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School Consolidation: Catalyst for Change or an Inequitable Policy?

Improving learning outcomes are the principal focus of contemporary education policy in India. There are numerous ways to achieve these outcomes, many of which were identified in the Right to Education Act (2009). With the implementation of the Right to Education, the inputs supplied to schools such as teachers, space, meals, and educational materials have increased. Yet, several concerns have been raised over efficiently allocating resources to improve access for students and quality teaching.

In the context of weak state capacity and limited resources, school consolidation has emerged as a policy tool with a view to improve the efficiency of school functioning. This refers to the ‘closure’ of one or more schools and integration with another, usually bigger school. Students and teachers are transferred to the consolidated school, if space permits. The schools that are closed no longer exist as independent administrative units.

 

School Consolidation in Rajasthan

 

While schools have been consolidated over the years across many countries including China, Canada, and the US, this policy tool is relatively new to India. Faced with poor learning outcomes, declining enrolment in government schools, and the proliferation of small schools with poor facilities, the Rajasthan government was one of the first Indian states to consolidate schools. At the same time, the Rajasthan government launched other programmes such as the State Initiative for Quality Education, and programme to create Adarsh schools with grades 1-12 or 1-10. Something similar to the latter has been mentioned in the hotly contested National Education Policy as well, which talks about the creation of school complexes or multiple schools together as a single administrative units. These Adarsh schools or complexes can be created by consolidating schools.

Around 19,500 government schools were consolidated between 2014 and 2018 in Rajasthan, and other states such as Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra followed suit. In 2018-19, the Accountability Initiative analysed secondary data to understand the implementation and short-term effects of consolidation in Rajasthan.

To create Adarsh schools or large schools, the bulk of consolidation, especially in 2014-15, typically involved the closure of elementary schools (grades 1 to 5, grades 1 to 8, or grades 6 to 8) and their consolidation with secondary schools (with any grades from 9 to 12). However, elementary schools were consolidated with other elementary schools as well, especially in 2016-17.

The reorganisation of schools in this manner can impact the education system in the long run – it can change the number of teachers available, administrative and monitoring structures, resource-use, etc. In short, at scale, school consolidation can shake things up. From our study, we found that schools were reorganised quite substantially, with the number of schools with all grades increasing significantly as can be seen in the graph below.

The RTE clearly states that schools need to be easily accessible. Specifically, primary schools need to be within 1 km radius of the child, and upper primary schools need to be within 3 kms. The Rajasthan government too followed this norm.

Therefore, we asked two primary questions. First, has consolidation changed the availability of teachers, school facilities, monitoring, etc.? Has it made the system smoother in any way, eventually benefitting children? Second, did this make a basic service guaranteed by law, inaccessible to certain people? Has it led to people having to drop out of government schools and shift to private schools which are more accessible for them?

 

The availability of teachers and facilities improved, but elementary schools lag behind

 

Before consolidation, the teacher-grade ratio (TGR) or the number of teachers divided by the number of grades was low (3 teachers for 5 grades, on average), despite a healthy pupil-teacher ratio. For example, in a school with 30 students, 5 grades, and 2 teachers, the pupil-teacher ratio is 15, well within norms. Yet, 2 teachers have to work with 5 different grades, which results in multi-grade teaching. Often, students of different grades are seated in the same class and taught together and students receive less attention and care than needed. Furthermore, 16 per cent of all government elementary schools in Rajasthan had only one teacher.

Ideally, a school with 5 grades should have at least 5 teachers, or a teacher-grade ratio of at least one. After consolidation, secondary schools had more teachers for every grade. We can see that for schools consolidated with elementary schools, the improvements were small. In fact, the TGR for these schools was around the state average, while secondary schools pulled ahead.

In terms of facilities like a playground or a boundary wall, access improved for students whose schools were consolidated with secondary schools. However, elementary schools lagged behind again.

Did school consolidation lead to dropouts?

 

We looked at the combined enrolment of schools prior to consolidation, and the enrolment after schools were consolidated. Enrolment in Rajasthan did not change much over the years, but enrolment declined in consolidated schools, across all social groups. Did enrolment decline due to consolidation? Were people excluded? Certain reports definitely argue that this is the case. However, since we looked at the short-term effects, further inquiry is merited to understand the specifics of this decline in enrolment.

Particularly hard hit were students with disabilities, likely due to increased distances to schools. When elementary schools were consolidated with secondary schools, the enrolment of students with disabilities declined far more than other groups. Did parents of other students feel that their children should go to secondary school with potentially more teachers and better facilities, even if further away? It is possible that increased distances for students were mitigated by the expectation of higher quality.

On the other hand, when schools were consolidated with elementary schools, the decline for all groups is the same. Perhaps elementary schools lagged behind, and an increase in school distance was not compensated by an increase in quality, explaining the decline in enrolment.

Given that enrolment declined, a natural question is – was the way these schools were chosen for consolidation a factor behind the drop? Broadly, the following process was followed.  Officials at blocks selected schools, which were aggregated at the district level, and verified by the state departments. Subsequently, after verification, the state passed orders to districts and blocks to consolidate schools. Teachers, parents or guardians, and local leaders were not consulted. Top-down or non-participatory planning is nothing new. However, the consolidation of schools was reversed in several instances due to various reasons, including high SC/ST enrolment in the schools shut, adequate enrolment in the schools shut, political pressure, and so on.

 

What next?

