Blog Archive - Page 91 of 130 - Accountability Initiative: Responsive Governance

Making the RTI Work: A public hearing on the effectiveness of the Rajasthan State Information Commission

Recently, Jaipur’s Rajasthan University played host to the first ever Jan Manch or public hearing to evaluate the operations of the state’s Information commission (SIC). Organized by a network of Rajasthan based civil society organizations including the Rozgar Evum Soochna Adhikaar Abhiyaan, the Jan Manch brought together a motley crew of appellants, activists, and journalists on a common platform to share their experiences in dealing with the commission and debate its effectiveness in safeguarding the provisions of the Right to Information Act (RTI) in the state. What made the Manch unique was the constant stream of senior government officials, including the State Information Commissioner, through the day who sat through parts of the hearing and participated in the deliberations that followed.

As an observer to the day’s proceedings, I was struck by the importance of the event first, because it struck at the heart of the RTI – as the arbitrator of decisions on the nature of information that falls within the purview of the law the information commissions are the last word on the RTI. They thus set the benchmark against which the effectiveness of the implementation of RTI can be judged. Second, by bringing citizens together to share their experiences and debate the effectiveness of the commission in the presence of the commissioner and other officials, the event is a watershed in the nature of citizen-state engagement and the tools and spaces available for citizens to monitor government performance and demand accountability.

By bringing citizens together to share their experiences and debate the effectiveness of the commission in the presence of the commissioner and other officials, the event is a watershed in the nature of citizen-state engagement and the tools and spaces available for citizens to monitor government performance and demand accountability.

In the days preceding the Manch, meticulous research was undertaken to procure data from a wide sample of second appellants, analyze and document their experiences. 700 questionnaires were circulated to appellants across the state soliciting information on their experiences. Over 200 appellants responded. Efforts were also made to directly contact appellants and invite them to share their experiences at the Manch. The research culminated in the preparation of a comprehensive report of the operations of the Information Commission that was shared with participants at the Jan Manch. These findings ensured that the day’s discussions were rooted in objective evidence and real experience.

The survey revealed important facts about the effectiveness of the commission. First and perhaps most worrying, the appeal process rarely results in citizens accessing the information requested. As many as 68% of the respondents said that the commission upheld the decisions made by the Public Information Officers (PIOs) and rejected the appeals. The respondents also said that this reflected a bias in favour of the PIOs. The import of these rejections needs to be understood in the context of the nature or basis on which these decisions are made. A recent nationwide assessment of the RTI conducted by RAAG found as many as 58% of the rejections upheld by the Rajasthan SIC were unjustified and did not comply with the provisions of the Act. In this scenario, the high number of rejections by the commission is worrying. To evaluate the extent to which the appeal process assists citizens in accessing information, respondents were asked whether they received information post the appeal process. 50% respondents said that the appeal process did not result in their receiving information rejected while 30% said that they received parts of the information they wanted.

Another problem the survey highlighted was that of compliance with the commission’s orders. 83% respondents whose appeals were accepted by the commission said that they are yet to receive information from the PIO indicating that PIOs rarely comply with SIC orders. Many activists argue that the reason for this is the failure of the SIC to impose penalties on errant PIOs and award compensation to harassed citizens. According to data collected by RAAG the Rajasthan SIC has imposed 25 penalties since its inception. The survey undertaken by the Jan Manch also highlighted this problem. Respondents were asked if they felt the PIO ought to have been penalized in their respective cases. As many as 90% respondents felt their case merited the imposition of a penalty but a mere 8% said that penalties were actually imposed. Other problems highlighted by the survey included long delays in the SICs and constant postponement of hearings. This is not specific to Rajasthan. The RAAG study found that disposal rates are extremely poor across the country and waiting time for a case to be heard can vary between 2-20 months!

Bringing together citizens and government officials on a common platform to scrutinize the implementation of the RTI and offer suggestions, the Jan Manch demonstrated the potential of platforms such as this to strengthen the implementation of the RTI

The Jan Manch provided an opportunity for citizens to share their travails with the SIC and the government. About 100 second appellants participated in the Manch. There was Raman Kumar who has been trying to access documents pertaining to his pension from the education department since 2007. He has made over 10 visits to the IC and is yet to get his information. There was Ram Kumar Gagani from Chittorgarh whose story reflected the arbitrariness of appeal decisions. His appeal was initially accepted by the IC but the PIO refused to comply. Following this, he filed another appeal to the commission, but this time the commission turned its previous decision on its head and rejected Mr. Gagani’s appeal!

