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How data can mislead in analysing social policy

India needs a transformation in how data is measured and analysed to form policy

First published in Business Standard Punditry on August 20, 2015

A visit to the Swachh Vidyalaya website on Independence Day, one is greeted with a congratulatory message on the completion of the Swachh Vidyalaya (SV) campaign (launched to ensure toilets including separate ones for girls in all schools). The message is accompanied with a bar measuring 100% completion rate of a target of constructing 4.17 lakh toilets in 2.61 lakh schools across the country.

Similarly, the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) to ensure financial inclusion was accompanied with the creation of the PMJDY portal to track progress. A look at the numbers indicate that in a span of 1 year, over 17 crore accounts were opened, 15 crore debit cards issued and less than 50% of accounts had 0 balance.

Whilst the successful achievement of the targets for PMJDY and SV campaign are indeed significant and should be lauded, their very “success” points to some fault lines in government’s management information systems which should not be ignored in the celebrations.

Let me elaborate what I mean.

The Mission Mode Model

As early as October 2011, the Supreme Court (SC) of India had directed all States and UTs to build toilets, particularly for girls in all government schools by the end of November the same year. At the same time, the annual computerised system to collect school level data including the number of toilet facilities was also already available through District Information System for Education (DISE). In fact, if one was to look at the programme pre and post Swachh Bharat, the only noticeable difference between 2011 and today is that a) there is a lag between DISE data collection and publication (till today, latest DISE data available is for 2013-14) and thus there was no regular portal monitoring real time progress, and b) there was no significant political push for the programme.

The fact that only when the entire machinery was mobilised in mission mode for a specific goal, were results fast-tracked is indicative of systemic weaknesses in the existing planning, implementation and decision-making processes, that need to be addressed.

The Output Model

Another important fault line relates to what we are measuring, or rather, what we are able to measure regularly. As a country, we are relatively good at monitoring targets related to inputs and outputs. And interestingly, by design, both programmes (SV and PMJDY), the focus has been on monitoring progress on number of toilets built or number of accounts opened. Little information is available on whether these toilets are increasing attendance, or whether accounts opened have had an “impact” on easier access to benefits.

Whilst measuring outputs is important, for social policy programmes to succeed in the long run, a regular system for tracking outcomes will also need to be developed.

The Stick Model

The last important fault line ties into the question of incentives and usage of data.  To give an example: a look at data published by DISE suggests that between 2011 and 2012, the proportion of schools with girls’ toilets increased from 72.2% to 88.3%. Interestingly however, during the same period the proportion of boy’s toilets decreased from 81.1% to 67.1% (Remember this was the time the SC was pushing for separate toilets for girls).

An off the record conversation with a state official provided some explanation: “The push to show achievements in girl’s toilets led the state to “convert” all existing toilet facilities into girl’s toilets!”

The problem is a simple one. If data generated by me is used primarily to monitor me, I am incentivised to report positively on it. Or to be less pessimistic – if I know I am being monitored on certain things, I will focus only on those things.

Most social sector schemes emphasize the need and importance of local level planning. Consequently, formats are made for collecting disaggregated data, numerous hours are spent by frontline workers filling formats (anganwadi workers are meant to fill 37 formats across 11 registers!) and computer operators at the block/district have the daunting task of turning 1000s of pages of data into monthly or quarterly reports to be handed over to their supervisors. But then what? What happens with the data? What is it used for?  More often than not it is used only as a tool for monitoring performance. Rarely does it feed effectively to a planning process, or a process for identifying bottlenecks or a tool for the user to diagnose or learn from inefficiencies.

The new government seems keen to use statistics and data and create regular systems for monitoring performance. That is a positive step. However, for India to move towards a sound evidence based policy making system, we need a radical transformation in the manner in which we view and use data. In the words of Dr. Suresh Tendulkar we need a system “involving continuing interaction between data generators and data users so that demand for and supply of data are taken to be realistically inter-dependent and mutually interactive in character.”

 

Chhattisgarh Survey- Observations from the field

Accountability Initiative (AI) has finished the field work for Chhattisgarh PAISA survey. Nearly two months of field based activities, preceded by months of preparatory work is complete now. Actual roll out of the survey happened in the first week of July and continued for a month, Chhattisgarh PAISA study is a joint initiative of Chhattisgarh Government, UNICEF and Accountability Initiative. We want to know how much of the money that is allocated by the Indian Government and State government for some of its flagship social sector schemes reaches the last mile beneficiaries, and whether the money reaches the beneficiaries on time. Programmes for which the survey was undertaken include Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan(RMSA) , Mid-Day Meal(MDM) and the supplementary nutrition (hot cooked meals) component of the Integrated Child Development Scheme(ICDS). The data collection involved having face-to-face interviews with some of the key stakeholders like the headmasters, anganwadi workers, ration shop dealers, people who matter most in the micro level implementation of these schemes.