 

To the extent that more teachers are available, consolidation can set the stage for improvements in learnings. Nonetheless, it is too soon to say that consolidation improves teaching and learning practices. Questions of equity remain. School consolidation seems to have had a different effect across elementary and secondary schools, and students in the former could get left behind. At a time when over 40 per cent students in government schools in Rajasthan are enrolled in elementary schools, there is a need to improve teacher availability and facilities in these schools too. Consolidation has the potential to bring about substantial changes in the way the school system is organised and administered, but community participation, equity, and access to all should underpin any such transformation as we move forward.

Rethinking Communications: How ‘Ideas of Scale’ could be the Next Leap for Research Groups

Key Takeaways

  • ‘Ideas of scale’ are evidence-backed conceptual insights into governance. An ‘idea of scale’ can spark small but consequential actions by providing the right knowledge to people who can be changemakers. These people may be part of the public administration or be those who interact with the service delivery system regularly such as citizens and NGO staff.
  • A quick fix solution to longstanding, complicated problems such as the dysfunction in the public administrative system does not exist. Solutions are an iterative process with multiple stakeholders. It is only when they have the right kind of information, can they collaborate on solution-building.
  • The role of the strategic communications function in development organisations is critical to unleashing the potential of an ‘idea of scale’. However, strategic communications has in the past been seen as a provider of services to the research and programmes units. This restricts the pursuit of strategic organisational objectives by the communications unit.
  • Accountability Initiative’s idea of scale (Responsive Governance) aims to build a public system that listens to, works for and is accountable to the people.

In 2017, Accountability Initiative took the conscious decision of retraining focus and investing resources on communications more than ever before. We wanted to reinvent the way the world heard us, and upskill our people as communicators in their own right. Thus followed thought exercises to discover previously hidden synergies on what I call ‘ideas of scale’ or conceptual insights which when shared publicly, can trigger or multiply desirable action. We shaped the idea of Responsive Governance into existence, with a vision to create pathways that can assist people in resolving challenges at the lowest level of public service delivery.

Our efforts led us back to the aspiration of building a public system which is intuitive to the needs of the people it serves, and enabling the citizenry to not only recognise lapses but also go a step further in holding the system accountable when it fails them. While the theory of what I am saying is not new (countless development practitioners have aspired to build a near perfect public system), the practice of it might well be novel. In the era of information excess and minimal attention spans, the route to social or systemic transformation has become even more difficult. Conventional wisdom in marketing, and broader communications-related functions, are appearing feeble when applied to the development sector. For instance, marketing newbies are taught the importance of targeted and relevant content in increasing sales or an audience base, enshrined in the adage ‘Content is king’. Yet we consume information from social media and other channels every day that jostle for our limited time and attention, much less helping focus on social causes. A relatable idea backed by innovative content delivery can be the new approach to facilitate interest.

This situation of limited audience mind space is compounded for research groups such as Accountability Initiative which deal with complex knowledge – from research findings, analyses and social science theoretical constructs, simplified to suit the needs of the audience.

Take for instance, the decentralisation of decision making in the bureaucracy. Among other things, we study what the existing federal system in India looks like using research tools; and why bureaucratic motivations at the lowest level impact service delivery, make officials feel as mere “cogs” in the machine (see here). Who would be most interested in this knowledge? At first glance, one would assume the uptake to be highest among practitioners, scholars and top-level decision makers in the government. They are active participants of the system or work on resolving operational issues.

However, all of us interact with the public system in one way or the other, almost every day. Controversial as it may seem, apathy towards it and exasperation to its dysfunction is a consequence of this interaction. We react to shortcomings – real or perceived. But what if we could change this knee jerk reaction to constructive action? Can an individual or a group of individuals feed back to the system in a structured and meaningful way? From my work, ‘ideas of scale’ can provide the rough mental model or framework to follow so as to do so. When ideas become relatable conceptual tools, peer-driven responses become possible. In other words, people find relevant solutions because they have access to a different way of looking at things. For us, our ‘idea of scale’ – Responsive Governance – is the guiding force for most strategy and operational decisions.

The first critical step to realising ‘ideas of scale’ is knowing the realities and internal logic of governance. Through our courses, research and engagement activities, we are attempting to uncover key pieces of information hidden or not well-articulated by people who count, and are sharing these. For instance, members and staff of the civil society participate in a course – Hum Aur Humaari Sarkaar – developed by our Learning and Development unit. As participants, they sometimes discuss how they had little insight into the system and have thus benefitted from insights learnt from the course. These are people who regularly interact with implementers embedded within public systems.

It is also important to consider how action can translate to impact. There isn’t a singular quick fix solution to longstanding, complicated problems such as the dysfunction in the public administrative system. The sharing of ideas, however, can provide the right nudge. Sustained and targeted actions will facilitate incremental yield.

This is where development organisations (and particularly research groups) struggle to see the link. A substantial opportunity is lost when communications is considered to be largely a provider of services, smoothening operational cliffs for programmes and research. Public relations, marketing, brand building and other allied functions are bundled together in this approach, and their responsibilities vested in only some team members (part of which can be attributed to inadequate core funding). This is in spite of the fact that knowledge sharing is critical to the whole enterprise. The desire for measuring impact of communication strategies, even in the eyes of donors, is often by gauging an increase in the number of ‘followers’ on major dissemination platforms. This gears the communications team to optimise metrics rather than concentrate on reaching strategic objectives.

