Blog Archive - Page 116 of 130 - Accountability Initiative: Responsive Governance

New RTI Act Rules Top Secret?

It appears that the Government of India is attempting to draft a new set of Rules under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The minutes of a meeting held at the Central Information Commission (CIC) on 16th November 2010 indicate that it has been asked to comment on a set of draft RTI Rules prepared by the Government of India. Specifically, the minute’s state:

“Agenda 1: Draft RTI rules- for discussions

Commission discussed the draft rules and suggested some modifications. The changes as suggested by the Commission shall be incorporated and sent to the Government at the earliest. (Action: Secretary/JS (law)) “

In the 21st century where the RTI Act seeks to establish a regime of transparency, rules governing the processes of seeking and obtaining information are being discussed by only a handful of people behind closed doors. There is no official word on what the draft RTI Rules contain. Till date neither the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) the administrative department for the RTI Act, nor the CIC, have taken any steps to consult with the people of India on these draft Rules. The people of India are the primary stakeholders in India’s democracy and have a deeply vested interest in ensuring that there is transparency in the administration, especially in policy making and implementation. The secrecy surrounding the draft RTI Rules is in clear violation of two decisions of the CIC emphasising the duty of public consultation while drafting laws and policies. Whether the CIC has reminded the DoPT about the imperative of public consultation on these Draft RTI Rules in not publicly known.

Public Consultation is necessary while drafting legislation or policy: CIC directs the Delhi Government

In July 2010 a single member bench of the CIC directed the Government of the Delhi to fully comply with Section 4 of the RTI Act while formulating draft laws and policies. In this decision the CIC observed as follows:

“A plain reading of Section 4(1) (c) of the RTI Act suggests that every public authority is required to publish or disclose all facts and circumstances which are relevant and taken into account while formulating policies and taking decisions that would affect the public. Section 4(1)(c) of the RTI Act requires proactive disclosure of proposed laws/ policies and amendments thereto or to existing laws/ policies to enable citizens to debate in an informed manner and provide useful feedback to the government, which may be taken into account before finalizing such laws/ policies. Given that the DP Bill” (Delhi Police Amendment Bill) “is a significant legislative change, the relevant public authorities involved in drafting of the said bill had a duty to proactively disclose its contents under Section 4(1)(c) of the RTI Act… The public authority should have disclosed the contents of the DP Bill suo motu and by omitting to do so, the very purpose of Section 4(1) of the RTI Act stands defeated.

Public Consultation is necessary while drafting legislation or policy: CIC full bench directs the Central Government

In September 2010 a full bench of the CIC reiterated this stand and directed the Cabinet Secretariat under the Government of India and the DoPT to take steps to create a mechanism for public consultation on draft laws before they are tabled in Parliament. In this decision the CIC observed as follows:

“The Commission further recommends u/s 25 (5) that Cabinet Secretariat considers amending Part V of Circular No. 1/16/1/2000-Cab of 15.4.2002 to allow for public consultation in appropriate form.”

What does Part V of Circular No. 1/16/1/2000-Cab of 15.4.2002 contain?

The Cabinet Secretariat issued a circular in April 2002 instructing all departments and ministries under the Government of India on the methodology of preparation of Cabinet notes. Drafts of proposed laws or amendments to existing laws are attached to draft Cabinet notes and circulated to the relevant ministries and departments for consultation. Part V refers to the procedure for conducting such inter-ministerial consultations. During such consultations with various ministries the draft Cabinet note is circulated with the classificatory label – “TOP SECRET“. So save a handful of senior officers, all other citizens of India are excluded from this consultation process. The full bench of the CIC directed the Cabinet Secretariat to amend this portion of the circular and create appropriate spaces for public consultation.

Despite the principle of mandatory public consultation having been laid down by the CIC, the DoPT has not yet begun consultation with the people of India on the draft RTI Rules. If the draft is ready for consultation with the CIC which is a body outside of Government, surely it can be opened up for a more widespread consultation with the people of India who are using this law every day. Surely no harm would be done if people’s views are elicited on so important a subject. The Rules lay down the detailing of the framework for accessing information under the RTI Act. The people of India have a right to be consulted on the draft Rules as they are the primary users of the RTI Act. THE PEOPLE OF INDIA HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE CONSULTED NOW.

