Prime Minister’s 5th September Speech – Reactions from Government Schools in Rural Bihar

We’ve been in Bhojpur, Bihar for some days now, surveying several individuals associated with government funded education for a project. On 1^st September we heard that the Prime Minister was going to address all school children and teachers on the occasion of Teachers’ Day. Since we were already on the field, visiting schools daily, we decided to observe the way this was carried out in randomly selected schools, right from the formal dissemination of this news at the ground level to obtaining post-speech-reactions.

Formal announcement of PM’s 5^th September address at the monthly block level meeting of Head Masters (03.09.2014)

9^th point on the 10 point agenda read out by the Block Resource Person conducting the meeting – “PM’s address to all students on the occasion of Teachers’ Day.”

The notice stated that all schools had to arrange a TV or radio (TV, preferably) for the occasion. Rs. 1000 could be spent on 200 students present for the broadcast, Rs. 1500 for up to 500, and Rs 2000 for over 500 students listening in or viewing the broadcast. Schools were to stay open till 5 PM on 5^th September.

“How are we going to arrange the money for this? We haven’t received any funds this year!” asked Headmaster A. “Doesn’t matter if it’s 1000 or 2000. Just know that you’ll have to spend from your own pocket to make this happen” replied Headmaster B who was sitting at the panel with the BEO and the BRP. Discussions broke out amongst the attendees. The Block Education Officer (BEO) silenced the room and suggested that they reach into their school’s development fund from last year to “manage the issue”.

“But there’s no electricity in our school!” shouted Headmaster C from the back. “Then use radios! Bring one from your own home if there is no other option” the BRP shouted back. A Cluster Resource Centre Coordinator (CRCC) who was sitting in the front row asked calmly, “But sir, where is the space to seat 500 odd kids in our schools?” “How can WE (the BRP and BEO) give you all the answers? You know your schools better! Jahaan samasya hoti hai, wahaan samadhaan bhi hota hai!” the BRP announced grandly.

“Headmasters, you are your school’s guardians. I’m sure you will manage this problem as well. Please exercise your best judgement and make it work” said the BEO.

“We have the money, but if we’d been informed earlier, we could’ve made the proper arrangements. But this is a government order. We will try our best to make the arrangements despite the short notice. Please move to the next point on the agenda…” said Head Master B. Murmurs of agreement were heard from the audience.

The BRP began reading the next topic but was interrupted by a teacher who appeared to have been lost in his own thoughts – “But where are we going to find a radio…? Internet ka zamaana hai…” “You have your mobile phone! It has radio facility!” said the BRP and BEO, almost at the same time, both sounding equally exasperated. Head Master E suddenly got up and announced, “Sir, September 5^th is a Friday. Urdu schools wind up early so that people can go read namaaz…”

“But this is a special programme! We didn’t have an off on 15^th August this year either, right?! Please! Adjust! I know you can do it. Ho jaega!” the BRP said firmly, not looking up from his register. Multiple voices from the audiences were heard saying, “Haan, ho jaega…ab aage badhiye!” Many were laughing loudly and saying that they would “definitely manage”.

The BRP re started reading but was interrupted again. Head Master B: “Why don’t schools with little space and/or no tv/radio “merge” with a nearby school that has these things? It will be like the way we merge schools without buildings with schools that have more space and other facilities.” “Yes, these schools could pool their financial resources to arrange a tent or generator to power the TV as well” added the CRCC. The audience was abuzz again. “GREAT IDEA” barked the BRP, sounding quite harried by now, and quickly raced through the next topic.

D-Day (05.09.2014)

Around 2 PM

As we finished interviewing a CRCC, we heard loud music emanating from a nearby classroom. We stepped inside and found some kids dancing to Bollywood tunes. A tiny television set sat in the background. DD National was on but the reception was extremely grainy. The Block Resource Centre, where the BEO’s office is located, is a stone’s throw away from this school.

I interacted with the kids and inquired about the day’s programme. “Narendra Modi ji will give a speech today!” they all replied. Who is Narendra Modi? “Our Prime Minister!” But aren’t speeches boring? “No! He’s making this speech especially for us!” they all shouted enthusiastically.

2.40 PM

We dropped two of our team mates at school no. 2, an Urdu Primary school, and headed out to check out other schools in the area.

School no. 3 was barely two KM away from School no.2 and was adjacent to the road. We expected it to be running in full swing considering it was a huge middle school and was easily accessible. Schools located along main roads tend to be more functional (apparently) for fear of unsuspected monitoring. This school, however, was deserted. “Where is everyone?” I asked a couple of women busy chatting away near the school. “Don’t know”, said the youngest of the lot. “School was shut around 1.30 PM itself.” But isn’t the school supposed to run till 5 PM today? “I’m not sure but it could be because of Jhoori (a day when women fast for their brothers’ health) so they must have been let off early”, said an elder woman. “Na! It’s Teachers Day, so school was shut early” said the youngest one.

3 PM

School no. 4 was inaccessible by car so we plodded down the muddy path and found a few kids playing near the school. The headmaster came out to welcome us and took us inside a classroom. We saw around 20 girls and a couple of boys sitting quietly. Two teachers stood in the front, facing the students. One of them had a radio in his hand which he held in an awkward angle to catch a decent signal. It wasn’t really working. One could barely make out what the HRD Minister was saying. I spoke to the other teacher who told me that the radio belonged to the teacher who was holding it up. Students were less in number due to Jhoori so most girls and all the lady teachers had been let off early. Students of classes 1 and 2 were also given half day. “They wouldn’t understand the speech, anyway”. We spent few more minutes there and then headed for the next school. The teacher with the radio in his hand didn’t move a muscle all that while.

School no. 5 was, again, in the interiors. It was a single-room-primary-school. The sole door was locked and completely empty. We spotted three locals sitting at some distance, eyeing us. My team mate asked aloud, “Bhashan nahi chal raha?” One of them shouted back, “Na, ration aaj nahi mila!”

School no. 6 was close to School no. 5 and was practically hidden behind dense foliage. Not a soul in sight, again. A passerby stopped and told us that the school had been shut by 1.30 PM itself as it was Teachers’ Day. “So what about the speech?” “What speech?” Two more locals stopped to listen in. I told them about the special programme. One of them asked, “PM ji kis cheez pe baat karenge?” “Achhe din pe baat karenge, aur kya karenge…” commented the second man.

We went back to school no. 2, the Urdu school, to pick up our team mates, listening to the PM’s speech in the car all the while. Our team mates spent their entire time at the same school and stayed a little longer to see the reactions of students and teachers. They reported that the 50 odd kids who were listening to the speech on the radio got distracted easily due to the poor signal. Many of them were running about, playing, and those who were forced to stay put weren’t really paying attention. Few students from a nearby school were also present here. The television at their school had stopped working so they hitchhiked on their own to this school. After the speech ended the headmaster spoke on the importance of Teachers’ Day and summarised some points made by the Prime Minister. The kids, however, could not answer any of the questions when the headmaster quizzed them on the speech.

Later, the headmaster shared that he hadn’t been keen on organising this programme. Urdu schools are closed on Fridays, said the headmaster. They had convened an “emergency meeting” with the School Management Committee on this matter a day before the programme. Members had decided against keeping the school open but his CRCC suggested otherwise. If any higher official found out that their school was shut that day then action could be taken against them, the CRCC warned him. Consequently, the headmaster ended up following the CRCC’s advice.

(06.09.2014)

Next day, we went to a primary school which we had visited twice already in our attempt to speak with the headmaster. The first time he was away to collect a cheque book and so had taken the day off. The second time (on the day of the speech) he had gone to purchase a radio set. We finally managed to find him at the school but before our interview we interacted with the students of classes 3 and 4, asking them about the speech. They all seemed to have heard and liked what the Prime Minister had to say. Two students shared that they liked best about the speech – the Prime Minister’s antics as a child. The two teachers who were present in the classroom also appeared pleased with the speech but wished the Prime Minister had more to say to the teachers.

(08.09.2014-11.09.2014)

For the next few days we surveyed five schools in a block located far from the district headquarter. None of these schools had made the arrangements although the headmasters were aware of the programme. At one school the students shared that they saw the movie “Nadiyaan ke Paar” on the occasion of Teachers’ Day and were let off early. The headmaster however stuck to his story, saying that he did air the speech. At another school the teacher who we were interviewing said that they aired the speech but the students revealed otherwise. We also got to know that the headmaster (who was away at the time of the interview) had been thrashed by village folk on Teachers’ Day over a mid-day meal related issue. The teacher then recanted his story and said that they could not air the speech due to this unfortunate incident.

Perhaps it’s time the Prime Minister specially addressed teachers as well? Maybe on Children’s Day?