Through data and real life experiences, the Manch unraveled the many challenges to the effective implementation of the RTI. More crucially, the process created the opportunity for citizens and government to debate solutions. The organizers of the event put together a list of demands that they put forward to the SIC. Stricter compliance with section four disclosure norms; the creation of a single window system for submitting RTI applications; spreading awareness about the RTI; speedy disposal of IC cases and stricter imposition of penalties and the inclusion of penalties as an indicator for PIO performance evaluations and finally the tabling of SIC annual reports in the state legislatures were some of the key demands and suggestions made. Panelists and participants also made suggestions towards addressing some of the weakness within the IC. Important amongst these was the suggestion that the IC could publically report on the compliance to its orders by government departments and PIOs. This could go a long way in creating pressure necessary for PIOs to respond to IC orders. The need for better training, budgets and staffing norms were also discussed.

By meticulously analyzing the everyday operations of the commission and bringing together citizens and government officials on a common platform to scrutinize the implementation of the RTI and offer suggestions, the Jan Manch demonstrated the potential of platforms such as this to strengthen the implementation of the RTI. To me, the most revolutionary aspect of the day’s proceedings was not so much the complaints citizens made but rather the fact that much of the day was spent discussing concrete suggestions for improving performance. Making complaints is easy but offering constructive suggestions for improvements is much harder. The importance of these suggestions is that many came directly from citizens who have invoked provisions of that Act and are thus well versed with its strengths and weaknesses. Second, the Jan Manch marks the first time that citizens voluntarily came forward to scrutinize government functioning and engage in a constructive dialogue with officials. The presence of officials through the day suggests the beginnings of a significant mind-set change within the government where officials have at least recognized the value of direct citizen engagement. All participating officials spoke of their desire to receive constructive suggestions and feedback through this Manch.

Most important, the Manch is a testimony to the tranformatory potential and power of the RTI. The very fact that hundreds of citizens responded to survey questions and many of them willingly made their way to Jaipur to share their experiences is evidence enough of the power of the RTI. What we need are many more Jan Manches.

Yamini Aiyar is the Director of Accountability Initiative, and Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Policy Research

Harnessing IT for good governance

Over the past decade or so, there have been islands of e-Governance initiatives in the country at the national, state, district and even block level. Some of them have been highly successful and are ready for replication across other states. Experiences from successes as well as the failures of the various initiatives play an important role in shaping the e-governance strategy of the country. As part of the Accountability Initiative’s research agenda – highlighting good governance practices across the country, I had the opportunity to study the e-governance initiative undertaken by the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) in Gujarat.

In our study, we tried to answer a host of questions including why the initiative was undertaken in the first place, how it got started, by whom, what the incentives were etc; and attempted to shed light on understanding how an e-governance initiative works, and how using information technology can improve the efficiency and accountability of services at no great cost. The successful development of such initiatives has valuable lessons for increasing accountability in civic management across the country.

There has been an increase in efficiency and the collection of dues, making many transactions paperless. As a result the RMC is saving Rs.30 – 40 lakh per year.

I interviewed key officials in the Municipal Corporation and at a later stage some elected representatives in order to gauge what they think of the new system, as well as interviewed IT officials who actually designed the software.

It is under the aegis of the Urban Renewal mission on City Governance that the entire E-governance initiative has taken off. The RMC has developed an interactive website as well as set up an SMS –based complaint management system. The RMC has also set up five City Civic Centres (CCCs) where people can go to access various Municipal services and a 24×7 call centre where complaints can be called in and are instantly logged into the Management Information System. Engineers on the ground instantly get SMSs informing them of these complaints and once they are resolved, they can SMS this back to this Management Information System. This web-based accessible system enables the tracking of the service delivery at every stage, facilitates the flow of information, and thus strengthens the relations of accountability amongst the various actors.

Interestingly, in my interviews with the staff it came up that the inspiration for the SMS alerts system came from banking alerts that an RMC member used to get on his cell-phone! However, it was evident that the biggest factor which drove officials towards developing the online and telephonic system to address problems was that through this medium people have stopped coming to the RMC offices for simple queries and this gives the officers more time to address ‘real’ issues. Necessity, in this case, was indeed the mother of invention. For example, simple tasks like tax calculations etc used to take a lot of time and effort and now these can easily be done through the website. All the software development for the complaints system at the CCCs was done in-house by the staff of the RMC. The team is continuously in touch with the end users to minimise problems with the website. All of this saves costs.