Venkatesh Nayak is the Programme Coordinator of the Right to Information Programme at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi. For CHRI’s alerts on the RTI and related issues click here.

First Global Conference on Transparency Research: Call for papers

The First Global Conference on Transparency Research. takes place at Rutgers University-Newark on May 19-20, 2011. The deadline for proposals is November 30, 2010. Information on the conference and the Call for Papers is provided here: http://tinyurl.com/2uoq44v

The advisory committee for the First Global Conference on Transparency Research is pleased to announce Professor Christopher Hood as the keynote speaker. Dr. Hood is the Gladstone Professor of Government and Fellow of All Souls College Oxford. He has written extensively on the topics of transparency and accountability, and co-edited Transparency: The Key to Better Governance (Oxford University Press, 2006). The keynote speech is sponsored by Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions.

Travel assistance

Conference organizers will provide hotel accommodations and on-site meals for all individuals presenting papers. A limited number of travel bursaries are available and supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, the Open Society Institute’s Right To Information Fund, and the World Bank Institute. Information on travel funding is available on the conference webpage.

For more details contact:

Professor Suzanne J. Piotrowski

Conference Chairperson

School of Public Affairs and Administration

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

111 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102-3026

Ph. 973.353.5199, Fax 973.353.5907

[email protected]

Local-Level Accountability: Lessons from Latin America

Expectations of gains from citizen participation in governments is a strong motivator for proponents of democratic decentralisation. These expectations need to be realistic, as experiences with local governments in various contexts have shown. One of the measures of local-level accountability is the level of corruption in local government. A 2009 NBER paper by Ferraz and Finan asks whether electoral accountability can reduce corruption in Brazil. They find that local government officials facing re-election are significantly less corrupt than those who are not, with the former witnessing corruption levels that are, on average, 27% lower than the latter.

Overall, the ﬁndings suggest that electoral rules that enhance political accountability play a crucial role in constraining politician’s corrupt behavior even in an institutional context where corruption is pervasive and elites dominate local politics.

The importance of electoral accountability is also brought out in a recent paper by Merilee Grindle, which discusses local-level accountability in Mexico. In order to determine the chances of popular participation translating into accountable governments, Grindle suggests we ask the three following questions –

1. Can citizens use the vote effectively to reward and punish the general or specific performance of local public officials and/or the parties they represent?

2. Can citizens generate response to their collective needs from local governments?

3. Can citizens be ensured of fair and equitable treatment from public agencies at local levels?

In other words, to what extent do citizens have recourse to sanctions, benefits, and rights when local governments assume more responsibilities and political systems become more competitive?

Grindle points out that the ability of communities to reward and sanction through elections; employ strategies to secure benefits from public institutions/officials; and to demand rights is dependent on their specific experiences of participation in governance over the years. Of course, electoral accountability is not all that straightforward. Limits on terms of elected local government members is a constraint to people’s power to sanction. Emergence of a perverse culture of patronage politics is another hindrance to effective electoral accountability. On the other hand, the potential gains from elections are also significant –

…the increased importance of competitive elections in Mexico’s municipalities also provided opportunities for new leadership groups to reach public office, some of whom had strong commitments to introducing more participatory and responsive forms of governance. As experience with more democratic local elections increases, it may well be that ideas about the right to good performance will become more prominent. Additionally, the accountability mechanisms introduced in a number of municipalities from the top down may become more institutionalized over time and thus provide more focus on good performance as an everyday expectation.

Suvojit Chattopadhyay works for Innovations for Poverty Action, Ghana. This piece has been cross-posted from his blog “On My Way”.

Watching the Red Tape

In June 2010, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, a Hong Kong based group announced the result of a survey of 1300 business executives undertaken in 12 Asian countries. The result of the survey – amongst the countries polled, India has the greatest amount of red tape. In fact, a BBC report goes so far as to use the word “stifling” to describe the Indian bureaucracy and that “working with civil servants was a slow and painful process”. So, can the civil service impede growth and if so, how?

