Problem of Governance

Governance in India is in a complete mess. We are plagued with avoidable poverty, crime, illiteracy, dysfunctional healthcare, broken roads and other infrastructure. Each of these problems is addressed, at least on paper, with plans, funds and functionaries, but hardly anything happens on the ground. When the people complain to the authorities, the authorities simply do not listen. On a day-to-day basis an ordinary citizen has absolutely no workable remedy against failure or mismanagement of the government.

1. Citizens have no control over resource
2. Citizens have no control over officials
3. Vacuum at lowest level of Executive machinery - helpless legislature at receiving end
4. A completely helpless citizens

Citizens have no control over resource

Citizens helplessly watch government funds being squandered away on things that they may not need on priority. But when people approach government for something they badly need, the stock reply is that there are no funds.

For instance, a slum in East Delhi does not have water. But the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) spent Rs 60 lakhs to construct fountains!

In the same area, people wanted sewer system, which would cost Rs 80 lakhs, so that they could have toilets in their homes. But the Government has been spending almost Rs 1 crore every year to construct new public toilets but has not provided sewer system.

Lofty schemes, often unrelated to people’s priorities, are devised by the state and central governments and thrust upon the people. In this year’s budget, in the name of poverty alleviation, schemes worth Rs 51,000 crores have been thrust upon India’s poor. People have no say in deciding priorities. The priorities for 100 crore people living in seven lakh villages, towns and cities are decided by a few politicians and bureaucrats sitting in Delhi.

Most of the funds reaching villages are tied. Data from MP and UP shows that almost 90% of the funds available with panchayats are tied to some or the other scheme.

In a village in Orissa, there was a severe attack of diarrhoea. All the families in that village were affected. The nearest hospital was some 10 Kms away. There was no public transportation available. The village panchayat had funds available but all funds were tied under some or the other scheme. The funds could not be used for transporting people to the hospital. As a result, seven people died.

Another interesting anecdote will highlight the fallacy of our “scheme raj”. A particular Joint Secretary in one Central Government Ministry had a brain wave one day. This official came to the conclusion that the water problem of rural India would be solved if every village tried to conserve its own water. This individual drafted a scheme under which the Central Government would provide financial assistance of around Rs 50,000 if a village constructed civil structures to conserve water. This scheme reached the state capitals from the national capital. From here, it reached the district headquarters. The District Collector of a district called all the sarpanches and announced this scheme. One sarpanch returned to his village, called the whole village and announced this scheme. On hearing this, everyone in the meeting started laughing! It turns out that this village faces flood year after year. They do not want to conserve water. They desperately need to divert water to avoid floods!

In a village in West Bengal, though a panchayat gets roughly Rs 6 crores per annum, a village could not make a school, which they needed so desperately, because all funds were tied.

Described above are only a handful of examples. Unfortunately, there are plenty of such examples through the country. It has become obvious that the country cannot be run from state and central capitals. There are no effective platforms at lowest level, where people can meet, express their priorities collectively and for the government to ultimately accept and approve.

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Citizens have no control over officials

Information obtained under Right to Information law in several parts of the country reveals ghost roads, non-existent hand pumps and motors, etc. When people complain to authorities, no action is taken. The citizens have no control over government employees.

In democratic governance, each government official is accountable to the citizens. In Indian democracy, however, we have a convoluted system of accountability, which is not only very little understood but is almost impossible to put to use. This system of accountability has rendered all government servants completely unaccountable to the public but accountable only to their bureaucratic or political bosses, who exert a corrupting influence on them. Following chart shows how accountability works in our system.

An SHO in a police station is given resources and powers to serve citizens. But if he works against the interests of the citizens, a citizen has absolutely no power to hold him accountable for his actions. The citizen can only complain to his bosses, who again are not accountable to the citizen; they may choose not to act on the complaint of the citizen without facing any consequences. The SHO is accountable to DSP, who is accountable to SP, who is accountable to SSP, who is accountable to DIG, who is accountable to IG, who is accountable to DG, who in turn is accountable to the Home Minster. The Home Minister is a member of Cabinet, which has collective accountability to the Legislative Assembly. The citizen can complain to his MLA, who, if he feels so inclined, may raise the issue in the Legislative Assembly. Raising in the Legislative Assembly a matter concerning an erring SHO, however, hardly ever happens. There is so little time available in Assembly, that obviously questions cannot be raised for individual problems.

Unless the SHO is somehow made directly accountable to the citizen, things would not improve. Likewise, all local officials need to be made directly accountable to citizens or citizens’ assemblies

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Vacuum at lowest level of Executive machinery - helpless legislature at receiving end

Often people criticize their MLAs and MPs for many of the problems of their constituencies without realizing that these poor ‘representatives of the people’ do not have any executive powers unless they happen to be ministers. What is the role of an ‘ordinary’ MLA or an MP in Indian democracy? According to the Constitution, he/she is a member of the legislature – either Parliament or legislative assembly. Unless he/she is also a member of the Executive, his/her only job is to attend the legislature and participate in discussions to enact good laws. Again, whereas an MLA or MP has the liberty to participate in discussions in the legislature, he/she does not have the liberty to decide whether to vote in favour or against a particular legislation. He/she must vote in line with his/her party’s whip. It is ironical that though an MLA or MP is voted into office by the voters of his/her constituency, he/she is instructed by his/her party high command to vote in a particular manner on any issue. His/her voters have no say in that, unfortunately.

Ordinary people have a lot of expectations from their MPs or MLAs. If anything goes wrong in a constituency, they rush to their MLA or MP, who - unless he/she is a ministerial member of the executive -- does not have the administrative powers to solve day-to-day problems like water, electricity, roads, sewer etc. He can raise questions in Legislature about problems. Obviously, questions cannot be raised for individual problems. An issue can be raised in the Legislature only when a sizeable number of people are affected (in lakhs). There is no guarantee that that an issue so raised would be resolved by the government to the satisfaction of that legislator or his/her constituent.

Since many MPs wish to raise many questions and since there is a shortage of time, questions to be raised in Parliament are selected on the basis of lottery. So, which one of our problems would be raised in Parliament is decided by lottery!

MPs and MLAs do get about Rs 2 crores each to spend on their constituency. They may – if they are interested in public interest and not feathering their own nest -- spend that money on solving some of the problems of their constituents, but again, they do not have any direct control over those departments.

So, it’s difficult to fasten blame for insensitivity and corruption of day-to-day governance on to ‘ordinary’ MLAs and MPs. The major part of the blame must go to the Executive, headed by the ministers of the ruling political party or coalition, and run day to day by the bureaucracy.

It is at this level that we need to make local officials directly accountable to Gram Sabhas in rural areas and similar peoples’ assemblies in urban areas.

There is a fear amongst political parties that giving power to the people would make MLAs and MPs redundant. That’s a misapprehension. On the contrary, citizens exercising some direct power to solve their day-to-day problems like street lights and sewers would free their MLAs and MPs to concentrate on legislative work on larger issues.

Many people think that getting good people to stand for MPs or MLAs would solve all problems, without realizing that it would neither improve the functioning of legislature, which works on whips from high commands of political parties, nor would it improve the functioning of executive. The real change would come when the citizens’ assemblies at the grassroots level would be empowered to manage their local affairs.

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A completely helpless citizens

The complete helplessness of people before various government agencies has led to varying degrees of discontentment with governance. In extreme cases of discontentment, people have felt compelled to take to arms. Naxalism, to a large extent, is a manifestation of this helplessness.

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