Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 8 March 2007

Social Sector Programmes

PUT Implementation ON WEBSITES

By Dr. Vinod Mehta

The Finance Minister has done his job by allocating large sums of funds to the agricultural, education and the health sectors, but will he be able to deliver the results?  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. 

There are leakages and the schemes are rarely completed on time.  In one of his oft-quoted remarks the Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had said that of the rupee one allocated less that 15 paise reach the people.  This observation has also been corroborated by one Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission a few years ago.

The programmes are to be implemented by the respective ministries of Agriculture, Education and Health; the onus is on these three Ministries now. Again, agriculture, education and health are mainly the 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 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, for irrigation, insurance for farm labourers, for 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 time 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.

Within a week of the budget being passed by Parliament, all the specific programmes should be placed on the website with the total amount allocated and then provide monthly updates on the progress made by each programme. 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 website. 

There should be a website for each 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 allocation for farm credit has been increased and that 50 lakh more farmers will be provided credit during 2007-08. But how will the Government ensure that the small and marginal farmers also have access to these loans?  A large proportion of the farm credit at present is cornered by the rich farmers.

Considering the spate of suicides by farmers in certain States, the problem is much deeper than simply availability of farm credit.  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 an agricultural household needs a minimum of Rs. 2,000 to 3,000 a month to meet its 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 farm loan.

The Finance Minister has also 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 will lead to the production of new improved seeds is anybody’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 than 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 foodgrain, 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, the allocations for education and health have been increased, but the quality parameters are not reflected anywhere.  It is one thing to say that two lakh more teachers would be appointed during the next fiscal year that to appoint quality teachers.  It is likely to become a playground for providing jobs to political favourites unless all the appointments are open to public scrutiny.  This also holds true for the delivery of health services.

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 majority of our programmes.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)