For starters, there is said to be a strong link between bureaucracy and corruption, whereby selfish civil servants are more interested in maximising gain from their individual position rather than in overall social welfare. In addition an over-officious bureaucracy can cause a nightmare of doldrums and delays and regulatory hassles hindering normal business activity. For instance, as per World Bank statistics, it takes 30 days to start a business in India after obtaining clearance from all concerned ministries while Singapore or the US takes 3 and 6 days respectively. While regulatory hassles have undoubtedly eased since 2004, scope for further improvement seems limited unless some radical measures are undertaken. A streamlining of the bureaucracy is essential not only in the interest of the economy but other aspects too, for instance, construction of strategic border roads in the Himalayas near the India-China boundary was languishing for two years, waiting for environmental clearance while China merrily continued its massive infrastructure projects.

[Source: World Development Indicators, World Bank 2010]

Now, it is not a blanket truth that corruption among the bureaucracy per se leads to inefficiency and disincentives to private sector investment. What is probably more important in this context is the frequency with which bribes have to be paid to avoid regulation. A one step process may actually be efficient if the regulator or the recipient of the bribe accelerates the payer towards his destination, However when we have multiple regulators with common jurisdiction and concomitantly multiple demands at each stage, we have a problem.

But, can we put specific numbers to the loss in growth? Cagla Okten did just that in a study of 99 countries over the years 1981-92. Defining bureaucracy as “multiple government units with common regulatory jurisdiction over ﬁrms” and using the number of government ministries as a measure of its size, her concern is clearly the effect of multiple regulation on firm investment and GDP. She considers the relationship between government and firms through a modified version of a Principal-Agent model. There are multiple principals (government ministries) here which want an agent (firm) to achieve some social objective. I will not go into the mathematics here, but her conclusion is that when government ministries do not cooperate, the amount of tax a firm has to pay is higher than the efficient amount, and increases with the number of regulators. If this is true when assuming that the bureaucracy is acting benevolently, one can only imagine the efficiency loss when there are multiple ministries acting out of self-interest.

Okten also conducts an empirical analysis wherein she tests the hypothesis whether the investment level of a firm is a decreasing function of the number of ministries. After taking several variables, including those related to initial GDP levels, education, government size and political stability into account, she concludes that total investment (as a share of GDP) has a negative and significant relationship with the number of ministries. In fact, an increase in the number of regulators by one unit is associated with a decline in total investment by 0.2% to 0.6% of GDP for different specifications of the investment function. Going one step further, Okten also shows a significant and negative impact of the number of ministries on the rate of growth of per capita GDP.

A natural question that follows is what factors determine the size of the bureaucracy or civil service. Rajaraman & Saha study this issue in a 2008 paper. They define the number of civil servants to include not only the glorified top tier officers in the administrative or civil services but also the middle and lower rungs of government employees. The study indicates that population and income levels as measured by GSDP have a bearing on the number of civil servants, with the former showing a stronger relationship. They also observe a “scale effect” which suggests that there may be more cost efficient in having larger states vis-à-vis multiple smaller units. This proposition makes sense – if we think that a government would require a minimum number of employees to set its wheels in motion, there should be a fixed component to the number of civil servants along with a variable component that depends on population or income levels (or both).

Returning to the original question of whether the civil service can impede growth, we see that a bloated bureaucracy, where multiple units have common jurisdiction can be a decided hurdle to economic growth by giving rise to a framework where individual accountability gets blurred. Kaushik Basu echoes a similar sentiment when he claims that a more efficient decision-making system in government through reforming the bureaucracy can help India reach double digit growth rates. Till now, the civil service has strenuously resisted attempts to reform itself, but it is now time to shake it out of the rut it finds itself in, for who will watch the watchmen if not the watchmen themselves.

(Too dynamic for the civil service?)

Anirvan Chowdhury is a Research Associate at the Accountability Initiative.

India’s Whistleblower Bill: A Comparison with International Best Practice Standards

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has produced a study comparing India’s Whistleblower Bill (Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill, 2010) with international best practice standards. This comparison is useful to identify potential improvements that can be made to the Bill. The comparison is across similar laws operational in countries both within and outside the Commonwealth.

The study is available for download below.

A Curious Case of Missing Children- Or is it?