As organisations who have well-developed engagement teams will tell you:

Smart, strategic communications defines, cultivates, and understands important audiences. It listens. It crafts and shares clear, compelling stories. It builds relationships and deploys influence. It convenes. It designs. It analyzes data and gathers intelligence. It creates conversations. It understands and directs the best of old and new power. (Gibbons, 2016)

For research groups in the development space, strategic communications is thus an investment for the future. This would mean going beyond the traditional dissemination model as part of which research findings are communicated to not for audiences, and buy in within the team for the need for reformation. Finding ‘tie ins’ relevant to the experiences of people, articulating evidence-backed insights, and tactically using new-age storytelling tools are only some measures which will further momentum to shift to a ‘for audience’ approach. With the ‘idea of scale’ or the change that the organisation envisions to bring at its heart, these will go a mile in awakening the power of engagement.

At Accountability Initiative, we focus on building a community, which also reflects in aspects such as the number of followers on our digital platforms. However, we aspire to provide them with authentic experiences and a reimagined public services. It these efforts which we hope will elicit a wave of small but consequential actions, and lead to incremental but lasting change.

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Gibbons, S. (2016) The Case for Communications. Available at: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_case_for_communications. Last accessed on: 19 September 2019.

जवाबदेही के मायने

किसी भी व्यक्ति को अपने कार्यक्षेत्र में दायित्वों को सफलतापूर्वक निष्पादन हेतु कुछ अधिकार सौंपे जाते हैं। इन अधिकारों व शक्तियों का प्रयोग करने में वह पूर्णतया स्वतन्त्र नहीं होता बल्कि उसे सौंपने वाली सत्ता अथवा कार्यों के प्रति अपनी जिम्मेदारी निभानी होती है, इसे ही जवाबदेही कहते हैं| यदि कार्यों एवं दायित्वों का निर्वाहन सही से समय पर न हो पाए तो ऐसे में सवाल पूछे जाने लाज़मी हैं|

क्या कभी हमने अपनी सरकार से यह सवाल किया है कि जब हम अपना टैक्स समय पर आपको देते हैं तथा वोट देकर आपको चुनते हैं तो बावजूद इसके क्यों हमें गुणवत्तापूर्ण सेवाएं समय पर नहीं मिलती? जब सरकार को भी मालुम है कि कुछ मूलभूत सेवाएं नागरिकों का मौलिक अधिकार है तो फिर क्यों आज भी हमारे लिए बेहतर सेवाएं मिलना एक बड़ी चुनौती बना हुआ है?

एक लोकतांत्रिक देश के नागरिक होने के नाते जवाबदेही हम-आप सभी के जीवन का एक अहम हिस्सा है जिसके तहत हम सभी जब इस शब्द के महत्व का सही अर्थ जान पाते हैं, तो एक बेहतर माहौल बनता है| ऐसा नहीं है कि हमेशा जवाबदेही अपने से उच्च व्यक्तियों, सरकारों तथा संस्थाओं के प्रति ही हो, बल्कि जवाबदेही दोनों तरफ होनी चाहिए| एक नागरिक होने के नाते हमारी भी समाज के प्रति अनेकों तरह से जवाबदेही बनती है|

हम अकाउंटबिलिटी इनिशिएटिव, एक रिसर्च समूह के तौर पर सेंटर फॉर पॉलिसी रिसर्च संस्था के अंतर्गत वर्ष 2008 से शासन में पारदर्शिता और जवाबदेही को मजबूत करने पर काम कर रहे हैं ताकि शासन, नागरिक आवश्यकता के प्रति उत्तरदायी हो| हमारा मानना है कि जब लोग सशक्त होंगे, सेवा प्रदाता उत्तरदायी होंगे और नीति निर्माता जागरूक होंगे, तभी जवाबदेही के लिए उचित वातावरण बन पायेगा। हमारा मुख्य उद्देश्य कुशल सार्वजनिक सेवाओं के कार्यान्वयन में आने वाली कठिनाइयों को पहचाननाऔर उनका विश्लेषण करके नीति निर्माताओं, सेवा प्रदाताओं और नागरिकों के सामने लाना है। हम अलग-अलग तरह से अध्ययन करते हैं जिसमें मुख्य रूप इस प्रकार हैं:

  1. हम सरकार की योजनाओं की ज़मीनी हक़ीकत जानने के लिए स्वयंसेवकों के साथ मिलकर सेवा प्रदाताओं से वास्तविक जानकारी इकठ्ठा करते हैं जैसे शिक्षा संबंधी जानकारी हेतु स्कूल तथा पोषण की स्थिति समझने के लिए आंगनवाड़ी केन्द्रों तथा लाभार्थियों से सीधे मुख़ातिब होते हैं| इसके अलावा वास्तविकता को और गहराई से समझने के लिए हम सरकार का भी पक्ष जानने हेतु सम्बंधित अधिकारियों के साथ विस्तृत साक्षात्कार करते हैं| इस तरह हम शासन में प्लानिंग, बजट, निधि प्रवाह तथा प्रशासनिक ढांचे का अध्ययन करते हुए सरकार की नीतियों की वास्तविकता का अध्ययन करते हैं| इसे हम पैसा सर्वेक्षण कहते हैं|
  2. इसके अलावा प्रति वर्ष भारत सरकार अलग-अलग क्षेत्रों को ध्यान में रखते हुए बजट पेश करती है जिसका सीधा सारोकार हम-आप की ज़िन्दगी से जुड़ा होता है| एक रिसर्च समूह होने के नाते हम वार्षिक तौर पर सरकार की प्रमुख केन्द्रीय प्रायोजित योजनाओं के आवंटन, खर्च तथा उनसे होने वाले जमीनी परिणामों का विश्लेषण करते हैं| योजनायें, जैसे राष्ट्रीय स्वास्थ्य मिशन, मनरेगा, स्वच्छ भारत मिशन, समग्र शिक्षा सहित अन्य कई योजनाओं का आकलन करके एक पूरा दस्तावेज तैयार करते हैं| इस दस्तावेज को बजट ब्रीफ कहा जाता है जिसे सरकार के उपलब्ध आंकड़ों के आधार पर ही तैयार किया जाता है|

