2018 Archives - Page 25 of 37 - Accountability Initiative: Responsive Governance

The PAISA Story

‘Let’s meet for lunch’.

A decade back, whenever I heard that voice over the phone, it always brought a smile of anticipation. I did enjoy those lunches with my good friend, Yamini Aiyar. It was a welcome respite from the tensions and stress of office, a time to catch up on what was happening in the world around us and to share our burgeoning experience on governance. As Secretary to the Government of Karnataka, I had initiated a study with which Yamini was involved in Karnataka, on service delivery and the effects of decentralisation reforms on the quality of government services. In Delhi, we continued our association at the national level, working closely on issues of service delivery, but over a broader canvas of several States.

In 2008, one of those lunches stretched into a magical session of sharing ideas that would change our lives significantly. Yamini was at the crossroads, putting together the pitch for starting Accountability Initiative. Thinking back, while I might have denied it at that time, the seeds for my eventual departure from the government were already sown. Enough work had been done in India to show that service quality was abysmal. Our government driven education, health, sanitation and a plethora of other civic and development services were the pits; research only added credible numbers to this well-known fact. But, how could we trigger a demand for improvement? How could we help people to hold those who failed to provide services accountable for that failure?

Both Yamini and I had come to the conclusion that finding out how government money was spent was the key to fixing accountability. If those to whom government entrusted its money – our money – did not do their job properly, then they needed to be punished; that was the real meaning of accountability. So, we decided, we must learn to follow the trail of government money.

Being in the government, I knew a bit of how that happened – say, about ten percent of the story. Yamini knew even less. So the conundrum was how we could put together a team of skilled fiscal detectives, adept at not only poring over mind numbing government budget documents, but also face an army of glum, silent local accountants and squeeze out good data from them.

That’s when we discovered that we both knew Dr. Rukmini Banerji.

Rukmini, the CEO of the Pratham Education Foundation and the Director of the ASER Centre, the autonomous research and assessment unit of Pratham, was a name to be reckoned with in the sphere of education. The ASER study of learning levels in government schools is one of the most influential studies on the quality of government delivered services in India. ASER had developed a network of skilled field researchers through the running of its assessment studies; Yamini reckoned that if we tied up with them through Rukmini, we could leverage their network for also collecting budget data. That thought also automatically selected the choice of the government service that would be the testing ground for our studies in following the money; Accountability Initiative would track how funds flowed to schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India’s centrally driven programme for universalising primary education.

It was another matter that both of us hugely enjoyed Rukmini’s company as well; she is a comedienne par excellence. Surely, collaborating with ASER would not only be an educational experience but a rollicking, fun one too.

Over the next couple of years, the PAISA Project was conceived and launched. PAISA, standing for Planning, Allocations and Expenditures and Institutions: Studies in Accountability, has now become one of India’s largest research initiatives in following the fate of the government spent rupee.

Field notes from Lucknow

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

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

As per the RTE, there should be one teacher for 30 students in the primary sections. From this, one can easily compute per student average salary expenditure as ‘recommended’ by RTE.

Who will undertake the calculation?

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

What about the methodology?

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

Are Cost calculations correct?

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

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

The way forward

Get the methodology right, and in public domain

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

Reimbursement based on norm instead of actual expenditure

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

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

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

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

Teaching 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?

Do information campaigns result in greater collective action? Lessons from experience on the ground.

This blog post is the first of a series based on experiences my colleagues and I had while implementing an information campaign on school expenditures aimed at mobilizing Parent Teacher Associations in a small cluster of villages in Sehore District, Madhya Pradesh (MP). The experience reinforced some of the fundamental contradictions in current systems of delivery and why accountability is near impossible. It also brought home the importance of giving greater discretion to communities to identify needs, direct expenditures and monitor implementation.

First some background. Our work in MP is part of a project called PAISA. PAISA tracks expenditures and implementation processes of social sector programs with a view to improving accountability for public expenditure.

Our work in MP began with a survey where we collected data on school expenditures. The focus was on school development grants – about 10 percent of the total SSA budget. Small as they are, these grants are the only portion of SSA monies that actually reach the school. According to the SSA implementation guidelines for MP, these grants are meant to be spent by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) – a body comprising of parents and the school headmaster tasked with making plans for expenditures and monitoring school functioning. In practice PTA’s are dysfunctional. They rarely meet, have very little information on their roles and responsibilities and almost never make plans. Our plan was to use information on expenditures to catalyze the PTA to participate in planning and monitoring and demand accountability at the school level.