As per the Nagrik Adhikar Patrak (Citizen Charter), the time limit for the complaint redressal is fixed and if during that time limit the complaint is not solved, complaint details are automatically escalated to next level officer; there too the time limit is fixed, if it is not solved then the complaint details are escalated to the highest authority. This is taken care of by the e-Governance software. In some cases, where delay in resolving the complaint is unavoidable (ex. Major drainage operations etc), the call centre records this and informs the complainant of such delay.

The effective use of IT services in government administration can greatly enhance existing efficiencies, drive down communication costs, and increase transparency in the functioning of various departments

Some of the achievements of the initiative so far have been: 80% public related services (like issuance of computerized Birth and Death certificates since 1973) and back office services (which help in strengthening of administrative process) are computerized; more than 60 different utilities are computerized; the City Civic Centres are online. There has been an increase in efficiency and the collection of dues, making many transactions paperless. As a result the RMC is saving Rs.30 – 40 lakh per year. Auditing has become much easier; and citizens do not have to make complaints by coming to the offices anymore.

What about the effects of this system on accountability within the RMC? Since data on complaints received by day/ward/department and officer-wise responses is now easily collected and available, the track record and efficiency with which officers dispose of their complaints is accessible throughout the system. And this could arguably lead to better appraisal of their performance, and hence affect their accountability. In this sense, it is clear that this is quite a powerful tool – the monitoring of outcomes is in-built in the system and the RMC now has the ability to take non-performing officials to task.

The effective use of IT services in government administration can greatly enhance existing efficiencies, drive down communication costs, and increase transparency in the functioning of various departments. It also gives citizens easy access to tangible benefits, be it through simple applications such as online form filling, bill sourcing and payments, or more complex applications. And as is clear from the efforts undertaken by the Rajkot Municipal Corporation, such efforts can be done on a small-scale by a group of dedicated individuals without major resources.

Abhijit Patnaik is Senior Researcher at Accountability Initiative.

Observations from the field: Sehore, Madhya Pradesh

As an intern at the Accountability Initiative one of my assignments was mapping, with the help of GPS technology, the public services at the six villages that were being covered under the PAISA project. These villages are located in the Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, approximately 60 kms from Bhopal, the state capital, and have been chosen due in part to Madhya Pradeshs’ history with decentralisation (of public function) as well as language and accessibility.

Amirganj, Sehore, MP: View from the highest point

The objective of the visit to Sehore was the mapping of all public services delivered to these villages, and the development of new templates to relay data on the status of primary schools in these areas. The work that was done can be accessed from the Accountability Initiative website shortly.The following are a few notes on the observations I made during my trip to these villages.

The villages of Dhaba, Palaspani, Amajhir, Amirganj, Sirali and Bhilai are located in the Narsullaganj block in Sehore. The public services made available to them are provided by Central Government Schemes, the Village Panchayat or the Van Vibhag. Basic services include the provision of hand-pumps, wells, roads, work under NREGA, schooling and access to toilets built under the Total Sanitation Campaign. While large amounts of funds have been released for each of these, the success of some of these campaigns is questionable.

Van Vibagh – Forest Department Office, Sirali

Take for example, the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) – the objective of which is to “to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with broader goal to eradicate the practice of open defecation.” One of the facilities to be built is the Individual Household Latrine where toilets are built for every Below Poverty Line (BPL) family. The government has released Rs 2200 per family while beneficiaries are to contribute Rs. 300 for the project. The project aims at building a basic low cost unit with a superstructure for these households. While most of these facilities have been cited as completed by the local worker at Dhaba and the sarpanch at Bhilai, none of these units have doors and most of the residents consider them to be unusable. The worker maintains that to provide doors additional funds of approximately Rs. 700 are needed. Though superstructures can be seen at most households the ultimate aim of providing villagers with sanitation facilities is not being met.

Schools in these villages are run admirably under the Sarva Shiksha Abhyan (SSA) but teachers have a gargantuan task of educating students who need special attention and handling their administrative work at the same time. Student attendance in some of these villages is very low while many students in Grades 6 and above have problem with elementary Math. This leads to a class where student needs vary greatly, and teachers cannot standardise their teaching assignments and finish school text-books within the academic year. More importantly, they fail to deliver quality education to children.