इस दस्तावेज के तथ्यों को हमारी संस्था इस तरह से सरल करने की कोशिश करती है ताकि ज्यादा से ज्यादा नागरिक आंकड़ों के पीछे छुपी हक़ीकत को आसानी से समझ पाएं| बजट ब्रीफ एक पारदर्शी तथा जवाबदेही उपकरण के तौर पर तैयार किया जाता है, ताकि नागरिक सेवा प्रदाताओं से जवाब मांग सकें|

एक ज़िम्मेदार समूह होने के नाते हम पैसा सर्वेक्षण एवं बजट ब्रीफ दस्तावेज के परिणामों को अपने हितधारकों जैसे सामाजिक क्षेत्र में कार्य कर रही संस्थाओं, मिडिया, अधिकारीयों एवं नागरिकों तक यह जानकारियां विभिन्न माध्यमों से पहुंचाने का प्रयास करते हैं| हम सभी सांसदों के साथ भी अपनी रिसर्च साझा करते हैं ताकि इस सबसे एक बेहतर चर्चा और जवाबदेही का माहौल बने तथा जहाँ पर संभव हो आवश्यक कदम उठाये जाएँ|

हमारा मानना है कि सरकार को सेवाएं बेहतर एवं समय पर पहुंचाने के लिए कुछ ठोस उपाय करने होंगे जिससे पारदर्शिता और जवाबदेही को बढ़ावा मिलेगा| हमारे अध्ययनों में हमने पाया है कि जमीनी स्तर पर सेवायें देने वाले अधिकारीयों को जरुरत के अनुसार उनकी क्षमता निर्माण नहीं हो पाती| अतः सरकार को एक ऐसा सिस्टम बनाना चाहिए जहाँ नियमित तौर पर इन अधिकारीयों की क्षमता को बढ़ाया जाए ताकि वे नागरिकों को बेहतर से बेहतर सेवाएं दे पाने में सक्षम हों| चाहे स्वास्थ्य हो, शिक्षा हो या अन्य कोई सेवा, सरकार को अपने प्रशासनिक एवं वित्तीय ढांचे में ऐसे जवाबदेही के संस्थागत तरीके स्थापित करने होंगे जहाँ नागरिकों को उनकी आवश्यकताओं को देखते हुए समय पर बेहतर सेवाएं मिले| तरीके ऐसे हों, जिससे नागरिक बेहतर सेवाएं न मिलने की स्थिति में जवाबदेही की मांग कर पाएं| सरकार को पारदर्शिता को बढ़ाने के लिए पारदर्शी सूचना प्रणाली (MIS) सिस्टम ज्यादा से ज्यादा सार्वजनिक करना चाहिए ताकि प्रत्येक नागरिक जान सके की सरकार किस तरह अपना प्रदर्शन कर रही है|

शुरुआत में हमारे सामने यह चुनौती रहती थी कि आखिर इतने वर्षों से इकठ्ठा इन उपयोगी जानकारियों एवं सबूतों को हम कैसे ज्यादा से ज्यादा नागरिकों तक सरल भाषा में पहुँचायें| अतः इसी सोच के साथ हमने अपनी रिसर्च द्वारा एकत्रित किये गए आंकड़ों, जमीनी हकीकतों, संवैधानिक एवं कानूनी प्रावधानों को ध्यान में रखते हुए इसे एक कोर्स की शकल दी है| ‘हम और हमारी सरकार’ कोर्स इसी सोच का नतीजा है| इस कोर्स के प्रतिभागी मुख्य रूप से विभिन्न क्षेत्रों में कार्य कर रही संस्थाएं, पंचायत अधिकारी, प्रतिनिधि तथा छात्र समूह हैं| इस कोर्स में हम मूल रूप से त्री-स्तरीय सरकार के अंतर्गत प्रशासनिक एवं वित्तीय व्यवस्था के बारे में बताते हुए उन जटिलताओं को सामने लाने का प्रयत्न करते हैं, जिनकी वजह से हम-आप तक सेवाएं समय पर नहीं पहुँच पाती| कोर्स के माध्यम से हम बताते हैं कि आखिर एक नागरिक होने के नाते हम-आप कैसे शासन की बारीकियों को समझते हुए सरकार के साथ जुड़कर बेहतर सेवा वितरण में अपनी अहम् भूमिका निभा सकते हैं|

अतः मुझे लगता है कि जिस तरह से अकाउंटबिलिटी इनिशिएटिव रिसर्च समूह विभिन्न माध्यमों के द्वारा सरकार को जमीनी वास्तविकता पहुंचाने तथा नागरिकों को जागरूक करने का काम कर रहा है, उससे आज भले ही छोटे स्तर पर सही, पर भविष्य में निश्चित रूप से शासन और जवाबदेही पर चर्चा का एक व्यापक माहौल बन पायेगा|

A Testimony to Integrity in Procurement at Shivasamudram

This blog is part of a series. The first blog can be found here.

