/ ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, but on the way to this village, you have no option but to ask around, which way to Chamaron Ka Bas? Strangely, a bystander even asks which Chamaron Ka Bas; theres one in Alipur here, one touching Hingota there and so on. While the rest of them have the tag informally, one of them is called so by the government. And it has been adamant in calling it so, as it has refused to change it for 30 years. To prove the point, some villagers run to their homes and return with cardsvoter identity cards and National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) cards and point out how the State has

been insulting themofficially. The address on the cards reads Chamaron Ka Bas. A milestone, reading Chamaron Ka Bas 0 km, had come up but villagers removed it. The current milestone adopts a compromise formula: Bairwa Ka Bas 0 km. However, the administration is in two minds. Search for Chamaron Ka Bas and it would crop up in census records, in Panchayati raj ministry documents and so on. But on the ground its different. A signage hanging on an electric pole right next to the milestone mentioned above names the village as Govindpura, one of the many new names proposed over the years. To its right is the only school of the village, which too has a signboard that shies away: Government Primary School, Ch. Ka Bas, though the Ch part is not legible anymore. It stands effaced after constant stone-throwing (pics facing page).

How to change the village name: a manual

Throwing stones at the school signboard was the sole act of aggression from the 1,200-odd Bairwas of this unfortunate village that cannot take its own name. They have their faith in the organs of State intact, even if they have learnt not to believe in promises.

It was way back in 1987 when they started the campaign for change. They have been making representations and pleading for dignity before MPs and MLAs, ministers and bureaucrats, and the countless commissions that seemingly serve no purpose other than providing gainful employment to politicians past their prime and retired officials. Mention Dausa and people outside Rajasthan will immediately mention Rajesh Pilot who represented the constituency for years. The villagers met the late Congress leader, his wife Rama who was elected to the Lok Sabha later, and also their son Sachin who too represented Dausa from 2004 to 2009 when it became a reserved constituency. We met Rajesh Pilot, Rama Pilot, Sachin. We often went to Delhi. Sachin Pilot had even come to this village. He had told us: have faith. But we have been betrayed, says Naresh. There are threefour ministers in Rajasthan who are Bairwa. To no avail. We have also met the current MP, Kirodi Lal Meena. He too promised to do the needful. Among others, they also met Murari Lal Meena, not only a local legislator, but also state minister for technical education (agriculture)

10 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

The village has different (and unofficial) names on a milestone and on a signboard next to it. The wall of the only school in the village shies away from spelling out the official name in full.

(independent charge) and revenue, colonisation (sic) & sainik kalyan, and a Bairwa to boot. As a junior minister of the revenue department, this matter falls right in his jurisdiction. He also assured them remedial action. So politicians come around these parts ahead of various elections, make promises and go away. In a sense nothing has changed since independence. Untouchability continues like before. It used to be slightly more earlier, now it is slightly less, says Ramswarup. The state has been ruled by the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in turns in the last two decades, but the villagers see no difference between the two as far as their plight is concerned. Surendra says they are so angry with the political class that once we decided to boycott an election. We returned the voting box empty. For the past 23 years, this is what is happening. The Bairwas go to the Hingota gram panchayat, where they say 25 percent members support their demand and the rest are either indifferent or think the name is quite appropriate. The panchayat moves a resolution, proposing alternative names (considered so far: Kuwan Ka Bas, Shivpura, Govindpura, Kushalpura and Vidyanagarthe last one

suggested by a former panchayat chief named Vidya, an upper-caste woman from Hingota). The resolution then goes to the district collector, who after due diligence, sends it to the state government. The state in turn forwards the letter to the home ministry, which has the final authority in this matter. For example, on the Republic Day of 2002, the villagers got a letter typed, most put their thumb marks on it, a few put their signatures, and requested the Dausa district collector to change the name to Govindpura. He forwarded their application to the state government recommending the new name but nothing happened on the ground. On September 12, 2006, they went to meet the then district collector (villagers refer to him as H K Damor), but they were in for a shock. The official, during arguments with them, burst out saying (according to the villagers), so, lets rename the village as Brahmano Ka Bas. The villagers complained before the authorities, citing the SC/ST Act, but the official was not punished. This was when the younger generation in the village took over the campaign, Khem Chand, now in his early 20s and studying to become a teacher, and others approached the National Human

Rights Commission with a complaint and requested intervention. The Commission on September 28, 2006, issued a notice to the Rajasthan chief secretary, asking for a report within eight weeks. The Rajasthan government responded, on August 8, 2008, saying that no misbehaviour was found to have been committed by the collector. It also said that the state government had agreed to change the name of village to Kushalpura with the consent of all the villagers. The Commission, therefore, closed the case in December 2008. It should have become Kushalpura then but for a twist in the tale. The home ministry, the final authority in this matter, has framed rules for the name gamespelled out in letter No. 130/53Public, dated the 11th September, 1953 written by Sardar Fateh Singh, Deputy Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi110002 to all state governments (A, B, C & D) except Jammu and Kashmir. This is the vintage communication that is referred to when Madras wants to be called Chennai and Bombay wants to be known as Mumbai. Among other rules, one says an existing name cannot be granted to another village or town so that confusion is avoided. For this

www.GovernanceNow.com 11

people politics policy performance


Governance In Slumber

purpose, it routes all name-change pleas through all relevant ministries and departments. One application, requesting Kushalpura as the new name, went past all levels but the railways ministry raised an objection. It said there was a transit railway station called Kushalpura Halt. The home ministry then asked the state government to suggest another name though the villagers insist there is no Kushalpura Halt anywhere in the region. They also list out several instances of what can be called synonymous villages. Theres a relative of Meenas in the rail ministry. This is their ploy, says a youngster. The villagers once approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which is set up to deal with matters precisely like this. Its members have visited the village three times so far.

June 16, 2009, got a reply within 10 days, from the president referring the matter to the Rajasthan chief secfetary for appropriate action. But it was the motto on the President letter that caught their attemtion. It said: kal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab. That Kabir doha says do today what you plan for tomorrow/do now what you plan for today. The chief secretary obviously did not get the message.

How patience (lets hope) pays

Tired of dealing with labyrinthine systems of governance, the villagers started writing polite letters to the president, the prime minister, the Congress party chief, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot, local MP Kirodi Lal Meena and NHRC. We have written five letters to them all, says Surendra. Theres no reply. The last one they wrote to them on

How the State shows a sense of humour

Last year, Khemchand and company approached the NHRC again. The Commission again took up the matter with the state government. The state government replied on September 9, 2009 that a list of alternative names was forwarded to the home ministry for approval. The Commission waited for five months for progress but got no response from the home ministry and the district collector, so it asked the home secretary and the collector to submit status reports. The district collector then said he had written to the state government for the name change but no information was received. The joint secretary of the home ministry informed the Commission on March 10, 2010, that the proposal of change in the name of the village Chamaron Ka Bas to Kuwan Ka Bas is under examination with the ministry in consultation with other ministries and departments.

As and when the views of all concerned are received a final decision shall be taken on the proposal and conveyed to the State Government of Rajasthan. This was when the Commission decided to talk tough. In its proceedings on May 5, 2010, it observed that it is distressed to note that in a democratic country like India, whose Constitution clearly prohibits any discrimination on the basis of castes, religion, languages etc, the name of the village Chamaron Ka Bas is not only derogatory but, perhaps, also constitutes criminal offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Here is the case which is in direct conflict with the Constitutional mandate. It is highly frustrating that a matter which was represented against in the year 2006 has dragged on, on account of the bureaucratic rigmarole. If enough sensitivity had been displayed, the name of the village could have been changed much earlier and the feelings of a particular community could have been assuaged. It will be appropriate to ask Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs to get the matter expedited and the decision of the Ministry be communicated to the Commission as early as possible. Though the Commission gave six weeks time for response, the

12 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

ministry got the message and replied on May 24 itself that it had no objection if the name of the village was changed back to Kuwan Ka Bas. In fact, the home ministry also requested the Government of Rajasthan to issue a notification changing the name of the village. The Commission then went a step further and on May 26 recommended that the Rajasthan chief secretary hold an inquiry as to how the old name of the village Kuwan Ka Bas was changed to Chamaron Ka Bas; find out the errant Lekhpal, and submit the report along with the notification changing the name of the village within four weeks. At the time of writing, the deadline is nearly over. It is not clear where the paper trail has reached. When asked, Dausa district collector Lal Chand Aswal said the matter was settled though he could not confirm it. When told about the latest from the home ministry and NHRC, the villagers show no emotions. They are not celebrating yet. Really? Will it happen finally is what many keep asking. One of them, Chetram, says it is still a bas by another name. Why bas at all? Arent there any other names? Why not Govindpura? Somebody wants this village to be remembered as that bas. The hopeful ones, however, are already dreaming of the precise dates when the official ignominy

NHRC said it is distressed to note that in a democratic country, whose Constitution clearly prohibits any discrimination on the basis of castes, religion, languages etc, the name of the village Chamaron Ka Bas is not only derogatory but also constitutes criminal offence under the Atrocities Act, 1989.

would be over. If it happens before the school admission time, it would be better. Then the new admissions will not bear the old name. Ration cards will also reflect the change, says Surendra. If the name has really changed, we would be able to look into peoples eyes and say the name. While the first round of Census 2011 relating to the household survey is over, with the same name on records, the villagers hope the name would have been changed by the time of the headcount early next year. Then theres Unique ID card too, they have heard of it. It would be better if these new cards too bear the new name, says Naresh. Mohini Devi, Khemchands mother, keeps folding her hands, with the same request: Just do this much for us. Just this much. A youngster asks her to keep quiet, but she mocks a foolish smile while adjusting her sari over her head and resumes the refrain: Just do this much for us. Look at them. What if they were your children? You people can help. Just do this much. I wish I could. I wish returning Kuwan Ka Bas its old name and honour was as simple as scribbling it on some god damned file like that lekhpal did 30 years ago... n
ashishm@governancenow.com

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people politics policy performance


Politics For Change

photos: Ravi Choudhary

So that fewer mothers may eat water for dinner...


Abject poverty to IIM Ahmedabad. Thats the kind of success one could rest on for life. Not Sarath Babu. Hes busy charting a career in politics because he doesnt want others to have his mothers meal: water.
Sonal Matharu

T
14 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

he assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are at least a year away, but Sarath Babu has already started making his preparations. He is not sure yet if he would contest as an independent candidate, as he did last year, or with the help of any political party, but he knows he must contest, he must be part of the political system. Because politics, says this 29-year-old Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) graduate, is the biggest platform to serve people. All you need to get in is age, energy and Rs 10,000 (to register as candidate), he says.

Among many adventures in his eventful life so far, the one that brought him in the limelight was his candidature from South Chennai constituency in the 2009 general elections. Many in the constituency vividly remember his novel campaign: he visited every slum in the area, carrying an eight-foot tall slate, his election symbol, and asked the children to write their dreams on it. These children of course could not vote for him, yet he won 16,000 votes with less than a months preparation. If a month of hard work could win him 16,000 votes, he is confident that with a year-long campaign, he can emerge as a strong candidate. Sarath has already addressed six lakh people, some of

whom have remained in touch with him through social networking websites. Be it talking to them in his office or going to their homes and interacting with them, Sarath ensures that his message to people is delivered. I want a hunger-free India, he says with a finality that carries a ring of conviction. And the only way out of this deprivation, he feels, is through educationand hence his election symbol. Again, when he says this, he says it with confidence as he has seen poverty from up close and has first-hand experience of how much hunger hurts. He has lived with it and he has lived through it. Today, thanks to his education he stands on a podium and inspires many young

Sarath Babu during his campaign for the elections in 2009.

hearts with his success story. No wonder he names Babasaheb Ambedkar and APJ Abdul Kalam as his heroes. Born and brought up in the slum of Madipakkam in Chennai, Sarath grew up in a shanty where his mother was the only breadwinner of the family as his father had deserted them. He remembers her from those days when she was constantly sleep-deprived as she strove to make ends meet with five mouths to feed: two daughters and three sons. With a meagre income of Rs 30 a month, she not only fed her family, but made sure they completed their education. His mother E Deeparamani, who had studied till 10th standard,

Water for dinner

Seventy percent of Indias population is young. Their education and employment is my priority. No youth in this country should have to say that he or she doesnt have a job. I want to encourage entrepreneurship.

remains the source of inspiration for Sarath. She worked as an aaya with the government midday meal programme. Sarath recalls one night when he saw her gulping down a lot of water and thinking that maybe she was fond of drinking water. It was later that he realised water was her dinner. She had no food to eat so she was drinking water to fill her belly, Sarath remembers without a tinge of self-pity. He thought of quitting his school so that some money could be saved and his mother would get food. But he knew she would not let him discontinue his studies. Since that day he only dreamt of getting a job after college so that he could support her. Back then, he had not even heard of the premier engineering

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people politics policy performance


Politics For Change

college (the Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani) or the top business school (IIMA) where he was going to study. He only wanted a job, any job that could get him some money every month, that would give his mother a dinner that was not water. Sitting in his Chevrolet today he takes yet another trip down memory lane. Even though struggling to save every penny, Saraths mother sent him to the Kings Matriculation Higher Secondary School, which charged more fee than a government school. Every morning he would sell idlies in the neighbourhood with his elder sister before going to school. At school, he wanted some recognition. Some students were quite popular as they used to bring special lunch and share it with other children. I couldnt do that because I never had anything special in my lunchbox, he said. When in second standard, he once topped an exam and gained instant recognition. He suddenly had something in him that would earn him peer respect. From then on, his focus shifted to studies and he topped the school in every exam through the year. Yet, school often meant days spent outside the classroom as tuition fee could not be paid in time. I was made to stand out of class for not paying the fee on time. I used to wonder what mistake I had committed. It was very humiliating because people passing in the corridors would stare at me. This, while I used to do well in studies. I used to keep taking notes from outside the classroom and the only thing on my mind was to come first in exams. So I forgot all pain. I used to say to myself: Listen to the teacher and see the board. This was a challenge I took upon myself, Sarath recalls. His single-minded focus on studies ensured he finally achieved his dream of becoming his mothers support system. Sarath is one of the few people lucky enough to break free from the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger. There are many more out there whose stories have been more predictable.

