2018 Archives - Page 18 of 37 - Accountability Initiative: Responsive Governance

Mis-Management or Missing Management

Over the last few years, India’s elementary education landscape has witnessed a lot of change. On the one hand, there has been a substantial increase in financial allocations. For instance, allocations for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) – the programmatic vehicle for elementary education have increased from Rs. 15,000 crores in 2010-11 to Rs. 25,555 crores in 2012-13. This represents an increase of 70 percent in 3 years. At the same time, with the passing of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) in April 2010, states now have an increased responsibility towards the beneficiaries. Central and state governments can now be held accountable for failure of delivery.

So more resources and increased responsibility are being pushed into the system. But then the question arises – Is the architecture of elementary education equipped to handle it? Fundamentally, do we have the capacity and manpower to handle these changes?

So lets try and understand this with the help of a few examples….

1) Constraints at the Block Level

The Block is an essential component of the SSA structure for day-to-day support to teachers. The SSA organisational structures requires a Block Education Officer, responsible for supervision and monitoring of schools. In addition, the block has a Block Resource Coordinator (BRC), responsible for providing curricular support to teachers such as developing teaching learning materials. The BRCs are also expected to conduct workshops with subject teachers of upper primary classes and organise trainings.

However, a look at the number of vacancies across different states indicates a huge human resource deficit at the block level. As the table below indicates, at the end of 2011-12, there was a shortage of 60 BRC’s in Chhattisgarh, 192 in Haryana, 205 in Himachal Pradesh, 322 in Bihar and 353 in Maharashtra!

Interviews with officials in Medak district, also confirmed that 60 percent of posts for Mandal Education Officers (equivalent to BEO’s) are currently vacant.

Table 1

State	Post Sanctioned	Post vacant
Maharashtra	407	353
Bihar	537	322
Himachal Pradesh	301	205
Haryana	299	192
Uttar Pradesh	880	136
Madhya Pradesh	322	82
West Bengal	696	75
Rajasthan	244	69
Jharkhand	237	61
Chhattisgarh	150	60

2) Missing Junior Engineers: Example from Satara

The Junior Engineers (JE) are essential for the planning, designing and monitoring of all civil works – the second largest component of the SSA budget after teacher salaries. The roles and responsibilities of the JE include:

Cross checking the school civil work requirements.
Estimating the cost of the work on the basis of design specifications.
Giving directions to the SMC on the layout and the work-estimates
Monitoring the progress of the work
Scrutinising the works to assess whether it meets the standards given the in the Public Works Department schedule of rates for building works
And finally, assessing the work completion and expenditure and providing the completion certificate.

It is thus safe to say, the JE is one of the key implementing officers for any civil works project in schools. However, while analysing data for our district studies, we found that while the infrastructure budget for Satara, Maharashtra had increased by 61.6% between 2009-10 and 2010-11, the pace of activities at the school level was much slower. For example, allocations for boundary walls saw a massive jump from 0.88 lakhs to 210.9 lakhs, yet only 6.8 percent of schools had started construction. Similarly, only 15.2% schools had started toilet construction, despite an increase in allocations from Rs. 3.5 lakhs to Rs. 17.7 lakhs.

Interviews with officials solved part of the mystery – we found that more than half of required posts for JE’s were vacant in 2010-11. In fact, no infrastructure works could be carried out in one block as there were no JE’s in position. Satara is finally undergoing a huge recruitment drive to ensure this doesn’t happen this year.

A similar reason namely, “inadequate supervision staff” was cited in the Project Approval Board Meeting minutes as one of the main reasons for slow completion of civil works in Bihar.

3) School Management Committee Accountants – Example from Himachal Pradesh

The School Management Committee are an integral part of school functioning and decentralized decision making. According to the RTE, SMCs are mandated to monitor school functioning and develop annual school development plans (SDP). In addition, one of the most important tasks of the SMC’s is the management of finances. All monies related to basic school functioning (school grants) as well as infrastructure monies are transferred directly into SMC bank accounts at the school level. The SMC’s are thus responsible for maintaining passbooks and cashbooks and deciding and incurring expenditures at the school level.