The Public Distribution System in India: Chhattisgarh to serve as a model state?

The Public Distribution System (PDS) in India is one of the most important food security programmes subsidizing foodgrains for the poor, guaranteeing remunerative prices to farmers and helping cope with exigent situations such as floods, drought etc. Over the years, however, the PDS has come under much criticism owing to problems in implementation. This blog seeks to look at some of the problems faced by the PDS in the country and thereafter takes the case of Chhattisgarh – which is often termed a “model state” for PDS implementation – to see how these problems have been addressed.

Over the years, the PDS has not been able to yield desired benefits and has been criticized for numerous issues. These include errors of exclusion (poor households being left out) and inclusion (non-poor households being included) denying targeted beneficiaries of their entitlement, the leakage and diversion of foodgrains because of collusion between persons involved in the PDS supply chain, flawed system of appointment of FPS dealers, lack of an effective monitoring system or a weak vigilance machinery at the grassroots level, inferior quality foodgrains being distributed by the ration shops, creation of bogus cards and black marketeering of foodgrains and a general absence of transparency and accountability in implementation of the programme (for further details, see Khera, 2011; Himanshu and Sen, 2011). Responding to these critiques, some state governments have taken important initiatives to improve the PDS. These include changes in grain entitlements (for example in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh), universalisation of the PDS (Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh), expansion in coverage (Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan) and implementing a better monitoring system (Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu) (Rahman, 2014).

One of the most important innovations in recent times has been in Chhattisgarh which has managed to convert PDS into a model-scheme in the state. In 2004, the newly elected Chhattisgarh government introduced the Chhattisgarh Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2004 leading to a number of reforms to the PDS delivery and procurement system.

(A summary of the reforms are given in Table 1)

Table 1: Reforms undertaken in PDS in Chhattisgarh between 2000 and 2009-10.

Year	Reform	Description
2004	Public Distribution System (Control) Order 2004	De-privatised FPSs and instituted a number of transparency/auditing mechanisms for foodgrain distribution.
		Passed in December 2004.
		De-privatisation implemented starting September 2005 after legal challenge.
2007	List price reduction	Offered PDS foodgrain below the Central Issue Price.
2007	Mukhyamantri Khadyann Sahayata Yojana	Increased the number of people entitled to the most preferential PDS subsidies

Source: PDS articles in The Times of India and The Hindu between 1998 and 2011.

(Krishnamurthy, Pathania, & Tandon, 2014)

The reforms initiated allowed for the implementation of a number of measures to be undertaken leading to improvements in the implementation of the scheme itself. These measures included:

a) Increasing Ownership: By transfer of all fair price shops to the Gram Panchayats, cooperative societies, self-help groups and forest protection committees. This led to an increase in transparency and accountability as the FPSs were now being run by people from the villages themselves.

b) Improving Targeting: by getting foodgrains delivered to the FPSs directly, thereby eliminating the middlemen and lowering chances of pilferage from the system,

c) Improvements in Monitoring: Making government trucks carrying PDS ration easily distinguishable by painting them yellow,

d) Strengthening vigilance systems at the grassroots by making people take part in increasing accountability by using methods such as publishing of all records in the public domain, social audits, etc. ¹.

e) Increasing coverage: In 2007, the government launched the Mukhyamantri Khadyann Sahayata Yojana (MKSY) under which an additional 1.9 million households (who had been excluded from the 2002 BPL survey because of the Planning Commission cap on poverty numbers) were added to the 1.33 million households already receiving subsidized foodgrains from the central government at that time. This state-led initiative helped Chhattisgarh PDS increase coverage to approximately 80% of the rural population, which in turn helped reduce exclusion errors (Puri, 2012).

f) Introducing CORE PDS: based on the latest technology, this scheme has been running successfully in Raipur and is now being scaled-up. Under CORE PDS, beneficiaries can swipe their smart cards and take ration from any shop in their city (as they are all linked by satellite now), also reducing pilferage since the system is now electronically monitored where the government can instantly match the amount dispatched with the stock received by the shops alongwith knowing how much of this stock received was sold to the card holders ².

g) Finally, a number of measure were undertaken to improve transparency and accountability: These are listed below:-

i) Increasing commission rates paid to the shop owners from Rs. 8 to Rs. 30 per quintal of rice and providing interest-free loans to shop owners, thereby lowering the FPS owner’s incentive to cheat and indulge in black marketeering of grains. According to Reetika Khera, only about 10% of the FPSs in Chhattisgarh reported food either going missing or being stolen in 2009-10 while this number is as high as 60% in Uttar Pradesh ³.

ii) Making use of electronic weighing scales mandatory in all FPSs.

iii) The government started conducting verification drives to identify and cancel bogus ration cards.

iv) Setting up of watchdog committees at the local level to increase accountability.

v) Introduction of technology – sending out SMSs when the goods leave the godowns, getting trucks carrying the rations fitted with GPS so that they can be tracked and monitored by anyone.

These measures have led to an increase in transparency and accountability to a significant extent. For instance, in a survey conducted in 12 randomly selected villages of districts Sarguja and Mahasamund of Chhattisgarh (as part of a larger survey conducted across nine states in India called the PDS survey 2011), 88.2% percent of the respondents expressed satisfaction with the way the PDS was functioning in the state (Puri, 2012).

The case of Chhattisgarh, therefore, shows how comprehensive and sustained reform measures together with a strong political will and effort from the civil society can improve the implementation of and access to any system (Krishnamurthy, Pathania, & Tandon, 2014). Moreover, it indicates that it can be done with minimal financial inputs. In fact, Chhattisgarh spends only about 4-5% of its budget on inexpensive food ³.

Given that a large number of grains never reach the intended beneficiary (according to an investigation by Bloomberg, approximately $14.5 billion worth of food has been siphoned off from the PDS in Uttar Pradesh alone in the past ten years ¹), these small measures can go a long way in ensuring plugging leakages, preventing corruption and thereby reducing poverty and hunger. In fact, in a recent paper, the impact of the PDS on rural poverty has been proven statistically. According to data from NSS 2009-10, about 73% of rural households in Chhattisgarh were buying foodgrains from the PDS which would lead to a proportionate reduction by 39% in the “poverty-gap index” (a distribution-sensitive poverty measure) (using the all-India rural poverty line of Rs. 673 per person per month at 2009-10 prices) (Dreze & Khera, 2013).

The Chhattisgarh model of PDS has, thus, shown itself to be worthy of praise and deserves to be understood in detail so that it can be used as a lesson by the other states, if not emulated to the fullest.

Bibliography

¹http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/chhattisgarh-passes-own-food-security-bill/article1-979100.aspx

²http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/pds-gets-smart-112102800031_1.html

³http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21566699-rural-india-there-hope-worst-policies-can-be-improved-tale-two-villages

Dreze, J., & Khera, R. (2013, November 16). Rural Poverty and the Public Distribution System. Economic & Political Weekly .

Himanshu, & Sen, A. (2011). Why Not a Universal Food Security Legislation? Economic & Political Weekly , 46 (12).

Khera, R. (2011). Revival of the Public Distribution System: Evidence and Explanations. Economic & Political Weekly , XLVI (44 & 45).

Khera, R. (2011). Trends in Diversion of Grain from the Public Distribution System. Economic & Political Weekly , 46 (26).

Krishnamurthy, P., Pathania, V., & Tandon, S. (2014). Public Distribution System Reforms and Consumption in Chhattisgarh: A Comparatve Empirical Analysis. Economic & Political Weekly , XLIX (8), 74-81.

Puri, R. (2012). Reforming the Public Distribution Sytem: Lessons from Chhattisgarh. Economic and Political Weekly , XLVII (5).

Rahman, A. (2014). Revival of Rural Public Distribution System: Expansion and Outreach. Economic & Political Weekly , XLIX (20).

Kinks in Development- MDGs in India

In early 2000, the Millennium Declaration articulated a bold vision and established concrete ‘goals’ for improving the lives of those threatened by poverty, disease and hunger. These concrete targets however, were not devised through a consultative process with developing countries. Instead, a working committee drawn from different UN agencies such as the World Bank, IMF, UNICEF and others identified goals and targets for development. Although not a formal UN resolution, the Millenium Development Goals(MDGs) have played a pivotal role in shaping the international development cooperation agenda till at least 2015.

For the year 2015 , the target was to bring down world poverty by half through a set of 8 goals and 12 targets. Each country has to follow the broad framework provided by the UN. A current UNDP report presents an overview of the progress on MDG indicators in India ,so far. India’s MDG framework is based on the United Nation Development Goals (2003), and out of the 18 targets and 53 indicators suggested , only 12 targets and 35 measures are endemic to India’s case.