It is to reach out to them and hold their hands that Sarath has turned to politics.

Friend, politician and guide

Sarath thought of quitting his school so that some money could be saved and his mother would get food. But he knew she would not let him discontinue his studies. Since that day he only dreamt of getting a job after college so that he could support her.

Saraths weekends are now spent with students many of whom are poor. He guides them and even financially supports those who need money. Through his venture, EduBharat, which he started nine months ago, he counsels students and helps them choose the right career option. When I was young, there was no one to help me with career options. I want to help students who cannot get any guidance from their friends and family. Many students who come to me are on the verge of committing suicide. Several such students have gone back with a different opinion about life after spending time with me, Sarath says with a satisfied smile. Next he plans to start a programme, called Golden 10, under which he will pick 10 poor graduate students from across the country and train them to get through the IIMs. These students will be coached by members of the IIM alumni and he has already written to over 350 colleges in the country to suggest students for this programme. As he talks about empowering the youth and roping them into politics, he narrates how with every step he is getting closer to his goal of helping the young break free from deprivation and poverty. Seventy percent of Indias population is young. Their education and employment is my priority. No youth in this country should have to say that he or she doesnt have a job. I want to encourage entrepreneurship, Sarath says. Talking about jobs, Sarath smiles as even he had a hard decision to make after graduating from IIMA when he had to choose between a high-paying job and his dream. He dreamt of being an employer than an employee. His principle was basic: one graduation degree must benefit more than one family. In the fourth year of college, I went to Bihar for internship. There

16 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

I read in a newspaper that over 30 percent families in India live below the poverty line. That means that over 7.5 crore mothers live like my mother. It also means that 15 crore children live like I did. I kept wondering what would happen to these people? I cried reading that report, he says. The thought of starting a company where he could employ people and pay them salaries first struck him then. I thought if I can employ one lakh people I can take care of five lakh people, because one person will take care of four or five people in a family. But to bring the plan to fruition, Saraths patience was put to test. After completing his chemical engineering from BITS Pilani, he could not start his own business. He had a loan of Rs 1.5 lakh to repay and he did not have any money. So he joined a software company, Polaris, where he worked for 30 months. After saving Rs 70,000 from his salary, which he gave to his mother, he attempted the Common Admission Test (CAT). After the third and final attempt, he got calls from all six IIMs. I was in two minds after getting into the IIM. I would get lazy and think of taking up a job. I sat for some IIM placements but did not accept any offer, says Sarath. He remains one of the handful IIMA students who rejected big-ticket MNCs and followed their dream. When his classmates were appearing for job interviews, he was selling refreshment packets in the campus. He bought chocolates from Cadbury, pastries from a local bakery, chips from Lays, burgers from McDonalds, cashews from Haldirams and also Frooti. He made lunch packets and sold them for Rs 200 each. He earned a meagre profit and decided to enter the food business. A day before his IIM convocation, Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy inaugurated his food chain called Food King. In 2006, Food King got its first big contract from Systems Plus, a software company in Ahmedabad. With an initial investment of Rs 2000, he served tea and coffee in

the company canteen for four to five months. He then ran a shop at the IIMA cafeteria for two years. Food King was just about breaking even when Sarath went to Mumbai for an alumni meet. He did not have money for a hotel and he spent the night on a pavement outside the railway station. That is when I thought maybe I should have taken up a job. But then, there were 300 more poor people on the pavement. I decided not to give up my dream of becoming an entrepreneur, Sarath adds. Finally, in 2008 he got the next big contract from the BITS Pilani. He soon opened outlets in Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Chennai (two) with about Rs 2 lakh, which he borrowed from friends and cooperative banks. Food King now does roaring business and employs more than 250. But even as his business is expanding, his plunge into politics was not incidental. He has his aim clear. He wants to reach out to more and more people and politics is the platform through which, he feels, he can do so best. He reached out to all his contacts and friends through the web and social networking sites. Volunteers from Kerala, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi came down to give a helping hand in the campaign. Nobody had expected him to win, in fact, nobody had expected an independent candidate to poll as many votes as he did. Preparing for the 2011 elections, he says, if lucky he will get the same symbol. But in case he doesnt, his message will remain the same. Politics is all about management, he says. An IIMA alumni should know. n
sonal@governancenow.com

Politics as management

It just Occured to us
Apparently, the government has no record of Warren Andersons visit and exit in 1984. So now we are officially chasing his ghost.

www.GovernanceNow.com 17

people politics policy performance


Calling Attention

Land Acquisition Act is colonial, must be repealed


Ajit Singh

The Act must be substituted by a more pragmatic, progressive, time-bound, unambiguous and comprehensive law wherein the acquisition must pass the scrutiny of the real public purpose which is founded on the doctrine of superior claims of the whole community and not for making profit by the private individuals, public authorities or the state.

he Land Acquisition Act was enacted by the British in 1894 with the expressed purpose of compulsory acquisition of privately held property/land by the state for socalled public purpose. After independence, the government adopted this Act as a tool for land acquisition. Though various amendments have been made to the 1894 Act from time to time, the administrative procedure and parameters for determining the compensation still remains almost the same. This archaic Act has become absolutely irrelevant and a tool for exploitation of landowners/ farmers under the changed scenario of economic development and human rights. I would like to highlight the following serious flaws which are working against the interests of landowners who are mostly farmers. n The definition of public purpose has been so inclusive and ambiguous that anything and everything can be acquired under this heading for any purpose. The instances of acquisition of private land by the central government and various state governments for the activities carried on by the private individuals or by the public authorities for a distinct profit motive are not uncommon. The provisions of this Act for compulsory acquisition of land have been misused by the states repeatedly to serve the private interests to earn profit. n The very basis of determining compensation is flawed since it is tilted against the interest of the landowner to fix the compensation on the lower side. Since the compensation

fixed is always significantly lower than its potential value, there has always been the tendency to over-acquire land and to use this land to make profits by the private individuals or public authorities. While determining compensation the purpose of acquisition is never taken into consideration. In almost all cases of land acquisition in the past, the compensation awarded has been found grossly inadequate and the issues relating to inadequate compensation have given rise to serious problems of law and order in a large number of cases leading to the loss of life and property. n The indiscriminate acquisition of vast tracts of most fertile land shall definitely affect adversely the food security. The 1894 Act does not take into account such concerns. n Under the urgency clause, millions of farmers have been arbitrarily deprived of their land during the period since independence for the execution of so-called urgent projects. Though in some cases it took more than even decades to initiate work on these projects on the acquired land. n The 1894 Act has completely ignored time-bound procedures. The delays in awarding compensation are a very common feature which not only leads to the loss of livelihood but also a terrible mental agony to the whole family. n Inadequate compensation compels the farmer to approach the judicial forum which puts him under costly, prolonged and unending litigation. Against the background of these facts, I am of the view

that the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 has lived its life and deserves to be immediately repealed. The Act must be substituted by a more pragmatic, progressive, time-bound, unambiguous and comprehensive law wherein the acquisition must pass the scrutiny of the real public purpose which is founded on the doctrine of superior claims of the whole community and not for making profit by the private individuals, public authorities or the state. The proposed law must provide clear and consistent compensation rules and the state at the time of acquiring land must also take into consideration the purpose of acquisition while fixing the quantum of compensation. The proposed changes in the Act vide Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2007, do not provide adequate remedy to most of the concerns mentioned here. I am, therefore, proposing a new draft Land Acquisition Act. The draft law aims at keeping the balance between the interests of the land owners/farmers, growth in agriculture to ensure food/livelihood security and a need for sustainable development. n
Ajit Singh, a former central minister, is an MP and the president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

It just Occured to us
Manmohan Singh is surprised by the continuing noise around Bhopal Tragedy II. He thinks it should have died the day he took decisive action by setting up the EGoM!

18 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Green signal for green buildings

n a major step to make urban commercial structures green, the Prime Ministers council on climate change has cleared the Urban Habitat Mission. This seeks to make it mandatory for all commercial structures to adopt energy-saving building codes, which are in place

but remain voluntary in character. The codes have to be adopted within the next three years. At present about 700 buildings have adopted the energy-saving codes. With the green signal to the Urban Habitat Mission, the government will now link the JNNURM fund with the green codes.

policy
A bill to burst fake certificate rackets
he government is in the process of finalising National Academic Depository Bill of 2010 which envisages creating and maintaining a national database of all academic certificates issued by the universities and school boards. The idea is to check authenticity of education certificates. In the event of any wrong certification by the authority proposed to be created, punishment will be stringentjail for a maximum of 10 years and/or fine up to Rs 10 crore. The certificates would be stored in a DMAT format. Any person, company or institution can avail online access or physical copy of an authenticated academic certificate.

Emboldened MPs pitch for more funds

or long, the MPs have been demanding to raise the amount given every year under the MPLAD scheme from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore. A parliamentary committee dealing with the subject even asked the Planning Commission to do the needful but this was

declined on the ground that there was a resource crunch. But that was before the Supreme Courts judgment of May 16, upholding the constitutional validity of MPLAD scheme. Emboldened at the development, the parliamentary committee now wants the Planning Commission to arrange for funds even if it meant pruning the big-ticket schemes. It remains to be seen if the commission obliges the MPs.

Nuke bill: Tough task ahead

he arliamentary standing committee on science and technology, headed by Congressman T Subbarami Reddy, is grappling with the unenviable task of addressing concerns about the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill of 2010. These concerns include raising liability of an operator in case of a nuclear disaster from Rs 500 crore (Bhopals pesticide plant paid $ 470 million

or Rs 2,200 crore, for the 1984 disaster); making maximum amount of liability of 300 million Special Drawing Rights (one SDR is equivalent of $1.47 at present) as minimum, as the Convention on Supplementary Compensation of 1997 provides and which India wants to sign; re-introducing suppliers liability that was sought to be removed and increasing the cap of 10 years to claim compensation. Will the committee rise to the occasion?

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people politics policy performance


Lessons From Hinterland

Four stories, one

20 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

photos: atul jain

e simple message
A radical shift in policy is unavoidable. Dams and pipelines have outlived their usefulness. It is now time for a water policy based on jal anushasan.
Bhavdeep Kang

Talayya, Madhya Pradesh Talayya, Madhya Pradesh


A tiny adivasi village nestled on the slopes of the Satpuras. The day starts early, at 2 am, when women and children line up at a minuscule spring to fill their earthen vessels, turn by turn. By the time dawn breaks, the spring is exhausted. The village must wait until late evening before it yields water again. The spring is the last remaining source of water in an area that until recently had an abundance of streams running all year round. Massive deforestation has destroyed large parts of the catchment areasometimes in complicity with the very people who live there and depend on the forest for their livelihood. The village gathers to discuss the problem. A wise

Tendukheda, Madhya Pradesh


A town so parched, local boys cannot find brides, as no girl wants to live there. Water sells by the bucket, at rates comparable with Bisleri. Theres barely enough for drinking and cooking, much less washing. Our only hope is that the government will lay a pipeline from the river Narmada, 14 km away, says the chairperson of the nagar panchayat. The denizens of Tendukheda blame the peculiar geology of the area for the lack of water. Weve drilled down to almost a thousand feet and have not found water, says a resident. Until 15 years ago, the town had an abundant supply. Its 10 wells were fully operational. A small lake surrounded by low, forested hills supplemented the wells. A stream ran alongside the town, with baolis (step wells) on either side. Where did the water disappear? The geology of the region cannot have changed, but something must have. In response, a local journalist points to one of the ancient wells, now choked with garbage, The lake, the stream and all the wells dried up because no one bothered to maintain them. Deforestation and unauthorised construction have destroyed catchment areas and plastic waste has clogged water harvesting structures, preventing recharging of water sources. Our stream was such a beautiful spot. Now it is a wasteland, he adds. The area MP, Uday Pratap Singh, has been pursuing the pipeline project for several years. At the same time, he began advocating local approaches to water conservation, warning the residents of Tendukheda that their much-awaited pipeline does not represent a long-term solution. By reviving traditional water sources, the town can help itself. Money is not a constraint. The town is relatively affluent, with a thriving business in agricultural implements. Besides, the nagar panchayat has funds in plenty. But Tendukheda is not convinced. It wants its pipeline.