Himachal Pradesh was a step ahead of most other states in that they were able to constitute their SMC’s by April 2010 (just after the passing of the Act). Moreover, in order to assist in the management of funds at the school level, Himachal Pradesh decided to appoint 1 accountant for 50 SMCs at the block level. However, one year after the implementation of the RTE, of the 303 accountants required, only 63 posts were filled by April 2011, leaving 240 posts vacant!! In addition, in Himachal Pradesh in 2011, the posts of a Finance controller at the state level and of 2 Finance and Accounts officers at the district level were also vacant.

Interestingly, while the budgets for SSA have increased substantially, the share of allocations for management (Block Resource Centres, Cluster Resource Centres, Management and MIS) have actually decreased. In 2009, allocations for management constituted 8 percent of the total SSA allocations. However, in 2011, this dropped to 7 percent. Moreover, even in terms of expenditure, in 2010, only 71 percent of management funds were spent, down from 78 percent in 2009-10.

These statistics clearly point to a great management challenge in SSA. Until we are able to staff and strengthen our management structures at every level of government – national, state, block, cluster and SMC – timely and efficient implementation of the programme will remain a challenge. One positive step has been the recognition of this constraint by the SSA Framework 2011. In fact, the framework stated “the project management structure and requirement of manpower, delegation and capacity building would have to be reviewed in light of the larger fund availability and considerable expansion of the activities of SSA in view of the RTE Act.” Now it’s time to move from theory to practice.

Money for Nothing

Elementary education policy in India is, as economist Lant Pritchett characterizes it, in a ‘Big Stuck’. Stuck because despite money being poured in to the system – funding for elementary education has had a five-fold increase since the launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) in 2001 – outcomes remain poor. As the Annual Survey of Education Report reminds us year after year, about half of India’s children in standard five cannot read a standard two level text book and far fewer can do basic mathematics. Getting out of this morass requires a system overhaul that creates a performance based, accountable delivery system.

How can this be achieved? A crucial step towards creating an accountable system is to ensure accountability in financing. With the imminent implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE) which is set to significantly expand education finance –the RTE will cost the exchequer Rs. 43600 crores – ensuring accountability is critical.

First principles of public accountability require that expenditures must adequately reflect citizens’ interests and priorities. When it comes to basic services, citizens’ interests are best captured locally at the point where services are delivered. This means greater local autonomy and discretion, particularly in resource allocation.

The current system of education financing allows little room for autonomy. Schools have no discretion over funds that arrive tied to rigid norms determined by the center and states. These norms also determine the quantum of funds schools receive resulting in a mismatch between school needs and funds received. For example, a school with 1000 students receives just about two and a half times more money than a school that has 100 students. And if a school wants to spend more on teacher materials than painting walls – the norms simply won’t allow it.

Autonomy apart, accountability also requires transparency and predictability in fund flows. After all, you need to know how much money is due and when it willarrive in order to make plans and hold the system to account. This is one of SSA’s greatest weaknesses. Between October and December 2009, an army of 25,000 Indian citizens joined the Annual Survey of Education Report to ask over 12,000 schools how much money arrived, when it arrived and how much was spent. The survey found that by October – half way through the financial year – more than 50 percent of the schools surveyed reported not receiving SSA funds. These findings are also reflected in macro level data- 63 percent of SSA funds in 2008-09 were spent in the second half of the financial year.

Delays are due to many reasons – delays in releases from the state governments, delays in process as the funds travel through the different administrative layers. And often they are a result of administrative lethargy. Here’s an interesting story – in some schools in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, funds had not reached till mid-November. The reason, the State government was converting to an electronic system so that funds could be transferred at the click of a button and delays avoided. A noble cause that took an inadvertent amount of time to implement because local banks had capacity for 4 digit electronic transfers and this particular transfer required 10 digits. No interim measures were put in place to ensure money reached while these kinks were being sorted out and the schools suffered.

Whatever the cause, delays proliferate because of the lack of transparency in the system. ASER data indicates that in many schools even the head master is not aware of the different grant components, when they should arrive and what they ought to be spent on. In the absence of information, schools, parents and children are disempowered as they lack the tools to make plans and demand accountability for delayed and unpredictable fund flows.