Target No.	Target Description	Progress Signs
1.	Halve, between 1990 and 2015, proportion of population below national poverty line	Δ
2.	Halve, between 1990 and 2015, proportion of people who suffer from hunger	Θ
3.	Ensure that by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary education	ΔΔ
4.	Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015	Δ
5.	Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate	ΘΔ
6.	Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio	ΘΔ
7.	Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS	Δ
8.	Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases	ΘΔ
9.	Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources	ΔΔ
10.	Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation	ΔΘ
12.	In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication	ΔΔ

Δ : Moderately/almost nearly on track considering all indicators
Θ : Slow/almost off-track considering all indicators
ΔΔ : On-track or fast considering all indicators

Out of the 12 targets, we seem to be on track with only 3. Undoubtedly while this is a cause for concern, but, so is the way we evaluate progress on these 8 goals. For instance 1 of the 3 goals we are on track with is the goal of universalizing primary education. The way to measure this goal is the Net Enrolment Ratio in primary education, the literacy rate of 15-24 year olds and proportion of students starting grade 1 who reach grade 5.

The third measure for this is flawed. The RTE, for example, works with a premise that students will not be held back till Grade 8. This makes the last measure biased as only the children who would have exited the system are the ones that dropped out. It also raises a supplementary question, of whether universal enrolment is the end goal/ outcome we wish to achieve in Education. If not, then one should also be focusing on quality of education imparted. In the long run poor quality of education and lack of opportunities following the quality of education can become a deterrent to entering the schooling system

The MDGs in their current form are what Pritchett and Kenny in their working paper on Millenium Development Ideals term as “kinky development”.A kink involves trying to move everyone who in the distribution is just below the average to the average. To make this simpler to understand as a concept let us look at the concept of a Poverty Head Count Ratio which is one of the measures used by India to estimate our progress on eradicating poverty.

A Poverty Head Count Ratio is simply the number of poor people (which defined by a monetary sum per day, in our case Rs 32/day as defined by Tendulkar Committee) divided by the total population. If our aim is to reduce this ratio with celerity, as mandated by the MDGs,progress on this measure may never aid the poor who are worst off. With a resource constraint and an implementer who is interested in showing progress (as all implementers are) the only people who benefit are the ones who are situated right below the poverty line i.e. people with an income of Rs31/ day, for instance. Explained simply, If I have a hundred rupees to alleviate poverty for 2 groups of people – those earning Rs 5/day and those earning Rs 31/day . If I choose to bring the people at Rs 5 above the poverty line there is no doubt that the number of people I could bring above the poverty line would be much lower than if I decided to aid the people at Rs 31. This problem is further exacerbated when we keep redefining the poverty line. After the public outrage over the Tendulkar Committeespreposterously low per day poverty estimates, the Rangarajan Committee (link) has increased the per day estimate which has led to 35% increase in the number of people classified as poor. The problem with any measure, which focuses on absolute numbers, is that the people who actually need the assistance the most seem to be excluded.

Despite these problems, the indicators are not a bad starting point for a country. However, assessing development outcomes holistically requires that we also incorporate the quality or non –quantifiable aspects of a development goal. As is evident, there are shortcomings in the way we track progress on the MDGs. Recognising this is essential going forward as the post 2015 MDG agenda is still being shaped.

The Post 2015 MDG agenda encompasses a broader range of topics such as climate change and water, with poverty eradication and sustainable development continuing to be their core focus.

A Million Voices: The World We Want, Report acknowledges the need to go beyond quantitative targets that only aim to increase access. Despite this recognition worldwide, there is a strong call to retain the focus on concrete, measurable goals but by dramatically improving the way we measure progress. This will require that new forms of data be collected and the existing information be upgraded. The argument is that a data revolution is what will support an accountability revolution. One can hope that these new forms of data include more quality related indicators and is able to better address and frame the international agenda for development.

References

MGNREGA: Women’s Participation and its Impact

Launched in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) legally enshrines the “right to work” and ensures livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

An important objective of MGNREGA has been to encourage women’s effective participation, both as workers and as administrators. For instance, according to MGNREGA guidelines, at least one-third of the beneficiaries shall be women who have registered and requested for work under the programme. Further, since employment is provided within 5 km radius of the village[1], it has the potential to bolster women’s participation. But how far has MGNREGA been successful in fulfilling this objective? This blog provides some insights into the implementation of the scheme in terms of providing equitable and easy access to work to rural women.

68th round of NSSO data shows that between 2004-05 and 2011-12, there has been a negative trend in women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR or the proportion of labour force to total population) in rural India. Rural female participation fell from nearly 25% in 2004-05 to 21% in 2009-10 and then even lower to around 17% in 2011-12. However, a study by Mehtabul Azam using nationally representative National Sample Surveys (NSS) data found that MGNREGA has helped mitigate the situation. The study exploited the phase-wise expansion of the MGNREGA[2] and found that the decline in labour force participation in MGNREGA districts has been lower than the decline observed in non-MGNREGA districts. This effect is found to be more pronounced in the case of female labour participation. Significantly, female share of works under MGNREGA is greater than their share of work in the casual wage labour market across all states^{^[3]}. Women are participating in the scheme much more actively than they participated in other forms of recorded work^{^[4]}.

MGNREGA’s own official data shows that women’s participation in MGNREGA has been on the rise. At the national level, it increased from 40% in 2006-07 to 53% in 2013-14. However, there are wide variations across states and across districts within a state. While the statute mandates that at least one-third of the beneficiaries shall be women, the actual proportion varies, ranging from 22% in Uttar Pradesh to 93% in Kerala in 2013-14. The southern states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh show a higher rate of participation. Among the northern and some eastern states, however, the pattern has been low, with Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh being the exceptions.

The interstate variations in women participation can be attributed to a host of factors ranging from socio-cultural norms around female participation in labour force, mobility and intra household allocation of roles and responsibilities, opportunity costs in terms of wage differentials between private sector and MGNREGA, efficiency of implementing institutions at the State and local government levels and influence of Self-Help Groups and NGOs. For instance, in the case of Kerala, where MGNREGA has turned out to be an almost “ladies only” affair, the fact that Kudambashree (a State government initiative for poverty eradication through networking of women’s groups) has been placed in charge of its implementation has also made a striking difference to the level of women’s participation. This convergence has played its part in evolving the economic identity of the rural woman – as skilled labourer and farmer cultivator. It has also created a development interface for women to negotiate with local governments and power structures, giving new meaning to participatory governance. In Rajasthan, active youth groups and other social movements have been deeply involved and encouraged women participation in the programme. As a result, general levels of awareness are much higher than they would have been if advocacy had been left exclusively to the district administration. ^{^[5]}

Under MGNREGA, the clause of equal pay for men and women has also been adhered to and has resulted in shaping out a better socio-economic scenario for rural women of India. NSSO 66^th round data brings out the clear gender wage gap in unskilled wages (See Table 1 for more details).This difference was much larger in other public works; 98.3 per day for men and 86.1 per day for women. Such gender wage gaps are high across the country and among the highest in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The NSSO data shows that MGNREGA has reduced the traditional wage discrimination in public works. Women therefore, have looked upon MGNREGA, where minimum wages are to be paid, as a viable alternative. This may explain to an assured extent, the higher women participation in states where the initial condition in unskilled agriculture work is more imbalanced between men and women. An interesting example is that of Kerala which has the highest gender wage gap in agricultural labour and also the highest participation rate in MGNREGA. (93% female participation in MGNREGA).

Improved access to economic resources and paid work has had a positive impact on the socio-economic status of women. Studies[6] indicate that women exercise independence in collection and spending of MGNREGA wages, indicating greater decision-making power within the households. Women have also reported better access to credit and financial institutions. The mandatory transfer of wage payment through bank accounts has ensured a greater financial inclusion of women. Despite these improvements, certain factors such as non-availability of work-site facilities like crèches, long work hours, gender relations, implementation challenges continue to occlude women’s full participation. Functional and safe mobile crèche services, flexibility in terms of women’s working hours and provision for gender-specific life cycle needs are likely to provide women with more time and opportunity to participate actively in MGNREGA. This would be an important step in narrowing down the prevalent gender gap in rural India.

[1] In case, work is provided beyond 5 kms, extra wages of 10 percent are payable to meet additional transportation and living expenses.

[2] In February 2006, it was launched in 200 backward districts. An additional 130 districts were covered in 2007-08 in the second phase and the scheme went on to cover all districts in the third phase in 2008-09.

[3] Dutta, Murgai, Ravallion and Dominique, ‘Does India’s Employment Guarantee Scheme Guarantee Employment’.