(Facing page) Talayyas sole source of watera tiny muddy spring. An adivasi woman walking away from it after filling her pot. (Right) A closeup of the spring in Talayya where water collects gradually.

old man knows of a source of water, located under a massive boulder. If the rock is broken, water will gush out, he says. How is the rock to be broken? The villagers look at each other. One young man says, The government will break it. Everyone looks sceptical. They know it is not the government that needs water, but the village. The government will not bother with the rock. Perhaps all the young men should get together and break it? Other suggestions are offered. There is an open cast coal mine in the area; the manger could be asked to blast the rock with explosives. Amid nodding and muttering, the meeting ends. For a month, nothing happens. It is June and the heat

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people politics policy performance


Lessons From Hinterland

Harvesting water is not enough; we will have to discipline ourselves in its use. No one who has hauled water from a well, or filled a bucket from a hand pump, will be careless in its use. In Kohariyaon ki dhani, it is unthinkable that a motor and a pipeline be installed at a beri, because it would run dry in no time. By mutual consent, water is always drawn by hand.

Ufrainkhal, Uttarakhand
The small settlement is well above the snowline, but there has been no snowfall here for almost a decade. As a result, the streams fed by snowmelt have disappeared. Deforestation has destroyed catchment areas and caused massive soil erosion, exposing vast areas of bare black rock. But there is one place in Ufrainkhal that always has water. A lushly forested cluster of hills that stands in stark contrast to the denuded slopes all around. To reach Ufrainkhal, one must drive through the Corbett National Park and up into the hills of Almora. Not a single patch of forest can be found on the way. The impact on water sources is starkly evident. In every town on the ruthlessly deforested route, women and children can be seen lining up at hand pumps. The men gather at teashops, moaning over the disappearance of local water sources and the tardiness of the tankers which ferry water in the hills. The very mountains that supplied water to the plains are now parched, burnt brown and black. In this blasted landscape, the green hills of Ufrainkhal come almost as a shock. The natives are proud of their forest, the result of a decade of community effort and application of traditional knowledge. Sachinand Bharti, a schoolteacher from Ufrainkhal, motivated the villages around to revive their forests. No Ufrainkhal in Uttarakhand is a green oasis in an area of barren hills. All thanks to traditional water conservation methods.

is intense. The spring dwindles to the barest trickle. One day, a group of young men from the village comes down to the coal mine and requests tools, not explosives. The following day, they begin breaking the rock manually. They hammer away until it is shattered. As the old man had promised, water gushes out from the ground. It is enough and more to sustain the entire village and a herd of cattle as well. Talayya, poor in resources and largely illiterate, chose to help itself. It is now self-sufficient in water. Less than 100 km away, Tendukheda still waits for the government to lay a pipeline.

government funding or technical training was sought. The traditional water harvesting systems in the region known as chaal, khaal and taalwere implemented through shramdaan (voluntary community service). The system comprises a series of small unlined pits, tanks and check dams along the slopes. Their purpose is to store water and let it seep into the ground. The gradual seepage provides moisture for trees and other vegetation, thus allowing the forest to regenerate. Even in the month of May, the tanks created by the village people are full of water and the forest is thriving. But the concrete tanks built by the government on the hilltops are dry.

22 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Kohariyaon ki dhani, Rajasthan

(Above) A concrete tank built to provide drinking water bone dry. (Right) A beri or small well in the same village the actual source of water. This Rajasthan desert village sits in one of the driest areas in the world, receiving less than 15 cm of rain annually. To provide the village with drinking water, a pipeline has been laid from the Indira Gandhi Canal. Three tanks with a capacity of 20,000 litres each were built in 2002 and are supposedly fed by the pipeline. There is only one problemthere is no water in the tanks and has never been. The pipes have been bone dry since the day they were laid. How, then, does the village survive? It not only survives, it thrives. There is no shortage of water. The seven beris (small wells) dotted around the village are hundreds of years old but have never failed. Even though they are located on private lands, they are considered community property and are assiduously maintained through joint effort. The government-built concrete monstrosities are a subject of many jokes. The farmers say the pipelines were laid not to transport water but to transport money to the pockets of engineers and contractors. water. It has hatched one grandiose scheme after another to swoosh water across hundreds of kilometres to rural areas for irrigation and to urban areas for domestic use. It has dammed rivers, sunk tubewells, built canals and laid thousands of kilometres of pipelines. The result is the absurdities with which we are faced today: a capital city that sits on the banks of a river but imports its water from rivers hundreds of kilometres away. The same is true of other cities. As rivers are inexorably sucked dry by thirsty cities and crops, flow rates are rapidly declining. Groundwater levels have already fallen drastically, even in areas criss-crossed by canals. Not only has water mining played havoc with water sources, it has also destroyed jal anushasan, or disciplined management of water. Time-tested and highly scientific water harvesting systems have fallen into disuse. Communities once self-sufficient in water now rely on the mai-baap sarkaar, rather than on themselves. Having created dependencies, the government is now failing to deliver. The water-on-tap mindset of urban areas results in enormous wastage of water. Not just by privileged consumers like five-star hotels, VIP residences and golf courses but across the board. Harvesting water is not enough; we will have to discipline ourselves in its use. No one who has hauled water from a well, or filled a bucket from a hand pump, will be careless in its use. In Kohariyaon ki dhani, it is unthinkable that a motor and a pipeline be installed at a beri, because it would run dry in no time. By mutual consent, water is always drawn by hand. A radical shift in the mindset of policy-makers is unavoidable. Dams and pipelines have outlived their usefulness. It is now time for a water policy based on jal anushasan. n
bhavkang@gmail.com

f these four stories have a common theme, it is that water is a community resource, best preserved and managed by local communities. It cannot be equated with mineral resources that are exploited in order to boost growth figures to double digits. Our current policy, based on mining and transportation of water, is self-defeating. It encourages profligate use of this precious resource and creates crippling dependencies. Tendukheda will pay exorbitant amounts for water as it waits patiently for the government to come to its rescue, but the suggestion that it can address water scarcity on its own is hard to comprehend, much less implement. In these water-stressed times, we are faced with a stark policy choice: jal parivahan or jal anushasan? For the past six decades, the government has followed a policy of jal parivahan, or transportation of

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people politics policy performance


Governance Now Roundtable

Its all about understanding the informal economy and social context
Governance Now roundtable on financial inclusion
pension, and advisory services on money matters, etc. to those who currently dont have access to these services. In India, millions of financially excluded people exist despite a good dispersion of banking services; they rely on exploitative moneylenders and informal markets for obtaining credit and other services. Most of the financially excluded belong to the unorganized sector or informal economy. So their inclusion into the formal financial system is a part of a larger agenda for inclusion in terms of their legal rights and the rights to participate in the market economy. Governance Now gathered a young but very knowledgeable panel of expertsK.
Kapil Bajaj

According to one definition, Financial inclusion is delivery of banking services at an affordable cost to the vast sections of disadvantaged and low-income groups. Unrestrained access to public goods and services is the sine qua non of an open and efficient society. As banking services are in the nature of public good, it is essential that availability of banking and payment services to the entire population without discrimination is the prime objective of the public policy. Financial inclusion agenda aims to provide savings, credit, money transfer, insurance,

Natarajan, Manager- Member Affairs & Standards, Sa-Dhan, Radhika Agashe, Associate Director, ACCESS Development Services, Gunjan Grover, Senior Analysit, M-CRIL, Pushkal Gupta, Product Manager, Ujjivanto discuss the issues some of which are listed below. 1. Public-sector banks outreach to the financially excluded. The merits and demerits of SHG-bank-linkage program. The difference in rural and urban markets for microfinance. 2. Is business correspondent model working? What are the constraints? 3. Why should there be a separate set of financial intermediaries (MFIs) for those who are currently excluded? How valid are concerns over

interest rates charged by private MFIs? 4. Shouldnt states try to make it easy for SHGs to federate into cooperatives? 5. How to extend money transfer, insurance and financial advisory services to the excluded? 6. Shouldnt MFIs be also allowed to take deposits and provide other services? What about their regulation? Apart from NBFCs, what kind of legal structures should be permissible? 7. Shouldnt government use its understanding of Indias vast informal economy to come us with a national policy on economic inclusion of the workers in the unorganised sector?

MFIs have drifted away from their mission


he SHG-bank linkage and the MFI models have their own advantages and disadvantages. While the former seeks to foster SHGs as an independent institution in itself and is the only model focused on savings, the latter has proven to be very successful in rapidly covering the huge market for small loans. The MFI model has shown itself to be rapidly scalable because of its commercial orientation as compared to the SHG-bank linkage where the financial incentives for the organizations that nurture SHGs have not been well defined. The commercial orientation, on the other hand, has also proven to be the reason for

many of the ills affecting the MFI model, especially the operations of non-banking finance companies (NBFCs). All NBFC-MFIs, for example, have been focusing on lowhanging fruits areas with good road and banking infrastructure, characterized by trading activities and good cash flows. Since such areas are convenient to reach for all MFIs, we are seeing intense competition between them and consequent problems. A client in such an area could be borrowing from multiple MFIs and might also be borrowing from one to pay off a loan taken from another. Its difficult to track where the MFI money is going, because money is fungible and

Gunjan Grover, Senior Analyst, M-CRIL

there is no sharing of information between lenders. It is all very well to say that an MFI goes and checks what a client is doing with a loan, but the ground reality is that most

MFIs have set huge targets for their loan officers. When a loan officer is required to reach out to 600-700 clients, it becomes impossible for them to check each and every client. The need of the hour is for MFIs to take a step back and recall their mission, which is to lend responsibly and not just focus on margins and profits. Our study shows that while the expense ratio of the MFIs have been steadily going down, their interest rates have been simultaneously rising. Recently some of the malpractices of the MFI promoters were also highlighted, such as the use of trusts and other bodies to benefit from capital gains and using money through private equity.

24 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

he SHG-bank linkage model of financial inclusion is geared more towards development and empowerment of the needy than the MFI model. However, the quality of SHGs is being compromised mainly because the banks and the organizations that promote SHGs are not able to reach the high level of commitment needed to develop such groups. As far as MFI model is concerned, sole focus on advancing loans has been resulting in problems, such as some people borrowing from one MFI

All development measures should be integrated at the block level


and using the money to repay a loan taken from another MFI. The MFIs also need to become more transparent in their operations. An important step taken by the Andhra Pradesh government is to set up village-level committees consisting of officials and borrowers to monitor the activities of the MFIs. The current version of the microfinance bill only covers 20-25 per cent of the sector, based on the thinking that NBFCs, which together have the largest portfolio of loans, are anyway regulated by the RBI. I believe there should be a the need for a comprehensive economic inclusion policy is concerned, I would submit that India have always had policies for the poor; the problem has been in their implementation. There should be some mechanism that would integrate all development interventions and poverty alleviation programmes at the block level; that will require block-level coordination machinery. The poor should be made aware of all their entitlements under different programmes as well as how they can benefit from financial inclusion schemes.

K. Natarajan, Manager- Member Affairs and Standards, Sa-Dhan

comprehensive bill that should cover all kinds of MFIs. As far as

MFIs need to do a lot of financial education

Industry is shifting its agenda to social performance

s a product manager working for Ujjivan, I would say that its harder for people in the North to accept group guarantee than it is in the South. In the North, they are ready to take the first loan at lower interest rates in a group environment, but by the second loan cycle they start to baulk at accepting the group guarantee. I feel the northern states also need badly to catch up with financial literacy, which means that MFIs must make more effort to educate their clients and inculcate in them financial discipline. The MFIs also need to do a lot more to empower the women. I encounter a lot of women asking for loans for their husbands or children rather than for themselves. I feel that a lot of clients think of MFIs as a source of cheap loans rather than looking at them as a source of money that can develop their lives. Such clients look at MFI loans as providing money

Pushkal Gupta, Product Manager, Ujjivan Financial Services

for marriage and other needs that could be described as consumption needs. As for the mission drift that MFIs have been accused of, Id say it might not be the problem at every MFI. There are drastic changes going on in the microfinance sector. For example, there is now focus on social performance of an MFI, which should push the sector towards more conscientious fulfillment of its mission of financial inclusion.

nlike in rural area where its easy to find people with similar social and economic backgrounds -- an important requirement for group formation -- urban settings for microfinance are characterised by people who have migrated from various regions and states of the country. In fostering a joint liability group (JLG), MFIs want to make sure that all members are comfortable with each other and will stick together for a reasonably long duration of time. Group formation also requires conducive laws such as mutually-aided cooperative society Act. Development institutions that earlier helped MFIs develop their lending model have now shifted their agenda to issues like transparency and social performance. ACCESS Development Services intends to take an initiative to ascertain and publish pricing, shareholding and

Radhika Agashe, Associate Director, ACCESS Development Services

profitability of various MFIs. So the market itself is responding to some of the problems. Comprehensive economic inclusion, which will integrate finance, livelihoods, legal rights and social security, is a great idea. Currently there is no coordination between various governmental and non-governmental agencies that are working on a wide variety of development themes.

www.GovernanceNow.com 25

people politics policy performance


Ivory Towers

Best place to study (mis)governance:

A once-prestigious research body is spending taxpayers money on consultants for childrens fairs and picnics

Nehru memorial
photos: Ravi Choudhary

26 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Ashish Mehta

he Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi, according to top scholars, is the best source for research on modern India. The Teen Murti library, as it is better known, is also the ideal place to go if you want to find out whats wrong with India. And we are not talking about the richest collection of primary research material it houses. We are referring to an internal audit report on the institution. No doubt, NMMLs irregularities are peanuts compared with the wheelings and dealings that take place in ministry headquarters barely a kilometre away. But by standards of bookish academicians, the audit findings read like mini Watergate in the making. It has prompted a group of independent scholars, led by the inimitable Ramachandra Guha, to write to the Central Vigilance Commission, seeking an inquiry. The 43-page audit report, in the form of a mid-term evaluation of the performance of NMML, is peppered with phrases like abject failure inactivity, adhoc approach irregular expenditure and infructuous expenditure. The library, hosted in the the first prime ministers scenic bungalow near Rashtrapati Bhavan, once had the final word on the academic discourse in the country. Many key letters, documents and photographs relating to the freedom struggle could be found nowhere else but here. As ivory towers go, it was one of a kind, with membership given only on the basis of academic or professional

credentials. And like so many other institutions, it has not been able to maintain the quality standards, if the audit findings are any pointer. The culture ministry released grants-in-aid to the institution: Rs 7.92 crore for non-plan expenditure and Rs 4.19 crore for planned expenditure in 2008-09, and this, taxpayers money has been put to use in such lofty objectives as paying fees to a couple of consultants for organising a picnic for children. And, to balance it out, there are instances of funds approved for research but not spent.