Data was collected for two months during the field survey from over 240 villages in four districts of Chhattisgarh through engagement of more than 250 citizen volunteers. Accountability Initiative’s researchers and PAISA associates spent days after days in the districts and capital of Chhattisgarh in the last 9/10 months. They spent the days talking to government officials for understanding the social sector schemes in the state, liaising with civil society organisations for engaging citizen volunteers and testing the tool kits that was used in the course of the survey. Some of the districts, as we have been told by the locals, are really ‘risky’ to work on the ground. But thankfully AI staff members did not encounter any kind of untoward incident in these so called ‘risky’ districts. On the contrary the local people were extremely hospitable and helpful in their behavior.  Remoteness of some of the blocks spread across all the four districts where the survey was conducted namely Rajnandgaon, Jhanghgir Champa, Surajpur and Bastar as well as hazards due to heavy rainfall although created some momentary  bottlenecks but were not strong enough to dampen the enviable zeal and commitment of AI team members and citizen volunteers.

60 villages from each of the four districts were selected in a way that these village are spread across blocks with and without significant proportion of tribal population. Citizen volunteers were selected from these districts and were trained on the survey tools and data collection technique in a week long training programme, imparting both theoretical knowledge and hands on survey experience from the field through pilot testing of the tools. Cohort of the citizen volunteers involved an interesting mix of people. Some of them were seasoned social workers having been involved in many surveys before and a significant number of the volunteers were college and university students. Thorough networking with district and block level government officials were undertaken, thanks to the help extended by the State Government and UNICEF team at Raipur.

Data analysis is planned over the next months and report would be ready by the middle of next year. Although data will tell the story of the actual realities on the ground, AI staff members gathered immensely valuable experience about the ways the government sponsored schemes actually work and get implemented in the field.

School management meeting was going on and I observed that some of the parent members of the committee from tribal communities were extremely diffident and shaky in entering the meeting room. Immense joy was noticed on the children’s faces at the ringing of the bell announcing the mid day meal. Two of the ICDS workers in a village could not resist complaining, about the paltry sum of money being given to them as fuel cost. In one of the villages, schools and ICDS centres were wrapping up quickly for the day to take part in the post funerary rights of the ex gram panchayat head as a mark of respect. These are some of the observations which did strike me on the field, which I think have different connotations worthy of exploring further.

Nuances are many, interpretations could be manifold but what does matter is to urgently iron out some of the very basic problems of these schemes as the precious time of the children’s lives, like tide, will wait for none and certainly not for the innumerable bureaucratic rules and paraphernalia.

 

 

 

Teachers’ Strike and the Learning Problem

In the month of April and May 2015, there was hardly any academic work happening in schools in Bihar. Thousands of school teachers teaching in primary and secondary government schools (mainly Niyojit or contractual teachers) went on indefinite strike from April 9 with a specific demands of ‘equal pay for equal work’. The strike ended on May 13. This strike resulted in the delay of admission procedures including the beginning of the next academic year.

Around 3.5 lakhs contractual school teachers went on strike, their demand focused on pay hike and better working conditions, and the regularization of their services (although they can serve this post till 60 year of age, they are not considered as government teachers). Similar protests/strikes by the contract teachers in Bihar have often taken place in recent years for various reasons.

The intent of this blog is not to comment on the validity of teachers’ demands or try to establish any relation between teacher salary and learning outcome, rather focus on the root cause of the contract teacher strike and its impact on learning problem. The blog attempts to explain how the faulty teacher recruitment policy of the state government not only led to these strikes, but the lack of recruitment of good quality teachers by the state government deepen the problem of low learning levels in schools as shown by the ASER reports[i].

The current scenario of school education

Many reports[ii] suggest that in more than a decade in Bihar the number of Niyojit teachers have increased, along with new schools and classrooms. Many government schemes provided scholarships, uniforms and bicycles to students which led to a massive rise in enrollment, including that of girl students. This increase in enrollment of girls, is a great achievement.

One side the progress in infrastructural development has taken place, but at the same time one of the prominent education survey, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2014[iii] says the learning level of children in elementary government schools in Bihar has been declining. This raises a deeper question: despite various development taking place at the school level, why is the learning level of the child not improving?

Amongst many reasons, this blog argues that though the recruitment of teachers- a necessity for school education – has been done by the state government, the recruitment policy adopted by government was faulty and has caused the learning problem in school.

Faulty recruitment policies

Teaching, to a large extent depends on the quality of teacher and their interest in teaching and their skills/capacity. In 2003 due to lack of adequate teachers in schools, the then government passed a resolution for the appointment of Shiksha Mitras at the Panchayat level for a period of 11 months. Their selection was based on class 12th marks and were appointed by the local representative mainly Gram Panchayat chief (Mukhia) for Panchayat teacher, block representatives at block level. The purpose of appointing Shiksha Mitras was to provide a second teacher in schools, where there was only one teacher and an additional teacher where there was more than one teacher. Since 2003, the Bihar government has appointed more than 3.5 lakhs Niyojit teachers who are working on a fixed salary. A major chunk of these teachers were recruited during the term of the Nitish Kumar government (2005-onwards). Their contract got renewed and later in July 2006 they became Niyojit teacher who can serve till the age of 60 years. While their salary was not made equivalent to the permanent teacher, it was increased from Rs.1500 to Rs. 4000 per month.