A recent report in the Times of India, UP’s 10 lakh ‘missing’ kids hints at huge scam, pointed out an interesting statistic:- Uttar Pradesh’s enrolment in class I to V- has fallen by 9.89 lakh children, from 2.49 crore in 2008-09 to 2.39 crore in 2009-10. On the other hand, enrolment in class VI to VIII- has gone up by two lakhs- from 74.15 lakh in 2008-09 to 76.15 lakh in 2009-10. The article points to the possibility that these figures based on the DISE data, are an indication of a huge scam.

What is DISE?:

DISE- District Information System for Education, developed by the National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA) is one of the few, comprehensive data sources for the elementary education sector in India. (http://www.dise.in/dise2001.htm). All recognized schools (government and private) imparting elementary education are supposed to be covered under it. Every year, school related information is filled by headmasters or teachers in prescribed formats – making the school (the direct service provider) responsible for accurate and timely provision of data. The Cluster Resource Centre Coordinator (CRCC) is then supposed to make sure that all the schools in his/her jurisdiction are covered, there are no missing values, and the data is internally consistent. If the school is not cooperating in providing data, the CRCC can take up the matter with the district officials (DEO/ DPC).

Information Coverage:

The DISE obtains information about various aspects of the school, including geographical location, enrolment along with sex and caste-wise breakup, status of physical infrastructure in the school, receipt of grants from the government. As of now, information from more than 1.3 million schools is available online in the standard format. Such that It can be compiled at the block, district, state and national level. All this makes DISE quite unique in the Indian context.

Checks on the Data:

The DISE has instituted various mechanisms to check the quality of data at various stages of data collection and processing. The use of technology in processing and aggregating data eliminates the computational errors. The CRCCs are expected to check all the data filled by the head teacher and to cross-check by visiting some schools. The BRCCs and the District MIS coordinator are also expected to monitor the data quality by visiting 5% of the schools, and to be physically present there during the entry of the data of their respective clusters/ blocks. Manual checking of the software also provides several consistency checks to identify discrepancies at various levels. The District and the State MIS coordinators are expected to run consistency checks and take corrective steps. The data submitted by the states are further subjected to more consistency checks and all discrepancies are brought to the notice of the state authorities for explanation before merging it into the national data. This is the stage where, it seems the discrepancy in the enrolment data of UP have come to light. In addition, since 2006-07, NUEPA has made it mandatory that the data supplied by the state be merged with the national data only if it is accompanied by the report based on the Post Enumeration Survey to be carried out by an external agency.

Given, the numerous steps of data compilation, it is difficult to visualize the drop in the enrolments as a scam. If it’s indeed the case, then too many parties would have to be involved. Unfortunately, since the data for 2009-10 has not yet been publicly released, it is unclear if this trend of falling enrolment is concentrated in few districts in UP or more or less similar across the state. But, we were curious to see if similar patterns exist in other states as well.

The results were interesting – to say the least. Past data shows that the trend in falling enrolment is not limited to UP alone but extends to as many as 12 states and 2 union territories. Some of these states include, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Kerala!

Further, states such as Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh reported a decline in enrolment figures for upper primary as well. Thus, the drop in enrolment in UP from 2008-09 to 2009-10 is not limited to this year, nor for UP alone.

How then, can this be possible?

One possibility is that drop-out rates are increasing at faster than enrolment rates. But the data suggests that for most states, the drop-out rates have been steadily declining. Thus the drop-out rates can’t be the explanation.

Second, if it’s a corruption story, then it is applicable not just to UP, but also to many other states, and even for the previous years. But, how would fudging the enrolment numbers in the DISE help? Higher enrolment numbers might help in getting more funds under the Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme for a school- but DISE data is not used for the MDM allocations. Its main use is preparing annual and perspective plans under the SSA. And, even with actual enrolment numbers, one can indulge in corrupt practices.

The only other explanation we could think of was that for some reason, states have reduced over-reporting their numbers or that there are more stringent checks on the data submitted by the states to the centre!!!

In short, the story might not be as straightforward as indicated by the article – but it would be interesting to know the reason. With DISE being the most comprehensive data on education, one can only hope that it gives us a realistic picture of the status of education in India.

Avani Kapur is Senior Research and Program Analyst at the Accountability Initiative.

Ambrish Dongre is Senior Researcher at the Accountability Initiative.

Satark Nagrik Sangathan: MLA Report Cards

Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) is a citizens’ group with a mandate to promote transparency and accountability in government functioning and to encourage active participation of citizens in governance. The group has been heavily involved in the campaign for the right to information and works with local communities to build their capacities on using the right to information as an accountability tool.