Rural connectivity has improved drastically under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) while work under the rural employment guarantee scheme is not very visible as most workers are engaged in agriculture during this period. The village of Palaspani is easily one of the most neglected villages in this area. With only one 100m road in the whole village and no connectivity to other villages, Palaspani is bereft of even proper sanitation and drinking water facilities. There are only two working handpumps located in one corner of the village.

Due to some of the many problems listed here, villagers are often disillusioned and disheartened. They understand that community involvement is necessary to improve the status of these villages but have little information on how to do so. Problems like not having proper knowledge on grievance redressal mechanisms irk them and render them helpless and, later, apathetic. The government is investing a lot in rural development but they also need to see the work through to the end. Better accountability measures need to be implemented as a means to achieve this end and village residents need to be provided with easier means to access information and redress grievances.

Satellite Dish on the house

Despite all these problems, a sight that strikes you immediately is the pervasive satellite dishes mounted over most households that provides villagers access to satellite television! It makes you wonder whether the provisioning of more basic services that need to be provided through the government will improve, or whether private players will find solutions in the near future. I do believe that villagers are more than ready to pay for these “better” facilities as shown by their propensity to subscribe to satellite TV. The important thing here is how we find means to provide them access to these.

Peeyush Agarwal is a student at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He interned at Accountability Initiative in December 2009.

The Right to Education Act: Getting the Design Right for Right Implementation

How do we deliver elementary education effectively and accountably to India’s children? This question is becoming increasingly more relevant as India begins work to implement the recently passed Right to Education Act (RTE). See here for an interesting review by Rukmini Banerji of James Tooley’s latest book, The Beautiful Tree. The book is an effort to address one critical question: “If public education is so dismal and time-consuming to reform to make it better for poor people…could private schools be a quicker, easier, more effective solution?” The review raises the issue of local ownership as holding the key to effective and accountable delivery. Can better decentralization improve education outcomes? And if so, what is the best design through which this should be done?

Local institutions need to be nurtured and resourced. They need to be provided with information and capacity, and perhaps most importantly, the system needs to create incentives that make local participation meaningful.

The RTE has many provisions for ensuring accountability through decentralization, including the creation of school management committees (SMC) empowered to make plans and monitor school-level expenditures. But as is well known in India, the devil lies in the implementation. How effectively these accountability provisions will work on the ground depends on getting the ‘right’ design that will ensure accountability and transparency in implementation process. How can this be achieved?

If there is one lesson to take home from India’s past experience, particularly with the implementation of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, it is that simply creating decentralized institutions such as the Village Education Committees (VEC) that ‘invite’ local participation in planning does not itself result in effective decentralized delivery – it is now widely accepted that VECs for the most part are defunct. Local institutions need to be nurtured and resourced. They need to be provided with information and capacity, and perhaps most importantly, the system needs to create incentives that make local participation meaningful. How do we ensure this in the RTE? Now as bureaucrats are at the drawing board developing the rules and guidelines for the implementation of the RTE, this issue needs to be seriously debated so that for once we get the ‘implementation design’ right.

Yamini Aiyar is Director of Accountability Initiative.

On why we don’t govern ourselves better

Why do some societies govern themselves better than others? While this is a key question that animates much debate in the political economy of development, in my everyday musings I have considered variants on the theme. And invariably, with the cynicism and frustration that often characterizes my own experience of living in India, I find myself looking for answers to the question “what would it take for Indians to govern themselves better?”

At an everyday level, take our traffic sense, for instance. Presumably a pet peeve of everyone that is reading this post now. And each one of us has probably at some point wondered why we behave the way we do on our roads? Why do we honk so savagely? Why is the right of way always “MINE”, and our roundabouts veritable Russian roulette? Why do we violate the rules with such impunity? And complain that the traffic policemen don’t do their jobs, and join in as accomplices anyway by bribing them when they try to fine us for our faults? Why do we chuckle and shrug all these questions off 5 seconds later? Why the casual tolerance of the ordeal that driving on our roads is?

But this is not a rant on our collective traffic sense – or even the lack of it.

Our little and not-so-little everyday corruptions and collusions that give expression to our ‘mistaken view of the state as a vehicle for personal aggrandizement’?