The Shivasamudram project became a truly international one in terms of supplies. While the electric plant came from the United States, the hydraulic plant came from Switzerland, the penstock pipes from Scotland, the insulators from Italy and the timber for the transmission lines was the Australian red wood, Jarrah. The erection of the plant was completed by March 1902, just one year and seven months after commencement, a record that would be hard to meet even today. The project was formally opened by Lord Curzon, Viceroy and Governor General of India, and the first motor at KGF commenced running on electricity by March 1902.

After a year’s trouble free operation it was clear that the mining load would soon outgrow station capacity and that the generating plant had to be supplemented by additional units. Experience also showed that water availability could support more generation units and so the power plant was extended over several stages. The second installation was undertaken in 1903-04. Additional installations were made from 1907-08 (the third) 1913-14 (the fourth) 1915-18 (the fifth), 1919-22 (the sixth) and the seventh installation was in 1925-28. With the completion of the seventh installation the question of extending the power supply to serve other important industries in the state was also considered. Of them, the most important industrial load was the Bhadravati Iron Works, where electrical power would supplant charcoal used in steel production and help in preserving forests. The power line to Bhadravati was to be run from Mysore along Hassan and Arsikere, with provision to supply power to Hassan, Tiptur, Arsikere and Kadamane estate.

In the two decades following the commissioning of the first unit, the growth of power demand was nearly always in excess of the capacity and ability to supply. The distinguished planners and administrators who led the state were constantly aware that the maximum capacity of the generating station would be reached sooner than later. Something had to be done quickly to ensure that industrial development would not be constrained by inadequate electricity supply.

It was in these times that Sir Mirza Ismail became Dewan of Mysore in May 1925. His interest in the development of electrical power was obsessive and he immediately set himself to the task of giving the maximum benefit of electric service to everybody in the state.

The benefits of the Cauvery power projects were much more long lasting than the mere supply of electric power. As McHutchin predicted, Mysore state gained an enviable reputation as a well administered and progressive state, largely on the strength of its electric power, industries and irrigation schemes. This reputation continued a long time after Independence, and it was only from the late 1970s onwards that it was sullied, again primarily by a lack of electric power.

Today, planners and private developers of power are confronted by the same issues as Captain De Lotbiniere and the Mysore Darbar. Will new projects be viable? Is there a demand for the power? What are the technical constraints? What is the transparency in the choice of technology and contractors?

While these concerns have indeed been unchanged, there is unhappily a sea change in the way we have dealt with these issues

Far sighted men as Sir Sheshadri Iyer and Sir Mirza Ismail foresaw not only the economic benefits of generating and supplying power to the KGF, but also that power would drive economic and industrial development, agricultural development and above all, improve the quality of life of the subjects of Mysore.

True they took risks too, but their endeavours bore fruit and gave Mysore decades of prosperity, far ahead of the rest of India. We need to emulate these great deeds. There has to be a community of purpose in our approach, instead of looking at our projects in a compartmentalised manner.

What of Shivasamudram? Its present owner is the Vishveshwaraiah Vidyut Nigam Limited, a government owned generating company. Its power supply is a miniscule quantity of the total power supplied in Karnataka. But it still functions and its generators churn out power as it did a century back, a testimony to the painstaking and high integrity processes of procurement and project implementation.

Policy Buzz: Edition 5

Keep up-to-date with all that is happening in welfare policy with this curated selection of news, published every fortnight. 

Policy News 

General:

Education: 

  • Delhi will have its own Education Board to help students prepare for competitive entrance examinations like JEE and NEET.  The “next generation board” will not be a replacement to the CBSE, but rather focus on improving existing systems  based on student interest since, as of now, students join coaching centres to clear these exams, said Deputy Chief Minister (and Education Minister) Manish Sisodia. 

Rural Development: 

  • The Union government introduced a pension scheme for farmers – the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maan Dhan Yojana – on 12 September 2019. Under this scheme, farmers between the ages of 18 and 40 are eligible, and will get a minimum monthly pension of Rs. 3,000 after they turn 60 years. The scheme aims to secure the lives of 5 crore small and marginal farmers, and has an outlay of Rs. 10,774 crores for the next three years. 

Opinion

  • Democratic decentralisation is “barely alive in India”, writes TR Raghunandan in this OpEd. He analyses various issues, including the design of funding streams that transfer money to local governments, inadequate staff, centralised control and corruption, as reasons why local governments “remain hamstrung and ineffective”.

 

  • At the recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission, India began awarding a share of the central tax revenue to states in proportion to their forest area. Now, when the  15th Finance Commission will issue new recommendations on tax revenue distribution next month, it should keep the forest area indicator in the formula and update the year when forest area is measured to account for states’ recent forest growth,  write Avani Kapur, Jonah Busch and Anit Mukherjee. This will contribute to keeping India at the “forefront of nations fighting climate change”.

7 Events that Kept Us Busy from Aug-Sep

 

Our work does not stop at dissemination of evidence gathered from our research. Rather, we view evidence building as an enabler of informed conversations and action on Responsive Governance, to assist in the creation of a public system that is accountable to the people in letter and spirit. Below is a curation of the expanse we covered in August and early September to meet this end.