With the ongoing Assembly elections in Bihar, Satark Nagrik Sangathan has prepared report cards on the performance of the Members of the Legislative Assembly of Bihar. These have been prepared on the basis of information obtained using the Right to Information Act.

Satark Nagrik Sangathan is partnering with the media to disseminate the report cards. The report cards of MLAs focus on 3 broad parameters-

their performance in the Legislative Assembly;
how they allocated the development funds at their disposal; and
their membership in various Committees of the Legislative Assembly

Report cards that have appeared in the media can be downloaded below.

There’s no such thing as a local Plan

Recently, in a move that has been rightly acknowledged as the first tangible step toward radically overhauling the Five-Year Plan process, the Planning Commission unveiled a new approach to the Twelfth Plan, aimed at making it an inclusive and participative process. To start, the commission has put together a strategy matrix for the approach paper and invited comments through its website. Efforts are also underway to “listen to and consult with citizens’” through civil society-led consultations across the country.

Participatory planning is not a new phenomenon, and through its varied schemes, the Indian state regularly sends out invitations to citizens to participate in planning, monitoring and even auditing its activities. Moreover, the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution institutionalised participation by devolving powers to prepare plans to local governments and enabling direct people’s participation through gram and ward sabhas. Despite these invitations, meaningful participation is rare. A look at existing schemes shows us just where the problems are.

First, information is scarce and awareness is low. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), for instance, calls for village education committees to make annual plans for implementing SSA. But study after study has highlighted that members remain unaware of their membership — and even those in the know, know little of their powers, responsibilities and financial entitlements. This despite the fact that SSA allocates funds in its budget for community training and awareness generation.

Awareness-raising and providing meaningful, relevant information is not easy. It requires sustained, continuous local engagement, something that implementing officials — who are usually bogged down by oceans of paperwork — have neither the time nor the inclination to do. So committees are formed, because the guidelines require it; but that’s where it stops. More importantly, implementers don’t necessarily value participation. In a recent conversation with a block official in charge of SSA in Madhya Pradesh, he, while acknowledging the mandate for peoples’ plans, said plans are actually made at the block level because (to paraphrase) “we know the status of schools.” “I have’, he added, “up-to-date data.” Sharing this data with people and soliciting their participation was not on his agenda.

Information scarcity apart, the greatest hurdle to participation lies in the very design of the implementation architecture. Every time a scheme calls for participation, it also puts in guidelines that ironically create disincentives for meaningful participation. Funds arrive at the implementation level tied to very clear expenditure items and rigid norms. In SSA, for instance, although the village education committee is expected to plan, if it decides to spend more on teaching materials by using money given for painting walls, the rules won’t allow it. Why bother making a plan that takes into account local needs when there is no flexibility to make budget allocations accordingly?

If it’s not the rigidity of the funding norms, it’s conflicting rules that make planning impossible. In a recent case in Karnataka, a village plan — made under a World Bank-funded programme that provides untied grants to panchayats — for building dry latrines with covered pits suited for the water-scarce area was rejected. Instead, a concrete septic tank latrine was chosen, which required water that the village did not have, because the rules demanded it!

Tardy implementation adds to the problem. Unpredictable and delayed funding is a common problem and monies usually reach their destination well after they are needed. So even if a plan is made, chances are it will not be implemented. As part of an effort to mobilise village education committees under the SSA in rural Madhya Pradesh, for example, a committee made a plan to fix a leaky roof before the monsoon — but this couldn’t be implemented because funds didn’t arrive on time. The roof leaked through the monsoon and the parents stopped coming to meetings. Worse still, parents have no real means of redress, and local officials claimed no responsibility. Meaningful participation, at minimum, requires that the state fulfils some basic functions to deliver on plans. Lack of participation, in this case, is a symptom of state dysfunction.

The current architecture for planning complicates matters further. Participation can only be truly effective in a decentralised system; precisely for this reason, constitutionally, powers to make local plans have been devolved to panchayats and municipalities. But resources flow through sector-specific centrally-sponsored schemes (CSS) with their own parallel planning processes, resulting in multiple planning bodies and endless confusion on the ground. CSS also limits state discretion because a large pool of state resources goes toward contributing to their share of the CSS. State plans are thus tailored to central funding streams. De facto then, planning remains a centralised activity, one that by its very nature creates limited space for meaningful participation.