Panchayats are corrupt. And in fact, they said, even the current system which devolves money to PTA’s has resulted in poor expenditures and political capture. There may well be some truth to this argument.

Eight months on, we discovered that meaningful participation and real accountability is near impossible in the current institutional environment. A short anecdote illustrates the case. Dhaba is a small village with a primary school and a relatively enthusiastic PTA. In July last year, the PTA members decided that they would spend their school grant on repairing a leaky roof so that classes could be held during the monsoon.

So far so good. But the monsoon came and went and money never arrived. To fix the problem, the Gram Panchayat was our first port of call. But we were quick to discover that under SSA, the Gram Panchayat has almost no power and no authority and so the Panchayat president washed his hands off the issue. Next we went to the block office and spoke with the Block Resource Centre Coordinator. But he too didn’t take responsibility. Monies come directly from the state office in to the PTA account he told us and it was not his responsibility nor was he empowered to ensure it arrived. The story at the district was almost the same. And what was worse, no one was able to clearly tell us when the PTA could expect the money. Money did arrive but only in December by which time the monsoon had come and gone and a disillusioned PTA stopped holding meetings.

The fundamental problem this experience highlights is that powers and responsibilities are never clearly assigned in the delivery chain and as a result, officials at every level can quite legitimately pass the buck leaving a bewildered citizenry wondering where to affix accountability.

We did eventually find the reason for the delays and in fact we even saw action but only when we made it to the State Government office. And here lies the second problem. That authority and powers for implementation are so centralized that ground level problems are rarely identified and therefore rarely addressed. Think about it, given the average size of our states, it is impossible even for the most efficient bureaucracy to regularly monitor implementation and resolve bottlenecks. A little bit of discretion at the local level and more powers to address local problems could go a long way in resolving the problems that Dhaba encountered.

But discretion cannot be at the district or even the block. It ought to lie with the Gram Panchayat which is the closest government authority to the people and therefore the best placed to identify problems and find solutions.

When we made this argument to officials across the chain we got the same response: Panchayats are corrupt. And in fact, they said, even the current system which devolves money to PTA’s has resulted in poor expenditures and political capture. There may well be some truth to this argument. The solution lies in institutionalizing checks and balances and creating systems that reward performance and not curbing discretion. Moreover, greater powers at the local level may also encourage innovations which are near impossible in the current system where jurisdictions are so large that the system is bogged down by challenges of day to day management.

In sum, accountability in a system which does not clearly affix responsibility is impossible. But responsibility needs to be fixed at the point of government closest to people so that problems are identified and resolved swiftly. In the next post, we examine constraints to effective planning at the grassroots. Watch this space!

Yamini Aiyar is Director of the Accountability Initiative.

M.P. Public Services Guarantee Bill – A Path-breaking Law

It has been recognised the world over that good governance is essential for sustainable development, both economic and social. The three essential aspects emphasised in good governance are transparency, accountability and responsiveness of the administration. Citizens’ Charters are an effort to address these issues by focusing on solving the problems which citizens encounter while dealing with the organisations providing public services.

The concept of a Citizens’ Charters was first articulated and implemented in the UK in 1991 as a national programme with a simple aim: to continuously improve the quality of public services for the people of the country so that these services respond to the needs and wishes of the users. The basic objective of a Citizens’ Charter is to strengthen the relationship between citizens and service providers. In India, the decision to formulate Citizens Charters was taken at the Conference of Chief Ministers held on 24 May, 1997 in New Delhi. At the conference an “Action Plan for Effective and Responsive Government” at the Centre and State levels was adopted and it was decided that Central and State Governments would formulate Citizens’ Charters, starting with those sectors that have a large public interface. These Charters were required to include standards of service, reasonable time limits for service delivery, avenues of grievance redress and a provision for independent scrutiny with the involvement of citizen and consumer groups. However, while the concept of Citizen’s Charters has been quite popular, in practice, they have failed to improve the relationship between frontline users and service providers. In this scenario, the Madhya Pradesh Public Services Guarantee Bill 2010 comes as the first-of-its-kind law in the country guaranteeing the delivery of public services to common people in a stipulated time frame.