Plan period, NMML launched three quarterly publications: Contemporary India, Book Review Index and the NMML newsletter. They were all hailed as very informative and useful for researchers, so Rs one crore was proposed for them in the 11th Plan period. However, the publication of Contemporary India has been suspended since May 2007 and only two issues of the newsletter have come out so far in this Plan period. Moreover, a monograph series has also been suspended. Expenditure on publications, therefore, has come down

special negotiating skills to bring down the discount figure from 25 to 10! During the 11th Plan period, NMML proposed to purchase books and research material worth Rs 3.5 crore and install a computer system worth Rs 1.25 crore. Then there were plans for digitisation. But it was gathered from the test check that no expenditure has so far been incurred in connection with installation of computer system in the library nor any step appears to have been initiated for digitisation of photographs. Thus, the performance of NMML during the first two years of the 11th Plan has at best been pedestrian. They need to have a clear strategy for better and optimum utilisation of plan fund in more efficacious manner, which has hitherto been found lacking.

Modernisation

Let us turn to specific details of audit findings.

Fellowship: NMMLs primary objective is to promote research and for this purpose the ministry has approved an outlay of Rs seven crore during the 11th Plan period. But ironically, no fellowship was awarded for any research work to anyone during 200607, 2007-08 and 2008-09 by NMML due to reasons best known to NMML, notes the audit report. There has been abject failure (sic) on the part of NMML so far as research work is concerned. Publications: During the 10th

from Rs 5.13 lakh in 2006-07 to Rs 9,600 in 2008-09. Thats more than what an average scholar would spend on purchasing books in a year!

Library: The library needs to purchase books, and they can be quite costly. Normally, bulk book purchasers manage to extract 25% discount. Central Hindi Directorate is one such example. But NMML could get only 10% discount on books (in) English and 15% discount on books (in) Hindi. Ten percent discount is what you and I, individual buyers, would get from a neighbourhood bookstore. For a big library, you need

NMML is setting up a Childrens Resource Centre (CRC) under a modernisation project. Several individuals have been roped in as consultants and they have been receiving payments for sundry services. For example, Chandana Dey has been paid Rs 1.20 lakh for doing preparatory work for CRC and Jaimala Iyer has been paid Rs 75,000 for ditto, which the audit has found to be quite irregular. (Payments have been made to these two persons repeatedly for doing the same work which defies logic and amounts to gross misutilisation of plan fund, specially those relating to modernisation of museum.) Another irregularity is that Dey was hired even before the project amount was sanctioned. And the final irregularity: Deys bio-data reveals that she has no experience whatsoever in dealing with

project:

www.GovernanceNow.com 27

Scholars write to CVC


The Central Vigilance Commissioner Satarkata Bhavan, A-Block GPO Complex , INA New Delhi - 110 023 Phones: 24651001-8 27th May 2009 Dear Sir, We, the undersigned, as members of the community of scholars and writers, wish to draw the attention of the Central Vigilance Commission to a special audit report of the Government of India concerning the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (hereafter NMML), a public body under the Ministry of Culture. The report notes serious financial irregularities in the functioning of the NMML (see The Hindu, 24th May 2010). Among these are the transfer of public funds (to the tune of Rs 5 crore) to a private trust, the irregular appointment of dozens of consultants when regular staff positions are unfilled, unjustifiable expenditure on dinner parties and melas, etc. At the same time, the Report notes that the regular professional work of the NMML, relating to research, publication and acquisition of rare manuscripts, has come to a standstill. The NMML is an institution of national importance, and the main repository of the records of our freedom struggle. Scholars and writers have been for some time worried about its institutional health, and it may be noted that in May 2009 fifty-seven leading intellectuals had written a letter to the Prime Minister drawing his attention to the steady deterioration of the NMML. They had said then of the NMML that its decline is visible for all to see; its destruction will be a national calamity. We now ask you to immediately set in motion the steps necessary to save the NMML from becoming a failed institution. The signatories to that letter (published in its entirety in the Economic and Political Weekly, 27th June 2009) included such eminent scholars as Professor Rajmohan Gandhi, Professor Partha Chatterjee, Professor Tapati Guha Thakurta, Professor Mushirul Hasan, Professor Mahesh Rangarajan and others. Now, the special audit reports suggests that their fears may have come true. Given the evidence before us, we urge the CVC to immediately constitute an enquiry into the financial and other affairs of the NMML. A copy of the special audit report is being sent to you by post. Sincerely yours Professor Sumit Sarkar, Dr Ramachandra Guha, Professor Sunil Khilnani, Professor Nayanjot Lahiri, Dr Rukun Advani, Professor A. R. Venkatachalapathy, Dr Brinda Bose, Dr Tridip Suhrud, Professor Neera Chandhoke.
children. As for the other consultant, the report concludes after going through payment details: It may not be out of place to mention that services of Ms Jaimala Iyer continued to be engaged by NMML on one pretext or other quite frequently it appears that Ms Jaimala Iyer has been one of the major beneficiaries of the modernisation scheme at least financially. Then theres another consultant, P Chandra Mohan, whose services invite some scathing remarks in the audit report. Mohan was being paid huge amount of advance with inspired frequency on one pretext or other without ascertaining whether adjustment of previous advance has been rendered or not, which is highly objectionable and is against provision(s) of GFR. There are a total of 14 people engaged for the project, hired allegedly in an irregular manner, making a total of Rs 24.12 lakh a year, and the project is yet to take off. Hence it appears entire expenditure relating to engagement of staff for modernisation scheme appear(s) irregular. The auditors are obviously at their wits end. While such an adhoc approach reflects the tentative manner in which such (a) prestigious project is being handled by NMML, it also shows the utter contempt with which NMML handles various economy instructions issued by the ministry of finance. Ironically enough, nothing tangible has come so far in terms of even physical commencement of work, leave alone completion of this project. Even after receipt of money from the government of India more than two years ago, expenditure worth Rs 7.86 lakh only was incurred during 2008-09 on such items which can neither be quantified nor be measured. We do not have space to reproduce all the inspired remarks from the audit report. There is refurbishment work for which a private architectural firm is roped in rather than the Central Public Works Department (CPWD). Theres an ambitious project of publishing books on Nehru and C Rajagopalachari, and the grant fund that comes in is diverted to another institution and is also invested in fixed deposits (both moves violating norms). Then theres a Nehru Bal Mela with a price tag of Rs 8 lakh, which must have brought joy to people other than the children who participated in it. If this is how the most prestigious research body in India is run, you can imagine the fate of lesser institutions. n
ashishm@governancenow.com

It just Occured to us
Did the newspapers get their headlines wrong? Did the government just hike fuel prices or did it fuel price hikes?

28 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

people politics policy performance


Government Files

Cabinet secretary, who?


It doesnt matter who it is. What matters is how well he can coordinate the $1,000- billion infrastructure investment challenge
detractors say this extension doesnt have very much to do with the stellar role he has played as coordinator-inchief of babudom since June 2007. It is argued that prime minister Manmohan Singhs decision is merely to ensure that over the next 12 months claimants to the job belonging to the 1972 and 1973 batches of the IAS retire, and the field is left open for the induction of 1974-batch officer Pulok Chatterjee in June 2011. Frankly, it doesnt quite matter to those of us outside the charmed circle of the IAS whether Chandrasekhar continues at the cost of a few aspirants. It doesnt even matter if the prime minister is nursing Chatterjee as the next czar of babudom. After all, secretaries to the government of India are already assigned to the apex scale. A cab sec is categorised under super apex and so long as any individual has the prime ministers confidence, his or her charm and competence should be all that matters. But what about the stellar role of a coordinator that cab secs are hired to perform? Despite Chandrasekahrs three years at the helm, lack of coordination between different government agencies, issues of land acquisition and environmental clearances, as well as underestimation of costs and time required continue to delay implementation of our infrastructure projects. It will be Chandrasekhars job (and, perhaps, Puloks after a year) to end this state of drift. Surely the cab sec cant do it all by himself. He needs allies. An important idea stirred by the Planning Commission just a few weeks back has been to try and harmonise our regulators. This is oftenand perhaps deliberatelyconfused as a move to create a superregulator. Naturally, any talk of a super regulator annoys our existing set of regulators and they have rallied together to torpedo it. The key therefore lies in assuring that the plan panels idea is positioned and marketed as a registry. In a fast developing economy, there are never enough

Rohit Bansal

ureaucrats have spent a large part of summer discussing who will be the next cabinet secretary. Putting an end to their collective misery, K M Chandrasekhar, the present incumbent, has secured another extension. This gives him a fourth year in saddle. Im told its a record among 28 cab secs that weve had, equalled only by Y S Suthankar and B D Pande. Chandrasekhars

It would be a great service if the cab sec and planning commission create a grand alliance for a sensible registry that services our existing regulators. This could serve as a clearing house. If thats too difficult, it could start by formulating norms where cross-sector problems are handled among the principal regulator and an auxiliary one.

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people politics policy performance


Government Files

Delhi Olympics, anyone?


statutes or even case laws to address problems that our infrastructure players pose. On most occasions, their problems fall into a third category, where the regulatory agency has to decide in the absence of a clearly defined statute or even case law, but in the larger public good instead. But, unlike the courts, which have a clearer jurisdiction, regulators dont. With a zoo of regulators eager to entertain cases and expand their turf, forum shopping is the obvious fallout. So, it would be a great service if the cab sec and plan panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia create a grand alliance for a sensible registry that services our existing regulators. This could serve as a clearing house. If thats too difficult, it could start by formulating norms where cross-sector problems are handled among the principal regulator and an auxiliary one. For example, in the recent spat between the Securities and Exchange Board of India and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, once its been established that IRDA would be the regulator for unit-linked insurance products, it could be mandated that SEBI would also be consulted as an auxiliary regulator. The European/UK regulation system is instructive in this regard. Importantly, a regulatory registry must also be tasked with selecting members of regulatory agencies and relieve the administrative ministries from an obvious conflict of interest. That these ministries will let go is a bullet that the cab sec and Montek will have to bite. A related task will be to end the curious fuzziness around what is infrastructure. $1,000 billion is the estimated size of investment in the 12th Plan. Funnily, infrastructure has become an umbrella word to describe multifarious economic activities. This is creating confusion. As pointed out by Vinayak Chatterji in the Business Standard (June 21, 2010), serious financial interventions with public policy overtones are regularly being crafted in apparent conflict. Examples he cites include viability gap funding, easier norms for bank lending, insurance and pension funds being cajoled in this direction, infra-bonds, separate class of infra-NBFCs, and multi-billion dollar funds. The fuzziness has tax implications because tax breaks are designed to encourage certain activities. The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2009, allows the sovereign acquiring 100 percent land under eminent domain for the purpose of developing infrastructure. But what, one needs to know, is infrastructure? [seean instructive table, Interpreting Infrastructure in 14 Different Ways: http://www. business-standard.com/general/pdf/062110_01.pdf] Now that he has one more year, thats a critical task before the cab sec. As Vinayak has pointed out, the nation measures its performance in terms of the GCFI (gross capital formation in infrastructure) as a percent of GDP as well as in absolute numbers. We must know what it is that we are measuring! From the apex Prime Ministers Infrastructure Committee to statelevel infrastructure boards, it isnt still clear what their playing field is. The move towards a new legislative architecture to create independent regulatory authorities for infrastructure supposes that we know what we desire to regulate. For the re-extended cab sec, the moment of truth is now! n
Bansal is co-founder and CEO of India Strategy Group, Hammurabi & Solomon Consulting. rohit.bansal@post.harvard.edu Shivangi Gupta

Is Sheila Dikshit right in aspiring to host Olympics? I am all for it. Yes, Sheila Dikshit and Delhi should bid for the Olympics. And I sure hope they win. The problem is that the fast emptying pockets of the citizens of Delhi will be over by now (due to the Commonwealth Games, the grand salute to our erstwhile colonial power), so where will the money come from? See, it is simple. Various sporting objects like footballs, handballs, basketballs need not be purchased. They can be made in-house using the hide of the people of Delhi. Other things like bats, raquets can be made using the leg bones of many a people who would be willing to sell it off for cheap cash. Of course the videos of Delhiites being skinned & boned alive can be sold to BBC or National Geographic or Discovery Channel for a huge lump sum. As far as the labour work is concerned, all the students of Delhi can be used for this. Their education will earn them what? Nothing, considering things are so expensive nowadays. A question on whether their parents would be able to afford to school them is also there. But this vocational training will be so valuable, for when they grow up they will have to move to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana or Bihar to work as daily wage laborers. The food for sportspersons and delegates can be supplied by all the Delhi restaurants for free. In fact they can be charged also, as this will be saving them the cost of disposing all of their food no one has any money left to buy. As far as staying of the international guests is concerned, there will be so many ghost colonies in Delhi, which people would have left to move to other places where everything (even air) is so much cheaper. Travel will be no problem at all. Delhi, by then, will be left with only Sheila madam and her cronies (and of course the odd prime minister, president etc.) but they already have their government vehicles. The public transport will be totally free for the tourists and sportspersons. See? Sheila Dikshit has foreseen all of this and more. That is why she is the CM and we lesser mortals are not. We just keep complaining about rising prices of this and that. Her answer is so simple: If they cant buy bread, why cant they have cake?
shivangi@governancenow.com

30 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

No room for political parties in UPs urban local bodies

politics
Unseemly passage to Rajya Sabha

he Uttar Pradesh government has amended election laws governing urban local bodies to ban candidates belonging to political parties. Though the move is ostensibly aimed at depoliticising elections to the urban local bodiesincluding nagar panchayats, municipal

councils and corporationsthe opposition slammed the Mayawati-led government for the amendment. The opposition fears that the BSP wants to influence next years elections to local bodies. Something tells us that Mayawati may be thinking similarly of the others, hence the pre-emptive action.