Since the beginning of the appointment of these Shiksha Mitras, government compromised with quality. Qualifying exams were not conducted and by making the Mukhiya (Panchayat chief) the appointing authority, nepotism and corruption increased at the panchayat level as well. There were cases[iv] filed in court about the contentious teacher appointment. The major outcome of this faulty recruitment policy was, the number of disinterested and low teaching quality people increased. More than half the total teachers recruited were untrained (till 2012), the highest in terms of numbers amongst other states and little behind Jharkhand (Jharkhand was top in this list) in terms of percentage.[v] The state government has started to give them the opportunity to attend two years teacher training course with IGNOU during their service period. However, in December 2013, when a class 5 level test was conducted for the teachers who attended this course, around one-fourth of the total 43,447 teachers failed in this test.[vi]

This effected the teaching-learning process in the school in which students suffered most. But who got the benefit from this faulty policy? Government benefited the most, as they got teachers in school at very low wage and the second beneficiaries were those who got the job.

For a government job

Why are people so keen to get a limited contract job for a short period at such a low wage? One reason could be, the high rate of unemployment in the state. Then there are some social and political causes as well for this chaos. Any informal conversation with Niyojit teachers reveals that initially they were only interested in getting a government job and the salary was not as important. They had hoped that once they are inside the system, they would not be thrown out so easily (which became the case later). But once inside the system, their desire changed and later many of them questioned ‘why is the government expecting more from us, even though they do not pay us equal to what the permanent teacher get for the same job. If the government would treat all teachers equally (in terms of salary and other perks) then the learning level would increase’.

Conclusion

The teacher’s strike has ended and due to 2015 being the election year, the government has announced a new pay scale (Rs.5,200-20,200) for all the contract teachers from July 2015 onwards. This decision serves the teachers and politicians. The teachers might get happy, along with the ruling party which hopes that this announcement may benefit them in the upcoming election. But one of the main purpose of the recruitment of teachers remains unfulfilled!

The reason is very clear, the learning problem is not dependent only on teacher’s salary (the pay hike of the teacher cannot be denied as they need it for the motivation to work) but it depends more on the quality of teachers and their interest in teaching. Since government has undermined this basic issue and their faulty policy created a bad noise in the school. In this situation the learning levels of children are not going to improve.

For better learning outcomes, the government needs to ensure the appointment of good quality teachers and make sure teachers teach children properly and regularly.

 

Note: Author of this blog would like to thank Anindita Adhikari and Papia Samajdar for their comments and suggestions.

 

[i]  (http://img.asercentre.org/docs/Publications/ASER%20Reports/ASER%20TOT/State%20pages%20English/bihar.pdf)

[ii] http://pratichi.org/sites/default/files/Status_of_Elementary_Education_in_Bihar.pdf  and http://www.ideasforindia.in/article.aspx?article_id=42

[iii] (http://img.asercentre.org/docs/Publications/ASER%20Reports/ASER%20TOT/State%20pages%20English/bihar.pdf)

[iv] (http://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=shiksha%20mitra%20&pagenum=15 )

[v] (http://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/article539657.ece).

[vi] (http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/10-000-bihar-teachers-fail-class-5-mathematics-hindi-test-542537).

Making the case for expanding Social Security Pensions: States show the way

 

Pension Parishad rally in Delhi

The country has seen one of the most impressive mobilisations in recent times not by the urban middle class against corruption or farmers on the land acquisition legislation, but of a group that are perhaps most invisible- the elderly and widowed poor who have been organising under the banner of the Pension Parishad[1]. The Pension Parishad is a national campaign that has been demanding the universalisation of pensions for the unorganised sector and increasing pension amounts and has also been highlighting other shortcomings in the implementation of the National Social Assistance Pension Scheme (NSAP)[2].

The campaign represents a 100 million elderly in India who constitute 8% of the population in the country, a figure expected to go up to 12% in 2021. With an overwhelming majority of the population in the informal labour force with very little financial security and over 65% of the elderly dependent on others for their day to day maintenance[3], the case for expanding non-contributory pensions is a strong one.

When thousands of the elderly poured into Delhi and sustained a month long demonstration in the freezing winter of 2012-13 to press for their demands; the government was finally forced to respond. The government then did what the government does best when it is pushed to the wall- it made an assurance that the NSAP would be restructured and set up a task force.

The TISS-Pension Parishad Rapid Assessment[4]

To provide quick feedback into this restructuring process and an assessment of the status of NSAP implementation and innovations which can be adopted across states, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Pension Parishad conducted a rapid assessment of NSAP across 8 states[5], which I was a part of last summer. This was a qualitative study based on group discussions with pension beneficiaries, potential beneficiaries and interviews with elected representatives and local administration around the everyday practices of NSAP implementation. I share a brief summary of the findings here but for the full report keep a look out on the Pension Parishad website.

Not stopping at the line: States relax eligibility and top up pension amounts

Many states have gone beyond BPL criteria and numbers fixed by the Planning Commission and relaxed eligibility. States have introduced their own pension schemes where an income declaration suffices for eligibility thereby increasing the coverage target. In Rajasthan and Kerala, where the BPL criteria has been removed altogether except for very well defined exclusion criteria, exclusion was much lower. However even these states are falling far short of their own expanded targets because of insufficient funds.

Where the BPL criteria still determines eligibility two types of exclusion persisted. First, those who possessed BPL cards and met other eligibility criteria but were still not receiving pensions. Second, exclusion from the BPL list itself. This situation was particularly acute in Gujarat and Assam.