One of our colleagues, who participated in the recent NREGA social audits in Rajasthan, recounted to us how spectacular the event was and how successful it was in uncovering large amounts of fraud. But there were also instances he recounted where the Sarpanches had co-opted some of the villagers and gave them wages for 40 days without needing them to work at all, and kept the remaining 60-days worth of wages, and declared those villagers as having worked the whole 100 days. In this web of co-option, everyone stood to gain – the workers got money for doing nothing (and presumably could use those 100 days to work some more elsewhere and earn further) – the Sarpanch got to keep the money that was never his. It is highly unlikely that a fraud such as this would come up in a social audit, as the co-opted villager has little incentive to speak against the Sarpanch because he himself is accomplice in the crime. The only room for suspicion is the asset that needs to be created at the end of the day as part of the NREGA – a well, a road etc. But with a bit of discretion and ingenuity, anybody can see that there is much scope for the Sarpanch to continue exploiting the goose, one golden egg at a time.

But this is not a post about social audits either.

There are dozens of other instances, ranging from the quotidian to the profound. What is it with our casual fly-tipping? Our defacing of our heritage monuments? Our men peeing on the roads with impunity? Our dismal sense of queuing? Our bakshish to the guy who comes to take the electricity and water meter readings? Our politics? Our almost inhuman acceptance of social discrimination as one’s lot? Our little and not-so-little everyday corruptions and collusions that give expression to our ‘mistaken view of the state as a vehicle for personal aggrandizement’?

Looking for an all-encompassing diagnosis of what ails us through all of these symptoms is a complex academic exercise. At some level of abstraction, theories that have tried to answer questions like why some societies govern themselves better than others, or why some countries develop while others remain trapped in low-growth high-poverty equilibria, have done related things. In the literature on these questions, the possible answers like Geography, Trade, Culture and Colonization, have been found either to be instrumental or to not stand rigorous analysis. The current status of the argument proposes institutions as an explanatory variable to account for differences between societies. Institutions defined simply as rules of the game – the norms of behaviour that structure how people in a society interact with each other. In our public lives, there are formal public institutions like the Constitution, the Law, the Civil Services and so forth, and then there are the everyday informal institutions – the norms and traditions that govern our interactions with one another. Our system of beliefs, our faith, and our caste system in practice being some examples. The theory says progressive institutions are those that create incentives in a way that maximizes the collective benefit for the society as a whole. Regressive ones are those that make it possible for a select few to exploit others.

While that is a plausible explanation, there is something to be said also about the reverse direction of the causality. That is, not only do institutions influence how a society works, but a society and its people – you and I – also influence how our institutions develop over time. Some institutions that suit the more powerful among us are kept that way even if they hurt most others. The caste system is one enduring example of a bad institution that continues to be with us in myriad ways. In other words, institutions – formal and informal – are not always a given. They are a living breathing animal, shaped and reshaped by its people, and by how they affect their incentives. So in a society where bad institutions give scope for economic, social and political discriminations, its people should also at some level be held culpable. Perhaps every society gets the institutions it deserves? This is not unlike saying that every society gets the politicians it deserves, or the journalism it deserves, and the criminals it deserves, perhaps even the traffic it deserves. “We must be crap people”, then, is arguably a fair diagnosis in itself of why we bribe and collude and discriminate and drive badly.

Any approach to accountability (better governance) can only be partial unless it aims eventually to internalize accountable behaviour. As if it were a norm. And for such an approach it is perhaps not enough to look at accountability as making a rule, and making people follow it, “if not…”.

If that seems plausible, what can we do about it? Can we legislate against it? But then we have. And we always find ways to work around the laws and ‘outsmart’ the system. Can we legislate some more? Implement better? Enforce better? Perhaps. But is this merely about legislation? The government? Is this an instrumental matter for policy? Or do we need to dig deeper? Should we go into in the realm of ethics and morals where laws by themselves have limited impact? Go on a collective soul-searching mission? Why are we the way we are, and why can’t we all be better people? Perhaps.

But the point is, any approach to accountability (better governance) can only be partial unless it aims eventually to internalize accountable behaviour. As if it were a norm. And for such an approach it is perhaps not enough to look at accountability as making a rule, and making people follow it, “if not…”.

Perhaps what we also need is a discourse on accountability that invokes it positively – as a responsibility. A moral and ethical responsibility of each and every one of us, as much as it is a legal obligation. A duty as much as a right.

If this is idealism, perhaps we need a bit of idealism in our pragmatics?

Bala Posani is Senior Research Analyst at Accountability Initiative

Scaling Up Social Accountability: Accountability Scorecard

Strengthening accountability relationships between policy makers, service providers and citizens is at the core of the public accountability effort. After many years of practice, piloting and trial and error, efforts are now increasingly focused on how to scale-up and mainstream these interventions. To address this, I’m proposing a new tool called Accountability Scorecard. An “Accountability Scorecard” would identify and provide information about the factors that determine the long-term success of a Centrally Sponsored/Central Sector Scheme. The score card can be used as a checklist while drafting a new scheme or can be used as a performance measurement tool for already existing schemes.