The Shivraj Singh Government has described the Bill as “historic” and a reflection of the state’s commitment to achieving good governance. The Madhya Pradesh Public Services Guarantee Bill 2010 guarantees the delivery of basic public services to citizens within a stipulated time frame and sets in place accountability mechanisms for non-delivery of services. Under the Bill, key public services like issuing caste, birth, marriage and domicile certificates, drinking water connections, ration cards, copies of land records will be notified. A time period will be fixed for the delivery of each service. If officials fail to perform their duties and provide these services on time, they will have to pay a fine starting from Rs. 250 per day to a maximum of Rs. 5000. This will check delays in the provisioning of services and remove inordinate pendency. The Bill provides for a two stage appeals process: In the event that citizens do not receive notified services in time, they can make an appeal to the first appellate authority. If the first appellate authority is negligent or if citizens are dissatisfied with the ruling, they can file an appeal with the second appellate authority, which can direct the subordinate authorities to deliver services. The second appellate authority also has the power to impose fines and order disciplinary action against officials. The new legislation also stipulates the number of days a particular file related to the delivery of a service can be kept with the officer concerned. The fine received from delinquent officers will go to the applicants to compensate them for the inconvenience caused to them. It is envisaged that the offices of the Chief Minister and other Ministers will also be brought under the purview of the law in the future.

The path-breaking law seeks to operationalise the system of Citizen Charters that have been in place for some time but have been quite ineffective. While previous governments in Madhya Pradesh have implemented the citizen charter arrangement, their efforts have largely been ineffective. This can be attributed to the parochial set-up of the bureaucracy, the absence of a consultative process in the formulation of the Citizens Charter and the lack of training and capacity building of officers and service seekers about the Charter and its potential.

The new law provides an effective instrument for realizing the concept of citizen’s charter while ensuring services to people in an assured manner. It will also prove an effective check on corruption.

Mr Awanish Somkuwar is the Assistant Director, Communications, Government of Madhya Pradesh.

Exploring the Links Between Mother’s Literacy and Child Achievement

It is a well known fact that children of more educated parents are likely to perform better in school. It is also well known that the amount of time parents dedicate to their children, either playing with them or helping them with their homework, also influences and shapes a child’s cognitive ability. Over and above this, theory also suggests that parents investment and consumption choices, the home environment, presence or absence of positive role models etc also plays an important role. I recently had the opportunity to field test some of these theoretical assumptions about the linkages between parents education and child achievement in a village in Ajmer, Rajasthan.

Located quite close to the Ajmer city centre, Ghughra is a medium sized village in Rajasthan where most residents derive their livelihoods from agriculture or rearing livestock. Many women in the village particularly those from the Gujjar community are employed on the NREGA worksites. Talking to mothers and fathers in the village, I got a unique insight into the different factors that can influence a child’s learning ability in a scenario where parents face different kinds of social and economic constraints.

Parents perception of education: Most of the parents I spoke to had enrolled their children in school – some in government schools and others in private schools. However, the dropout rate amongst girls in the village was quite high particularly amongst adolescent girls. On probing this issue further it came to light that the continued practice of child marriage in the community has had a major impact on how long girls stay in school. Most girls are married in their infancy and then sent to their marital home when they reach puberty around 14-15. This practice seems to work as a disincentive for parents to invest in their daughter’s education. When we spoke to women about the need for educating girls further, many expressed the fear that education would lead their daughters to marry outside the community.

Mother’s Literacy: There appeared to be a very clear link between mother’s literacy levels and the amount of time spent with the child on the child’s learning levels. Children who scored well on the reading tests I administered usually had at least one parent taking a keen interest in their studies and spending time with them after school. In most cases it was the mother. Within the Gujjar households, literacy levels amongst mothers and fathers were quite low. Most mothers were illiterate with little to no formal schooling. This seems to have a considerable impact on the degree of interaction that mothers had with their children when it came to education.

The mothers I spoke to expressed a lack of confidence when it came to supervising their children’s school work. However, when it came to playing number games, many mothers were able to rattle off the solutions to maths sums quite easily. This raises interesting questions about what we understand by ‘adult literacy’.

So what did I learn? First, it seems quite clear that over and above the formal education system, the amount of time and interest parents take in their children and their education has a positive impact on their learning ability. This is the case even where both parents were illiterate and children were first time learners in the family. So time spent with children matters irrespective of whether parents are educated or not. Secondly, a creating a desire for education amongst parents and children is important – parents need to recognise the value of investing in their child’s education. Thirdly, adult literacy is important – parents with even a few years of schooling are better placed to monitor and supervise their children than those with little to no formal education. Fourth, building the confidence of children and parents is important particularly in households where the child is a first time learner. Here creativity is key – encouraging parents to tell stories to their children, play games with them etc can be a fun way to make learning an interactive activity for parents and children.