Lalu, Paswan in the dock


local court in Muzaffarpur summoned former Bihar chief ministers, Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi, along with Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan, for causing destruction to public property. The

olitical parties guarding their flock against possible poaching during formation of governments has become routine, but this time it happened during Rajya Sabha polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party holed up its legislators in a five-star hotel on the outskirts of Jaipur to ensure victory for Ram Jethmalani and V P Singh, its two candidates from Rajasthan. What caused the flutter was the opposition to the candidature of Jethmalani, who eventually won. Despite the partys precautions, though, it couldnt stop a legislator from cross-voting in Bihar. Neither could the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which expelled two of its legislators for six years.

leaders have been asked to appear before the court on July 24 in connection with a complaint, filed by advocate Sudhir Ojha, that widespread destruction of public property took place during a statewide bandh that they had called on January 6.

Turn of the Jats to demand quota

Gujarat clicks into e-voting

ollowing in the footsteps of the Gujjars of Rajasthan, the Jats of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have demanded reservation in central government jobs under the Other Backward Classes category. While Rajasthans Gujjars wanted to shift categories, from the OBC to Scheduled Tribes, the Jats, who already enjoy fruits of reservation across seven states, have demanded inclusion in the list of OBCs at the central level. Else, as the agitators from Uttar Pradesh demonstrated, they would simply cut off water supply to Delhi.

f you cant make it to the polling booth, you may still be able to cast your vote. Online voting is set to make its debut in Gujarat when the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation goes to polls this October, followed by polls to the local bodies in Rajkot, Vadodara, Surat, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar. The state election commission and the state-wide area network, through which voting will be done, are gearing up to counter possible virus attacks, parallel websites misguiding voters and attempts at hacking. While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hailed the move, the Congress party said the government only wanted to ensure maximum participation of the BJPs supporters among the upper-middle class.

www.GovernanceNow.com 31

people politics policy performance


Governance Now Roundtable Bhopals Hall of Shame

Even when you want to, delivering justice out and lakhs more are maimed for life. That
M.K. Rasgotra: The then foreign secretary who facilitated a safe passage for Anderson, both before and after he landed in India. He admitted this after Gordon Streeb, the then deputy chief of the mission in the US embassy here, named him as the point man in an interview to the NDTV. He said he had sought the clearance from the home ministry as the prime minister was on a tour and could not be contacted. Warren Anderson: The then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, the US-based parent company of the Bhopals pesticide plant, who was assured a safe passage but arrested in Bhopal on December 7, 1984. He was bailed out within hours on the condition that he will stand trial in India whenever needed but never returned. Remains a fugitive till today. Arun Nehru, a minister in Rajiv Gandhis government told CNNIBN, in an interview on June 14, 2010, that Anderson had met the then president Giani Zail Singh and the then home minister PV Narasimha Rao in New Delhi before flying out to the US.
Rajiv Gandhi: The prime minister and foreign minister at the time. His role is under cloud as it was revealed that Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh had ordered Andersons release after getting a call from someone.

BHOPALS HALL OF SHAME: Power pe


A.N Verma: Cabinet secretary in February 1995, when at a highlevel meeting it was reportedly decided that in view of Indo-US relations it would not be advisable to press for Andersons extradition. Others who attended the meeting were: Chemicals and petroleum secretary K.K. Mathur, secretary (finance) K Srinivasan, home secretary K Padmanabhaiah, secretary (legal affairs) P. C. Rao and CBI director K. Vijayramarao.

P.V. Narasimha Rao: The then union home minister who permitted a safe passage to Anderson before he landed in India and got him out when he was arrested by the police in Bhopalalleged the then foreign secretary M.K. Rasgotra in an interview to CNN-IBN on June 17, 2010.

Central Bureau of Investigation: The premier investigating agency which did not seek Andersons extradition until 2003. A former joint director B R Lal, who handled investigation between 1994 and 1995, has revealed that the ministry for external affairs had asked CBI not to pursue Anderson. Those who were convicted for two years sentence and released on bail immediately: Keshub Mahindra: chairman Vijay Gokhle: Managing Director Kishore Kamdar: Vice-President J. Mukund: Works Manager R.B.Roy Chowdhury: Asstt. Works Manager S.P.Choudhury: Production Manager K V Shetty: Plant Superintendent Shakeel Qureshi: Production Assistant Arjun Singh: Chief minister of Madhya Pradesh who ordered that Anderson be released and flown to New Delhi by the state plane. He has refused to come clean. He recently told a newspaper that he had no locus standi in the matter.

Arun Jaitley: Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and lawyer who too advised in 2006 that the Dow Chemicals was not liable for contamination of the Bhopal plant or its cleaning. His party may cry foul over the Congress governments role in not seeking extradition of Anderson, but as law minister in 2001, he had endorsed the view of former Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee. His note said: It is not the case that Mr. Anderson committed any act that led to the direct result of the leakage of gas and the consequent loss of lives and injuries.

Fali S. Nariman: Distinguished con-

stitutional jurist who defended Union Carbide Corporation in the Supreme Court and played a major role in the infamous 1989 judgmentsettlement of claims ($ 470 million as the compensation) and consequential termaination of civil and criminal proceedings against Union Carbide.

32 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

is not easy when 15,000 lives are snuffed ts perhaps why nobody tried hard enough.
Justice E.S. Venkataramiah: The CJI in 1989, who was member of the Justice Pathak bench that approved the settlement in 1989. Justice Ranganath Mishra: The CJI between 1990 and 1991, who too was part of the same Justice Pathak bench of 1989 that approved the settlement. Justice M.N. Venkatachalliah: The CJI between 1993 and 94 who too was a member of the same Supreme Court bench of 1989 headed by Justice Pathak. Justice N.D. Ojha: Former chief justice of Madhya Pradesh HC in 1987 and the only member of the Justice Pathak bench who did not rise to become the CJI. Justice S.B Majmudar: Former chief justice of the Andhra and Karnataka HC, he was the other member of the bench headed by Justice Ahmadi that diluted the charges against the Union Carbide executives. He remained a Supreme Court judge between September 1994 and August 2000.

eople who let down the poor people

Justice R.S. Pathak: The chief justice

of India who, heading a five-member bench in 1989, facilitated and approved the settlement: Dropping of all criminal and civil liability against Union Carbide for agreeing to pay $470 million of insurance money as compensation. His panel described it as just, equitable and reasonable.

Justice A. H. Ahmadi: The CJI who diluted charges against the Union Carbide executives in 1996 from culpable homicide not amounting to murder (that attracts 10 years of imprisonment) to causing death by negligence (that entailed two years of imprisonment). He also dismissed a review petition against his order days before his retirement.

Soli Sorabjee: Former attorneygeneral of India who advised the NDA government against seeking Andersons extradition. The government ignored him and proceeded in 2003, but the US government rejected it for lack of evidence.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia: As deputy chairman of planning commission, he endorsed Ratan Tatas plan. P. Chidambaram: Through the RTI it has now come to notice that the then Finance Minister wrote to the PM, in the wake of his visit to attend Indo-US CEO Forum in New York, that Ratan Tatas offer to clean up the Bhopal plant be accepted. He headed the GoM that took a fresh look at the Bhopal case and recommended Rs 1500 crore package. Kamal Nath: The then minister for commerce had asked the PMO in 2006 to keep in mind Dow Chemicals investment plans while fixing its responsibility to clean the toxic wastes still lying in the Bhopal plant.ry.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: Congress spokesman and lawyer who advised Dow Chemicals in 2006 that it was not liable for contamination spread by the toxic material still stored in the Bhopals pesticide plant as it acquired Union Carbide after the 1984 gas leak. Dow Chemicals took over Union Carbide in 1999.

Nani Palkhivala: The last word on the Indian constitution who fought the case for the Union Carbide in a US court and demolished American legal experts who pleaded that the victims of Bhopal were more likely to get justice in the stricter American courts. That was in 1985. A year earlier, he had told the Time magazine that the Union Carbide case in India would drag to the next century.

Ratan Tata: Widely respected industrialist who was against the ministry of chemcials and fertilizers move to seek Rs 100 crore from Dow Chemicals for the purpose of cleaning the Bhopal plant. He repeatedly wrote to the government proposing that a fund be set up for the purpose with contribution from the public and private sectors.

www.GovernanceNow.com 33

people politics policy performance


Games Politicians Play

Solo gambit of a doubles player


Even if Narendra Modi had not unleashed an ad blitz in Bihar, Nitish Kumar would have needed to redefine his relations with a new BJP controlled by the RSS. The rising star who revived governance in Bihar has little to gain by playing second fiddle to the BJP.
ashish asthana

Ajay Singh

fter long hours of a gruelling campaign during his Vishwas Yatra (trust journey), Nitish Kumar drove his official residence at 1, Anne Marg and stopped, not to relax but to inspect the pandals being erected on the lush green lawns. It was June 18th. The next day Nitish would be hosting dinner for the entire BJP top brass now in Patna for their national executive, so he wanted to ensure preparations were on course. But something was not quite right that Friday. A deluge of advertisements had flooded Patna newspapers projecting Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi not only as an icon of development and good governance but also as the future numero uno of the BJP. This clearly implied that if the alliance continued, Nitish Kumar would have no choice but to accept Narendra Modi as leader of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance as well. Nitish Kumar found this unacceptable and wanted to convey this in unambiguous terms. I am not bothered about the fate of the government on this issue, he told his confidants. On Friday night, he made up his mind that he would choose not to host Modi. A consummate political player himself, Narendra Modi appears to have factored in Nitish Kumars reaction and slated the release of another round of advertisements

for Saturday showing an old picture of Kumar and Modi holding hands at an NDA rally in Ludhiana before the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. This proved to be the ultimate provocation for Nitish Kumar. He knew that if there were to be a dinner, Modi would not be part of it. But why did Modi provoke Nitish Kumar, the BJPs only ally who had been successfully running a coalition government for the past four and a half years? The answer lies in Modis search for his own future political role on the national stage. Much before the United States of America (USA) declined him a visa, Bihar had been out of bounds for Modi since the 2002 riots in Gujarat. He was declared persona non grata by the JD (U) in a tacit agreement with the then BJP led by the Vajpayee-Advani duo.

