ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS

New Delhi, 7 March 2008

BRING EXECUTION IN PUBLIC DOMAIN

By Dr. Vinod Mehta

(Former Director, Research, ICSSR)

As the euphoria over the Rs 60,000 crore waiver of farmers’ loan dies down various political parties and financial experts have expressed reservations and doubts. Allocating funds is perhaps the easiest task but deploying them efficiently is the most difficult one. If one goes by India’s track record of implementing various schemes there is nothing much to cheer about.

Last year also, the Finance Minister Chidambaram had made large allocations to agriculture, education, health etc, but still there is no information as to how this allocation was spent and what has been the progress. This year too, Chidambaram, apart from writing off the loans of marginal and small farmers has made large allocations for the agricultural, education and health sectors.

It is, however, common knowledge, that there are leakages and the schemes are rarely completed on time. In one of his oft quoted remarks the Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is stated to have said that of the one rupee allocated, less than 15 paisa reaches the people. This observation was also corroborated by a Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission a few years ago.

This time, the Finance Minister has announced that a monitoring cell will be set up in the Planning Commission to monitor the progress of various schemes and the allocations.  This is a welcome proposal.

The programmes are implemented by the respective Ministries and not by the Finance Ministry. In the case of agriculture, education and health; the onus is now on these three Ministries. Again, agriculture, education and health are mainly State subjects with some in the concurrent list. Therefore, the successful implementation of the schemes announced in the budgetary proposals would depend upon the cooperation between the respective Central Ministries and the State Governments.  But again the record of the many of the State Governments and the Central Ministries leaves much to be desired.

The Finance Minister has now to ensure that the money which he has allocated for various schemes such as credit to farmers, irrigation, insurance for farm labourers, development of high yielding varieties of seeds, employment of more teachers, scholarships to check school dropouts, rural health mission etc. is properly used and results delivered.

Many a times it happens that programmes announced in the beginning of the fiscal year are taken up almost at the end of the fiscal year. The bureaucracy moves very slowly to implement the schemes. If the programmes announced in the budgetary proposals are to be sincerely implemented than the monitoring of the programmes should be brought in the public domain.  It is not enough that the programmed implementation is monitored in the Planning Commission but it should be in the public domain; the tax payer should know if the tax revenues are being properly used as indicated in the budgetary proposals.

Within a week of the budget being passed by the Parliament, all the specific programmes should be placed on the web site with the total amount allocated and then provide monthly updates on the progress made by each of these programmes.  For instance if the programme relates to installing water sprinklers under irrigation then the actual money allocated for this purpose, procurement and installment of equipment on a monthly basis must be shown on the web site. 

There should be web site for each single programme as proposed in the budget and the public given the right to monitor its implementation. Once the implementation of the programme is in the public domain the chances are that they will be implemented efficiently and the desired impact ensured.

It is difficult for any Finance Minister to address all the problems of the agricultural and the social sectors in one go but there are human problems and problems of quality in health and education which need to be attended to.

It is true that writing off of loans will provide much needed one time relief to the marginal and small farmers. But the problems of these set of farmers are much deeper and need to be tackled on a different basis. Like any other family, the farming family also needs a minimum of regular monthly income especially at a time when his crop has failed. In such a situation he not only needs money to plant new crop but also to look after his household expenditure. Farm loan can take care of his need to plant new crop but who will take care of his daily needs till the new crop is harvested? 

According to farm economists a farm household needs a minimum of Rs. 2,000 to 3,000 a month to meet its household expenditure. Therefore, can there be a mechanism whereby a farm household is ensured a minimum household income of Rs. 2,000 a month when his crop has failed?  For a farmer in distress a regular monthly income is more important than a farm loan.

Last year also the Finance Minister had allocated funds for agricultural research especially for the development of high yielding varieties of seeds for pulses. It is a well known fact that development of new high yielding varieties of seeds is a time consuming process. When will the money allocated now lead to the production of new improved seeds is any body’s guess. 

The shortages in the production of pulses has been there for almost two decades. One is then tempted to ask what research has been done by the numerous agricultural research institutes in the development of new improved pulse seeds.  If not much has been done in this direction in the past two decades then what is the guarantee that we will come out with new improved pulse seeds during the next fiscal year? 

The point is that we have to focus our research on certain important crops especially food grain, edible oil seeds and pulses to tackle the shortages of these essential commodities. Increasing allocation for research on them is not enough we also need to revamp our agricultural research institutions and the research culture therein. And this is clearly the task of Agricultural Ministry and not that of the Finance Ministry.

Similarly, we have increased the allocation for education and health but the quality parameters are not reflected anywhere. It is one thing to say that more colleges and universities will be opened but another thing to ensure quality education. As per the last budgetary proposals two lakh more teachers were to be appointed during this fiscal year but there is no information as to how many new teachers have been appointed and what has been the quality of those teachers. 

Therefore, to ensure that the allocations for various programmes are well spent it is essential to bring the implementation in the public domain. Otherwise the allocations will go down the drain as has been the case till date for a majority of our programmes. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)