Resolving these problems and ensuring accountability in educational finance requires systemic reforms in the way educational delivery systems are designed. Crucially, the system will need to ensure genuine local autonomy. One way of doing this is to move away from ‘tied’, norm based funding to the provision of block grants calculated on the basis of the number of children enrolled and attending schools. Local autonomy must be accompanied with a process for collection and dissemination of real time information on fund flows and expenditures. This will ensure greater transparency and enable citizens to monitor processes and demand accountability.

Education policy in India today is at a crossroads. There is a clear consensus that improved education holds the key to India’s future and the passage of the RTE stands testimony to this. Now as bureaucrats take to their drawing boards to develop rules and guidelines for the implementation of the RTE, the focus must shift to getting the design right. Only then can we begin to unstuck the ‘Big Stuck’.

(Yamini Aiyar is with Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research. Anit Mukherjee is with National Institute of Public Finance Policy. Both institutes work in partnership with ASER to strengthen accountability in education finance through a project called PAISA)

Effect of Soaring Food Prices on Mid Day Meal Scheme

Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM) is the world’s largest school-feeding programme aimed at promoting universalisation of elementary education by increasing enrolment, retention, attendance, and simultaneously impacting the nutritional status of students. It is learnt that besides rice and dal, MDM involves use of oil, vegetables, salt and spices and fuel. Keeping in view the rising cost of the commodities, effective from December 1, 2009, for primary schools the fund allocation norm for cooking costs has been increased to Rs. 2.50 per child per day(up from Rs. 1.58). For upper primary the allocation has been increased to Rs. 3.75 per child per day (up from Rs. 2.08).

However, the existing cost norms and the subsequent revision is based on overall inflation figures, not specifically on the costs of commodities used in the meals. Overall inflation statistics can hide the fluctuations in the prices of specific commodities relevant to the meal costs. The point becomes all the relevant as the country is now witnessing rising food prices despite negligible inflation. (Overall inflation is 7.31% in December)

Price rise of some essential food items (52-week period, in %)

Potatoes………………110.11
Vegetables…………….30.97
Pulses……………….. …42.21
Onions………………… 40.07
Milk……………………..12.62
Cereals………………. 13.91
Rice…………………….12.91
Fruits…………………..7.87

Source: (IANS), Week ended on December 26, 2009

The current procedure for revising the costing norms acts as a further roadblock to realistic pricing. Any revision needs to be approved by the EFC and the cabinet each time – after seeking comments from all relevant ministries – in a process that can take up to a year. By the time the cabinet approval is obtained, the revised norms become outdated and the exercise is redundant.

Instead, a mid-day meal pricing index which would consider fluctuations in the prices of five items essential to the scheme seems to be a better idea to tackle this soaring price inflation.

Sruti Bandyopadhyay is a Research Associate with the Accountability Initiative

AI’s New Working Paper – ‘Enhancing Accountability in Public Service Delivery Through Social Audits: A Case Study of Andhra Pradesh, India’

Accountability Initiative’s new working paper examines the effectiveness of social audit as a tool to enhance accountability.

Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, Ritesh Singh and Vinay Vutukuru measure the impact of social audits on the implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship employment guarantee program of of India, in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The main research questions addressed are: what is the impact of social audits on the size of the program and the payment process? Are social audit results a good indicator of the overall quality of program implementation? How does the performance of Karnataka, a neighbouring state, which has not taken up social audit, compare to that of Andhra Pradesh in the overall implementation of the program? And what are the reasons behind the successful scale up of social audits in Andhra Pradesh?

The results show that there is a statistically significant improvement in the size of the program as measured by the man-days generated. There was no statistically significant improvement in the proportion of timely payments, which can be attributed to technical problems in scaling up the payment process. It was found that the qualitative reports provided useful inputs on the process related aspects (performance of functionaries, maintenance of muster rolls etc) that were missing from the quantitative performance reports. It was found that the program is not in a very stable position in Karnataka, given the fact that there has been a decrease in the size of the program in the current year, and a comparison with Andhra Pradesh would not be a fair. An important insight was that the social audit program generated a great deal of public support in Andhra Pradesh, as manifested by the huge turnouts in the sub-district level meetings, which resulted in political support cutting across party lines. Another critical strategy was co-opting the lower bureaucracy in the entire process, so that there were no major problems during roll-out.

The overall conclusion is that social audits are indeed an important tool in building social awareness which results in a greater demand for work which translates into increased size of the program. The process also exposed corruption in the implementation of the program and a total amount of Rs 20 million of program funds was recovered.