Even as the Central Government has dragged its feet for years on increasing the pension amount from the meagre amount of Rs 200 per month, states have gone ahead and topped up the central allocation. The monthly pension amounts are the highest in AP, Telangana and Haryana at Rs 1000, followed by Rs 500 in Kerala and Rajasthan, Rs 400 in Gujarat and West Bengal and Rs 250 in Assam.

Old age pensioner receives her payment from the bank

The burden of proof

Two kinds of practices have been adopted across states for proactively enrolling pension beneficiaries. One is the camp mode such as holding ‘khula darbars’ in Haryana and regular gram sabhas in Andhra Pradesh. The other is using databases such as the Rural Household Survey (RHS) in West Bengal to automatically sanction pensions for members of BPL households that meet the old age pension age criteria. Despite these efforts, we found that pension applicant have to produce a multiplicity of documents such as the adhaar card, voter ID, death certificate in case the applicant is a widow, bank or post office passbook etc. to establish their identity and eligibility. This becomes the biggest barrier to access. Of the various documents, disability certificates were the hardest to get. The transaction costs to obtain these documents are high.

Apart from Kerala where facilitation centres have been set up where the applicant is assisted by ward members and tribal promoters in filling the form and getting the required documents, such institutionalised arrangements for end-to-end support in submitting pension applications did not exist in other states.

The timeline myth

Pensioners in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Kerala reported that on an average it takes six months from the time of submitting their application to receiving the pension payment even though shorter timelines of 90, 30 and 45 days have been prescribed by these three states respectively. We did not find any mechanisms for proactively informing applicants about the status of their application which makes the wait all the more harrowing. Rajasthan has made some serious efforts to improve the experience of applicants. Before payments begin, the applicant is given a letter specifying the date of application and sanctioning with a unique registration number. Applicants can then visit the Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendras (facilitation centres) to check the status of their application against their unique number.

A return to cash?

With the big push for direct benefit transfers through banks across the country, it was interesting to find that pensioners were happiest with the payment disbursement system in Haryana where pensions are paid in cash by the sarpanch and were perceived to be more reliable, convenient and transparent. In Rajasthan and Kerala post office money orders are the main form of disbursement and are delivered by the post man to households which are unable to come to the post office. In Andhra Pradesh, community service providers (CSPs) make pension payments. This was the only state where we found biometric payments in practice. However, all states with the exception of AP had a poor record of making pension payments on time. Payments are irregular and bunched for variable periods of time making it difficult for pensioners to keep track of which month they have received pensions for. Local administration blamed patchy fund releases from the state as the cause.

A large proportion of pensioners reported receiving their full pension amount, reiterating findings of other studies which point to low leakage in NSAP. Where there is leakage it is limited to petty bribes given to the post-man or intermediaries who help with submitting applications.

The revised NSAP guidelines issued by the Ministry of Rural Development in October 2014[6] takes many of these findings on board and seeks to address them by laying out principles such as universalisation, proactive identification, regularity and transparency. The attention of the government may have shifted to the recently announced Atal Pension Yojana, a contributory scheme is out of reach for many who lack any financial security whatsoever. Social assistance under NSAP will continue to be critical for those outside of this net and what remains to be seen is whether the government holds true on its prior commitment to improve and expand NSAP and provide more effective social security cover to the elderly, widowed and disabled in India.

[1] http://pensionparishad.org/ The campaign also raises related issues of the widowed and disabled

[2] The NSAP is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Government of India which provides a small amount of financial assistance (Rs 200-500) to the elderly, widowed and disabled in the form of social pensions.

[3] NSSO rounds of data on the Condition of the Aged (2004)

[4] For other studies that highlight similar findings look at the PEEP survey results and a recently published paper by the World Bank

[5] Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Kerala, Telangana

[6] http://nsap.nic.in/Guidelines/nsap_guidelines_oct2014.pdf

Per Child Recurring Cost and Reimbursements: Issues and Way Forward

The landmark Right to Education (RTE) act will soon celebrate its fifth anniversary. Of its many important provisions, section 12(1)(c) has probably attracted the most limelight. It states that at least 25% seats in entry level classes in non-minority private unaided schools should be reserved for children from weaker sections, to be defined by respective state governments. The state governments are required to reimburse these schools. Reimbursement amount per admitted student is mandated to be the lower of actual amount charged from children by the school, or per student recurring expenditure incurred by the state in government schools (details below).

This article focuses on issues around methodology adopted by state governments (or lack of it) to calculate recurring costs.

Who will undertake the calculation?

There is lack of clarity on who will calculate per child recurring expenditure incurred by respective states. Of 28 states whose rules and notifications were examined, only 12 states have stated an intent to set up a committee to assess per child expenditure. Rules and notifications of the rest of the states are silent on this issue.

What about the methodology?

None of the states specify the methodology for determining per child recurring costs, and what items of expenditure or budget heads would constitute ‘recurring expenditure’. This has implied confusion at the ground level as to who is supposed to pay for textbooks, uniforms, teaching material and mid-day meal to children admitted through section 12(1)(C). And the end result, in most instances, has been the parents paying out-of-pocket to buy these items either from schools or from market.

Are Cost calculations correct?

Since methodology of cost calculation is not defined, a natural question to ask is: are the amounts declared by the government ‘correct’? Ideally, per student recurring cost declared by the state governments should cover all recurring items of expenditure such as teacher and non-teacher salaries, running expenses on administration, entitlements to students (textbooks, uniforms etc.) and so on. But example of Rajasthan in the table below shows that it may not always be the case.