My initial thoughts are that it should include five elements namely-

1. Strategic Planning,
2. Expenditure Management, Financial Controls and Reporting-Implementation
3. Accountability to Oversight Bodies
4. Monitoring of Service Delivery
5. Handling of Misconduct, Corruption and Maladministration.

The panel would give their individual scores on each of these 50 questions and thus a scheme can be categorized either as a Non-compliance scheme, or as an Extremely Poor Compliance or a Full Compliance scheme.

Sample questions might include:

* Has adequate/accurate data been collected about the sector and presented in the plan document?
* Does the plan nominate a responsible official for all the activities?
* Does the scheme have a clear guideline for state govt. and autonomous agencies to release a minimum grant amount every month?
* Is there list of districts for which the budget data not available?
* Is the reason for the non availability of the data is also specified?
* Is there a specific set of officers who can be held responsible if the minimum monthly grant does not reach the primary delivery unit (e.g.-schools/panchayat) ?
* Are there mechanisms for dispute resolution without going through the courts?
* Have the state governments’ views been solicited?
* Is the performance management scheme for the bureaucrats linked to the service delivery outputs of the Department?
* What kind of incentive structure is there to compliance with timely delivery of the output?
* Did the Department report adequately on cases of misconduct and corruption in its Annual Report to the Legislature?

And so on…

To start with there would be 50 questions in a score card. Each of which have a “yes/no” answer and each of which should be backed by a more detailed definition to make clear whether the answer is yes or no. A consolidated score can be generated on the basis of this.

Unlike a Community Score Card, here feedback won’t be sought from the local level community. For an example, if a civil society/Research organization wants to develop a scorecard for National Rural Health Mission, then it would invite a panel and the panel should consist of: State Facilitators for National Rural Health Mission, Accountant in the State Department , who is working on NRHM, Representative of a local NGO working on NRHM in the state, NRHM official from Delhi, Representative of an International NGO/organization who has worked on same scheme in different country, Academician. The panel would give their individual scores on each of these 50 questions and thus a scheme can be categorized either as a Non-compliance scheme, or as an Extremely Poor Compliance or a Full Compliance scheme.

For anyone interested in thinking seriously about how to scale-up social accountability efforts, I believe this can be a good beginning of a necessary conversation.

Sruti Bandyopadhyay is a Researcher at Accountability Initiative.

Social Audits: Field Notes from Warangal

Earlier this month, a group of eight students from Princeton University travelled with our professor, Dr. Jeffrey Hammer, from Princeton, New Jersey, USA to Duddungi block in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh, India.

The purpose of our trip was to learn about the social audit process that has been instituted in AP to monitor the implementation of NREGA, the national employment guarantee act. According to the 2005 act, each rural Indian household should be provided with 100 days manual labour per year. A unique feature of the act is that work should be provided on demand. There are other salient features of the act as well, which distinguish it from previous government employment programs. NREGA workers are supposed to be paid the state minimum wage, in cash, within 15 days of completion of a job. The national NREGA guidelines stipulate that social audit audits should be used to monitor NREGA implementation. As yet, however, only AP has done social auditing on a wide scale.

The culmination of the social audit process is the social audit forum, an occasion for the social audit team and for villagers who choose to attend to share the findings of the social audit.

Before travelling to Warangal, a rural district about 5 hours east of Hyderabad, we met with Ms. Sowmya, one of the main coordinators of AP’s social audits. Ms. Sowmya, an activist originally based in Rajasthan with the NGO MKSS, told us about the social audit team and the social audit process. She described a process whereby literate young men (and sometimes women) are recruited from families who have worked on NREGA projects and trained to scrutinize muster rolls and other documents pertaining to NREGA work. These “village social auditors” then worksites and workers’ homes crosschecking the documents, which are obtained using India’s new Right to Information Act. The auditors make notes about discrepancies in payments and measurements, and inform workers about their rights under the act.