The paper recommends that the Andhra Pradesh experiment with social audit can be replicated elsewhere in the country, provided that the learnings from its example are internalized, the program is launched in an incremental manner, and political issues generated by the process are carefully handled. It is specifically recommended that the Government of India should finance a pilot social audit project in two districts in each state of the country, roughly modeled on the Andhra Pradesh example. The states could then do a comprehensive roll out across all districts based on the state-specific learning from the pilot projects.

The paper can be downloaded by clicking here.

How is Janani Suraksha Yojana performing in backward districts of India? – Part 3

So far we have seen that Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) has been successful in increasing institutional deliveries. The scheme is performing well even in some of the most backward districts in the country. But there is a scope for improvement in its functioning especially with regards to delays in receiving benefits, payment of bribes and other problems in receiving the benefits.

This part of the series discusses the role of the Accredited Social Health Workers (ASHA) and the Auxiliary Nurse Mid-wife (ANM).

Part III- Role of ASHA & ANM

An ASHA is a critical element of the NRHM and JSY. As per the guidelines, an ASHA is supposed to identify pregnant women in the village, make sure that they receive antenatal care, identify a functioning government or accredited private medical facility where these women can deliver their baby, escort them and stay with them at the medical facility till the time of discharge. She is also supposed to arrange immunization for the newborn and postnatal care.

We covered only a few of these aspects in our questionnaire. The results are discussed below and indicated in a table at the end of the blog.

1. Mode of Transport and Transport Arrangements

65% of women delivering in government medical facilities reached the institution using car/ taxi/ jeep, while 6% used an ambulance. Making transport arrangement for pregnant women is an ASHA’s responsibility. But 82% respondents reported that members of their household or other relatives made travel arrangement. Only 16% women mentioned that such an arrangement was made by an ASHA, while 2% reported that some health worker, other than ASHA, made the arrangement. There are variations across districts- ASHAs in Sundargarh, Nalanda, Hardoi and Gumla perform better than ASHAs in other districts.

2. Staying with Pregnant Woman

Only 72% women delivering in government medical facilities reported that a health worker (either ASHA or ANM or Anganwadi worker) stayed with them during delivery. The proportion is highest in Sundargarh, Hardoi (more than 90% in both) and Gumla (88%), while it is lowest in Udaipur (48%) and Rajgarh (55%).

Only 67% of these women reported that the ASHAs stayed with them at the facility during birth. The proportion is highest in Sundargarh (96%) and Hardoi (82%), and lowest in Udaipur (30%), Rajgarh (35%) and Bhilwara (37%).

More worryingly, 18% of women delivering in medical facilities reported that none amongst ASHA, ANM or Anganwadi worker stayed with them.

3. Post Delivery Visit

An ASHA is supposed to visit the women within seven days of delivery to track their health post-delivery. But only 47% women reported of a health worker visiting them in a week. Out of these women, 60% reported that an ASHA visited them, while 25% reported being visited by an ANM. Thus, proportion of women who delivered at a government facility and reported that ASHAs visited them within seven days is barely 28%[1].

This discussion clearly indicates that the performance of ASHAs leaves a lot to be desired.

We also canvassed a short questionnaire separately for ASHAs, where we asked about timing of their appointment, amount they receive per delivery, days post-delivery to receive their incentives, and impediments (if any) in receiving these incentives.

The data indicates that three-quarters of the ASHAs interviewed were appointed in the period 2005 to 2008. Thus, lack of experience is unlikely to explain why ASHAs might not be able to perform as per expectations.

ASHAs receive Rs 448 per delivery, on an average[2]. Interestingly, 35% of the ASHAs interviewed report receiving Rs 350 per delivery, while 37% report receiving Rs 600. Overall, 62% received less than Rs 600 per delivery. ASHAs in Hardoi and Nalanda report receiving Rs 600 per delivery, while ASHAs in Rajgarh and Korba receive the least amount per delivery within our sample districts, around Rs 340 on an average. This might also reflect the fact that the households are making transport arrangements themselves and ASHAs are being paid only the incentive amount and amount for escorting women to the facility.