State Per Student Recurring Cost as announced by the states (2012-13) Per Student salary expenditure (2012-13)
Rajasthan 9748 12,241
Uttarakhand 16596 16035

 

The way forward

Get the methodology right, and in public domain

State governments should form a committee of experts in public finance and education administration with members drawn from inside and outside the current administrative set-up. The committee should develop a robust methodology for cost calculation. The methodology, along with the data required, should be put in public domain so that there is clarity on which expenditure will get reimbursed, and the calculations can be replicated. Methodology being in public domain will also allow drawbacks to be highlighted, and hopefully corrected.

Reimbursement based on norm instead of actual expenditure

Per student recurring cost is the total recurring cost incurred in government schools divided by the number of students enrolled in government schools. Increase in the numerator and/or decrease in the denominator will push these costs up, and that’s the reality of many states. Consider Rajasthan, for example, where absolute enrollment in government schools has declined from close to 70 lakh in 2010-11 to 64 lakh in 2013-14, while the number of teachers has continued to increase, from 2.71 lakh in 2010-11 to 3.26 lakh in 2013-14. On the other hand, per student declared reimbursement amount has increased- from Rs. 9748 in 2012-13 to 14,034 in 2014-15, a whopping 45% increase in three years. Additionally, data on actual expenditure is available with a considerable lag. Actual expenditure is contingent on fiscal health of the states and its administrative capacity.

Given the possibilities of wide fluctuations in actual expenditure, norm-based per child reimbursement seems more desirable. To explain, the state governments can easily compute average salary expenditure per teacher. As per the RTE, there should be one teacher for 30 students in the primary sections. From this, one can easily compute per student average salary expenditure as ‘recommended’ by RTE. In 2013-14, as per government’s own data, there is one teacher for slightly less than 30 students. Further, unit costs have already been specified for various entitlements such as mid-day meal, uniforms, textbooks etc, either at the state or central level. Adding these up, gives us ‘norm-based’ reimbursement.

These measures, along with a transparent and objective system of admissions which doesn’t allow schools to ‘cherry-pick’ students, and give parents freedom to choose schools, ensuring that the students admitted through section 12(1)(C) receive quality education without discrimination, providing academic and ‘non-academic’ support to these students and their parents, and streamlining reimbursements will go a long way in successful implementation of section 12(1)(C).

**********

This is adapted from chapter 4 in the recently released report, State of the Nation: Section 12(1)(c), a collaboration between Indian Institute of Management- Ahmedabad, Central Square Foundation, Accountability Initiative (Centre for Policy Research) and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Photo Essay : Six years of “PAISA”

दिनेश कुमार 

“पैसा” परियोजना की शुरुआत वर्ष 2009 में हुई। 6 साल के अनुभवों को एक photo essay के रूप में प्रस्तुत किया गया है। 


 शिक्षा अधिकार अधिनियम लागू होने के बाद विद्यालयों में भवन निर्माण से लेकर और भी बहुत सारे योजनाओं के लिए अनुदान दी जाने लगा | परन्तु जब विद्यालयो में प्रधान शिक्षक से बात करने से पता चला की विद्यालयो को अनुदान समय पर नही दिया जाता है, और जो अनुदान दिय जाते है वह पर्याप्त नहीं है, विद्यालय के पास अपना कोई प्लान नही है | इन्ही सभी बातों को ध्यान में रखते हुए कुछ सवाल लेकर “पैसा” टीम प्रधान शिक्षक के पास पैसा नाम के सर्वे हेतु गए – मुख्य सवाल था —  

  • पैसा कहाँ और कब जाता है ?
  • विद्यालय पैसा कितना और कब प्राप्त करता है ?
  • क्या विद्यालयों को अपने आवश्यकताओ की पूर्ती हो पाती है ?
  • विद्यालय में जो राशि दी जाती है उसके परिणाम क्या निकला ?

NREGA: A last-mile push

Responding to a debate on the President’s Address in Lok Sabha [1], Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at the opposition over rumours about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA or NREGA) being stopped by calling it “a living example of your (Congress) failures”, citing it as a scheme that the Congress had formulated which was forcing people to “continue to dig holes in the ground” even after 60 years of independence.

MGNREGA is a one-of-a-kind legal entitlement which guarantees 100 days of wage employment a year to a rural Indian household at the minimum wage rate. The scheme was enacted in 2005 amid much fanfare and unanimous support from all parties. With the recent change in government at the Centre and budget 2015, not much support seems to be coming in the way of social sector programmes, most definitely NREGA. Apparently, there has been talk of a re-aligning of plan outlays which is in line with the government’s priorities and focus on infrastructure spending. This looks to be true with the discontinuation of eight centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) amounting to a total of Rs.67773 crore as per budget estimates for FY 2014-15.

The issues such as implementation woes, leakages, etc. in the country’s various social sector schemes are quite well known. However, cutting budgetary allocations from such programmes does not sound like an answer to this. While none deny the significance of various other technologically strong development projects which might be doing the rounds of discussions in the country, the importance of social welfare programmes such as MGNREGA cannot be undermined. MGNREGA has had a significant impact in raising standards of living, nutrition levels, school enrolments, etc. and cutting funds would surely bring down the performance of the programme (if it has not already done so) and its impact on development itself.

