UPA's social sector scorecard

Uttar Pradesh, the heartland of Indian democracy, can provide a good and sane dose of reality to the Rising India story. It is here that the battle for Delhi often begins and ends.

Step off at the Amausi airport in Lucknow and you have no doubt that the Indian economy is on a roll. Leave alone the large billboards, even the lamp posts are witnessing competition for ad space, with telecom service providers jostling with each other on the same pole. Each carries prominent signages of two different service providers.Travel east another 100 km to Hardoi district and the sights and sounds change unbelievably. There are no lamp posts, and billboards— signs of a vibrant economy—are curiously absent. Living tenements are bare, plastered in mud with thatched roofs. People here live on the thin edge with just a single illness between them and abyss of extreme poverty. Land here is dry and life grim, as it is in much of rural India, which supports 69 per cent of India ’s population.

Hardoi is one of the 200 most backward districts in the country, in which the central government’s flagship scheme—the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)—was launched. It promises 100 days of employment in a financial year to adult members of a rural household who are willing to do manual work.

Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana

Aims to provide: All-weather connectivity to around 66,000 unconnected rural habitations. The PMGSY is a 100 per cent centrally-sponsored scheme with half the cess on high speed diesel being earmarked for it.

GoI estimates: Up to Sept. 2007, 43,989.93 km of rural roads were connected. As per Bharat Nirman targets, 146,000 km need to be built by 2009 at an expense of Rs 48,000 crore.

Gaps: Delay in implementation. Where built, there are sometimes quality issues.

Aimed at preventing distress migration by providing local employment, the scheme was launched with much fanfare in 2005. From the initial 200 districts, NREGS has now spread to 595 rural districts across the country.

At Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office, Joint Secretary in charge of Poverty Alleviation and other development schemes, R. Gopalakrishnan, is optimistic that the NREGS will provide a model to the world. “It is one of the largest welfare programmes running. The results will probably be visible in another three to four years.” Having come to power on the aam aadmi or common man plank, the NREGS is probably the UPA government’s most prominent effort to address its constituency.

And buoyed by the robust revenues, the government has spared no cash. The programme started with Rs 11,300 crore in 2006-07 for 200 districts; this was increased to Rs 12,000 crore as the scheme spread to 330 districts. Now spanning the country, the Rural Development Ministry contends that Rs 20,000 crore per annum would be sufficient.

A Gurgaon-based think-tank, India Development Foundation (IDF) reckons that the amount could well be Rs 36,500 crore per year. That is mean amount by any standards. Is it achieving the desired results? The answers vary depending on what one is looking for.

The structure of the scheme allows for only low-level manual skills to be used. Machines and contractors are explicitly prohibited. And since there is a positive list of likely projects that can be taken up under the scheme, most of the projects undertaken are in water conservation and water harvesting projects followed by rural connectivity.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

Aims to Provide: A legal right of 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to adult members of a rural household who demand employment and are willing to do unskilled manual work. It started with 200 districts, expanded to 330 districts and, with the latest extension, now covers 595 districts.

GoI Estimates: It has provided employment to 21 million rural households during 2006-07 creating 905 million man days of employment. Nearly 800,000 works were taken up. It is believed that the scheme will cost at least Rs 20,000 crore per annum with its expanded reach.

Gaps: Rural assets being built are temporary. Moreover, the targeted people do not acquire any new skills that can increase their employability once the NREGS works are completed.

“This sort of a positive list does not allow for flexibility in building assets that the village needs and wants,” says Amir Ullah Khan, Fellow, IDF, which recently studied the impact of NREGS.

Villagers in Bharawan block, Hardoi shrug off the usefulness of the assets that have been created even as they say that the work is not available on demand. “At best, it is 4-5 days in a couple of months,” says a villager. They have been demanding work from the Block Development Officer, and now possess receipts of demands made. (see picture) This qualifies them for an unemployment allowance.

Economists point out that the NREGS is a simple income transfer scheme, or more directly, it is a dole. Based on such parameters, the scheme is judged differently.

The launch of the scheme has meant that people are now able to get more to spend on food, says A. Murali, Director, NREGS of Andhra Pradesh, one of the leading states in terms of NREGS spends.

“In some regions, they are able to take three meals a day as against two earlier, some are able to afford more eggs in their daily diet. It has helped them continue education of children, they are now able to spend on healthcare and some even get to invest on agri inputs.”

Hence, the NREGS provides the fallback option for many in the rural economy. “This, in a sense, provides a broad-based sustenance safety net that is crucial for wideranging agri-reforms,” says Subir Gokarn, Executive Director and Chief Economist, CRISIL.

Such cash-transfer programmes, however, do not encourage anybody to make long-term structural changes. The stock criticism is the old adage of not merely giving people fish, but instead, teaching them to fish. The truth is that the NREGS beneficiaries acquire no skills.

“If the intention is to transfer cash, then we should not be worried about usage. However, if the programme’s objective is to achieve employment security and prevent distress migration then more decisions should have been left to the local level institutions,” says IDF’s Khan, adding that the top requirements for rural India are “schools, hospitals and roads.”