When it comes to the timing of receiving incentives post-delivery, overall, 58% of surveyed ASHAs received their incentives within or up to 7 days, while 65% received it within or up to 15 days[3]. Bhilwara, Sundargarh and Udaipur perform quite well. More than 80% of ASHAs in these districts receive incentives within 7 days. Hardoi and Gumla are the worst performers where only 17% and 28% ASHAs report receiving their incentives within 7 days post-delivery.

Our findings are consistent with those of other studies[4]. The CES (2009) for instance found that on average ASHA’s accompanied only 54.3 percent of women who delivered in government institutions in low performing States (LPS) and in only 49.1 percent cases, the ASHA stayed with the woman. Even in terms of motivation, the percentage of rural women motivated by ASHAs was 19.2 percent in rural areas. Interestingly, according to the NHRC survey, when JSY beneficiaries were asked why the ASHA had not accompanied them, in about “40% the reason was that institutional delivery was not promoted by ASHAs”.

It is clear from the above discussion that while the payment of the incentive to the individual beneficiary has resulted in an increase in institutional delivery, there are some gaps with respect to the role of the ASHAs, and we need more specific evidence to learn more about them.

In the next and the final section, we will summarize the main findings of the survey and look at some of the constraints from the supply side – in terms of public health institutions and their facilities.

		Rajasthan		Jharkhand	Uttar Pradesh	Chhattisgarh	Bihar	Madhya Pradesh	Orissa	Overall
		Udaipur	Bhilwara	Gumla	Hardoi	Korba	Nalanda	Rajgarh	Sundargarh
Mode of transport to government medical facility	Ambulance	3.15	1.9	4.38	0.61	0	2.35	6.14	27.98	6.3
Mode of transport to government medical facility	Car/Taxi/Jeep	79.13	86.08	58.13	58.18	47.19	60.09	56.68	65.8	64.94
Who made arrangements in case of car/taxi/jeep to the government facility?	ASHA	7.96	13.24	23.91	23.96	0	28.13	3.25	29.13	16.09
	Other health worker	2.99	4.41	1.09	0	7.14	0	0.65	0	1.74
	Household	86.07	77.94	72.83	75	88.1	69.53	90.26	67.72	78.79
	Other relatives	1.99	2.94	2.17	0	4.76	2.34	5.19	3.15	2.77
Did any health worker stay with you at the govt. facility during the birth?		47.68	58.11	87.66	90.8	76.19	80.86	54.62	96.95	72.18
If yes, who stayed with you at the government facility?	ASHA	29.73	37.21	78.46	81.63	54.69	79.75	34.62	96.28	66.54
	ANM	26.13	23.26	11.54	3.4	14.06	7.36	7.69	2.66	10.3
	AWW	7.21	15.12	4.62	2.04	10.94	1.23	12.31	0	5.4
	None	36.94	24.42	5.38	12.93	20.31	11.66	45.38	1.06	17.76
Did any health worker visit you at the govt. facility during the birth?		41.67	42.04	72.26	41.36	53.93	54.07	19.03	72.02	47.21
If yes, who visited you?	ASHA	23.53	40.63	67.27	75.76	51.06	78.18	20	84.56	59.71
	ANM	42.16	32.81	26.36	10.61	25.53	15.45	66	6.62	24.96
	AWW	24.51	23.44	4.55	6.06	21.28	3.64	2	4.41	10.22
	Others	7.84	3.13	0.91	7.58	0	1.82	10	2.94	3.94
	Don’t know	1.96	0	0.91	0	2.13	0.91	2	1.47	1.17
Amount received by ASHA per delivery (Rs)	Mean	354.84	426.92	395.87	596.51	342.39	600	340.38	477.38	447.61
	Median	400	400	350	600	350	600	350	550	400
	Observations	31	26	49	43	46	38	26	42	301
% of ASHAs receiving incentives after delivery in government facility	Within 7 days	83.33	87.1	27.91	16.67	63.04	48.72	59.26	86.36	57.79
	Within 14 days	86.11	90.32	30.23	33.33	73.91	51.28	77.78	88.64	64.94
Days post delivery to receive the amount	Mean	8.06	7.16	28.74	23.48	8.52	24.03	7.56	4.86	14.55
Days post delivery to receive the amount	Median	3	3	30	15	7	8	7	1	5.5

[1] (47% * 60% = 28%)

[2] Median is Rs 400. There are 3 observations with values above Rs 100 and 3 observations with values greater than Rs 800. These have been excluded in calculations.