The budgetary allocation for MGNREGA for the financial year 2014-15 was Rs.34000 crore, while the estimated calculations required to sustain 227 crore person days of work which had been approved by the Ministry of Rural Development amounted approximately to Rs.60000 crore. The GoI allocations for MGNREGA have increased only marginally to Rs.34699 crore in 2015-16 (an increase of 5% between 2014-15 and 2015-16). This, however, is a drop of 13% from allocations for MGNREGA in 2010-11 according to Accountability Initiative’s figures in MGNREGA Budget Brief.

The release of funds in the first quarter of the financial year has also dropped dramatically, from 60% in 2013-14 to 43% in 2014-15. This is true from official figures, according to which, MGNREGA had an outstanding liability of Rs.5512 crore from 2013-14 at the beginning of the financial year 2014-15 owing to low budgetary allocations and slow release of funds. This fund crunch has affected the district administration rather adversely, who in the absence of funds are unable to implement the programme effectively at the district level, an official even found saying how fund allocations had reduced substantially ever since the new government had come to power. This is also consistently visible on the ground when one visits regions where people have not been paid for work done over six months ago. While works under NREGA were initially carried out quite enthusiastically, a visit to district West Singhbhum in Jharkhand showed the impact of the delay in payments for months on end. At first, people stopped doing the work they were engaged in and then began dismissing NREGA as yet another government programme mired with issues.

It is, however, important to note that while UPA-II had also cut down funds for MGNREGA from Rs.40100 crore in 2010-11 to Rs.33000 crore in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 budgets, it had kept this flexible with a provision to meet any additional demands which the States might require. The BJP government, on the other hand, has imposed a cap on the expenditure refusing even legitimate demands for more allocations on the basis of the work which is being demanded, only proposing to increase allocation by Rs.5000 crore, tax buoyancy permitting. The demand-driven nature of the Act has slowly changed to one based on allocations wherein, the percentage of allocation has been decreasing constantly over the years. MGNREGA is an Act passed by the constitution on which the government cannot use budgetary cuts and fund squeeze to diminish the entitlements provided under it by law. Such an imposition is a clear violation of the law which legally guarantees 100 days of employment based on the demand for work.

Eleven states, including BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, have either passed a resolution in their Legislative Assemblies or have written to the Central government requesting for a raise in their existing funds for the year. People who have worked under MGNREGA have not been paid for several months which has led to a decrease in demand for work. From this, it seems that the squeezing of funds has led to a fall in demand and not the other way around, as is being alleged by the Centre. Figures state that the proportion of payment delays was as high as 72% in 2014-15, discouraging people from demanding work.

Several studies have provided evidence of how MGNREGA has had an impact in terms of curbing distress migration, on the consumption and poverty levels of the marginalised social groups, women’s participation in the labour force, providing a safety net for the poor during the lean period of agriculture, leading to higher nutritional standards, expanded financial inclusion in the country, etc. In light of these effects, how can one even consider squeezing funds from this scheme? While all is not hunky dory, and NREGA does have its fair share of flaws such as the programme being riddled with corruption, the question to ask really is – should this be the way to go about it?

While on one hand, the government has accepted the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendation to increase the devolution of funds to the states by 10 percentage points, it has slashed social sector spending of centrally sponsored schemes. The PM’s address could only be seen as a trivialisation of a very important legislation, one which promises to bring the poor out from hunger and deprivation even if it is at the cost of digging pits 60 years post independence.

References:

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/mc2eAHfLiK2Hl7cAIbqdfL/Unpacking-cooperative-federalism-and-social-policy.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rural-job-scheme-facing-funds-crunch/article6850028.ece

http://www.indiaspend.com/latest-headlines/budget-2014-costing-indias-flagship-programmes-46546

http://indiatogether.org/letters-to-pm-on-proposed-changes-to-mgnrega-government

http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/nrega-fund-allocation-cut-by-45-this-fiscal-till-sept-114103100908_1.html

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/ending-destitution-and-distress/article6530852.ece?homepage=true

http://www.firstpost.com/business/economy/budgetary-cuts-mgnrega-may-be-the-worst-hit-1998329.html

http://208.175.66.104/article/2014/10/15/foundation-india-employment-poor-idINKCN0I422O20141015

http://www.accountabilityindia.in/sites/default/files/mgnregs_2015.pdf

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-02-28/news/59613143_1_mgnrega-budgetary-allocation-prime-minister-narendra-modi

 

[1] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/462471/mnrega-proof-cong-failure-modi.html, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150228/jsp/nation/story_5999.jsp#.VQJ8LfyUehs

Media Coverage of AI’s Budget Briefs, 2015

Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research is delighted to launch its Budget Brief Series, 2015 based on the Government of India’s budget presented on February 28, 2015​.

Budget briefs are an annual publication that report on the efficacy of Government of India spending on flagship social sector programmes using government reported data. The briefs undertake basic analysis of allocation and expenditure trends and where possible, given limitations of government data, on outputs and outcom​es.​

Our Budget Briefs, 2015 as well as the pre-budget analysis has been widelycovered by media. Please read our opinion pieces and where we have been quoted by various media houses.

