Reforms in Governance and Poverty Alleviation

REFORMS IN GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION

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Governance is the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. It consists of the whole set of processes, mechanisms and institutions through which the citizens express their interests, exercise their rights, meet their obligations and sink their differences. No amount of developmental effort can bring in improvements in the quality of life of the citizens without improving the governance standards. Conversely, if the power of the State is misused the poorer sections of the society are most likely to suffer. Poor governance, thus, perpetuates poverty and severely hinders the efforts to reduce it. It is understood all over the world that strengthening of governance is an essential precondition to improve the lives of the poor.

Initial years after independence were marked by the euphoria of emancipation from the foreign rulers. The entire politico-economic system was in the process of witnessing a host of changes, based on the experience gained. Various new statutes were brought in and the Constitution was also amended several times as per the changing and felt needs of the society, notwithstanding the political angles and desired populism by the ruling political parties.

Successive governments also strived to ensure upliftment of the poor and the downtrodden. While several schemes and programmes were framed for the betterment of the socially and educationally weaker sections, the women and the children, the government also introduced several schemes aimed at alleviation of poverty, as it was clearly understood that the country may not be able to achieve the goal of rapid development unless the poorer sections of the society also experienced increase in their incomes and became part of the mainstream bandwagon of economic development.

It has been experienced by the country over the past six decades that despite billions of rupees pumped in the rural sector since independence, through various schemes and programmes, the desired outcomes have not been achieved. The number of people below poverty line has declined but at a very slow pace and the results have not been commensurate with the quantum of funds invested by the government. Even from social point of view, it has been proved through many studies that there have been significant leakages in the expenditure made for the welfare of the weaker sections of society.

All this is strong pointer to the fact that the governance in the country needs improvement to achieve an improved delivery system. Over the last few decades, successive Five-Year Plans have tried to introduce certain reforms through their broad-based objectives. Democratic decentralisation achieved through the strengthened Panchayati Raj System and the resultant social empowerment has been one major initiative in this direction.

The focus of other initiatives has been on transparency, people’s participation, civil service reforms, rationalisation of government schemes, improving access to formal justice, improvements in land administration and introduction of information technology as a key to good governance. Enactment of the Right to Information Act has been a major breakthrough in bringing transparency in the government functioning and empowerment of the citizens of the country. Several economic reforms have also been taken up in the recent years.

Though the policy makers may be taking a lot of credit for all these actions, yet the above governance initiatives are not sufficient and a lot more remains to be done. Maintenance of law and order of the desired level remains a pipe dream in many States. The general perception is that the law and order machinery is generally inefficient, tardy and unresponsive. Corruption is rampant, undermining economic growth, distorting competition, and disproportionately hurting the poor and marginalised citizens. Criminalisation of politics continues unchecked, with money and muscle power playing a major role in elections. In general, there is high degree of volatility in the society on account of unfulfilled expectations and poor service delivery.

Future Goals

Any attempt towards reforms in governance in the future must focus on two things—the fulfilment of human potential and rapid economic growth. The broad objective of realising human potential includes the prevention of human sufferings, ensuring human dignity, providing access to justice and making available equal opportunity to all so that every citizen becomes a fulfilled and productive human being. Rapid economic growth, on the other hand, would result in realising the country’s real potential and provide India with an opportunity to play rightful role in the world to protect the interests of the people of the country, while ensuring that the people living below poverty line also get their due share in the growing prosperity of the country.

The role of the State in basic services needs to be clearly defined and emphasized. Ensuring access to speedy and efficient justice, protecting rights of the citizens, enforcing rule of law and maintaining public order are all inseparable and form the basic foundation of a civilised society, as well as that of the democracy. The deficiencies in this vital area need to be plugged through judicial and police reforms, better participation of citizens in governance.

Based on the past experience and best practices, we need to redesign our delivery mechanisms in the education sector in an innovative manner and deploy the nation’s finest talent to man these sectors. Inadequate and poor quality of school education is the bane of Indian society today. Except in case of some better institutions of higher and technical/professional education, higher education too is not very successful in promoting excellence and producing quality service providers, dynamic leaders, result-oriented managers and long-term wealth creators.

Urban management involves much more than resource allocation for infrastructure and poses formidable challenges of governance, considering high rate of urbanisation and future projections for the same in the country. Management of power distribution through active involvement of people in a consumer-friendly way is more of a governance issue than a tariff problem.

Social security is a relatively new and emerging area of State activity to which the administrative system must respond with sensitivity. This would directly improve the lives of the poor. The recent enforcement of the employment guarantee law in the entire country and the efforts in the pipeline to provide a measure of social security to the unorganised sector workers can address the special challenges posed in social security, particularly for the economically weaker sections. But a lot more is required to be done.

In any system, the quality of public servants is critical in determining the outcomes of governance inputs. We have well-established procedures for initial recruitment of civil servants in India. But there is a growing concern that our administration in general has become unresponsive, rigid and inward-looking. While the bureaucracy responds to crisis situations with efficacy, complacency results in failure to deal with ‘normal’ situations, which is evident in most cases. The complex challenges of modern administration in critical sectors like police administration, justice delivery, education, healthcare, transportation, land management, infrastructure, skill promotion, employment generation and urban management need special attention. These areas impact the lives of all sections of the society, particularly the lives of the poorer sections.

There are no two views that the governance has been a weak link in our quest for rapid development with equity. The country has an impressive governance structure and several important successes to credit. But we need to consolidate the gains already made and venture into the virgin but vital areas of reforms in governance.