[3] 15 observations with more than 90 days have been excluded in these calculations.

[4] Coverage Evaluation Survey (2009), NHRC(2010), UNFPA (2007)

JNNURM – A Work in Progress

As India completes 60 years of being a republic, one can’t help but look around at our towns and cities and wonder where we are heading. And as a resident of Delhi, the first thought that comes to my mind (maybe due to the infinite signs that plague Delhi roads in anticipation of the Commonwealth Games) is that we today are a “work in progress”. Open drains, pot holes, roads dug up, lakhs of homeless people struggling to stay warm in the extreme cold are all constant reminders that urban chaos is becoming a way of life. And as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently noted, “our cities and towns are not an acceptable face of a rapidly modernizing and developing economy”.

This is despite the fact that on December 3rd, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), India’s comprehensive flagship programme for urban development completed four of its intended seven year tenure. This is no small amount of money –a total of Rs. 103,462 crores has been approved of which the centre has committed assistance of Rs. 55,625 crores, provided states and local bodies give their prescribed share of funds. However, the programme is running at a very slow pace, with not even a quarter of the projects completed and less than a third having got off the ground. To give a simple example, 14.59 lakh houses for the poor have been approved under the mission. However, so far only 1.80 lakh houses have been completed and another 4.38 lakh homes are under construction.

As more and more money gets pumped into the scheme (including a $1-billion loan which is currently being approved from the World Bank), serious questions need to be asked about state capacity and the ability of states to effectively utilize the money for urban development.

Even in terms of the enactment of the community participation law, out of the 26 states scheduled to implement it by the fourth year, only 8 have implemented it.

In particular, I would like to highlight three points that need careful attention as we move forward with JNNURM.

• First, Funds.
JNNURM works on a cost sharing model with centre, states and local bodies all having a prescribed share. Till March 2009, while states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu released over 70 percent of their share of funds, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab released just over half and Haryana only released 22 percent. Urban local bodies on their part too, have fallen behind. While Greater Mumbai and Hyderabad released over 80 percent of their funds, Chennai and Kolkata released only 24 and 18 percent respectively. Inability to release funds in time has resulted in significant delays to infrastructural projects. In Kanpur for instance, the repair work in the city, with a Rs 96.23 crore project allocated under JNNURM, is lying incomplete for the last three months due to a lack of funds. Reason: sanctioned funds from the state have already been used elsewhere.

• Second, Citizen Participation.
First principles of public accountability require that expenditures must adequately reflect citizens’ interests and priorities. Interestingly, citizen participation is embedded in the overall design of the JNNURM Mission. One mechanism is the creation of the National Technical Advisory Group, made of members of civil society. In addition, a Community Participation Fund (CPF) was also launched in September 2007 – to catalyze community participation by supporting the building of community assets. Moreover, states are mandated to enact community participation laws. However, while there is provision for about 1000 community projects under CPF, with Rs.90 crores already approved, only 21 projects have been sanctioned under this scheme for the mission cities as on May 2009, with 14 more awaiting approval. Even in terms of the enactment of the community participation law, out of the 26 states scheduled to implement it by the fourth year, only 8 have implemented it.

• And finally, Reforms.
In theory, these reforms ensure that governments at each level have the requisite autonomy, resources and power to carry out the duties assigned to them. In addition, they ensure accountability and efficiency. But in practice, these reforms have progressed very slowly. For instance, up to year 4, while 18 states had committed to implementation of the 74th constitutional Amendment Act (transfer of 12th schedule functions from states to urban local bodies), 8 states are yet to fully implement the reform. Similarly, while 29 states had committed to enact the Public Disclosure Law, only 15 states had successfully implemented the reform.

Another key objective of the JNNURM is to introduce e-governance in the municipalities to provide single-window services to the citizens, to increase efficiency and productivity of the urban local bodies (ULBs), and to provide timely and reliable management information. However, only 13 of 45 cities had enacted the reform.

In the coming years, as the quantum of money allocated for JNNURM increases, the pressure on states and local bodies to deliver will continue to increase. A careful look at the existing inefficiencies is therefore a priority – if our cities are to reflect our growth.