AI Opinion pieces published in media

The Daily Pioneer, March 13, 2015

In the hands of the states

Down to Earth, March 9, 2015

Deconstructing Union Budget 2015-16: what has changed?

Live Mint, March 1, 2015

Unpacking cooperative federalism and social policy

Live Mint, February 28, 2015

Accounting for toilets, but no accountability for sanitation

Live Mint, February 25, 2015

Learning, the govt way?

Reforms needed in education

Live Mint, February 23, 2015

Pull, not push, to open up spending

Wither decentralisation

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AI quoted in media

Rajasthan Patrika, March 30, 2015

दो तिहाई पैसा कंस्ट्रक्शन पर, गुणवत्ता पर सिर्फ 1 फीसदी पैसा

The Times of India, March 16, 2015

Rajasthan fails to spend a single penny from Centre’s education fund

The Times of India, March 4, 2015

Budget cuts may retard TN’s learning curve

The Hindu, March 1, 2015

 New money-sharing regime is in

The Hindu, February 24, 2015

Social spending needs Budget boost

Dainik Jagran, February 22, 2015

स्वास्थ्य का हाल

Dainik Jagran, February 21, 2015

स्वच्छता की सच्चाई

First Post, February 19, 2015

As swine flu swirls out of control, government funds to health ministry remain unspent

Right To Education Act Section 12(1) (c): Reservation within reservation

The Indian Parliament in 2009 passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, as a landmark legislation. Section 12 (1) (c) of the ACT mandated reservation of a minimum of 25% of the seats at the entry level class for children belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups in all private unaided schools; excluding minority institutions. The cost of education of these children is to be reimbursed by the government to the extent of per child expenditure incurred by the state or the actual school fees, whichever is less. The provision was initially challenged in the Supreme Court and after April 2012, when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the Act through its judgement, section 12 (1) (c) became applicable. Given the salience of such a provision and its potential to put millions of children in private schooling, deeper scrutiny is required on the nuances and the manner in which it is being implemented.

To begin with the provisions of the scheme, it is useful to know how the terms “disadvantaged groups” and “weaker section” have been defined. Owing to the ambiguous nature of the guidelines issued by the central government, each state has modified the model guidelines and framed its own set of implementation processes. Delhi defines EWS as the families from economically weaker section having household income less than 1 lakh per annum while the disadvantaged groups include SC, ST, and non-creamy layer of OBC, orphans and physically and mentally challenged children. On the other hand, Rajasthan has set this income limit to 2.5 lakhs per annum.

A lot of states including Haryana, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu etc. have specifically included HIV affected children in this quota in addition to other categories.  Uttar Pradesh has further conditioned admission under this section. A government order issued in UP in 2012 stipulated that children from EWS sections could be admitted to private schools only after all seats in government or government-aided schools had been filled.

Moreover, the state government is responsible for deciding on the neighbourhood and age criteria to be followed under this section. There are again some inter-state variations. For instance, in Rajasthan, they follow a ward criteria while in Maharashtra, neighbourhood is defined in terms of aerial distance. In Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, the admission is further conditioned on the enrolment of a minimum number of children to be enrolled in the neighbourhood of 1 km. This measure was aimed at providing equal access to education for children from socio-econ­omically backward sections and was primarily formulated to foster inclusion of marginalised children.  While it has the potential to improve both equity and efficiency in school education in India, the implementation so far has been highly haphazard across states.

Four years down the line, the Right to free and Compulsory Education Act has made education neither free nor compulsory in most parts of the country. In the light of the RTE Act, the model rules framed by the Central Government state that children admitted under Section 12 (1) (c) shall not be segregated from the other children in the classroom, nor shall their classes be held at places and timings different from the classes held for other children. It further provides that these children shall not be discriminated from the rest of the children in any manner pertaining to entitlements and facilities such as textbooks, uniforms, library and ICT facilities, extracurricular activities and sports.

But the opaque and unclear process of implementation of this provision has received representations from various stakeholders as the private schools have brazenly violated the above mentioned principles in some of the states. Since there is unambiguity as to what amount has to be reimbursed to these schools, there are several heads other than “tuition fees” for which the parents are being charged. In case they deny to pay this fee, the school conveniently keeps such children admitted under this quota out of any activity that takes place outside the four walls of a classroom. There have been sporadic instances of blatant discrimination and denial of admission in some of the elite private schools.

The problem lies with the view several schools take towards EWS admissions. Since the 25% number amounts to a critical lot, what remains a thorn in the flesh, is the lack of clarity in the reimbursement to be made to private schools, which has further hampered the compliance in many states.  In response to RTIs filed regarding the reimbursement procedure, some states like Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, and Karnataka seem to have extensively detailed the process of reimbursement while several others like Goa, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab have no clarity on the per-child reimbursement amounts even after 3 years of implementation. Moreover, this provision has opened the private schools for greater governmental interference and owing to inertia among these schools in declaring their fees publically has also led to delays in the entire process. Such unformulated provisions further tend to obstruct the effective implementation on the ground.

Further, building monitoring structures for this Act and putting in place grievance redressal mechanisms is needed to bridge some of the above mentioned implementation gaps. Given that there is a growing trend of privatization in majority of states and the lack of quality confronting the education in government schools, it requires concerted efforts from government, schools and civil society organizations to actually translate the intent of this provision into practice.