The culmination of the social audit process is the social audit forum, an occasion for the social audit team and for villagers who choose to attend to share the findings of the social audit. We Princeton students had the fortunate opportunity to attend a social audit forum while we were in Duddungi. The forum was held outside the block development office. Preparations for the social audit forum began in the morning, with the raising of a large tent, and the assembly of tables and chairs for the attendees. People arrived throughout the morning, and the program got underway around 11am. The employees of the BDO, the district level program officer, members from many levels of the social team, field assistants and technical assistants, villagers, and curious neighbors attended the forum. There was even a police presence; we were told that the last social audit forum in Duddungi had been tense, so this time, extra precautions were taken.

Complaints involved issues of worksite mismeasurement, overreporting of the number of workers, and discrepancies between days worked and wages paid.

To begin, a member of the social audit team sang a song about the NREGA. After that, different district level resource persons read out complaints from the notes they had prepared about the social audit. The district level program officer moderated the discussion and the block level program assistant took notes. The complaints involved issues of worksite mismeasurement, overreporting of the number of workers, and discrepancies between days worked and wages paid. Some villagers waited several hours for their complaints to be discussed. One woman said that she was waiting to talk to the officials about compensation for an injury that her husband had sustained on an NREGA worksite.

By 5 o’clock, it was beginning to get dark, but the forum was still in full swing. We decided that it was time for us to head back to Hyderabad. As we piled in the cars, we were left with several questions: How will the issues raised at the forum be dealt with? What will happen to the people who spoke out at the forum? Will the implementation of the NREGA be affected by this process? We hope that our analysis of a dataset collected by the Accountability Initiative in 2007 and 2008 about social audits and the NREGA in Andhra Pradesh will help shed light on the answers some of our questions.

We are grateful to the Accountability Initiative and to the Ministry of Rural Development in Andhra Pradesh for arranging this unique opportunity for us to learn more about government accountability and to see a social audit forum in person.

Diane is a student at Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

Rights Based Entitlements in India

In recent years, rights based people’s movements have had considerable success in gaining legal recognition for basic rights and services such as the right to education, food information etc. According to Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “The rights movement rose against the backdrop of state failure. What people are groping for is different instruments through which the Constitution’s objectives may be realized.” Summarised below are some examples of basic rights that have found legal recognition in recent years:

Right to Education
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (Right to Education Act (RTE) in short) was passed by Parliament in August 2009. The Act gives effect to the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002 which requires the State to provide free and compulsory elementary education to all children. The RTE Act guarantees free and compulsory elementary education for all children between the ages of 6-14 years. Government schools are required to provide free and compulsory education to all children admitted while aided schools are required to provide free and compulsory to a minimum of 25% of enrolled children. Under the Act no child shall be held back in class, expelled or required to pass a board exam until his/her elementary education is complete. The physical punishment and mental harassment of children is prohibited under the law. The Act also makes provisions for schools (government and unaided) to admit at least 25% of students from SCs, STs, low-income and other disadvantaged groups. The Government has recently framed model rules for implementation of the law.

Right to Food
To combat the challenges of hunger, starvation, malnutrition and food insecurity, the Congress Party in its 2009 Election Manifesto promised to enact a “National Food Security Act” to provide 25 Kgs of rice or wheat at Rs 3 per Kg for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. However, the draft “National Food Security Bill” has been extensively criticised – in particular for limiting the list of beneficiaries to BPL households. Right to food campaigners and activists are demanding a more comprehensive “Food Entitlements Act” which goes beyond the limited provision of 25 kgs of grain at Rs 3 Kg for BPL households. Key provisions of the proposed “Food Entitlements Act” include: a universal Public Distribution System (providing at least 35 Kgs of grain per family); special food entitlements for destitute households (including an expanded Antyodaya programme); consolidation of all entitlements created by recent Supreme Court orders (e.g. cooked mid-day meals in primary schools and universalisation of ICDS) etc.

Forest Rights Act
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 was passed by Parliament in December 2006. However the Act was officially notified into force a year later in December 2007, while the Rules for the Act were notified on 1 January 2008. The Forest Rights Act (as it is popularly known) recognizes and secures the forest rights of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwelling communities and provides them with a voice in forest conservation issues. Specifically, the Act recognises three kinds of rights: (i) land rights over land that has been occupied for cultivation or residence (ii) usage rights over forest produce and traditional knowledge and (iii) legal rights to protect and conserve forests. The Forest Rights Act has been criticized by conservationists who feel the law will hasten the depletion of India’s forest cover and wildlife. There are also serious concerns about how the Act is being implemented in different parts of the country.