 

1

Accountability Initiative Director Avani Kapur and Ritwik Shukla, Research Associate, participated in and contributed to discussions on financing the public health sector at the second ‘India Flagship Course on Health System Strengthening and Sustainable Financing’. The course was jointly organised by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Health System Transformation Platform, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the National Gender Centre, LBSNAA. The course saw participation of senior IAS officers, research scholars and senior consultants.

 

 

2

Funding for children is critical to ensuring  their welfare. A session on child budgeting, its importance and international best practices was conducted for Finance Officers from all state departments of the Government of Odisha by Mridusmita Bordoloi, Senior Researcher at Accountability Initiative.

 

 

3

For the third time in as many years, our team went back to the Indian School of Development Management to engage with its new cohort on Understanding State Capabilities. Some governance questions generated debate in the classroom last year, and our attempt is to keep this lively exchange going.

 

 

4

A version of the course was carried out for International Innovation Corps Fellows by T.R. Raghunandan, Advisor at Accountability Initiative; Rajika Seth, Lead- Learning and Development; and Ritwik Shukla, Research Associate.

 

 

 

5

How can social sector organisations engage the government? Avantika Shrivastava, Senior Communications Officer at Accountability Initiative, teased out some nuances, at a workshop for professionals looking to enter the development sector. The session in Bengaluru was organised as part of the ‘Demystifying Social Impact Careers’ event by Arthan, Amani Institute and International Innovation Corps.

 

 

6

Since 2009, Accountability Initiative has been studying the design and processes of key social welfare programmes, specifically Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs). Session four of the Policy In-Depth, our flagship thought series for young professionals, unpacked how CSSs have a critical part to play in India’s development story. A video of the talk will soon be publicly available.

 

 

7

For cause-based organisations, advocacy is key to making their voice heard. What does the policy cycle look like? How can a Civil Society Organisation participate in making Responsive Governance a reality? Our team deliberated with staff of NGO World Vision on these and other questions during a 2-day workshop held in Delhi.

What it Took to Construct India’s First Hydroelectric Power Station

Last week, I described the procurement process for the construction of the first hydroelectric power station built in India, at Shivasamudram in Karnataka, in the last years of the 19th Century. In this blog, I look at the complex government negotiations for constructing the station.

Even as the necessary approvals were secured for the selection of General Electric as the main contractor for the supply and commissioning of the electricity generation equipment, the Government of Mysore worked on settling the contracts through which they would sell the power they generated to customers. The main focus was to replace the steam power that ran the Kolar Gold Fields with cheaper and more efficient electric power. For this purpose, a 10 year agreement was entered into with the mines. This agreement provided for commercial terms and conditions and the modalities of power transmission and distribution within the mining area. The government extended its responsibility beyond installing the power generation and transmitting equipment, to purchasing and supplying the distribution plant to work the mining machinery. Even today, the transmission station built more than a century back, owned by the government, exists at the Kolar Gold Fields.

One of the key points to remember is that even as large scale infrastructure projects of this nature are constructed, simultaneously the return in these investments have to be worked out. In the case of the sale of power to the Kolar Gold Fields, the rates for the 4,000 HP promised to be supplied was fixed and graduated on the basis of an equitable return on capital, interest and profit, as at the end of a period of successful operation. The rates were gradually proposed to be lowered over time, as it was anticipated that the power demand would grow. The agreement provided how payments would be affected by interruption of power from any cause. The assurance to provide the contracted power was also matched by a corresponding assurance that the mine could not discontinue the use of power for the load that it assured. Work began in earnest on the construction of the project. After the first year’s working, the government was to hand over the distributing plant to the mines, free of cost.

It took a lot of hard negotiations for the agreement to be finalised. The seventh draft agreement was approved by the Government of Mysore and the mines, after which the approval of the Government of India was obtained.

The issue of water sharing was as live then as it is now. Since the Cauvery river for some distance above the waterfalls fell partly in Madras Presidency, the Madras Government had to be consulted on the terms and conditions of water use for power generation. The Mysore government justified its preferential claim to the water on the grounds that it was the first to investigate using the power potential, that it was prepared to carry out the construction utilising state revenue, and that the water at the falls came almost entirely for Mysore territory. Its utilisation of the river for power generation would not interfere with any existing interests in Madras Presidency.

The Mysore government also enlisted the support of the Government of India and the Viceroy for its proposal. After protracted negotiations also involving the Government of India, the Mysore and Madras governments entered into a concession agreement that stated out their rights on water use. Under this agreement, the Mysore government secured the rights to control the discharge in the river and its branches at and above the falls, and to utilise the whole power of the falls. It also undertook to respect existing legal rights for using water for irrigation and other purposes by the Jaghirdar of Shivasamudram and other private persons while reserving to itself a first right of refusal over the construction of new irrigation works that would diminish the water flow in the river. In order to address some of the above concerns, further changes were made in the technical conception of the project.

Once the complications regarding the sale of power and the rights over water were out of the way, attention shifted to the engineering aspects of the project. Being a hydroelectric project, the availability of adequate water was very crucial. At one heart stopping time, doubts arose where the water available was enough to generate the power required to transmit and deliver 4,000 HP at the mines. Briefly, the government toyed with the idea of supplementing a likely deficiency in hydroelectric power with steam power. After a thorough investigation of the water flows upstream, including an examination of the Madhava Mantri dam twenty miles above the falls, water sufficiency was conclusively established and the steam plant idea was dropped.