The Anatomy of Indian Administration

In this blog post, I briefly take stock of Lant Pritchett’s arguments on the “flailing” nature of the Indian state, and Michael Lipsky’s seminal work on “street-level bureaucrats” in an effort to theoretically understand the structure of Indian administration.  Pritchett’s attempt through his paper is to make sense of India in its totality, and so he comments on all major facets of what makes this nation-state tick. For my current purpose, my focus is on the administrative aspect covered in his paper. Lipsky’s book covers in rich detail, the workings of and the context in which field level officials of the state, toil. In this post, I have borrowed from the central idea of his work.    

India as a “flailing” state

In his attempt at reconciling “the contradictions of a booming economy and democracy with world class elite institutions and yet chaotic conditions in service provision of even the most rudimentary types,” Lant Pritchett proposes that “India is today a flailing state—a nation-state in which the head, that is the elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level remain sound and functional but that this head is no longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its own limbs.”

Pritchett’s definition of the “flailing state” hinges on the ‘soundness’ of the head comprised of the elite institutes and its apparent inability to control the rest of the body. The grey matter of the Indian state’s brain is composed of Indian Administrative Services, the Supreme Court, and the IITs among other elite organisations. The limbs of the body are the different tiers of government responsible for implementing the plans created by this head. I would like to think the intricately designed monitoring and feedback mechanisms, the streams of government papers and files make up the connective tissue, nerves and viscera. The people who populate these spaces form the life force or the blood coursing through this apparently dysfunctional body.  By “control” he means not only getting government officials at the lower levels to perform but also just being able to get them to show up for work!

“I propose to label the inability to maintain sufficient control of the administrative apparatus in order to effectively deliver services through the government in spite of a strong democracy and strong capability at the state level a “flailing” state.” When we look at the plethora of governance failure stories or the quality of service delivery in almost any sphere, this argument begins to look like a no-brainer.

Lipsky’s “Street-Level Bureaucrats”

According to Lipsky, street-level bureaucrats are field level agents who deal with a large number of people on a daily basis such as teachers, police officers, and public health service providers. Two common characteristics of street-level bureaucrats are a) They exercise discretion in the line of duty which might mean sometimes bending the rules laid down by the state; and b) They develop coping mechanisms to streamline the process of dealing with the general public. He goes on to add that they are unable to perform the best they can because they lack time, information, or other resources necessary to respond to each case properly. This, Lipsky argues, ultimately affects the quality of a programme’s outcomes.

His main thesis is as follows: “The decisions of street-level bureaucrats, the routines they establish, and the devices they invent to cope with uncertainties and work pressures, effectively become the public policies they carry out…Public policy is not best understood as made in legislatures or top-floor suites of high-ranking administrators. These decision-making arenas are important, of course, but they do not represent the complete picture. To the mix of places where policies are made, one must add the crowded offices and daily encounters of street-level workers. Further…policy conflict is not only expressed as the contention of interest groups, as we have come to expect. It is also located in the struggles between individual workers and citizens who challenge or submit to client-processing.”

Dissecting the administrative anatomy

One reason behind the discord between the main head and the body according to Pritchett is the conditions under which the Indian administrative body was established. A colonial inheritance, our bureaucratic structures largely continue to remain distant from the people they aim to administer. Moreover, the society in which these structures are embedded is fraught with socio-political tensions. Identity based groups frequently set the political agenda at the local level and the administration is not immune to its impacts. Pritchett also touches upon the subject of corruption within the Indian bureaucracy.

On decentralization and furthering citizen engagement with the state, Pritchett observes that these discourses have taken shape in India in the context of the state’s abysmal service delivery and accountability record, aloof as it has remained from the society. The idea behind deepening decentralization, as Pritchett argues, is to gradually transform these identity centered contests among fragmented groups into united calls for better governance, thereby harmonizing the will (shaped by the head) with actions of the body. Lipsky would most certainly be in favour of greater decentralization going by the sheer number of people, street-level bureaucrats have to deal with on a regular basis. Despite the bulky nature of Indian bureaucracy, the number of officials catering to India’s ever expanding population is not nearly enough.

Lipsky’s microscope is pointed at the veins coursing through the limbs of this creature. He recognizes the fact that lower level officials frequently distort or bend rules sent by the “head” for reasons mentioned above. Carry this out over time and one gets to see good and bad practices getting embedded. Lipsky’s conclusions are particularly telling of the state of affairs in a country as vast as India with its massive bureaucracy. He also brings attention to the fact that it’s not just the interest groups that shape the policy agenda but the agents of the state as well by their acts of interpreting rules sent by the top. All because they have to implement the master head’s plans and directly bear the brunt of its “feedback” from the general public.

In this sense, the administrative body of India doesn’t possess a single head but is rather a hydra-headed creature. These “heads” not only interpret and act on the instructions of the master head as described by Pritchett, but also legitimately create and act on their own plans. The limbs thus appear to have minds of their own and they tackle problems different from those faced by the master head. Perhaps then the reason why the master head as described by Pritchett appears sound is because it doesn’t have to directly deal with the vagaries of governing a chaotic society.

Or maybe I have stretched Pritchett’s delightful metaphor to its limit, and should instead start a probe into the Indian administration’s innards a la Lipsky.