Modi was determined to break the Bihar jinx on this first visit there in nearly in a decade. His advertisement blitz was clearly aimed at polarising the NDA in a pro-Modi and anti-Modi camp to ascertain his own allies for the future. That a section of the senior BJP leadership would act meekly in the wake of Nitish Kumars threats did not come as a surprise to him. A strong believer in George Bushs theory of youre-eitherwith-us-or-against-us, Modi successfully identified his friends and foes. In this context, the enigma surrounding the political conduct of both Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar needs elaboration. Both are known as loners in politics and have an aura of authoritarianism about them. Known to have strong likes and dislikes, both are appreciated for the work

34 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Going the Rajas Way?


they have done in their respective states. But the comparison ends there. Nitish Kumar evokes an affable inclusiveness while Modi comes across as a strong polarising personality. Modis asset in Gujarat politics may be a limitation in national politics while Nitish Kumars inclusiveness has found vibrant resonance with the prevailing national mood. In fact, Nitish Kumars uneasiness in dealing with a new BJP can be properly understood if we go down the memory lane to the developments in 1995 when he, after parting company with Lalu Prasad, floated the Samata Party with George Fernandes. The following elections conclusively proved that the alliance of the Samata Party with the CPI-ML (a radical left-wing outfit which came over ground at the same time) was a non-starter. His party managed to win just six assembly seats. It was in this context that BJP president LK Advani went to see an ailing George Fernandes and invited him to attend the Mumbai national executive. Fernandes deputed Nitish Kumar to attend the BJP executivea move that ultimately paved the way for the BJP to remove the tag of untouchability. In successive BJP national executives in 1995 and 1996, the Vajpayee-Advani duo worked overtime to win over allies in order to dispel the image of political pariah that was stuck with the BJP. In one of his national executive addresses, Advani called upon the executive to shed its limitation and not be guided by the baggage of the past. Since the BJP was a serious contender for power in 1996 and 1998 elections, the Vajpayee-Advani duo steered the party away from contentious issues of Ram janmabhoomi, Article 370 and uniform civil code. Once in power, the NDA, under the stewardship of Vajpayee was guided by a common agenda and never raked up contentious issues, even at the cost of snubbing the RSS-VHP-Swadeshi lobby whenever it tried to strike a discordant note. In February-March 2002, the stigma of Godhara and post-Godhara riots in Gujarat exposed the NDAs soft underbelly. In 2004, after the NDAs defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, Nitish Kumar was the first one to raise the issue of Modis continuance as the chief minister and attributed it as the major reason for the NDAs defeat. The NDA would have won the election had Modi been removed from the chief ministership after Gujarat riots, he claimed in an exclusive interview to a TV channel immediately after the elections. This, in fact, was the beginning of Nitish Kumars political project of distancing himself from Modi. But the debate could not be stretched because Vajpayee and Advani were still relevant in the BJP. In 2005, Nitish Kumar was not only projected as Bihars future chief minister by the JD(U)-BJP but it was also ensured that Modi would stay away from campaigning in Bihar. That Modi was not welcome in Bihar has always been an explicit message from Nitish. This was evident even in 2009 Lok Sabha elections when Nitish ensured that Modi and Varun Gandhi would not campaign in Bihar. This tacit understanding was honoured in letter and spirit by the BJP so long as Advani wielded some influence in decision-making. After the 2009 poll debacle the BJP has undergone a political metamorphosis as a dozen power centres have emerged and the party looks up to the RSS for every decision. The post Vajpayee-Advani generation of leadership in Delhi not only lacks confidence in mass politics but relies more on low cunning and scheming. This explains why the RSS-controlled BJP leadership continues to remain ambivalent on the socalled humiliation by Nitish. On the other hand, Modis advertisement blitz in Bihar media was a calculated gamble to test the waters within the Hindutva fold about his acceptability. Of late, there has been a consistent clamour to bring in Modi on the national stage to infuse enthusiasm among the cadres. Modi is wary of leaving Gujarat unless he is given autonomy to run the party. His ad blitz was a message that he would enter national politics on his own terms. The which still rues its mistake in allowing Vajpayee and Advani to develop a personality cult, is not quite prepared for that. So even if Nitish Kumars outburst against Modi was instinctive he was quite aware of his allys Achilles heel. He realises that a BJP in dissary is a cumbersome baggage for the future. Now that he has picked up the gauntlet, he would do well to take it to the logical end. n
ajay@governancenow.com

Before Nitish Kumar, there was VP Singh who treated the BJP in much the same manner
Ajay Singh

n November, 1989, VP Singh had launched a vigorous campaign across Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls after kicking up a serious row over the Bofors pay off. Chagrined by the BJPs mischief of putting up rebel candidates in 46-odd seats despite the seat-sharing arrangement with the Janata Dal, Singh decided to send a message loud and clear against the BJP. Towards the end of his campaign, Singh reached Shahabad near Agra where he found an election podium adorning flags of the Janata Dal and the BJP. The Raja of Manda who had created a wave for his anticorruption campaign directed against Rajiv Gandhi refused to deliver the speech from the podium. He told the organisers that he would not share any platform where the BJP flag was found fluttering. A separate platform had to be erected to enable Singh to deliver his election speech. In fact, a chastened BJP withdrew from VP Singhs campaign immediately. However, Singhs outburst against the BJP ensured that not a single rebel BJP candidate could win the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP won maximum seats where it fought in alliance with the Janata Dal. Singhs tantrums were calculated to put across the message that the BJP would only play second fiddle to the Janata Dal. And VP Singh, a rising star then, filled the secular-centrist political space with ease. VP Singhs antics in Agra could be described as the nearest parallel which one can draw with Nitish Kumar. He projects himself as a secular-centrist leader who believes in inclusiveness. Though there has been no powerful leader since VP Singh to occupy that space at the national level, the increasing marginalisation of the BJP has spurred national ambitions of many regional satraps. Obviously, Nitish Kumar can be nursing genuine national ambitions given his soaring graph as a performer in Bihar and acceptability across India. However, in sharp contrast to pre-1989 when the BJP was reduced to two Lok Sabha seats, the party holds the second largest group of MPs in the Lok Sabha after the ruling Congress.

www.GovernanceNow.com 35

people politics policy performance


Ministerspeak

INTERVIEW

p awa n k u ma r ba n sa l

Resources are always a constraint P


awan Kumar Bansal, minister for water resources as well as for parliamentary affairs, is a seasoned parliamentarian. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha during 1984-90, he was elected to the Lok Sabha and now he is in his fourth term in the lower house. In an interview with Sweta Ranjan, he spoke candidly about issues relating to both the ministries he handles.

How serious do you think is the water problem in our country?

The water problem is very serious everywhere. I am not (trying to) sound alarmist on that but the mankind takes water for granted. It is becoming increasingly scarce all over the world. Take the case of India, at the time of Independence our per capita availability of water was 5,550 cubic metres. Today it has come down to 1,700 cubic metres. Why? Because of the population pressure, for no other reason.

Is the situation really alarming?

It is not alarming, but we have to wake up to that entire situation.

He is not wrong. Resources are always a constraint. For the current five-year plan the allocation is Rs 39,000 crore. It may sound quite a huge amount but you distribute it and it is nothing. In our country, out of 320 million hectares of land the ultimate irrigation potential is the area which can be irrigated through irrigation, not rain or anything else. That we estimate at 140 million hectares. At the time of Independence it was about 26 million hectares. Our achievement till date is perhaps a little more than 107 million hectares. We still have to provide for 33 million hectares. The current capacity of reservoirs is 225 billion cubic metres. Sixty-four reservoirs are under construction but then we have to do much more. This is for 107 (million hectares) and we have to take it to 140 (million hectares). This gap requires an expenditure of Rs 6.6 lakh crore that is to be borne by the government of India, borne by all the state governments.

An official of your ministry once said that the water resources ministry doesnt have sufficient funds to repair irrigation channels.

Is desalination of water a way out?

For Tamil Nadu, a project has been started with the World Bank. That is desalination of water. That is an expensive project at the moment. We have a few projects here and there in the country in quite a few places. The Bhabha Atomic Energy Centre has started one of its own projects. There are certain other organisations which have set up their own desalination plants but that needs to be explored more.

What is the status and plans for the river interlinking project?
Thirty rivers were identified for which pre-feasibility studies were carried out 14 in the Himalayan region and 16 in the peninsula region. The Himalayan region rivers, we cant touch at the moment because they all have international implications, as they also flow through China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal or Bangladesh. There are other rivers and out of those five probable links have been identified as priority links. Some further work has been done on these rivers.

Water is a state subject. And often there are interstate disputes like Cauvery.
This altogether is a different subject. We are first talking of the harnessing of the

36 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

water as such... as to what needs to be done. There are areas where there is surplus water; there are areas where there is deficient water. Therefore a need is felt why not transfer this water to those areas. People call it interlinking of rivers. Actually it is transferring of water from one basin to another: inter-basin transfer of water.

every drop of water of a river common to them.

Do you think setting up a tribunal is the only solution?

You ignored my question regarding the Cauvery issue. How do you tackle interstate water disputes?

All that the government of India can do which we have done is to enact a law, the Interstate Water Dispute Act. Under this Act, whenever there is a dispute between two states it is our sincere endeavour to resolve it through their mutual meetings.

It is something which we should avoid. We should try to settle matters without that. But ultimately in the system which is governed by the rule of law that is the ultimate. You take the case of Punjab and Haryana. See the number of years. I think over 20 years have elapsed. We are not able to solve the problem because contentious issues are raised.

water, without taking away water, you let the water go there. If that is done then we should have no problems. Our problem would be only if water is impounded or diverted.

You are also the parliamentary affairs minster. How difficult it is to do the floor management?

Turning to international water disputes, Nepal had accused Bihar of neglecting its responsibility to maintain the Kosi barrage.

How do you plan to reduce interstate water disputes?

It is very difficult. Very difficult. Everybody expresses a pious intention saying water is a national resource. It should be treated as a national resource. But when it comes to two states they are very particular about

The attitude which was of the NDA then was a recalcitrant one, was not of cooperation. I was a member of the Business Advisory Committee and I know with what authority the government then used to talk. This is the government business, we will carry out that. Point out one day in my entire tenure when I have done that.

No, there was no blame game. When I went there, the minister of water resources of the government of Nepal said on record in a press conference that they were fully satisfied with the work that the government of India had done. The government of India has taken it on itself to repair and maintain the Kosi barrage. Water is a contentious issue between India and China too. Sometimes it is only a perception which prevails upon you. It is not the factual position. The government of India has its own systems. We are having total up-todate information about that. The Brahmaputra starts from Tibet, takes a long route before entering India. Would it not be their right to utilise its water not to the exclusion of India but to utilise the water? If ever they will have a run-of-the-river project, India's concern, at any future date or even now, has to be if that route is impounded. Or if they store water and divert it elsewhere. If those two concerns of India are met I dont think there is a problem. So, we should not blow these things out of proportion.

Its always a challenge. Challenges have to be converted into opportunities. I am getting an opportunity. We are aware of our numbers. The UPA has only 276 members. Difficulties do crop up at times and you have to try to take the opposition along. On good many occasions we are able to take them along but sometimes they are determined to stall something. If 10-15 or 20 members choose to come to the well of the house then you can say there is no floor management. But then you cant concede to everything that the opposition says.

China is also planning to build a dam which will divert water from rivers that flow into the Brahmaputra.

I feel I dont want to make any comparisons but please look into the records and see how often that used to happen. Its a very difficult question indeed that you have asked me. But as everything is liable to be reported let me put it this way. The attitude which was of the NDA then was a recalcitrant one, was not of cooperation. I was a member of the Business Advisory Committee and I know with what authority the government then used to talk. This is the government business, we will carry out that. Point out one day in my entire tenure when I have done that. Well, I am candid in my reports. When I have to talk to the members of opposition I have my best relations with them but I dont behave with them the way NDA government behaved with us.

Did you ever think of doing something like what late Pramod Mahajan of BJP used to do when he was parliamentary affairs minister sit with the opposition to sort out differences?

What sort of a dam, thats the question. The Teesta water is going to Bangladesh; we are building dams on this. Everybody is building dams. Question is what (kind of) dams. There are run-of-the-river dams, in which you store water for some days, water comes down, it generates electricity and moves further. Without impounding

I think its their (the opposition's) business to decide. They have decided. Sushma Swaraj is a good leader of opposition. She is playing a good role. On many occasions we all agree and this is a question you should not pose to me. n sweta@governancenow.com

Who do you think would be the right leader of opposition for you?

www.GovernanceNow.com 37

people politics policy performance


Policy Class

C B P Srivastava

espite the fact that India is struggling hard to put its economy back on the 9 percent growth trajectory, it has remained the second fastest growing economy and energy market in the world. While domestically it needs to address both efficiency and fiscal prudence, its international strategy involves a relentless push to diversify suppliers, increase its equity take overseas and try to avoid destructive politico-economic competition or even conflicts with China. Most of the estimates have expected that Indias demand for energy will double by 2025 and by then, 90 percent of Indias petroleum will be imported, up from the current level of about 70 percent. According to the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, Indias coal reserves will last for more than 200 years, but its oil and gas reserves are not sufficient. Across the globe, a number of observers have also suggested that the most effective way to meet this growing demand is to reform the energy sector. Leaving aside the need for technical modernisation of industry, discussions on reforms tend to revolve around three policy areas: bringing prices closer to world market levels, putting the energy industry and especially the state electricity boards on a sound fiscal footing and creating more space for the private sector. Each of these will meet with ferocious resistance from constituents accustomed to subsidised energy politicians who fear the consequences of reducing subsidies, and those who currently have the responsibility for running the public