Mandakini Devasher Surie is a Research Analyst with the Accountability Initiative.

Who are the Poor in India?

Over the years various indices and poverty measures have been developed to try and estimate the number of people living below the poverty line. The latest in this long line of poverty measures is the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) UNDP, the MPI aims to provide a more detailed assessment of poverty at the individual level. In India, the MPI estimates that 55% of the country’s population is poor.But as experience has shown, measuring and defining poverty is a complex task anywhere, more so in India where large sections country’s 1.2 billion population are unaccounted or misrepresented in official data. A closer look at the great Indian poverty debate gives us a good idea of just how complicated things really are.

The Indian Government defines poverty with the help of a BPL survey that it conducts from time to time (three have been conducted so far, in 1992, 1997 and 2002). The last survey defined the percentage of the BPL population at 27.5%. On the recommendations of the Suresh Tendulkar Committee however, the figure was recently changed to 37.2%. However, there has been some debate within policy circles about the accuracy of the BPL survey estimates. According to noted economist, Jean Dreze, the government’s identification system is “divisive and open to manipulation”. On the flipside, Manjula Krishnan, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry for Rural Development the government is “still crystallizing [it’s] ideas on how to identify poor households.”

The BPL Census employs a scoring scheme where households are judged based on 13 indicators and then eliminated by how high they score. The indicators cover characteristics of households ranging from ownership of items (pressure cookers, motor transport) to features of their house (concrete foundations and covered bathrooms). Many economists and policymakers find these exclusion criteria to be arbitrary and unfair and are pushing to reform them before the 2011 BPL census. To give a sense of the unfair picture these indicators might paint consider the following: a fourth of the BPL population owns a two-wheeler, a third own a color TV, and two-thirds own a pressure-cooker. A casual observer might wonder whether a household with ownership of these items deserves to be classified as “poor” (a recent Financial Express headline, less thoughtfully, proclaimed that the statistics indicate sections of the BPL population “live it up”). When dealing with this data, it’s important to remember the nuances of poverty and the different forms it might take: should a family with a TV and concrete foundation in their home, but no access to healthcare or running water be excluded from the BPL population? In past surveys, families with a ceiling fan, flush toilet, or more than ten articles of clothing were excluded from the BPL population. On the flip-side, according to N.N. Paul, a spokesman for the Planning Commission, well off families often use their political connections to get classified as poor and use government welfare schemes to for free perks. And while the BPL census is focused heavily on rural India, the rapidly expanding numbers of urban poor need to be accounted for as well.

The real problem with defining the BPL population in India however is not the metrics but the politics surrounding the delivery of welfare schemes. The government, it seems, can only afford to classify as poor the numbers it can afford to pay for in welfare schemes. The indicators used to determine poverty in India have so far been limited to food, fuel and clothing- something the Planning Commission has now changed to include education and healthcare, resulting in BPL numbers surging to over 400 million. This means that tens of millions will suddenly be added to the welfare rolls, and the PDS needs to be geared to accommodate them. Knee-jerk spending on welfare schemes can be explained by the obvious political dividends: the poor are a powerful voting block and the rapid approval of welfare schemes often overlooks functional service delivery. Spending on social services and development has increased 10.5%- 20% during 5 years of the Congress party in power. B.K. Sinha, an official in the Ministry for Rural Development, stresses that ration cards will continue to remain scarce despite the increased poverty numbers as long as they remain the sole ticket to the basket of welfare services and in the grip of arbitrary state control. States currently have a ‘poverty quota’ which only allows for new cards to be issued when old cards are canceled. To ensure that the BPL population is appropriately defined and therefore eligible for welfare schemes, it is imperative that the Planning Commission reassesses the methodology used to classify this population ahead of the next BPL Census slated for April 2011.

Concrete positive steps are thankfully underway. The Government’s decision to revamp the Rashtriya Swasthiya Bima Yojana by absorbing large sections of the unorganized workforce such as above poverty line NREGA workers, street vendors, taxi and rickshaw drivers into the scheme where they receive the same health benefits as BPL households reveals a more nuanced understanding of where welfare schemes need to be diverted. The India Protection Index developed by the NCAER uses 78 indicators on the basis of availability and strength in a manner where they are dynamically engaged with one another and contextualized. This index provides a more accurate mirror of both financial and social wellbeing of Indian families and is unique in that it seeks to quantify psychological factors. In doing so, it becomes one of the strongest efforts to measure poverty in India as more than a number, and instead a state of life—and consequentially welfare as a process toward happiness and national wellbeing.