Simultaneously with the paperwork, local works were started on 16 August 1900 in the malaria infested jungle that surrounded Shivasamudram. The Cauvery was in high flood when construction started. Almost all the labour force of 5,000 people was brought in from elsewhere. For better mobility of men and material, a central depot was established near the Bangalore city Railway Station and a Tonga service was started between Maddur, the closest railhead, and Shivasamudram. Road transport of the heavy equipment from Maddur was undertaken through special imported road trolleys, with eight huge state elephants from the Mysore government doing yeoman service along with teams of bullocks. A material tramway was also completed on the face of the bluff to move material into the gorge.

Thus, it took a lot of hard negotiations for the project to be finalised.

Also Read: A Testimony to Integrity in Procurement

A Case Study of Government Procurement from 100 Years Ago

Years ago, on the eve of the centenary of the first hydroelectric power station built in India, at Shivasamudram in Karnataka, my wife Aditi and I investigated the procedures followed by the government of the princely state of Mysore in procuring the machinery and constructing of the power station. Our enquiries revealed a fascinating tale of how procurement was done. I reproduce below a newspaper article that we wrote, documenting the events of those early days.

Take the less frequented road from Bangalore to Mysore through Kanakapura and Malavalli, and Shivasamudram is easy to find. The roar of the falls soothes one’s ears before one rounds a bend in the road and comes across the breathtakingly beautiful sight of the falls as it plunges over a bluff into a misty cauldron in the forest below. Refresh yourselves at the century old guest house, where wooden electric fans and brass electrical switches take you to a bygone era. Then comes an exhilarating ride in a trolley to the base of the bluff over which the Cauvery plunges, where a doll’s house of a power station nestles. The polished patterned floor tiles of the softly lit interior of the station are broken only by the seven power turbines, still thrumming with life as they have done over the decades.

Over the last 120 years, Shivasamudram has been both a place for romance and despair. While several engineers remember their most fulfilling moments in its environment, many who worked at Shivasamudram hit the bottle to dispel loneliness. Nevertheless, anybody who has worked in Shivasamudram cannot but be aware of their being a part of a special heritage, of a proud asset of Karnataka. Now barely a handful of persons are alive who can recall the days when Shivasamudram represented the pinnacle of Karnataka’s technological achievements.

While information technology has been the technology buzzword of recent years, it was electricity a century back. Electricity could change night into day, it could heat, and it could run new-fangled machines. Barely a decade after the harnessing of this new creation by the western world the princely state of Mysore took its first step towards electrification. Thirty years after Shivasamudram power station was built, the government commissioned an official history of the state by M Gopalakrishnaia, an engineer associated with the project from its conception in 1899. This lucid book documents a story of vision, hidden in the dusty volumes of file noting and terse telegrams, behind the proud creation of the Shivasamudram power station. For the technology and commercial historian, the book provides an invaluable insight into the early days.

Ideas for utilisation the Shivasamudram falls for generating electricity were considered as early as 1894, when one Edmund Charrington applied to the Mysore government for a concession for developing a hydro-electric power station at the falls. The proposal was shut away and the matter dropped. It was in1899 that Captain A. C. J. De Lotbiniere, then Deputy Chief Engineer in Mysore State, inspired by an account of the Hydro-electric schemes at Niagara falls, came out with the feasibility of generating power at Shivasamudram, backed by the commercial viability of supplying electricity of supplying electricity to the Kolar Gold Mines. Even though preliminary studies had indicated that power supply to the mines from this project would be cheaper than steam power, the project was still grandiose. In the Niagara installation, power was transmitted over a distance of 26 miles. The direct distance from the Cauvery falls to the Gold minds is 90 miles and only in Germany had power been transmitted over a longer distance. When Captain De Lotbiniere placed this scheme before the Dewan of Mysore, Sir. K. Sheshadri Iyer, the project was not without opposition.

Finally in early 1899, the stage was set for conceiving and executing a classic instance of government procurement. How did the government go about it?

Advised by a Committee that he constituted, Captain De Lotbinier drew up conditions of contract with assistance from a renowned firm of consulting engineers, Messrs Russell Duncan and Co., of London, provided for the supply, carriage, erection and maintenance for one year of the plant as also for damages for delay in work completion, for arbitration and for alterations in design as work progresses. According to the contract, the electric plant had to be delivered, erected and to be in working order within 20 months of the acceptance for a further period of one year. As a consequence, power was to be available to the Kolar gold fields by March 1902.

In June 1899, the Mysore Government sent Captain De Lotbiniere to Europe and America to select those who would execute the project. The only communication that Captain De Lotbiniere had with his government was through the miracle technology of telegrams. All approvals had to be received by wire. Captain De Lotbiniere invited tenders for the generation plant and the transmission line from five leading American and continental electrical plant manufacturers, namely, the General Electric Company, America, the Westinghouse Company, England and America, Brown Boverie, a Swiss Company, Oerlikon, another Swiss Company and the General Electric Company of Berlin.

The lowest tender received by the government of Mysore was from Oerlikon. A flurry of telegraph communication ensued between De Lotbiniere and the Mysore government. The easiest thing to do was to select the lowest tenderer. However, Oerlikon’s bid wasn’t accepted. General Electric Company, which was then the largest electrical plant manufacturing company in the world, was chosen to execute this project. The government went by De Lotbiniere’s advice and he stuck his neck out to pick General Electric.