Avani Kapur is Researcher and Coordinator of PAISA project at Accountability Initiative.

A house for the homeless

This article was published in One India One People magazine, June 2013 issue, available at: http://www.oneindiaonepeople.com/

After the Right to Education and the Right to Food, a new right is being sought to be tabled in Parliament – the Right to Housing. The Draft Homestead Bill 2013 aims at providing a homestead[1] of not less than 10 cents (0.1 acres or 4,356 sq. ft) to every landless and homeless poor family in rural areas.

Given that India is home to close to 8 million homeless rural families the demand for the right to housing is not surprising. In fact, the Twelfth Plan working group on rural housing estimates the shortage in the Plan period (2012-17) at around 40 million.

However, the main question arises is – how will this “right” differ in its implementation from the existing scheme on rural housing – the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY).

Background

Launched in 1985, IAY is Government of India’s (GOI) flagship programme on rural housing. The objective of the scheme is to provide funds to for the construction of dwelling units for members of Scheduled Castes (SCs)/Scheduled Tribes (STs), free bonded labourers, and non SC/ST rural below poverty line (BPL) households.

With effect from 2013, Rs. 70,000 is provided per dwelling unit for plain areas (up from 45,000 in 2009) and Rs. 75,000 for hilly/difficult areas (up from Rs. 48,500)[2]. IAY funds can also be utilized for up gradation of a kutcha house for which a subsidy of Rs. 15,000 per unit is provided. Further, IAY beneficiaries can also avail of a top-up loan of up to Rs. 20,000.[3] In 2009, to assist those rural BPL households who have neither agricultural land nor a house-site, IAY also launched a scheme for providing homestead sites.

Over the years, allocations for IAY have increased over 2-fold from Rs. 3,885 crores in 2007-08 to Rs. 8,121 crores in 2012-13. The scheme received a significant boost in allocations in 2013-14, when GOI allocated 15,184 crores- nearly doubling the allocations for the previous year.

During the 11th Five Year Plan, against a target of 140 lakh houses, 126.98 lakh houses were constructed at a cost of Rs. 53497 crores. (See Table below for performance in the last 10 years)[4].

Performance of IAY over the last 10 years				in lakhs
Year	GOI Allocation	GOI Release	Utilization	Target (No.of houses)	No.of houses constructed
2002-03	165640	162852.86	279496.46	13.14	15.49
2003-04	187050	187107.78	258009.69	14.84	13.61
2004-05	246067	288310.02	326208.64	15.62	15.21
2005-06	273240	273822.58	365409.05	14.41	15.52
2006-07	290753	290753.06	425342.45	15.33	14.98
2007-08	403270	388237.01	546454.3	21.27	19.92
2008-09	564577	879579.39	834834.33	21.27	21.34
2009-10	849470	863573.99	1329236.4	40.52	33.86
2010-11	1005370	1013945.4	1346572.75	29.08	27.15
2011-12	949120	986477.8	1292632.74	27.26	24.71

Source: Ministry of Rural Development, Annual Report 2012-13

While these numbers suggest a relatively well functioning scheme – most of GOI allocations are released, funds are utilised and houses are being constructed – there are wide state variations in performance and numerous issues with respect to implementation. Some of these are highlighted below:-

Implementation Highlights

1) Delays in Fund Flows and Construction

In 2012-13, till January (more than 3 quarters of the financial year completed), out of the total funds available[5] for IAY, only 63% of the funds were utilised. Moreover, only 46% percent of the annual target for construction was completed. These delays are particularly acute in some states. While Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had utilised nearly 100 percent of their funds available during this period, Jammu and Kashmir had utilised only 21%, Punjab 36% and Tamil Nadu 45%. Other states such as Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Maharashtra had utilised only between 50-60% of funds available.[6] According to reports, part of the problem lies with delayed release of funds. In 2012-13 itself, out of the total allocation of Rs. 10513.20 crores only 54% (Rs. 5655.37 crores) was released by January 2013.