Last but not least there is need for greater transparency in the process of enumerating and counting India’s poor. With various poverty estimates and statistics doing the rounds and crores of rupees in welfare benefits at stake, it is imperative that there is some answerability and accountability from the government on how estimates are arrived.

Click here to view a video from the Wall Street Journal on measuring poverty in India.

Rishiv Khattar was working as an intern with the Accountability Initiative.

Pakistan considers Right to Information Bill 2010

Pakistan may soon have a law guaranteeing citizens the right to access information held by the government, following the introduction of a new Right to Information Bill in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Moved as as private member’s bill, the draft law aims to improve upon and replace the existing Freedom of Information Ordinance 2001.

Grievance Redressal Mechanisms – The Ombudsman in Kerala

An elderly man, standing beside his daughter, is yelling and waving his arms. “A tree is overhanging his property and polluting his pond” whispers my Malayalam translator. “He wants it removed, but the panchayat has done nothing”. The man pauses briefly before resuming his offensive. His embattled target is another elderly man, a retired high court judge – the Ombudsman of Kerala. He is here in the northern city of Kannur in Kerala for two days to hold sittings and hear grievances – though they are not all as colourful as this one.

The Ombudsman – literally, the people’s protector – is originally a Swedish institution which has since been adopted widely across the world. At its core, the Ombudsman is an office which dedicates itself to receiving, investigating and resolving citizen’s complaints against government. The intent is to create an independent and powerful check on government bodies – state bureaucracies, service providers, and other state institutions. To do this, the Swedish Ombudsman for instance most often issues simple requests to state institutions. The Swedish Ombudsman also has the power to act as a public prosecutor – he or she has the power to bring a case to the courts on behalf of those who submit complaints. However, this has rarely been necessary.

Other Ombudsmen have had a more turbulent relationship with the state. In the early 1990s, many Ombudsmen offices were created in Latin America. In many cases, simple requests were not enough to resolve grievances. Faced with indifference and occasionally outright hostility, the Latin American Ombudsmen more often used their “moral power” as public protectors of the people to force change. In Guatemala the Ombudsman denounced prominent politicians, and in Honduras the Ombudsman defended the right of the opposition to run for President. In some cases, the state responded with more hostility. Some Ombudsmen had their budgets slashed, or were simply replaced.

The Kerala Ombudsman represents a particularly Indian approach to the institution. It functions effectively like a court, albeit one where some rules of procedure are simplified. A citizen files a complaint and is given a date for a hearing at one of the Ombudsman’s sittings around the state. Once both parties are present at the hearing, they present their cases. The Ombudsman can then resolve the case if there appears to be a solution. Or, if he believes more information is necessary, he may order an investigation. In the case above, he might order the Deputy Director of panchayats to produce a report containing photos and measurements of the offending tree along with copies of the relevant building or pollution codes. At the next available sitting – which might be one month away, or much longer – the report will be presented and the Ombudsman will make a further decision.

Many of the complaints submitted to the Ombudsman are more serious than some dead branches in a pond. At the hearings I attended I saw cases regarding access to drinking water, non-payment of wages, construction of public toilets, land encroachment, unlawful construction, false entry in muster rolls for NREGA works, the allocation of houses designated for the poor, pollution from various industries, and the behaviour of commissions under control of a panchayat.

Unfortunately the Kerala Ombudsman has not received the support it needs from the state government. Since 2001 the Ombudsman has requested funds for an independent investigative team, and the government has consistently ignored this and other requests. As it stands, the Ombudsman must rely on local officials – usually the Deputy Director of panchayats – for all investigations. Despite the usual apathy, the state government has not been overtly hostile to the Ombudsman. This may be due to one of the Kerala Ombudsman’s unique features – it is only given purview over local self government institutions, rather than any government action whatsoever. The state government – which decides the Ombudsman’s budget and effectively appoints him – is beyond the reach of the Ombudsman. While this means that corruption, incompetence and indifference at the state level is left untouched, perhaps it does enable the Ombudsman to effectively deal with complaints at the local level. While having an elderly man yell at him about a tree is bearable, it is not clear whether the Ombudsman could withstand such an assault from the Chief Minister.

Joshua Stark is an intern with Research Foundation for Governance in India, Ahmedabad. He has been researching grievance redressal mechanisms in India with a special focus on the institution of the Ombudsman.