[4] J. Ghosh, ‘Equity and Inclusion through Public Expenditure: The Potential of the NREGS’, New Delhi: Paper for International Conference on NREGA, 21–22 January 2009.

[5]Sudarshan, ‘India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Women’s Participation and Impacts in Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan.

[6] C. Dheeraja and H. Rao. ‘Changing Gender Relations: A Study of MGNREGS across Different States’, Hyderabad: National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), 2010.

Roadblocks in the implementation of the RTE

Government schools in India are perceived as places where the quality of teaching is questionable, and teacher absenteeism high. While these views may not be entirely accurate, there are some concerning trends that the data points towards.

Learning levels in government schools are low across the country (currently, only 41% of students in class 5 can read a standard 2 level text while only 20% of kids in grade 5 can do division), and have been falling consistently, as recorded by ASER between 2009-2013.The gap in the reading and arithmetic levels between private and government schools has also grown consistently from 2009 to 2013 (ASER report, 2013). The decline was the sharpest in 2011, a year after the RTE was implemented. Whether the implementation failures of the RTE has been the reason behind this is debatable. What is clear, however, is that the implementation of the RTE has not been able to reverse this downward trend in basic reading and math levels.

In this blog, I will be looking some of the possible reasons because of which RTE has not been as effective as envisaged, particularly in the government run schools.

The RTE was enforced across India on the 1^st of August, 2010. This was more than four years ago. One might then expect that by now, most, if not all of the rules and guidelines of the RTE would have been implemented. Unfortunately, many schools have been unable to fulfil the input and PTR (pupil teacher ratio) requirements which are the primary goals the RTE aims to achieve. The rationale behind this focus on inputs is that if all the input needs are met, the quality of education will improve as the lack of these inputs is the primary obstacle that prevents high quality teaching from taking place in government schools. However, as we have seen, the data suggests otherwise. While inputs are important, perhaps other hurdles must be crossed before increasing inputs to make a significant difference to the quality of education delivered in government schools.

The average student to teacher ratio in Bihar is around 57:1, with an average of 87 students per classroom (Economic Times). These ratios are much higher than the ideal average of 30:1. There are several reasons for this extremely high PTR, one of them being a large human resource crunch . During the course of my work, I was taken for a field visit to Bihar to interact with government officials and others associated with government schools. One of the schools we visited was running three separate schools in the same block. A few days later, we went to another block without informing them beforehand, and found that the first three schools we went to didn’t have headmasters present in schools for the interview. Later, we finally reached a school where there was a headmaster, but with one of the other two teachers absent, leaving only two people to look after 5 separate grades.

One question that needs to be addressed is – ‘Who is holding these schools responsible, for the results they deliver, the quality of teaching, and the teacher absenteeism’?

In private schools, parents pay the school directly, and can therefore hold them accountable because of the direct relationship between the number of children and the revenue of a school. These schools cannot afford to lose too many students because of the losses it will sustain. These parents have the choice to move their children to other schools and can complain to authorities present in the school such as the principal and headmaster, who, unlike in government schools, often have the authority and autonomy to remove, reprimand or otherwise deal with parental complaints, even the ones about teachers. Moreover, parents will often move their child out of government schools and put them in a private one, in spite of the additional costs incurred by them. This phenomena can be seen in the ASER report, which claims that the percentage of children enrolled in private schools increased from 18.7% to 29% in rural India between 2006 and 2013. This reduces the number of parents who will speak out against the government schools, making them even less accountable to the people their services actually reach.

To counter this, there is an SMC (School Management Committee) set up for every school. The SMC’s are envisioned as committees consisting primarily of the people who send their children to the school in the area. It was thought that because a majority of the members are affected in the long term by how the schools runs, there would be significant engagement by the SMC’s and through that, an improvement in the functioning and therefore quality, of the school. In their implementation, however, SMC’s don’t live up to the legislative vision that they had been proposed with. In many places, while SMC’s exist on paper, they are scarcely active, with a sparse number of members who regularly attend the meetings. This is to be expected, given that few incentives exist for SMC’s to function actively( more information on SMCs is mentioned here).In some places, the Headmaster and a school teacher are the two signatories to school plans, which can potentially bypasses the function of the SMC entirely.

Another system that is designed to maintain quality control and create an environment where teachers are made accountable, is that of monitoring. CRCC’s monitor schools to ensure the teachers are present, teaching and submits various observations to the BEO. Even if we ignore the fact that the CRCC’s may not get much time to monitor the schools because of the other work they also have, they tend to look only at the tangible aspects of the RTE such as infrastructure, student and teacher attendance etc., and not the quality of education being imparted. CRCC’s also have too many schools for them to effectively look after (some have 22-23 schools), and BEO’s have several times more than this. Another major problem is that there are high percentages of vacant positions not only at the teacher level, but also the CRCC and BEO level.

These are only some of the problems that the education system and the RTE faces in transforming the education scenario in India. Given the scope of the program and the complexities it must deal with, such problems are expected. But these must be overcome if we are to transform the education in India to any reasonable degree. These are not problems which will be solved only by a higher budget allocation (in fact, the expenditure per child roughly tripled when the RTE was implemented). Rather, they require a re-thinking and re-structuring of the systems within the RTE.

उचित ढंग से पैसों का दुरूपयोग

“निःषुल्क एवं अनिवार्य बाल षिक्षा अधिकार अधिनियम 2009” की धारा 21 के अनुसार राजस्थान राज्य के समस्त राजकीय प्राथमिक एवं उच्च प्राथमिक विधालयों में “विधालय प्रबन्धन समिति“ का गठन किया गया हैं। विधालय प्रबन्धन समिति को उनके दायित्वों की जानकारी देने, विधालय के प्रति अपनत्व की भावना विकसित करने, गुणवत्तापूर्ण षिक्षा सुनिष्चित कराने, आर.टी.ई. एक्ट के प्रावधानों एवं विधालय स्तर पर षिकायत निवारण तंत्र के बारे में जानकारी देने, विधालय स्तर पर योजना निर्माण करने, सर्व षिक्षा अभियान के विभिन्न कार्यक्रमों एवं विधालय प्रबन्धन की जानकारी देने हेतु दो दिवसीय प्रषिक्षण नोडल विधालय स्तर पर आयोजित किये जाने का प्रावधान किया गया है। इस क्रम में कार्यालय जिला परियोजना समन्वयक, सर्व षिक्षा अभियान, जयपुर द्वारा प्रासंगिक पत्र जिपस/एस.एस.ए./जय/630 दिनांक 17.07.2014 जारी कर समस्त प्रखण्ड प्रारम्भिक षिक्षा अधिकारियों को निर्देषित किया गया कि प्रखण्ड स्तर पर एक दिवसीय प्रषिक्षण नोडल संस्था प्रधानों को दिया जावे। इस प्रकार नोडल संस्था प्रधान प्रषिक्षण लेने के बाद प्रभावी दक्ष प्रषिक्षक के रूप में विधालय प्रबन्धन समिति के सदस्यों को प्रषिक्षित कर सके।

अभी 24 जूलाई 2014 को मुझे जयपुर जिले के एक प्रखण्ड में इस प्रकार की एक एकदिवसीय प्रषिक्षण कार्यषाला में भाग लेने का मौका मिला। यह प्रषिक्षण कार्यषाला सुबह 10 बजे से लेकर 5 बजे तक आयोजित की गयी, जिसमें प्रखण्ड के नोडल एव वरिष्ठ षिक्षकों ने संदर्भ व्यक्ति के रूप में भाग लिया। मुख्य संदर्भ व्यक्ति ने परिचय के माध्यम से प्रषिक्षण की शुरूवात की। प्रषिक्षण की विषय सूची में निम्न बिन्दू प्रस्तावित थे जिन पर प्रषिक्षण के दौरान चर्चा की जानी थी।

प्रेरणा सत्र
सामुदायिक गतिषीलता की अवधारणा
हमारा अपना विधालय
1⁄411⁄2 एस.एम.सी. के दायित्व एवं भूमिका
1⁄421⁄2 विधालय प्रबन्धन समिति
1⁄431⁄2 विधालय प्रबन्धन समिति द्वारा किये जाने वाले मुख्य कार्य
सर्व षिक्षा अभियान के अन्तर्गत संचालित कार्यक्रम परिचय
विधालयी गतिविधियाँ एवं एस.एम.सी.
विधालय योजना निर्माण एवं एस.एम.सी. का योगदान
विधालय योजना निर्माण 1⁄4सामान्य दिषा-निर्देष एवं आवष्यक प्रपत्र1⁄2

