GOVERNANCE | Sudha Pillai

For policy-makers at the central and state-level, experiences of what the needs are at the grassroots level are important but execution should, as far as possible, be left to the local people, writes Sudha Pillai

Getting down to The Grassroots

The functionaries of various social sector programmes, including health and family welfare, should be made accountable to elected representatives of PRIs at different levels.

Decentralisation is not an end  in itself but a promising  means to empower local   governments, and it is here that the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) have an important role to play.  In fact, PRIs are the ideal vehicles that can help tackle problems like universalisation of primary education, compliance of legal age of marriage and elimination of discriminatory practices and social mores against women. They can also generate awareness about the availability, accessibility and affordability of health and family welfare services. Women Panchayati Raj members should be given special training and made key resource personnel. The functionaries of various social sector programmes, including health and family welfare, should be made accountable to elected representatives of PRIs at different levels. The health committee of the Gram Panchayat should be headed by a woman Panchayat member. Registration of births, deaths, marriages and pregnancies should be done at the village level through the PRIs. Such institutions can also exert social and moral pressure on couples in the reproductive age group to adopt the small healthy family norm and to create awareness on various social issues having a bearing on population stabilisation. Information on demographic issues and health education should be made available through the local languages. We need to look at the recommendations made by the Task Force on Panchayati Raj Institutions demarcating the activities and responsibilities for different levels of PRIs such as the district, intermediate and Gram Panchayat levels.

Many policy makers are very dismissive of the notion that village people can actually manage to handle inter-caste, intra-village conflicts or give political and administrative space to women elected representatives. However, the reality on the ground is quite different. In fact, it is now coming to be accepted that the delivery of public good and services can actually take place if the local people are fully involved.  The notion that only a bureaucrat or some other government functionary, who comes from another village or another town, can ensure delivery of such services is wrong, because if we do not empower the local people, social transformation will be hard to achieve.  For policy-makers at the central and state-level, experiences of what the needs are the grassroots level are important but execution should, as far as possible, be left to the local people. In fact, such visits may even surprise them as to all that is taking place in this 'other India’ can be either a negative or a positive surprise, as my experience of the PRI experiment has shown. While the initial struggle may be difficult, it is this which shall make people come out of their shells and transform them forever. 

On the negative side is our love for complexity. Today, as educated Indians, we have come to fall in love with complexity.  This is primarily because of the ingrained assumption that the more complex a scheme is, the lesser are the chance of it getting misused or diverted. This is clearly evident if we look at most centrally-sponsored schemes. But, it is this complexity that defeats the very purpose for which such a scheme was formulated.  And, this can only become clear, if one visits the grassroots level to see what is actually happening on the ground. Today, our bureaucracy has become fascinated with the word innovation. But, innovation in our system often gets confused with the need to change. As a result, we also change things which are working very well; this often happens with schemes that are picking up but are yet to deliver results, schemes that originated in the corridors of power in Delhi but have yet to reach the last mile.

Today, one important area where we have to get our act together is health. We need to have in place the right health insurance scheme because these are concerns that affect the people living below the poverty line and the rural poor. In fact, health and poverty are directly related. The Swasthya Bima Yojana is a high technology scheme, based on a smart card, which is portable and which has 11 different kinds of software embedded in it. Today, it extends health cover to nearly 7 million card holders and their families. We need insurance based healthcare, which is sustainable and has a good business model. The idea behind such a model should be that it is basic to the well-being of the country.  Here, the government must evolve models that encourage public sector and private sector to constantly enlarge and upgrade the facilities which are available to the people.  Today, we are largely talking about investment in terms of education, but we also have to talk in terms of investment in health, both preventive and curative.

One important area where we have to get our act together is health. We need to have in place the right health insurance scheme for people living below the poverty line and the rural poor. In fact,ealth and poverty aredirectly related.

Even in education, the severe shortage of facilities in the countryside is an area of concern. Here, we urgently need to strengthen the delivery mechanism if we are to train 500 million young people by 2022 as envisaged under the Skill Development Policy. This is especially important as it is a well-known fact that skills are directly correlated with improved productivity and well-being.

Today, for good governance, one needs an inclusive mind. Let us not permit the geography of poverty to continue.  The psychology of poverty you find in the most deprived areas in our country, where people never think they can actually come out of poverty, is where these forays into the countryside are important because we need to change the mindset.  In fact, when one talks about the psychology of poverty, it has its linkages in the lack of facilities, both educational, health and absence of governance, in rural areas. There is also a great disconnect between the resources in these regions and people’s linkage with growth. It is this disconnect that supports this psychology of poverty.

Sudha Pillai is Secretary, Planning Commission