Indias quest for energy needs decisive diplomacy


ashish Asthana

sector energy organisations. Expanding the energy sector to meet Indias future needs will also be expensive. The International Energy Agency estimates that India will need to spend nearly $800 billion on its energy sector by 2030. Indias basic approach to energy diplomacy, both oil and gas, has been to develop as many potential supply arrangements with as many potential suppliers as it possibly can, and to try to neutralise its potential competitors, principally China, with cooperation agreements. Against this backdrop, India has engaged itself in almost all regions rich in oil and gas reserves, namely the Gulf, Central Asia, South America, Africa and a few neighbours like Bangladesh and Myanmar. Lets discuss

some of these examples to understand the emerging demands for Indian diplomacy. The bilateral trade between India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) reached about $100 billion in 2009. Similarly, in 2008-09 India imported more than 92 million metric tonnes (MMT) of crude from the Gulf region against the requirements of about 128 MMT. Given the absence of pipelines, these imports use the sea lanes to reach the Indian shores. However, the emerging maritime security environment has made it imperative to protect the countrys Exclusive Economic Zone of about 2 million square km against attacks from the sea and enhance the countrys close relations with the Gulf. The rising energy security

needs means that India will have to pursue a hard diplomacy for warm ties with Central Asian states. As the Middle East appears to be in a state of permanent turmoil, the world attention has shifted towards Central Asia. Recently, during External Affairs Minister S M Krishnas visit to Kazakhstan steps were taken particularly in the hydrocarbon sector and civil nuclear energy. It is really encouraging that about 170 projects have been launched by Kazakhstan seeking foreign investments including from the Indian companies. Another major recent step was the signing of an agreement by ONGC Videsh Ltd and its partners with Petroleos de Venezuela and Petronas of Malaysia to set up a joint venture oil project worth $20 billion named Petro Carabobo SA in the Orinoco region. Eyeing Venezuelan oil may be considered a right and logical eco-diplomatic step, however, of late it is pertinent to further explore the possibility of maximising the number of suppliers or project deals across Latin America. Last but not the least, Indias proactive step to improve its economic and diplomatic ties with Myanmar as a policy initiative must be praised. However, considering the rich deposits of natural gas in Myanmar (roughly about 89.722 tcf, including 18.22 tcf of proven reserves) it needs to speed up its endeavours not only for the benefits of the two countries but also for paving the way towards a power link of the Saarc nations. To recall here, the Saarc grid has already envisaged meeting electricity demands and boosting economic and political ties in the region. n
Srivastava is director (academics) of Discovery Learning Solutions. srivastavadiscovery@ gmail.com

38 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

Finally CIC awakes to digitisation clause


he Right to Information Act came into force in October 2005 but even after five years the RTI watchdog had not computerised its records. Now nearly 9,000 files in the office of an Information Commissioner, Shailesh Gandhi, have been digitised and the process is on for digitisation of rest of the offices of seven Information Commissioners and the Chief Information Commissioner. All documents

performance
Sikkim scores high with better electricity, drinking water supply Private investment now comes to Bihar

including appeals, complaints and other communication from across the country are first digitised and scanned. These are then brought to the office of the commissioners in a pen drive and tagged with the files. The CIC is also contemplating a complete paperless solution and is working on a web-based work flow system which will not require the appeals/ complaints to be submitted in paper form. Full story on page 46.

he Himalayan state of Sikkim has made excellent progress in providing electricity and drinking water to citizens, according to

n the first ever public private partnership (PPP) initiative worth Rs 1,400 crore, a 5.5 km bridge will be built over river Ganga connecting Bakhtiyarpur with Tajpur in Bihar. The longstanding jinx on investor confidence in the state was broken when HES infrastructure,

a Hyderabad-based company, won the bid for the PPP project. It is a major milestone for the Bihar government as the state is going to have assembly elections in few months and the private players have been reluctant to invest in the state.

Maya develops cold feet on PPP in rural healthcare

the latest National Family Health Survey for Sikkim. A total of 92 percent of the 1,11,830 households in the state have electricity and 78 percent drinking water. The 92 percent households having electricity, include 90 percent in rural areas and 100 percent in urban areas.

he dream of a world class integrated healthcare delivery system in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh may not be fulfilled soon as the state government has called off its plans for PPP in rural healthcare. The state government had invited private players in the four districts of Allahabad, Basti, Firozabad, and Kanpur Nagar to operate

the four district hospitals, eight community centres, 23 primary health centres and 210 sub-centres in the PPP mode. All key hospitals like the Apollo, Fortis, Max and Rockland queued up for the project and had submitted requests for proposals. The decision to call off private sector participation was taken by the chief minister Mayawati who has now directed department heads to ensure better functioning and strengthening of the government hospitals.

www.GovernanceNow.com 39

people politics policy performance


RTI Going Places

RTI turbo
RTI on Wheels is a simple concept that offers advice on RTI use where it matters most: outside government offices. Governments should emulate this Ahmedabad NGO.
photos: courtesy magp

40 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

charged
Brajesh Kumar

ts 10 am and the district magistrates office in Ahmedabad is abuzz with activity. A modified grey and yellow Tata Sumo, parked near the entrance, is, however, hard to miss. The DM office is the first halt in the daily rounds of RTI on Wheels an initiative of Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pehal (MAGP), an Ahmedabad-based NGO, to help people understand and use the Right to Information Act, 2005. Prabhat Rana (43), the driver who doubles up as a volunteer for MAGP, is ready to render his services to about 50 to 100 visitors that he usually attends to at a single halt. He lifts the hatch at the rear of the vehicle to reveal a table used to write RTI applications, a notice board with basic information on the Act and an LCD screen on which films on RTI are screened. The vehicle is also equipped with a computer with internet connection, a scanner, printer, a small library, pamphlets and booklets. It is always good to start work in the morning hours as majority of the people come in the first half of the day, says Rana, taking his position at the back of the vehicle. As he starts the video and the

screen comes alive with a girl explaining the RTI law, people begin to gather; each of them is handed a pamphlet containing basic information about right to information. Those wanting more information get a detailed booklet for Rs 20. Rajesh Jain, a 25-year-old software professional, has been duped by an immigration agent and he wants to know if he can file an RTI application with the immigration department. Rana advises him to attend the RTI clinic run by MAGP every Saturday between 3pm and 4pm at their office at Jivraj Park. Clad in burqa with a child in her arms, Nusrat Jahan wants to learn how to file an RTI application. These days everyone has been talking about the power of RTI. So I thought I must have the basic understanding of RTI. You never know when one feels the need to file an application, she says as Rana takes her through the basics of filing RTI applications. In the two hours that Rana camps at the DMs office, he sells 30 booklets on RTI, helps five people with filling up of RTI application forms and advises 20 others on what the law can do for them. He now heads for his next destination which is the Gujarat university campus. In two years since its launch in March 2008, the RTI on Wheels has logged about 1,45,000 km, conducting 242 outreach programmes in 103 blocks of 34 districts of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. The idea of launching RTI on Wheels came from the RTI Helpline we have been running

for the last few years. The majority of the callers did not know how to file an RTI application, whom to approach and what kind of questions could be asked, says Harinesh Pandya, the founder of MAGP. Realising the huge awareness gap, we thought we must make an effort to reach out to those who were fully or partially ignorant about their right to information. While the vehicle was gifted by JANPATH, the parent organization of MAGP, it was modified by a team from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. For the first few months, the RTI on Wheels was limited to Ahmedabad. Most of the callers on the RTI helpline had faced problems at a few public authorities. So, we decided to pay regular attention to those authorities, says Pandya. If, for instance, people had complaints about corruption in the civil hospital, RTI on Wheels would be there to help the visitors file RTI requests instead of bribing officials. As people started using the RTI, the role of the intermediaries, who often demanded bribes for all kinds of work at public authorities, declined significantly, said Pankti Jog, a coordinator with MAGP. The RTI on Wheels was soon in demand at other places in Gujarat; people from other districts were even ready to bear the expenses of the visit. Calls for the visits usually come from local organisations at the district level that want MAGP to spread awareness about the law among the rural population. MAGP arranges two volunteers

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people politics policy performance


RTI Going Places

(Above) Harinesh Pandya of MAGP shows the inside of RTI on Wheels. (Right) Prabhat Rana poses with his mobile workplace.

for the rural areas which have yielded a number of success stories in the use and influence of RTI. RTI on Wheels, for instance, helped villagers in Panchmahal district expose a Patwari who had duped them of Rs 5,000 each on the promise of getting land registered in their name, says Jog. While visiting the villages, we were dismayed to find that no one dared speak against the corrupt Patwari. But as we were leaving the village, a few people mustered the courage and sought help, Jog says. MAGP helped them file an RTI application at the block office; the reply that they received exposed the corrupt ways of the Patwari, who was compelled to disgorge the money with interest and give a feast to the entire village to atone for his misdeeds! The successes of RTI on Wheels have earned it a growing number of dedicated volunteers. Rana, the driver, for example, has been around since the initiative hit the road and wouldnt leave it now. This job has earned me respect and goodwill, he says. The same respect and goodwill for MAGPs work would sometimes have rickshaw-pullers and raddiwallahs offering to distribute pamphlets on RTI, says Jog.

RTI on Wheels, for instance, helped villagers in Panchmahal district expose a Patwari who had duped them of Rs 5,000 each on the promise of getting land registered in their names, says Jog. The Patwari was compelled to disgorge the money with interest and give a feast to the entire village to atone for his misdeeds!

Magsaysay award winner Aruna Roy, whose organisation Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) played an important role in the RTI movement, was so impressed by the concept that she invited RTI on Wheels to Rajasthan. It has also travelled to Maharashtra on invitation from Julio Ribeiro, former Mumbai police commissioner and founder of Public Concern for Governance Trust. Even the Gujarat information commission has joined hands with MAGP in several RTI campaigns. Their work amongst socially disadvantaged groups has been commendable, says R N Dash, the state chief information commissioner. n
brajesh@governancenow.com

It just Occured to us
That in all the lies and half truths about Bhopal, we can believe only Ranga Rao when he says father PV Narasimha Rao couldnt have taken the decision to grant free passage to Warren Anderson and free him from house arrest. That would have made two decisions back to back. Impossible for Narasimha Rao!

42 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

people politics policy performance


Private Profit Partnership

No service is common at these centres


Samir sachdeva

The CSC scheme in Assam is a poor advertisement for both the centres e-governance drive and the public-private partnership model. Common service centres have sprung up here with few government services on offer and appear to exist only to profit private partners availing of the government's subsidy
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people politics policy performance


Private Profit Partnership

Samir Sachdeva

ommon service centres are meant to be one-stop shops for accessing government services in mainly rural areas. E-governance is the mantra and common service centres the computerised outlets for delivering it in a smarter, faster, more efficient manner. That is how this centrally sponsored scheme was conceived. That is how the central government claims it is being implemented. But imagine a place where these centres have sprung up all right, but no government services are either being offered or are likely to be offered for at least the next few years. Welcome to Assam, where as many as 4,375 CSCs have come up but you cannot get a land record or birth certificate, or any other document for that matter, at any of these centres. What you will find instead are centres struggling to stay afloat by churning out the odd digital photograph. Running most of the centres are local entrepreneurs who have paid Rs 40,000 upfront as security to the private partner selected by the government to equip these centres. Besides that, these entrepreneurs need to pay back Rs 1.2 lakh to the banks that have provided the rest of the capital to compensate the private player for the Rs 1.6 lakh worth of equipment that the latter claims to have supplied to each outlet. Plus, of course, there is the rental for the premises that the local entrepreneur needs to pay every month.

Yet, it is not the local entrepreneur but the private player that is pocketing the subsidy that the central government will provide until these centres can earn revenue from government services. Little wonder then, the local entrepreneurs have formed an association, Arunodoy Kendra (common service centre) Owners Association of Assam to voice their collective grievances against the private companies as well as the government. But why arent government services available? Saumar Jyoti Baruah, an office bearer of the association, says it is simply because government records in the state are yet to be digitised. The processes required for digitisation of data haven't been initiated either. Amtron, the nodal agency for e-governance and the designated agency for the CSC scheme in the state, is curently in the process of inviting bids for the setting up of the state data centre where the digitised records will be stored. So, Baruah reasons, the state data centre will take at least another two-three years to come up. No government services can be offered through the CSCs unless the data is digitised and the departments are connected through a statewide area network with the state data centre. Ask anybody in the government and you will be told that this is precisely why there is a provision of subsidy during the interim period. The centre approved Rs 5,742 crore to subsidise the CSC operations until government services start flowing through these centres. The state governments were also expected to lend some financial support to this project. In the absence of funds, though, the states had the option of using the additional central assistance available under the National e-Governance Plan for the CSC project. Most

As many as 4,375 common service centres have come up across Assam but you cannot get a land record or birth certificate, or any other document for that matter, at any of these centres.... Government services cannot be provided unless data is digitised. And even the processes required for digitisation haven't been initiated as yet.

states naturally queued up for additional central assistance. As per the plan, the private players, Srei-Sahaj in two zones and Zoom Developers in one zone in the state, were to provide the infrastructure for the CSCs. However, even as it is the local entrepreneurs who are bearing the costs, Srei-Sahaj is getting up to Rs 7,500 a month as subsidy for each centre, while Zoom Developers is getting Rs 2,450 per centre. Jyoti Prasad, project manager with Amtron, said it was up to the private partner to decide whether to share the subsidy with the local entrepreneurs. Braj Kishore, head of corporate communication with SreiSahaj, said the issue of subsidy was too technical to be discussed over the phone. As for the lack of government services, Prasad said a few were available in two of the 27 districts and that too because Sonitpur and Goalpara districts have have implemented the e-District project. Prasad added that in some areas the CSCs also serve as collection centres for government forms etc. The local entrepreneurs, who are actually running all the risks (see box), allege that Srei-Sahaj never spent Rs 1.6 lakh per centre in the first place. The Wipro laptops with 512 MB RAM and 60 GB hard disk given to them are obsolete and would have cost much less than claimed, for instance, they say. This is one reason why the entrepreneurs came together to form their association. Still, they have little choice but to share even their current income with the private operator. So disgusted have the local entrepreneurs been that they actually asked the State Bank of India, which was sanctioning Rs 1.2 lakh loan for each centre, to stop this funding. Since

44 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

the infrastucture is already in place, the local entrepreneurs wanted to get some relief from at least the instalment towards the bank loan. Dipul Bezbaruaah, who runs a CSC in Koria Bijulightat, Nalbari district, earns just Rs 3,000-4,000 per month by offering computer education, desktop printing and digital photos. He has even employed a computer faculty, Anamika Vashya, at a monthly salary of Rs 1,000. He has taken two schemes from Srei-Sahaj, one that offers equipment at Rs 1.6 lakh and another that offers equipment at Rs 12,000 on his sisterin-laws name. Under the second scheme, Srei-Sahaj is offering a laptop, solar inverter and laser printer. Even though Bezbaruaah has become a businessman in his own right, he is unable to meet even his monthly expenses of Rs 7,400. Like many other operators, he too refused to sign the bank's loan documents. Gopal Krishnan Vaishya of Morowa village is surviving by printing ceremonial letters on birthdays, weddings and other auspicious days. Digital photos, mobile downloading, computer education add to his income. Vaishya is somewhat relieved that following the protests registered with Amtron, now at least he doesnt have to pay the illegal licence fee of Rs 500 that he was being charged by Srei-Sahaj earlier. But he, too, says he cant afford to pay back the loan. Jayanta Deka, the CSC operator in Amayepur, complains that the internet connectivity is so bad that he spends Rs 200 per month but recovers just Rs 150 by charging people for internet surfing. Deka's total expenses run up to Rs 3,000 (minus the bank instalment). Deka shows a pink pamphlet, distributed by Srei-Sahaj before the launch, which listed services including e-governance.