National Rural Health Mission

Aims to provide: Healthcare facilities in the rural areas of the country, with special focus on 18 states. To provide assessable, affordable, accountable effective and reliable primary health care facilities, especially to the poor and vulnerable sections of the population. NRHM covers seven schemes under the Department of Health & Family Welfare.

GoI estimates: Nearly Rs 26,806 crore has been allocated till July 2007. During 2005-12, NHRM seeks to halve infant mortality; reduce total fertility rate, maternal mortality and prevalence of diseases along with upgrades of all community health centres.

Gaps: An aggregation of existing schemes, NRHM is focussed on select populations. Allocation within NRHM schemes is skewed. An easier solution will be to provide health vouchers.

Independent reports point out that the leakages that plague typical government schemes exist here as well. Fudging of records, mismanagement of muster rolls and delayed payments are rampant. Yet, the NREGS is less prone to corruption due to the simple process of a social audit conducted by civil society organisations.

Though doubts have been expressed about the transparency and accountability of the NGOs conducting the audit, it is still a mechanism that works despite all its flaws. It incorporates what CRISIL’s Gokarn calls a generic formula for improving delivery of public services. “Accountability of delivery should be localised and the process should be subject to external scrutiny.”

Another major scheme of the UPA government, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), is also being subjected to local accountability— or community-based monitoring—and periodic reviews are being planned.

Launched in 2005, the NRHM aimed at revitalising the primary healthcare system in rural India. Sure, additional funds and manpower have been made available but the “benefits of the programme have yet to reach people at the ground level,” says Abhay Shukla, National Co-convenor of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, which recently conducted a study of the scheme’s impact over seven northern states.

Shukla’s apprehensions stem from the fact that the programme seems to be getting delivered as a series of discrete interventions rather than as a comprehensive package.

Dr Nerges Mistry, Director of the Foundation for Research in Community Health, agrees. “What is lacking is the transfer of the vision from the Centre to the states to the districts and then on to the block level and vigorous re-orientation of public health cadres, without which the NRHM will risk failure,” she says.

Patchy implementation at the state level—which is difficult for the central government to monitor— is not restricted to this programme alone. The Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), which pitches for rural connectivity and thereby market access for the rural economy, suffers similarly.

The scheme was launched by the NDA regime almost seven years ago, but was adopted by the UPA government as one of the six components of Bharat Nirman. Barring a few states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, which are near their targeted mid-term connectivity, most others lag far behind. This, despite ample funds being available.

At a review meeting in September, the Rural Development Ministry asked the states to quadruple their absorption capacities. “India is a patchy country with uneven governance structures and resources,” says Gopalakrishnan, accepting the inevitability of such differential performance.

However, rural roads are an important part of getting this other India to participate in growth. According to studies in rural China, every 1 per cent increase in the road density per capita increases the private consumption expenditure by 0.08 per cent.

Education, the third leg of the tripod of rural needs, seems to be making some headway with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Mid-day Meal Scheme. Large reductions in the number of out-of-school children, commensurate increases in enrollments, reduction of gender and social disparities in enrollment and school completion especially in primary education seem to be the outcomes.

The UPA government made a steady flow of funds available for these schemes via the 2 per cent education cess on all central taxes. "We have almost licked the problem of education," says Gopalakrishnan. And others seem to agree, though with caveats.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

Aims to Provide: Useful and relevant elementary education to all children in the age group of 6-14 years by 2010. To bridge social, regional and gender gaps.

GoI estimates: During 2006-07, around 242,876 teachers were recruited taking the total recruitment to 825,702. There is, however, still a shortfall of over 18%. The 2% education cess collected on central taxes is used for SSA and Midday Meal Scheme. Rs 10,393 crore was allocated this financial.

Gaps: SSA and the Mid-day Meal Scheme has increased enrollment; yet, the quality of education imparted still remains questionable.

"The lagging states, which accounted for the bulk of the out-of-school children, made the biggest strides in improving access and reducing disparities," says Sam Carlson, Lead Education Specialist for India with the World Bank.

"With regard to quality, the results are more mixed," Carlson adds. Madhav Chavan of Pratham, a nongovernment organisation involved in the education sector, agrees that "the overall picture is positive although lacunae remain".

So what will the UPA claim when it next approaches its votebank? Economists may gripe over the burgeoning fiscal deficit, but the alliance seems to have done a decent job of seen to be doing the right thing for the rural poor. It may not have been superbly efficient about it, but at the ground level, its efforts are being noticed.

However, for this mix of schemes to yield electoral success, not only will the benefits have to reach the masses but they need to be linked to the central government, too.

If the Brazilian experience of Bolsa Familia (family grant) programme is anything to go by, then the NREGS alone should generate tremendous amount of goodwill for the UPA. Many credit the reelection of Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the Bolsa Familia scheme which paid small monthly amounts of financial aid (less than $25 or Rs 1,000) to the poorest families in Brazil.

These schemes may well provide the ticket for the UPA's ride back to power with or without some allies. However, even a different dispensation at the Centre will not stand to lose much as the base for wider reforms in the form of an over-arching safety net for the rural hinterland will be ready. If
there is political will that is.

(With inputs from E. Kumar Sharma)