परिचय के बाद सभी प्रषिक्षाणर्थी मुख्य संदर्भ व्यक्ति से पिछले वक्त आयोजित किये गये प्रषिक्षण में कम किये गये पैसों के बारे में पुछना शुरू कर दिया और कहा कि वो पैसा कब मिलेगा। मुख्य संदर्भ व्यक्ति ने कहा कि आज हमारे यहाँ आने का मुद्दा यह नही है, आज हमारा काम प्रषिक्षण लेना हैं। सर्व षिक्षा अभियान के एक कार्यकर्ता ने रिडिंग कैम्पेन की पुस्तकों के आगमन की सूचना दी। सब लोग इस बारे में बातचीत करने में मषगूल हो गये। इस कार्य में तकरीबन 30 मिनट खर्च हो गये। तब कही जाकर वापस प्रषिक्षण की विषय सूची पर वापिस बात होना शुरू हुई। मुख्य संदर्भ व्यक्ति ने बताया कि साधारण सभा की एक बैठक आयोजित कर उसमें से कार्यकारिणी का चुनाव लोकतांत्रिक तरीके से करवाया जाना चाहिए। साधारण सभा के साथ तीन माह में एक बार आम सभा की बैठक व कार्यकारिणी के साथ मासिक बैठक आयोजित की जानी चाहिए। इस बीच प्रषिक्षार्थी राजस्थान में विधालयों के होने जा रहे एकीकरण को लेकर चर्चा शुरू हुई। थोडे समय बाद, बी.ई.ई.ओ. प्रषिक्षण केन्द्र पहुँचे और उन्होंने सभी उपस्थित लोगों को यह जानकारी दी कि मीड-डे-मील के तहत जिन लोंगों को गैस कनेक्षन नही दिये गये है, वह लोग सूची बनाकर उनके कार्यालय भेज दे। उन्हें जल्द ही यह कनेक्षन उपलब्ध करवाने का आष्वासन दिया। सभी प्रषिक्षार्थियों ने तभी मीड-डे-मील योजना के बारदाने को लेकर बात शुरू कर दी किस दर पर हम लोगों को यह बेचना चाहिए ? लगभग 1 घण्टे तक इस मुद्दे पर चर्चा होती रही। एक बार फिर से मुख्य संदर्भ व्यक्ति ने प्रषिक्षण विषय सूची पर चर्चा शुरू की, तभी प्रषिक्षार्थियों ने एक स्वर में कहा कि सर इसे रहने दीजिये, यह वही पुराना वाला माॅड्युल है सिर्फ कुछ चीजे नही है जिन्हे हम घर जाकर पढ लेग। आप हमें यह बताये कि हमें प्रषिक्षण के दौरान किन बातों का ख्याल रखना हैं ? मुख्य संदर्भ व्यक्ति ने भी सब की हाँ में हाँ मिलाते हूवे प्रषिक्षण माॅड्युल पढना बन्द कर दिया और कहां कि आप लोगों को निम्न बातों का ध्यान रखना है:-

प्रतिदिन के प्रषिक्षण के फोटोग्राप्स का होना आवष्यक है। अगर लोग प्रषिक्षण के लिए नही आ रहे है तो भी आप लोग आंगनबाडी के कार्यकर्ताओं, आसपास के दुकानदारों और रसाईयों को बुलाकर फोटोग्राप्स अवष्य लेवे।
प्रतिदिन की उपस्थिति अवष्य लेवे।
इस बार निगरानी कडी होगी, ध्यान रखे।
बजट का खर्च नियमानुसार करे और उपयोगिता प्रमाण पत्र समय पर कार्यालय में जमा करावे।

इसके बाद चाय आ गई, सभी लोग चाय पीने के पश्चायत सभी लोग अपने घरों के लिए प्रस्थान कर गये।

निष्कर्ष:- जिस तरीके से पुरा एकदिवसीय प्रषिक्षण आयोजित हुआ उसमें प्रषिक्षण विषय सूची पर कम और अकादमिक गतिविधियों पर ज्यादा बातचीत हुई। आकलन से लग रहा था प्रषिक्षार्थी प्रषिक्षण में रूचि नही ले रहे थे। पुरे प्रषिक्षण सत्र के दौरान 7 घण्टों में से बमुष्किल 2 घण्टे प्रषिक्षण सूची पर बात हुई।

प्रषिक्षण के अन्त में मुख्य व्यक्तियों द्वारा ऐसी बाते बतायी जा रही थी जैसे कि आप लोगों को महज यह औपचारिकता पूरी करनी है। क्या इस तरीके से प्रषिक्षित संदर्भ व्यक्ति उचित तरीके से विधालय प्रबन्धन समिति के लोगों को प्रषिक्षित कर पायेंगे ? क्या भविष्य में हम लोगांे को ऐसे ही सम्बन्धित विभागिय लोगों से प्रषिक्षण कार्यक्रम आयोजित करवाते रहना चाहिए अथवा बाहरी लोगों की मदद लेनी चाहिए ? जिससे हम लोगों को नतीजे प्राप्त हो, सरकारी धन का दुरूपयोग रोका जा सके।

The Perpetuating Problem of Coordination

Different kinds of roads make a city. There are roads which are barely pucca, some which have a generous spread of potholes and provides many more chances of being run over by rapidly moving traffic. There are also roads which are just a dream come true; smooth and wide with space for pedestrians to walk. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which road needs attention first. Yet our planners and implementers ignore, what at first glance seems like common sense. This blog seeks to cite a few examples to highlight the problems of coordination and planning that persist and pan over a variety of services and schemes.

A frequent occurrence in the streets of Delhi seems to be the digging up of perfectly good roads and pavements and then re-laying them without any difference before and after. In last years monsoon season , our erstwhile Chief Minister was quoted in a national newspaper saying that one could only pray that the rains would stop as this was the only way to address the perennial water-logging problem faced by the city.(click here for the article) After a great deal of pressure, the Public Works Department (PWD) was put in charge of removing the silt. However, once they removed the silt, it was another agency’s mandate to pick up the silt and clear it off the streets. In fact, call it a comedy of errors or bad planning; before the agency could remove the silt, it rained again, pushing all the silt back, where it first came from. There is no example that is closer to home, to highlight the systemic lack of coordination between different agencies.

Underground lines have to be laid for gas, electricity, telephones. Sewers and roads have to be dug up for this purpose. It seems to escape the imagination of all agencies involved, that the four lines can be laid at once. Instead, while laying their own line, agencies somehow manage to damage the pre-existing lines and other line departments have to be called to fix not just the previous damages, but also the current ones. A vicious cycle emerges.

This acute lack of coordination isn’t restricted only to the roads in Delhi. A report by International Institute for Population Sciences, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund, identified that lack of coordination across different sectors such as health, social welfare and education, adversely affecting schemes related to providing financial incentives to the Girl Child. A presentation by Dr. Jacob Shapiro at the IGC conference held in Delhi last week discussed the geography of infrastructure provision. He mapped the country’s Rural Electrification Program, the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana’ (RGGVY), with the Unified Access services. Under this, mobile operators were being able to set up mobile towers in rural areas with heavy subsides from the government to improve access and communication in the remotest of remote areas. Unfortunately, these efforts are mostly in vain because the overlap between electrified villages and villages with mobile towers is currently low.

The simplistic view would be to believe that problems in planning and implementation are due to incompetency. For anyone following India’s development discourse closely, the problem of intra-department and inter-department coordination seems to originate from questions of intent or incentives.

Perhaps from a rent seeking perspective, it makes more sense to dig up the same stretch of road as many times as possible. Contemporary Public Economics identifies the state as comprised of self interest maximizing individuals whose best interest often does not coincide with society’s. With respect to the inter and intra department coordination problems which are a recurring theme in the failure of state to perform to it’s potential , there is little that one can do, outside the government to address the problem. If one is well versed with the provisions of specific schemes where inter-departmental coordination has been specified, there is still some scope of holding agencies accountable for not coordinating. We need to take a closer look at this systemic and systematic chaos that continues to plague the most basic of government functions.

Dissemination Camp: Humara Paisa, Humara School

Can decentralization reforms meant to enhance school governance in primary and upper primary schools in India achieve the goal of universal elementary education that the RTE Act envisages?

By decentralization, I mean providing access to relevant information (e.g. the amount of money being pumped into the schools) and giving full authority &power to make decisions for the utilization of resources in the schools in order to enhance the level of education.

This blog highlights my own experience of interacting with two School Management Committees (SMCs) in Sagar District of Madhya Pradesh during the dissemination camp in light of above question

The dissemination camp with a tag line, “Humara Paisa, Humara Vidyalay” was initiated during the first two weeks of July 2014 in 30 sample schools across four states (Rajasthan, Telengana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh), where Accountability Initiative (AI) had previously collected data during the PAISA 2013 District Report Card survey. The dissemination camp was conducted with the aim of being an interactive session for two hours with the SMC members. It primarily focused on sharing school specific information from PAISA DRC2013 with them.