Pace of construction is also slow. Till January 2013, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh had only completed 10% and 13% of their annual target for the year, respectively. Most other states also ranged between 20-50 percent completion rates including Maharashtra (20%), Odisha (32%), Gujarat (33%), Chhattisgarh (36%) and Kerala (46%).[7]

2) Quality of houses

An important concern over the years has been with respect to the quality of houses. According to the IAY guidelines, the construction of an IAY house is the responsibility of the beneficiary. While no specific design type has been stipulated for an IAY house, sanitary latrine and smokeless chullah’s are required to be constructed along with each IAY house.

The Planning Commission’s mid-term review of the XIth Plan noted many instances of “poor quality construction, sagging foundation, use of temporary materials for roofing or leaving the construction incomplete because of inadequate finance”[8]

Four years later, similar findings were reported by the Ministry’s National Level Monitors (NLMs). During their visit to 3083 villages across 478 districts, only 15.2% of the houses were found ‘Excellent’ in terms of quality of construction, 52.2 % were rated ‘Good’, and the remaining 32.6% were ranked poor or average condition. [9]

The NLMs further found that 16% of houses which have been sanctioned for more than 2 years were still incomplete. Moreover only, 8% of the verified houses visited had smokeless chullahs and only 39% had sanitary latrines provided.

3) Beneficiary selection and allotment of houses

Selection of beneficiaries was originally the responsibility of Gram Panchayats (GP). However, due to rampant irregularities and biased selection[10], the revised guidelines stipulate that beneficiaries be identified through a Permanent IAY Waiting lists prepared on the BPL list of 2002. In order to increase transparency these lists are supposed to be displayed in all GPs.

The NLM reports however found that out of 2780 villages where permanent IAY lists were finalised, only 53% villages these were displayed on the walls. Moreover in nearly 10% of the villages the selection of beneficiaries was still not based on these lists.

While guidelines specify that 60% of IAY allocation is meant for SC/ST families and IAY houses are to be allotted (in this order of preference) in the name of the woman or jointly between the husband and the wife, audit reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) have found many instances of houses being allotted to “fake persons” or male members.[11]

5) Land availability

Finally, the biggest constraint faced is often with respect to land availability. Land costs tend to be high and in the absence of land, houses tend to be incomplete or in a worse case not be constructed despite being sanctioned.

These findings suggest that despite nearly 30 year of the scheme in operation, there are a number of hurdles with respect to the implementation of IAY. While GOI has taken some steps in addressing these (particularly with respect to increasing the unit costs of dwelling units. providing additional assistance for construction of toilets and increasing transparency in selection of beneficiaries), there still appears to be genuine constrains with respect to delays, lack of monitoring, technical capacity, lack awareness amongst beneficiaries and even unavailability of land. Until these implementation issues are resolved the “right to housing” is unlikely to go too far.

(The author is grateful to Ms. Saamia Ibrahim for her research assistance)

[1] Homestead is defined as a dwelling with adequate housing facilities including access to basic services (drinking water, electricity, roads and public transport), appropriate location, accessibility and cultural adequacy.

[2] Ministry of Rural Development, Annual Report 2012-13.

[3] This is a part of the Differential Rate of Interest (DRI scheme) wherein beneficiaries can apply for a loan from any Nationalised bank at an interest rate of 4% per annum

[4] Ministry of Rural Development, Annual Report 2012-13.

[5] Funding for IAY is shared between GOI and states in a 75:25 ratio (for UTs it is completely centrally funded)^{^[5]}. Total funds available would include releases by GOI and States as well as opening balances at the start of the year.

[6] Indira Awas Yojana Portal, PRC Meeting 1 and 2

[7] Ibid

[8] Planning Commission, Mid Term Appraisal for Eleventh Five Year Plan. Available online at: http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/mta/11th_mta/MTA.html

[9] Details of the criterias for different categories are available at: http://www.ruralmonitor.in/nlmreport/RM_12-13_Phase-I_All%20India.pdf

[10] The 11^th Five Year Plan document had found that “25 to 50 percent of beneficiaries were not being selected to Gram Sabhas’s. Alloaction among Panchayats were influenced by PRI/MLAs.

[11] For instance, CAG found that in one district in Maharashtra, in 685 out of 2426 cases allotment of houses at a cos of Rs.4.69 crores were to male members in 2010-11. A recent report on Odisha found Rs. 1.15 crore in allotment of houses to 1144 non-BPL families in 4 districts and irregular payments to 321 “fake” BPL beneficiaries

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