Immediately after Captain De Lotbiniere’s return to India in February 1900, work had to commence simultaneously on other important aspects of the project. First the government of India was requested to approve various concessions and contracts, a majority of which were to obtain a concession from the government of Madras regarding their share of the water at the falls, entering into agreements with Messrs. John Taylor and Sons and other individual mines at Kolar Gold Mines for the sale and purchase of power and entering into contracts with the chosen manufacturers. The government of India’s approvals were received by wire in March 1900, in six weeks after Capt. De Lotbiniere’s return to India.

Then came the next, important phase of government procurement, the actual construction and commissioning of the plant.

Policy Buzz: Edition 4

Keep up-to-date on welfare policy with this curated selection of news, published every fortnight.

Policy News 

 

General: 

  • On August 23rd, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures to boost growth amid concerns of economic slowdown. Her announcement preceded approval for transfer of Rs 1.76 lakh crore by the Reserve Bank of India to the union government. The transfer is said to amount to 1.25% of the GDP (2018-19), and is aimed at meeting the government’s fiscal deficit target.
  • The government has also announced the merging of 10 public sector banks, dubbed as a ‘mega merger’ in the media, to prepare India against economic slowdown.

 

Health and Nutrition: 

  • In a bid to tackle malnutrition, PM Narendra Modi in his monthly Mann Ki Baat programme urged citizens to observe September as ‘Poshan Abhiyan’ across the country. Health and nutrition are seen as a top priority by the government, with efforts directed at a ‘kuposhan mukt bharat’ (malnutrition-free India) by 2022. 
  • In Rajasthan, the state government has decided to launch a new health insurance scheme by combining Ayushman Bharat and Bhamashah, the state Health Minister has said. Implementation will begin from 1 September 2019. 

 

Education: 

  • The Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched a new app to encourage transparency in education service delivery. ‘Shagun’ is envisioned to provide users with information such as report cards of 15 lakh schools, and the distance between schools. 
  • The deadline for giving recommendations on the draft National Education Policy was 15th August 2019 with the finalised document expected to become a guiding light for public school education in the country. Accountability Initiative has extensively studied government education bureaucracy, education financing among other things, based on which recommendations have been submitted. These can be found here.

 

Sanitation:

  • In an attempt to make toilets more accessible for people with disabilities, the government is launching an initiative called the San Sadhan Hackathon. Keen to get smart, scalable and innovative solutions for economical toilets, the government has invited tech enthusiasts to participate in the hackathon. They will be mentored by the Ministry of Jal Shakti and industry experts.

Corruption in Government Procurement

Apart from the corruption in government transactions with the general public in the delivery of services, corruption in government procurement happens to be the most important form of corruption in the public sector. The variety and volumes of government procurement are enormous. They primarily include the hiring of government staff and the purchase of capital and consumable goods and services by the government. Hiring of staff and their deployment is a matter that is in itself so vast, that it merits a separate discussion altogether. Therefore, for the purposes of this blog series, I propose to confine myself to the purchase of goods and services by the government.

There is a wide variety of purchases that are made by the government, ranging from office clips to aircraft carriers. In addition, government also outsources its services to private players, such as, for example, in the form of catering contracts, hiring of vehicles and taxies, cleaning and sanitation services, security provision and of late, outsourced office resources. Private-public partnerships are another form of service delivery arrangements. In all these arrangements, however, some generic rules apply as to how governments are to engage in procurement activity.

The simplest and most easily understood rule is the one that the government, when it has a choice, must buy from the supplier who agrees to supply at the cheapest price. ‘Purchase from the L1’ as it is often referred to, has led to an abundance of jokes; remember the one about the astronaut sitting back in his hot seat, waiting to be blasted off into space, reflecting upon the grim fact that everything on the rocket was supplied by L1, the lowest tenderer? However, this is not some eccentric and rigid rule that is to be applied mindlessly. The underlying rationale behind this long held precept is that the government must, single minded, strive to get the best value for the money that it dispenses. The moment that one brings in the fundamental objective of obtaining the best value for money, price is no longer the sole criterion. The quality of the product (however that may be determined and articulated), the practicality of its application, the ease of maintenance, durability, longevity and a host of other factors that contribute to the best value for money, jostle for space and attention.

All questions that pertain to procurement are best understood if one answers the few fundamental questions asked to the buyer. First, why does one want to procure something? Is the need identified, and the use of the product to fulfill that need beyond doubt? Second, what is the description of the product, with as much precision as possible, which will meet the identified need? Third, what is the volume of the product that is required in order to satisfy the identified need? Once the justification for and the description and volume of the items sought to be procured is ascertained, then come several subsidiary, but equally important questions that have to be answered. When does one want that product? At how many points and how many items per point, is the delivery required? What is the maintenance requirement for the product? What is the experience and track record of the aspiring suppliers? Who will inspect and satisfy themselves that the consignment conforms to the agreed description of the product that is sought to be procured? What are the terms of payment? What are the terms and conditions of a guarantee, if any, to which the supply will be conditional? And finally, what is the proposed price of the product?

These fundamental questions, more or less in the same degree, apply to the procurement of services as well. As one enters into answering these, the process of procurement gets more and more complicated. Yet, procurements are inevitable, and since each one of these questions requires an element of discretion in their consideration, these transactions are inevitably corruption prone.

Years back, on the eve of the centenary of the first hydroelectric power station built in India, my wife and I investigated the procedures followed by the government of the princely state of Mysore in procuring the machinery and construction of the power station. Our enquiries revealed a fascinating tale of how procurement was done. I will elaborate in my next blog, to show that the questions that concern procurements of today have not fundamentally changed in more than a century.

This blog is part of a series. The first blog can be found here.