In soliciting participation through the website and consultations with citizens groups, the Planning Commission has taken an important step towards putting people back on the agenda. This could also be an opportunity to resolve critical institutional failures that have made meaningful participation so difficult. Perhaps what we need is a plan to strengthen people’s plans!

Yamini Aiyar is Director of the Accountability Initiative.

This article appeared on 01-11-2010 in the Indian Express.

IMGSY: CCT or not to CCT

In a surprising turn of events, on October 22^nd, 2010, the Government of India in departure from its usual torpidity approved the introduction of Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY), demonstrating the commitment of the government to arrest problems of poor health and nutritional deficiency, captured most recently in the Global Hunger Index, which ranked India 67^th out of a total of 84 countries. The scheme which is to be implemented on a Pilot basis in 52 district of the country offers cash incentives to all pregnant and lactating women above the age of 19 years for the first two live births. The only exceptions are central and state public sector employees who have been excluded from the purview of the scheme as they are entitled to paid maternity leave.

Under this scheme each pregnant and lactating woman is to receive Rs 4000 in three instalments between the second trimester of pregnancy until the child is six years old. Each beneficiary is required to open an individual bank account (if she already does not have one) to be liable for receiving benefits. Cash transfers are designed as incentives which are to be conditional upon the fulfilment of specific conditions relating to mother and child health care. The scheme is to be implemented through the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) system and will be supported by additional contractual staff. Anganwadi workers and helpers will receive an incentive of Rs 200 and Rs 100 respectively after all the due cash transfers are made.

While the potency of such measures as the GHI highlights is indisputable, the particular method adopted for improving maternal and child health through cash based incentives is representative of a wider trend, which needs to be evaluated in some detail. The arguments in favour of cash transfer programmes have generally been based on three main conceptual premises.