Table I Fixed Expenses for a CSC


S .No.

Equipment at co m m o n s e r v i c e c e nt r e s

Cost price claimed by Srei-Sahaj 47,775

1.

Two laptops (60 G B H D D + 5 1 2 M B RA M ) + 2 speakers + 2 key b o a r d s + 2 m i c e + 2 headphones Printer HP MFD Laser printer UPS ( sinewave i nve r to r h o m e U P S ) Batter y to suppo r t U P S Webcam Switch and cable s Operating system ( C D ) Signboard Digital camera Furniture ( 3 cha i r s , 3 t a b l e s , o n e mu l t iseater) Paint Generator set V-Sat V-SAT installatio n Subscription for o p e r at i n g sys te m a n d maintenance Working capital

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Total

4,700 4,700 5,000 7,400 1,000 1,250 2,638 475 7,200 8,100 2,050 1,41,500 35,000 5,000 3,562 10,000 1,60,000

Table II Operational Expenses for a CSC


S.No.

Operational hea d Rent Electricity bill VSAT charges (d at a l i m i t : 6 0 0 M B ) Licence fee (pai d to S R E I S a h a j d i s c o ntinued after pro te s t s ) Computer facult y Loan instalment ( wh e r e a p p l i c a b l e )

Expenses per month (Rs) 500 700 200 500 1,000 1,250 7,400

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Total

Several essentials are clearly amiss in the model as it is being implemented. First, there is no reason to open CSCs before the government data gets digitised. Second, as per the guidelines, Amtron, the state designated agency, should have opened a separate bank account for the CSC project. The accounts should be audited annually and audited statements of accounts should be submitted to the centres department of information technology within six months of

the end of the financial year. As per the guidelines, Srei-Sahaj and Zoom Developers, the service centre agencies, would not be eligible for the revenue support accepted by the state government for a specified bid unit, unless the CSCs have been rolled out within the specified time frame and are certified as operational by Amtron or an agency authorised by it. However, a majority of the CSCs are getting delayed and the project is 18 months behind schedule. Officials of Srie-Sahaj

claim that they have already established 2,720 out of the 2,833 CSCs entrusted to them and about 1,800 of them are reflected on the online monitoring tool installed by IL&FS. This means, on a conservative estimate, Srie-Sahaj may be getting Rs 1.26 crore (1,800 x 7,000) per month as subsidy from the central government. The situation is somewhat different in Kamrup district where Zoom Developers is the private partner. Take, for example, the Ganeshgauri CSC operating in the urban area in the heart of the city of Guwahati. It appears that the CSC being operated at the Ganeshgauri Choriali, Guwahati (Pacific Communication), by Mustafa Ahmed is just to add to the numbers. The shop operates as a travel agency in the heart of Guwahati and sports a barely visible board of Arunoday Kendra. Even the neighbouring shopkeepers are not aware that such a centre exists as the board is hidden behind the board of Pacific Communication. It appears as if an existing shop has been graded as a CSC. But why would anybody do that? For the government subsidy, of course. Zoom Developers is getting Rs 2,450 per CSC per month. The government services are not available in any case. So why bother with a separate centre? The Zoom Developers-supported CSC in the Hajoo village panchayat exists inside a grocery shop. In fact, a customer will have to jump across the grocery shop counter in order to enter this CSC. Dont count on internet connectivity either. The operator says that the CSC does not have an internet connection as the BSNL dues rose beyond Rs 4,000. In absence of any source of income, he got it disconnected. Long live e-governance!n
samir@governancenow.com

www.GovernanceNow.com 45

people politics policy performance


Governance By One

ashish asthana

By digitising 9,000 files of the Information Commission in three months with no extra budget, Shailesh Gandhi proves a point: its not governments that improve governance.

Govts dont work better, people do.


Shailesh Gandhi

he picture of a typical Indian government office is quite bleakthousands of files stacked up everywhere, files moving from one table to the next for approval, a clerk taking hours to find one file and if you are unfortunate your file may have gone missing. But all this can be a thing of the past. And the solution is not

rocket science. It is very basic computer science! Until three months back, my office had 9,000 filesstacked in various cupboards and shelves. We kept running out of cupboards and filing cabinets. Despite having a reasonably efficient staff to locate the files and a well-organised office, on an average it would take five minutes to locate a file. My office receives about 1,800 communications a month on average through post, fax and email. Each of these communications has to be

looked into, responded to and then one needs to spend time to put these pieces of papers and the responses, if any, in the correct files. I realised soon that the space available for record keeping as well as the need for efficient record keepers cannot keep up with the escalating numbers of records to be maintained. So, my office has adopted a simple yet reliable solution to the problemwe have gone digital! Over the past three months all the 9,000 files have been scanned and

46 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

are now available on the office network for any member of the staff to access. About two weeks back, we stopped receiving paper and started accepting digital images. All new communications come to my office after they have been scanned and it is the soft copy of the communication and the response sent, if any, which is appended with the soft copy of the correct file. For emails, earlier we used to print and put them in the file. Now we attach the email to the appropriate electronic folder. A very simple computer programme, which is easily duplicable, has been created to manage the work in the office. The programme not only makes all files available to every member of the staff at all times, but it also means that any new action taken on the files gets linked to the original file with the click of a mouse. Only letters which have to be sent by the office are printed. Drafts of orders, notices and other types of communications are reviewed on the computer before printing. I estimate that we would be saving about 20,000 sheets of paper in the next 12 months. Digital record keeping is definitely the way forward in any officegovernment or otherwise. The preamble of the Information Technology Act states that it is an Act to facilitate electronic filing of documents with government agencies. Section 4 of the Act provides legal recognition to electronic records; Section 5 provides legal recognition to digital signatures; and Section 7 states that if record is to be retained for a particular period of time it would be deemed to have satisfied that rule if it is available in an electronic format. While I admit that my office is relatively young and most records are less than two years old, I believe that more government offices can move towards making their records electronic. Computer programmes can be created and customised to suit the work flow of each office. Not only would record keeping become easier and locating

records be a click of a mouse away, incidents of missing records would be minimal. Backups of the electronic data can be stored in multiple places, even in a different city, thereby avoiding loss of the records due to fire or floods. If necessary, physical records can be kept for a short period of time till it is ascertained that the electronic records are legible and complete. Any changes made to records could be traced back to the system from which the changes were made. This would promote transparency and accountability in the office and reduce corruption. A lot of corruption takes place by losing records or removing papers or substituting papers. The other way is predating papers. All of this could be caught, once an office goes digital. The computer programme can also help to gauge the productivity of the staff as well as it could indicate who is taking how long to complete a particular task. The cost of going digital is a fraction of the cost incurred in record keeping. There would be other small but significant cost savings in the form of less usage of paper, files, printer ink etc. More importantly, decision making becomes faster as time taken to transfer a file from one table or one office to another for approval/signing would be reduced as everything would be available over the internet or intranet. My office was able to make the transformation in a very short span of time and with no requirement for any additional budget. Simple changes can make a big differenceall we need to do to make those simple changes is to set our mind to it. If all government offices go digital, the impact on governance and transparency could be huge. As byproducts we could get a reduction of corruption and paper usage. n
Gandhi is an information commissioner with the CIC and blogs at shaileshgandhi.blogspot.com. This article has been reproduced with his permission.

How cheap are you selling us, Prime Minister?


Prasanna Mohanty

There is an old Oriya proverb which says who can wake up a man who is only pretending to be asleep? That is the case with the powers-that-be when it comes to dealing with the multinationals be it Enron, Union Carbide or the other giants currently being wooed to set up nuclear power plants. Less than 24 hours after the Bhopal verdict numbed the nation, the government, on June 8, had quietly wanted to exempt the suppliers from the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010 in the event of a nuclear disaster. Had that gone unnoticed, it would have almost completely wiped out the polluter-pays principle an internationally accepted policy upheld by the Supreme Court in its 2005 judgment (Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action vs UOI & Ors). It is a myth that the bill provides for a three-tier compensation system. The bill fixes the operators liability at a mere Rs 500 crore, the first-tier. Any compensation beyond that will be borne by the central government, which constitutes the second tier. Now, this amount can go up to a maximum of 300 million Special Drawing Rights (or Rs 2,000 crore at current valuation of SDR). In the third tier, the money will come from an international fund to be set up under the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) of 1997. The CSC is yet to come into force because certain requirements are yet to be metfive countries with nuclear capacity of 400 GWTh must ratify it. It is highly unlikely that CSC will become operational after India becomes the fifth one to sign it. So, the third-tier doesnt even exist! There we are, left with just Rs 500 crore in case a nuclear disaster strikes. Those defending the bill say any amount higher than this would make the business unviable for the operator. Here is a simple reply: If Union Carbide could insure its pesticide plant in Bhopal for $ 350 million in mid-70s, surely a nuclear plant can be insured for the same amount (that Rs 1,650 crore) in 2010? And how did the government fix maximum compensation at 300 million SDR? It is not clear but it seems the idea was taken from the CSC, which, interestingly, fixes the minimum liability at 300 million SDR. Now, consider this: The liability limit in the US is $ 11.6 billion; in Spain $ 1 billion; in the Netherlands $ 495 million and in Japan and Germany unlimited. When governments throw highsounding phrases at you, you know they are preparing to sell you cheap. But this cheap, Mr Prime Minister?
prasanna@governancenow.com
www.GovernanceNow.com 47

people politics policy performance


Last Word

The prissy little football-et called World Cup 2010


Bikram Vohra

t is like the Emperors new clothes, this World Cup. No one wants to call its bluff. There we are sitting there watching these namby-pamby mamas boys pulling shirts and falling down so often that we should change the game from soccer to skittles and I am pretty much up to here looking at close-ups of thighs. And I am thinking perhaps they should all wear tutus and little pink silk shoes and prance about the field because there is no muscle left in football, they have so completely degutted it we might as well watch Swan Lake. At least those prima donnas in ballet have cause to pout. These chaps scarcely merit the right to throw tantrums and be so prissy for ninety minutes. Not for the money they are getting and not for the boring exhibition of soccer. Then, when they lose like the French they sulk. Whatever happened to soccer being a contact sport? Now, there is no flow, no charge, just some sort of soup in the middle till some loose ball cavorts lazily into the back of the net. The slightest nudge and the game stops. There are more stops in football than there are on the London Underground. And there is no angst. This is

ashish asthana

football. These are men. Instead we have this mealymouthed and unctuous sportsmanship by diktat and it is just so dreary. First you boot the blighter in the butt then you get all buddy buddy and touch his cheek and he touches your cheek and then you ruffle each others hair and then after

kicking him in the groin you offer a grin and put out your hand in helping him up and it simply leaves you, the viewer, stone cold. Like the 2010 World Cup has left me totally unmoved, sorry, you purists, but these are millionaires who have Infiniti pools poncing about trying

not to get hurt and taking the mickey out of the fans. Take that match where Ghana won. It was a joke. Literally, if the TV signal had gone off, it would have been a relief and we would have missed nothing. Brazil versus North Korea, we could have been there till the fat lady sang and there would still have been no real guts and glory soccer. If we were a little honest, not much, just a bit, wed all agree that the football so far has been mediocre and poufy. I also agree that like Pavlovas puppies we will all sit through the month pretending to great enjoyment and we will kid ourselves that these are the prelims and the round robins and it will get better as the quarters come on but will it? Really, ask yourselves, will it? All the top teams are tottering, the rest are unknown and England wants to make you weep. Much of it has to do with fair play or whatever they have done to take the robustness out of the game and turn it into lacrosse or ringaringaroses. Either I am losing it but there was a time so not long ago when the flanks tore down the sides, the inners and centres ripped open the defence, the backs fed their frontline, now it is all a pleasant little souffle more fitting to a convent sponsored hopscotch than a World Cup. What makes us so afraid to say it? n
The author is editorial adviser to Khaleej Times, Dubai. bikram@khaleejtimes.com

50 GovernanceNow | July 1-15, 2010

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