Sagar Experience:

State information: State expenditure on Elementary Education (EE) and per student allocation – public vs. private.
District information: District expenditure on EE.
General school information in the specific district vs. school specific information:

Total funds received by schools in the district and the target schools.
School grants and entitlements: District scenario vs. target school scenario (Information such as the release of funds from the district to the schools, information on whether funds have been received by the schools , school grants expenditure, fulfillment of RTE indicators , information about uniforms and text books, status of the provision of toilets, etc.)
School characteristics: Students’ enrolment (average) vs. attendance, teachers’ attendance and pupil-teacher ratio

In the first part of the session, we shared information regarding the average amount of funds received by a school in the district in 2012-13. In addition to this, information regarding the funds that the target school had received in the same financial year was also compared. The second section of the discussion, however, was slightly tricky to conduct. Initially we asked the SMC members to list out what they believed were the different requirements of the schools in the present scenario. Having done that, we asked the members present to prioritize their spending, assuming that the total funds allocated to their schools in 2012-2013 were directly given to them with full authority and power to spend for the betterment of their schools.

The second section was very vital to help us understand the thought process of the SMC members if given the decision making power to manage financial resources coming to their school. The hypothesis of this exercise is whether the planning process for school development is really decentralized then we may get more contextualized planning which will look into the optimal utilization of resources and enhance school governance. By the end of the dissemination camp, we would like to see if we receive data to support this hypothesis.

The two schools in Sagar district where we kick started the camp brought in some interesting observations. The first section of the two hours exercise left the SMC members awestruck. They were overwhelmed to know that such huge amounts of funds were coming in for their schools. Many of the SMC members were even more surprised to know that these funds were actually their own money paid indirectly as taxes on purchasing different commodities. Examples were given that taxes from everyday purchases, from salt to seeds to their mobile re-charges, play a big role. I saw in the school the people are really interested to know the where the money that comes from, how is it spent and when is it spent. Some of the SMC members, who did not want to be seen by the school headmaster, came to us and asked for the details regarding the funds coming into their schools in writing so that they could look into it afterwards. We told them that we would leave behind the IEC (Information, Communication and Education) materials that we had made to disseminate information to them. We shared that they could use it for further discussion in SMC in future. This shows the implication of hierarchical barriers at the school level among the teachers and parents, which blocks the smooth flow of information about funds to SMC members.

The second section of the dissemination camp gave us a good insight. In one of the schools an SMC member said, “We do not need any boundaries and toilets for our schools. We require teachers for our children.” For them, it was for education that people were sending their children to the schools. So if there were no teachers (as the school had only one permanent teacher) the whole objective of sending their children to schools was a failure for them. One of the parents stated, “To hell with boundaries and toilets, we need good teachers to teach our children so that our children may not be illiterate like us.”

In another school the SMC members shared, “If we were given the money we would have installed a hand pump in the school for our children to have clean and safe drinking water”. At present, the school does not have any drinking water facilities. Besides this, the school has till now failed to fulfill many of the criteria set under the RTE Act, the most important of them being the availability of toilets. When a school does not have basic amenities like the availability of water and toilets facilities, the students often do not come to school or go home in between the classes, thus hampering their attendance in schools. The funds that come into the schools are like tied funds which are given with certain guidelines. The schools have to spend according to these guidelines, even if they do not require something or if some other need is more pertinent than the one for which the funds have been allocated. SMC members are important stakeholders to decide the needs of their school and using their collective thought process could be the good intervention strategy altogether. This would not only define the SMC members’ responsibilities but also hold them accountable.

The schools are situated within the communities while the students and the SMC members are from the village. The SMC members and teachers, therefore, know much better about their own requirements than the people based far away from the school who are made responsible for the determination and management of the financial resources. This is not a new revelation since it is has previously been highlighted in various reports by different scholars.

This exercise, besides disseminating findings based on the information that we had collected from the schools, is to strengthen the belief that if people are given the power and authority to decide for themselves, more transparency and accountability can be demanded for an improved system of governance in the schools.

In the next few weeks, along with more stories from the field from the dissemination camps, I am hoping for our hypothesis, that if the planning process for school development is really decentralized then we may get more contextualized planning which will look into the optimal utilization of resources and enhance school governance, to be proved correct.

“हमारा पैसा……हमारा स्कूल”

कुछ नया करने से सीखने और परिणामों को जानने का मौका मिलता है | इसलिए कुछ नया जरूर करना चाहिए | इसी बात को मद्देनज़र रखते हुए हमारी टीम द्वारा “हमारा पैसा हमारा स्कूल” के अभियान को शुरू किया गया | जो की 4 राज्यों के 4 ज़िलों में किया जाना था, जिसमे महाराष्ट्र (सातारा) मध्य प्रदेश (सागर) तेलंगाना (मेदक) और राजस्थान (जयपुर) शामिल है | जिसमे करीब 30 स्कूलों में यह कार्यक्रम प्रायोगिक स्तर पर करने की योजना बनायीं गई |इस कार्यक्रम से सम्बंधित कार्यशाला भोपाल में आयोजित की गई | जिसमे हमारे कार्यक्रम समन्वयक एवं चार राज्यों के पैसा समन्वयक उपस्थित थे | क्योंकि यह प्रायोगिक सागर में करना था, इसलिए हमारे द्वारा इसका पूर्व अभ्यास किया गया | जिसमे हम लोगों द्वारा इस योजना को किस प्रकार से करने से हमें अच्छे परिणाम प्राप्त हो सकते है इसपर विस्तृत चर्चा की गई | कच्ची सामग्री बनायीं गई जिसे हम हमारे प्रायोगिक स्कूलों में उपयोग करने वाले थे | प्रायोगिक स्कूलों का चयन पहले से किया गया था | वहाँ के मुख्याध्यापक को मिलकर कार्यक्रम के बारे में बताया गया था | प्रायोगिक के दिन हम लोगों द्वारा 2 स्कूलों में जाना हुआ प्राथमिक विद्यालय उदयपुरा और प्राथमिक विद्यालय सिद्गुवा |प्राथमिक विद्यालय सिद्गुवा :-
स्कूल में जब हमारे द्वारा प्रवेश किया गया तों हमने देखा की, वहाँपर मुख्याध्यापक और शिक्षकों के अलावा और कोई एस.एम.सी सदस्य उपस्थित नहीं है | मुख्याध्यापक से चर्चा करने के उपरांत उन्होंने कहाँ की, सभी लोग मजदूरी के लिये गए है, अभी कोई नहीं आएगा | यह सुनकर हम लोग थोड़े परेशान हो गए | पर मराठी में एक मन है, “केल्याने होत आहे रे …. आधी केलेची पाहिजे” इसका मतलब है करने से होगा पर पहले उसे करके देखना चाहिए | इसी को ध्यान में रखते हुए हमने मुख्याध्यापक जी द्वारा एस.एम.सी. के अध्यक्ष को स्कूल में बुलाया और उनके साथ पूरे गाँव का भ्रमण किया | सभी एस.एम.सी. सदस्यों के घर जाकर उन्हें बैठक में आने के लिये कहाँ | 15 मिनिट बाद हमने देखा की, जिन जिन घरों में हमें एस.एम.सी. सदस्य मिले उन सभी घरों से लोग स्कूल आ गए थे | सभी लोगों को देख हमें भी काफ़ी खुशी हुयी |

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हमारे द्वारा कार्यक्रम की शुरुवात मैं हमने अपना परिचय दिया और सभी का परिचय लिया | हमने स्कूल में आने की वजह को बताया, और कहाँ की हम लोग पैसा सर्वे करते हैं | इस पैसा सर्वे मैं हम क्या–क्या जानकारी लेते है वोह भी बिस्तृत रूप से सबों को बताया |

आगे हम लोग बढ़ने ही वाले थे की, शिक्षकों को द्वारा एस.एम.सी. के लोगों और गाँव के लोगों पर दोषारोप शुरू हो गया | शिक्षकों ने सबों को सुनने लगा की वोह अपने बच्चों को स्कूल में नहीं भेजते है, स्कूल के शौचालय का दरवाजा तोड़ देते हैं, स्कूल के पीछे नशा करके जुवा खेलते रहते है, इत्यादि | शिक्षकों ने यह भी कहाँ की लोग अपने बच्चों को प्राइवेट स्कूल में भेजते है, वहाँ हर महीने की बैठक में शामिल होते है पर सरकारी स्कूल में बैठक में आना नहीं चाहते | इसप्रकार के आरोपों से हमारा बैठक शुरु हुई |