Right to Information
The Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI Act) was passed in 2005 following a decade long grassroots and civil society campaign. Notably, even before its enactment into law, the right to information had been recognized by the Supreme Court of India as a fundamental part of the right to freedom of speech and right to life (Articles 19 and 21 respectively) of the Constitution. The RTI Act sets out practical regime for citizens in India to access information held by the government. It guarantees a legally enforceable right to information to all citizens places a corresponding duty on the government to provide information proactively and on request. The Act covers the whole country (with the exception of Jammu and Kashmir) and extends to all branches of the government. The legislation spells out a detailed administrative structure to facilitate citizen’s access to information including provisions for the setting up of Information Commissions to handle appeals and complaints.

Grama Swaraj in Karnataka: How is it going?

Jeffrey Hammer

Checking in on the ongoing Gram Swaraj project in northern Karnataka recently raised a few interesting questions, re-enforced some prejudices of mine and pointed out some trouble spots of which we should all be aware.

The Grama Swaraj Project (GSP) is simple: it gives each Grama Panchayat 5-7 lakhs rupees to do with as it sees fit. The main requirement for spending the money is to make sure a Grama Sabha takes place ahead of the Grama Panchayat meeting that decides what to do with the money. 5-7 lakhs doesn’t sound like much in comparison to, say, NREGA funds (whose use was intended to be decided the same way but, in Karnataka, usually isn’t) but these are often the only untied, fully discretionary funds a GP has. Lots of money flows through a bank account with the GP’s name on it but almost all of that is earmarked for specific uses (they have to pay the teacher, they have to fund the digging of borewells). GSP money can be used for anything except a very short list of forbidden items like religious buildings, guns, drugs and other obvious restrictions.

How’s it going? Well, formal evaluations are currently in progress but I can tell you what I saw and heard while visiting.

First off, there were no complaints about misuse of these funds. Mention NREGA and you’ll get an earful of complaints but mention Grama Swaraj and you’ll hear “oh, that’s working much better”. Now, it is fully possible that GSP involves such small sums that it’s not even worth the trouble for the usual suspects to go after them. A perfectly good question to ask is what would happen if local autonomy were granted for spending substantial chunks of money. The sharks could certainly rise to that bait. But, so far, that hasn’t been an issue.

Second, people seem genuinely pleased to be able to fund items that would be too small for the relevant line ministry to even think about but which make a big difference in the lives of villages. In northern Karnataka, water and sanitation are perennial issues (even before this year’s disappointing monsoon) and these were common areas for the use of these funds.

Third, the technical quality of the work appears to be much higher under GSP than NREGA. Roads that look several years old and are an inch or two thick (checked scientifically by kicking at the edges of the road and seeing what pops up – literally) built within the past few months under NREGA auspices were noticeably worse than those built with the GP’s own money. NREGA funds are supposed to be their own money, too, but no one seemed to feel responsible for how that money was spent. In contrast, money that was perfectly transparent in the amount spent and the purpose to which it was put in GSP yielded solidly built and usable infrastructure.

So, is everything going just fine? Does this devolution of purchasing autonomy solve everything? Well, no – some problems are clearly worth worrying about.

The first is the interference of higher levels of government and bureaucratic processes that, actually, were not allowed under the design of the project. So, for example, one village wanted more public toilets. They figured, given that water was in very short supply, that covered pits were the most appropriate. There are plenty of designs for safe covered pit toilets. However, the Junior Engineer, with support from district health authorities, said they had to have a water-intensive septic tank system. This made the village change their minds (they knew they couldn’t spare the water for this) but they were not allowed to change projects though there is nothing in the program that should have prevented them changing their minds. So there is a lakh’s worth of well constructed but useless sanitation infrastructure sitting in the village. Local decisions were fully accountable. District and state decisions were not. Local discretion could have saved lives from water borne illness. State rules stopped it from happening.

So that I don’t sound too much like an advocate for local autonomy: the second problem is one of “too much” local discretion. Those good GSP roads with proper drainage ditches along the side we saw in a village in Gulbarga district stopped right in front of a little settlement of Scheduled Caste residents. Even with only the light early monsoon rains, the hamlet required stepping carefully to avoid puddles caused by those good-looking roads. The standing water is a health hazard for the SC residents of the village. Local autonomy doesn’t solve the problem of caste. That’s going to require checks and balances between governments than mere devolution of investment decisions won’t be able to handle.

But at least there will be roads in the village for a few years to come.

I’ll get back to you to report whether these observations are supported by systematic research or not. For the time being, it’s food for thought.

Jeffrey Hammer is Visiting Professor in Economic Development at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University