In the context of underlying market failures in the economy, CCT’s have been touted as being useful in improving efficiency. According to proponents, CCT’s can play an important role in ensuring that individual decisions reflect both societal and individual preferences. Market failures arise when private information about the nature of certain investments and their expected returns may be imperfect or when human capital investments made by the poor may be privately optimal but socially sub optimal. The first type of market failure can be related to situations involving the adoption of new technology (such as institutional deliveries), benefits are accrued once the attributes of a new technology are known to the community; learning about the new technology involves costly experimentation. Initially communities may be unwilling to invest their time and resources in the technology, leading to a free rider problem. Introducing a CCT then in this context such that conditionalaties on cash transfer are linked to the use of the particular technology, such as institutional deliveries can encourage the communities to invest in the technology which they were otherwise would not have been tempted to invest in. Market imperfections of the second type relate to instances when pregnant women are dissuaded from seeking professional health services because the cost of seeking such assistance is higher than relying on non institutional care. By lowering the opportunity costs of professional heath services, CCT’s like the IMGSY’s offered to pregnant women who seek professional care and fulfil certain specific conditions, encourage those who under invest in health to increase their investment and thereby augment social welfare more than an unconditional cash grant.
A second rationale for CCT’s relates to equity and redistribution. CCT’s can be used as screening devices to target populations when individual characteristics are not easily observable. In cases where poor are hard to identify and budgets are small it is necessary to screen beneficiaries. Conditionalities, in such cases when appropriately chosen can act as screening mechanisms which induce targeted groups to participate in the programme while discouraging the participation of non targeted individual. The idea behind successful screening is straight forward; the benefits of the cash received exceed the cost induced by the conditionality for one group but not for another. In the context of the IMGSY, the cash incentives of Rs 12,000 appear to be relevant for targeting the benefits to select beneficiaries particularly the economically weaker sections for whom the benefits of the cash incentives exceed the costs incurred.
The third justification of CCT relates to political economy of funding redistribution. Conditioning cash transfers on compliance with certain socially accepted behavioural practices may increase the political support for them making them feasible or better endowed. This is based on the rationale that elites are not entirely self regarding. It is possible for instance that tax payers are more prepared to pay transfers to those who are seen to be helping themselves than for recipients of unconditional transfers who are viewed as being lazy and careless. Alternatively, unlike Unconditional Transfers, CCT’s can be seen not as plain social assistance but rather a form of social contract whereby society supports those poor households that are ready to make the effort to improve their lives-‘the deserving poor’
From the above arguments it appears that CCT’s represent an important mechanism for improving health and nutritional indicators. Critics of CCT’s however warn on the limitations within the approach and similarly point out three conceptual limitations with the approach which impinge on the effectiveness of CCT’s as instruments for reducing poverty and improving human development indicators.
Ideologically, CCT’s by their very nature induce a distortion on the consumption choices of individuals by forcing them to take certain actions rather than letting them decide on their own. It is assumed that if people are left to their own devices then they will somehow not be capable of choosing what is in their best interest. Such measures erode the agency of individuals and compel them to behave in ways that are ‘good for them’. This is especially relevant for programmes such as IMGSY which encourage women to seek institutional care as opposed to more traditional forms of heath care such as the Dai system. Traditional systems of delivery according to many feminists tends to be less evasive than institutional care which tends to disempower women treating their bodies as mere vessels ‘churning out life’.
A second problem with CCT schemes relates to fungibility of the conditioned commodity/service. The fundamental premise of conditionality is the distortion of choice from the individual optimal. However this very logic creates an automatic incentive for individuals to try and offset the loss of individual utility that the conditionality imposes. The ability of individuals to offset this distortion is the problem of fungibility. In cases where there is a close substitute individuals can offset the distortion imposed by the conditionality if she appropriately decreases consumption of or investment in the substitute, so that overall amounts are unchanged. In extreme cases this can mean decreasing the consumption of a close substitute (eating less spinach when given iron tablets), changing patterns of consumption (pregnant women from poor households covered by the IMGSY may seek to reduce their food consumption if they are assured of getting medical services), or even relocating investments in human capital within the household (sending fewer boys to school when girls are given a stipend).
Further using CCT’s for increasing human capital investments could adversely affect equity while distortions required for self selection may impose an efficiency cost. For example the female stipend programme in Bangladesh led to an increase in the secondary school enrolment rate of girls. In the absence of any means testing, the programme had an adverse distributional impacts, the untargeted stipend disproportionately favoured the enrolment of girls from households with larger land wealth than land poor households. In the case of IMGSY which is based on self selection, equity concerns may be offset if the benefits of the programme are accrued by richer households as opposed to poorer ones. Using a CCT as a screening device for targeting also comes at a cost. Such cost can be either due to distortion in consumption and investment choices induced by the conditionality or as a result of under coverage.

Thus the debates rage on, but whether or not the CCT’s represent the ideal mechanism at the end of the day, it’s issues of implementation and accountability which determine the success of the programme, and those are the issues which need to be ultimately confronted and addressed.

Gayatri Sahgal is a Research Analyst at the Accountability Initiative.

RTI portal and logo launch: Press release

The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Shri Prithviraj Chavan launched the Logo on RTI and the RTI portal today in the presence of Shri. A N. Tiwari, Chief Information Commission and Shri. Shantanu Consul, Secretary, DoPT.

It is a simple and iconic logo depicting a sheet of paper with information on it, and the public authority – providing the information. This represents people’s empowerment through transfer and accountability in Governance. The logo’s shape and structure make it easy to remember, recall and replicate with minimal distortion.

In the last five years the RTI regime has heralded a regime of transparency and accountability and strengthened the democratic structure of the country. Success stories of citizens using the RTI Act abound. The Act has achieved great success in empowering the citizens of India. However it was felt that the core values of the RTI regime – Empowerment, Transparency and Accountability- need to be given a shape in the form of a logo. The logo would be displayed at all public authorities and will be used in various communications related to RTI.

The Right to Information Portal – A Gateway on RTI – was also formally launched on this occasion. The portal is one stop knowledge bank for information seekers, information providers, trainers, Information Commissions, students and academicians. It provides for a digital library, discussion fora, e- newsletter and a blog. Latest judgments of the High Courts and Information Commissions; reports, articles, guides, manuals, handbooks for various stakeholders; online certificate course are also available on this portal. There is facility for stakeholders to interact through dedicated and open discussion forum and register as resource persons. The web URL for the Portal is www.rtigateway.org.in.