फिर हमने माहोल को अपने नियंत्रण मैं लेते हुए समझाया की इसप्रकार की समस्या तों ज्यादा टार स्कूल मैं होती रहती है | मैं ने सबोंको इसी समस्याओ को कैसे हल करे इसकेलिए सोचने कहाँ और इसपर चर्चा के लिए धयान आकर्षित किया |
तभी हम लोगों द्वारा “कर” और “शिक्षा के ऊपर कर” को लेकर चर्चा शुरू हुई | हमने बताया की अगर कोई भी अभिभाबक अपना बच्चा प्राइवेट स्कूल में भेजते हैं तोह वोह सीधा अपने हातो से हर महीने स्कूल का फीस देते है | पर क्या उनको पता है, सरकारी स्कूल में भी वोह अपने जेब से पैसा देते है | इसपर सबकोई पूछ ने लगा, “कैसे?”
तों हमने बताया की हर कोई अपने घर के लिए कोई भी वस्तु खरीदते है तब उसके उप्पर सब कोई सर्कार को कर देते हैं, २ प्रतिशत शिक्षा का लिए भी कर देते है | जैसे साबुन, तेल, चीनी, तेल इत्यादि | मोबाइल के रिचार्ज पर जब हम 10 रुपये का रिचार्ज करते है तब 7 रुपये ही मिलता है, जो 3 रूपया कटता है वह भी एकप्रकार से “कर” कहलाता है | इस प्रकार से सभी को समझाया गया की हम सब कोई सर्कार को कर देते हैं | और सर्कार उसी कर मैं से हमारे स्कूल मैं अनुदान भेजते हैं |
इसके बाद पोस्टर के माध्यम से सर्व शिक्षा अभियान के अनुदानों के बारे में सबों को जानकरी दी गई | चित्र होने की वजह से लोग अच्छे से अनुदानों के बारे में जान सके | जैसे की, यह अनुदान किस-किस कार्य के लिये खर्च कर सकते है | लोगों का उत्साह बढ़ रहा था | फिर हमारे द्वारा ज़िला एवं प्राथमिक विद्यालय सिद्गुवा के बिच तुलना की गई | ज़िला में हर साल स्कूल पर कितना पैसा औसतन खर्च किया जाता है और और सिदगुवा स्कूल में कितना पैसा खर्च होता है | ज़िला से स्कूल में पैसा ज्यादा खर्च हो रहा है तों, वह किन किन चीजों पर खर्च हो रहा है इसपर बातचीत की गई |
हर सदस्य उस समय चकित रह गए जब उन्हें हमारे माध्यम से पता चला की उनके स्कूल मैं प्राय १९ लाख रूपया २०१२-१३ मैं खर्च हुआ | जब की पुरे सागर जिला मैं औसतन ६ लाख ही मिला | यह जानकारी सब के लिए पहलीबार मिला |
इस मुद्दे पर शिक्षकों का कहना था की, सरकार उन्हे इतना वेतन देती है, इतना खर्च करती है पर गाँव के लोग अपने बच्चों को स्कूल भेजना नहीं चाहते | इसी प्रकार हमने ज़िला और स्कूल में बुनियादी सुविधाओ को लेकर भी चर्चा की | “शिक्षा का अधिकार” कानून के तहत ज़िला में और स्कूल में क्या क्या कमी है, इसके बारे में चर्चा की गई | चार दीवारी और लडको के शौचालय में बहुत कमी दिखाई दे रही थी, जो की सिदगुवा स्कूल में भी नहीं थी | अच्छी बात यह थी की, उपयोग करने योग्य ब्लैक बोर्ड सिर्फ़ 1 प्रतिशत स्कूल में नहीं थे | उपयोग करने योग्य ब्लैक बोर्ड स्कूल में भी थे | स्कूल में शिक्षक छात्र अनुपात काफ़ी अच्छा था |जब बुनियादी सुविधाओं के उप्पर बात की गई, तब पता चला की, शिक्षा के अधिकारों से सम्बंधित और काफ़ी चीज़ों पर काम करने की ज़रूरत थी |
तभी सबके सामने एक सवाल रखा गया |
अगर आपको 6 लाख रुपये दिए जाए तों, आप उसे किस प्रकार से खर्च करेंगे ? पहले लोगों द्वारा बताने में संकोच जताया गया | लेकिन बाद में जैसे जैसे उन्हें पूछा गया वह खुलकर बताने लगे | सबसे पहले लोगों ने बच्चों के लिये थाली की मांग की, पियेजल के लिए हैण्डपम्प, फिर बच्चों को खेलने के साधन, बिजली, स्कूल देख भाल के लिए चपरासी, शौचालय, चारदीवारी, कक्षाकक्ष की मांग की थी |
फिर सभी लोगों से पूछा गया की अगर उनको इन सभी जरुरत को प्राथमिकता देनी है तों वोह कैसे देंगे | क्योंकि सभी बाते एकदम से तोह नहीं मिल सकती | तब लोगों ने चिंता कर के कहाँ की पहले उने पियेजल के लिए हैंडपंप चाहिये, दूसरा बच्चों के खेलने के लिये खिलोने, स्कूल देख भाल के लिए चपराशी, चारदीवारी , बिजली, लडको के लिये शौचालय, कक्षाकक्ष होने चाहिए | थाली स्कूल में उपलब्ध थे पर स्कूल में पानी की व्यवस्था नहीं होने की वजह से उसे प्रयोग में नहीं लाया जा रहा था | सवाल पूछने पर पता चला की लोगों में दिलचस्पी बढ़ रही है, मुख्याध्यापक और शिक्षक भी इसे देख रहे थे |
मुख्याध्यापक सर, से हमने स्कूल विकास योजना एस.डी.पी के बारे मे बात की | उनसे कहाँ की वोह जो एस.डी.पी बनाते है उसमे भी वोह यही बातों को बतानी पड़ती है | जैसे की स्कूल में किन किन चीजों की आवश्यकता है | यह जानकारी फिर एस.डी.पी मैं भरकर सर्कार को भेजना पड़ता है |
हम ने कहाँ की अगर वोह एस.एम.सी. के लोगों को बुलाकर, हम जैसे चर्चा की उसी प्रकार, गतिविधि के द्वारा जानकारी आधे या 1 घंटे में प्राप्त कर सकते हैं और स.डी.पी फॉर्मेट को भरकर भेज सकेंगे |
स बात से मुख्याध्यापक सर सहमत हुये, उन्होंने कहाँ की अगर लोग बुलाने पर बैठक में उपस्थित हो जाते है, तों वोह इसप्रकार की गतिविधि द्वारा इस साल एस.डी.पी. बना सकते है | मुख्याध्यापक जी सकारात्मक रूप से इसे देख रहे थे |
इन सभी मुद्दों पर बातचीत होने के उपरांत हमारे द्वारा एस.एम.सी के सदस्यों को पूछा गया की, क्या यहाँ पर आने से उनको अधिक जानकरी प्राप्त हुई है या नहीं | इसपर सभी सदस्य ने कहाँ की वोह बहुत साडी जानकारी पायें | उनको हे गतिबिधि बहुत अच्छा लगा | जातें जातें हम ने भी सभी सदस्य को धन्यवाद देते देते कहाँ की अगर वोह हर महीने की बैठक में आकर अपना 20 या 30 मिनिट का समय देते है तों यह स्कूल विकास के लिये बहुत अच्छा होगा | इस तरह बैठक का समापन किया गया | प्राथमिक विद्यालय उदयपुरा :-

इस विद्यालय में रामरतन, वेणुगोपाल एवं एन्थोनी छेत्री प्रायोगिक अभ्यास के लिये पहुँचे तब मुख्याध्यापक ने लोगों को बुलाना शुरू किया एस.एम.सी के कूल 17 में से 10 सदस्य बैठक के लिये पहुँचे | इनमें ग्राम पंचायत के सरपंच भी शामिल थे | स्कूल में सबसे पहले परिचय से शुरुवात की गई | सबसे पहले हमारे द्वारा अपना परिचय दिया गया और बाद में सबका परिचय किया गया | इसके उपरांत संस्था के बारे जानकारी दी गई, और बताया गया की, संस्था के द्वारा हम पैसा कार्यक्रम के अंतर्गत ज़िला अध्ययन रिपोर्ट बनाते है, जिसमे हम स्कूल से अलग अलग प्रकार की जानकरी एकत्रित करते है | जैसे, अनुदान से सम्बंधित, बुनियादी सुविधाओ से सम्बंधित, बच्चों का नामांकन उपस्थिति, शिक्षकों का नामांकन उपस्थिति, इत्यादी पर काम करते है |तय योजनानुसार रामरतन और एन्थोनी जी ने चर्चा शुरू की | वेणुगोपाल चर्चा के नोटस एवं छायाचित्र लेने में व्यस्त रहें | बैठक के दौरान कुछ लोग आते रहे एवं कुछ लोग जाते रहे |
बैठक की शुरुवात में लोगों की समस्या को लेकर चर्चा शुरू हुई | जिसमे से एक मुद्दा था, गाँव में पानी की समस्या | इसके बाद पैसा कार्यक्रम के अंतर्गत हम किन मुद्दों पर काम करते है, इसके लिए हमारे 5 सवालो को लोगों के सामने रखा गया | कोष प्रवाह किस प्रकार से केंद्र से राज्य, राज्य से ज़िला और ज़िला से स्कूल तक हस्तांतरीत होता है | इसपर मुख्याध्यापक द्वारा बताया गया की, स्कूल में अलग अलग प्रकार के अनुदान आते है | अनुदान तों प्राप्त हो जाते है पर वह सिर्फ़ आवश्यकता के आधार पर खर्च किये जाते है | क्योंकि हमें स्पष्ट नहीं होता की, कौनसा पैसा किस कार्य के लिए खर्च करना है | पैसा खर्च करने के लिए कौन जिम्मेदार है, सरपंच और एस.एम.सी. अध्यक्ष तभी हमारे द्वारा पैसा के पोस्टर को दिखाकर कौनसा पैसा किस चीजों पर खर्च किया जाता है, इसके बारे में जानकारी बताई गई | और यह पैसा कहाँ से आता है, इसके लिए “शिक्षा का कर” को लेकर उदहारण दिए गए | ज़िला में और स्कूल में हर साल कितना पैसा आता है इसपर चर्चा की गई | शिक्षा का अधिकार के तहत ज़िला में और स्कूल में क्या क्या कामिया है इसपर बातचीत की गई | अगर हम उदयपुरा स्कूल की बात करे तों वहाँ पर सिर्फ़ एक आम शौचालय था | P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); widows: 2; orphans: 2; }

इसलिए बैठक के अंत में जब प्रतिभागियों की प्रतिक्रिया से पता चला कि लोगों को जो जानकारी हमने दी है वह लोगों को समझ आ रही है एवं उनके लिये काफ़ी रुचिकर है | हमने उनसे पूछा कि अगर आपके विद्यालय को सालभर में मिलने वाला 13,68,000 रुपये आपको खर्च करने के लिए दिया जाए तों आप किन चीजों पर इसे खर्च करेंगे | उनके जवाब की प्राथमिकताएँ इस प्रकार थी |

चार अध्यापक नियुक्त
पूर्ण रूप से निर्मित चारदीवारी
अलग से मुख्याध्यापक कक्ष
नवचारी शिक्षण पद्धति
पेयजल की व्यवस्था
खेल सामग्री

पर वोह निश्चित थे की वोह चार अध्यापक नियुक्त ही करेंगे |

Grievance Redress: Arriving at an impasse?

Most government services and social sector schemes display a deep polarity in what is professed under particular policies, and what is achieved at the ground level. Widespread implementation failure has given India a unique characterization of being a ‘flailing state’[1] which has attributes of ‘a very capable head’ but one which is ‘no longer reliably connected to the arms and legs of implementation’.

Over the years, perceptions around government services have become linked to how transparent they are and what mechanisms were employed to make them more accountable. The movement towards more robust grievance redress architecture have been seen as a boon to this framework. But what challenges does this movement face currently? This blog will seek to look into some of the key successes of the move and some corollary issues that have created a gridlock for the functioning of a strong grievance redress mechanism.

The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill (RTRG), 2011 was initially proposed with the aim of granting time- bound delivery of goods and services. The Bill also established Citizen Charters that create a workable interaction between the government and citizens to tackle implementation- related grievances. This bill sought to answer some vital questions of how a grievance should be made, how the relevant department can solve the grievance, measures to ensure timely response of a grievance and finally, a solution to the grievance asked. It has generated considerable debate on service delivery and accountability, and is known to have initiated the creation of Citizen Charters across government departments. These charters are not only directed to every public authority across all states[2], but have also become fundamental to lessening the communication gap between the government agency and the citizen (you can view an example of a Charter here). As seen in the attached link, the Department of Rural Development’s Charter lists out details such as services offered, quality of the service, and timeline of service delivery. Several models have come up based on this format- the Sevottam and the e-Abhijoga are a few examples of these variants.

So how does a typical grievance travel from the citizen to the government machinery? A visual of this can be seen below:

(Source: Directorate of Public Grievances, dpg.gov.in)

So, if a complaint is made to the Department of Rural Development on the non-disbursal of month-wise amounts within MGNREGA for a particular beneficiary, it will first go to the DARPG- (the over-arching Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances that overlooks all grievances), will be taken up by the Public Grievance Officer who will then send it to the Department/ Ministry concerned. As seen with the image, action taken and reports that are send follow a structure that visually makes sense.

There are four key characteristics of the Grievance Redress process:

a) The entire complaint process consists of three stages – the submission of the initial application, first appeal and the second appeal.

b) Each process has designated officers who receive and review the new applications, in addition to doing a preliminary check on whether to approve a particular service in a prescribed time limit or reject the application entirely (but, with proper justification stated).

c) In-built in this system is the assured element of time. Within two days of the complaint being registered (at the district kiosks or online), citizens who have filed a complaint will receive (this is usually done by SMS or mail), a unique complaint number and a time frame within which the complaint will be handled- this is limited to 30 days. This means that within 30 days of sending in the complaint, a response / solution needs to have been made by the First Appellant Officer. The processes within this time frame are given in the image above.

d) The last point is on the parallel communication processes that take place between the government Departments – i) The Department that receives the complaint (and officers within) and ii) the Department that the complaint is for, the officers within and iii) the specific local officials who were delivering that particular service.

The process seems to be fairly simple, and structured well enough to actually work to a great extent. However, there are several challenges that one faces once a complaint is sent, some that are not apparent in this particular visual, and therein lies the rub.

The mandatory nature of the Charters has generated questions regarding levels of acceptance across states. . There is unevenness in the creation of Citizen Charters across states with some states (Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) that already have implemented Citizen Charter Acts or Public Services Guarantee Acts. Making this mandatory for all states is not the same as ensuring that it has been created and is an effective system of redressal. This is the first step and also the first challenge. There are large variations in the uptake of not just the Citizen Charters but also the push towards e-governance with some states performing better in terms of their response to requests for redress, and with other states providing more than the basic services on their platforms.

Second, when Madhya Pradesh became the first state in India to enact Right to Service Act in 2010, there arose another layer to the accountability framework- that of checks and penalties. However, across states today, penalties are another inconsistent feature. A preview of the penalty range across states is given below:

State	Total penalty imposed
West Bengal	Between Rs 250- 1000
Punjab	Between Rs 500- Rs 5000
Assam	Between Rs 200- 2000
Orissa	Between Rs 250- 5000
Kerala	Between Rs 500- 5000
Madhya Pradesh	Between Rs 500- 5000

They range from Rs. 250 to a maximum of Rs. 50,000 a day (as mentioned in the RTRG Bill) and are imposed on officials who have been identified as having failed to deliver services in time. There is little information available in the public domain on what comprises of a failure, whether there are varying fines for higher or lower officers, and the impact of this wide range of financial penalties on officers. Questions on whether it has any impact at all remain largely unanswered- are officers more prone to work towards timely services if they are fined?

Third, is an additional communication haziness in the organizational arrangement of grievance redress, especially since it concerns not just the DARPG but also each Ministry to which the complaint is addressed to. Are the ministries/department to which the complaint is directed to have a time limit to their responses? Who monitors this?

Being an example of what Teubner theorized as a flexible reflexive law [3], the RTRG Bill does not bring in new concepts, but is at the forefront for formalizing a rights- based governance structure that builds on installing mechanisms of accountability which ties public services directly with the hands of the people. This Act sought to become the backbone for grievance redress as a Right to the citizens. However, the final challenge it faces is its obscure future. With the dissolution of the 15^th Lok Sabha on 18 May 2014 by President Pranab Mukherjee, the direction of this Act is ambiguous. Now that it has lapsed, will swift decisions be taken this year? Only time will tell.

[1] Lant Pritchett. 2009. Is India a Flailing State? Detours on the four way highlane to modernization. http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/4449106

[2] PRS Legislative Brief. http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Citizen%20charter/Legislative%20Brief%20Citizens%20Charter%2027%20Sep.pdf

[3] Reflexive law is that which ‘restricts itself to the installation, correction, and redefinition of democratic self-regulatory mechanisms’.

Teubner, Gunther. ‘Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law. http://ssrn.com/abstract=896509