Samvad

Paper on Innovation in Public Service Delivery - SAMVAD

The objective of this document is to chronicle the experiences that one came across in implementing an effort in decentralising decision making as District Collector. 

Ensuring transparency and accountability at the grassroots level, ensuring participative decision making, moving on from participation to leadership and ownership are cliches we are at best able to achieve in controlled laboratories with scaling at the level of a district being difficult. SAMVAD is an attempt to ‘reinvent’ this wheel.

‘SAMVAD’ in hindi means a conversation. Here it stands to mean a conversation with the supreme sovereign (the People) with the added implication that it is done in a pre arranged and active manner. SAMVAD expands as Systematic and Active Meetings in Villages to Aid Development. Conversation cannot be a one-off or one sided measure by definition. SAMVAD is designed as a continuous conversation with the People through the mode of Gram Sabhas/ Mohalla Sabhas on a pre determined day of the month (NOT DATE).

 The programme is conceptualised as  one till eternity. The day of the month on which  gram sabha for all the villages in a sector of the district is  pre-determined by the District Planning Committee. This determination of the day of the month for all the villages in a particular sector means that there is no need for a separate determination and communication of the day of the Gram Sabha. Since whole of a sector goes into the Gram Sabha on the same day, the sector tour programme of the district and block level officers are so organized to coincide with the day of the Gram Sabha. Even if the Gram Sabha organized on a particular day is of scanty attendance, the regularity in the day of organizing the same means that the power of routine is made use of in communicating to the people about the next date.

 The present Panchayats Act in Madhya Pradesh gives the power of deciding the date of the Gram Sabha to the Sarpanch; and in extra ordinary circumstances, the District Collector can force a Gram Sabha to be conducted. Systematising the conduct of Gram Sabha does not take away this power. However, it does leave one key in the hands of time.

‘SAMVAD’ is also designed to be ‘Active’ in that the participants have an active role to play in deciding the agenda and conduct of the meeting. Though this is legitimately expected of any Gram Sabha, and nowhere it would ever have been visualized that the Sabhas would be passive, the added declaration of the components of SAMVAD seeks to enthuse the people into a more active role. The components of SAMVAD are HITAM, PRAGATI, PRAHARI and YUVA – all (pretty) names in the hope that they can convey the concept without having to go through the rigour of repetition once the concept is made clear.

HITAM – It stands for Hitgrahi Tracking and Monitoring which is principally the tracking of the implementation of the individual beneficiary schemes. Here a register is maintained in each Gram Panchayat where the whole population is examined for possible coverage in the different schemes. The register is quite like the attendance register in schools with the name of citizens in place of that of the students, the name of schemes in place of dates and the marking of  (tick )  to mean the person is eligible, (wrong )   for person being not eligible and  (circled tick )  for person being eligible and covered. The Gram Panchayat Secretary is the nodal for this register whereby his target is to get all eligibilities examined and covered. In case of schemes where immediate coverage is not possible, prioritization is done with the help of the Gram Sabha. The advantage of this register is that it gives a ready record for how well the Secretary has performed. The philosophical plank for aggressively processing the eligibility of all for every scheme lies in that in a nation where right to equality is professed, no scheme can be run without having given full information about the same to all citizens. IEC is deemed to be effective only when the eligible makes a proper application for the scheme for which there is eligibility.

PRAGATI – It stands for Project Review, Analysis, Guidance and Tracking Inititiative. The tech savvy portion of this has been developed with the help of NIC, Bhopal State office which gives geo-tagging based information on the construction works. The effort is being made to improve the quality of monitoring by concentrating on the means and regularity of monitoring by block level functionaries. Here again, project selection and prioritization is done under the guidance of the Gram Sabha whereby the open house is used to prioritise works to be taken up in future. Social audit of works is done in the Gram Sabha.

Administratively, even the most minor fault, if overlooked would pin the responsibility on the senior officer who is doing the review. However, in a political entity of a Gram Sabha, such decisions can be made in a transparent manner. Every member of the Gram Sabha is there for himself and hence there is lesser chance for the problem of misrepresentation – an act on which the public representatives thrive if they are corrupt. Misrepresentation or the doubt if there is misrepresentation is the key point of conflict between well meaning officers and public representatives. In a setting of a Gram Sabha, this is avoided to a great extent.

PRAHARI- It stands for Participatory Review Aimed at Holistic Assessment of Regularity. Here, the village and sector level functionaries present their work before the Gram Sabha and seek their cooperation in implementation. There is a discussion, debate and voting on how well the village level functionary is performing. There is a show of hands on what is the general opinion on the person concerned. Even the determination (recommendation) of punishment to be given is done by the assembly of people. This helps to send a message that the only way to avoid punishment is to be able to defend one’s work in an open forum. Complaints against the functionary are listened to openly. Commendation of work is also done openly. Minutes are recorded so that the same will be of reference in decision making process in the next month on the same day when the Gram Sabha will be again held.

YUVA- It stands for Yuva United for Value Addition. The opposite of corruption, for some, could be Anti-corruption. If corruption is an erosion in values, Value Addition to society and self could be deemed as a more positive response to corruption - moving ahead from ‘Anti-Corruption’ which at times gives an impression of status quo being a preferred state of affairs. YUVA is an attempt to organize youth (defined as any one willing to add value to oneself and to the society) in an attempt to add value to the society and the individuals concerned. This is intended to provide a platform for social mobilization on issues including, but not restricted to de-addiction, sanitation, promotion of merit and so on. Www.yuvasingrauli.org could be seen for some details on the same.

Apart from the rural Gram Sabhas, there is an urban counterpart of the Mohalla Sabhas which are sought to be organized – at least once in a month on the appointed weekly day of the month in every ward. The time table is so fixed that the exercise is restricted to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on the first four weeks of any month. On every third Thursday, there is an open house which provides course correction inputs to the whole effort.

There is no grand success that has come out of the effort to the effect that the whole of the population suddenly rose up to the matter and started exercising their political right in an erudite and transparent manner. The delivery of Public Services has not been impacted positively to the level of improvement being un-missable. The Gram Sabhas and Mohalla Sabhas have not even been able to achieve quorum even in the ones where the Divisional Commissioner attended the same. The level of awareness in the population on the basic issue – the time, date and place of the meeting is at best insufficient if not scarce.  There is no credible study available to suggest that there is any improvement in the general scheme of things. Anecdotes,especially that has come to notice of the writer, cannot be excused from the allegation of being intentional encomiums with ulterior motives.

However, there is an amount of satisfaction with the mode of functioning over the last 8 months – four months of which were handicapped (from this perspective) by a Model Code of Conduct imposed for the local elections. The initial elating experience in another district of Datia has no news to offer.  Here again, one could perceive that things were positively different when the process of conversation was attempted to be systematized. A separate anecdote is attached on that experience.

It is not uncommon to find discussions in Public Policy in bureaucratic circles go into the mode of Us Vs Them in relation to government and market. In this struggle, then there is a solution attempted in one hand trying to correct the other. It is indeed essential to bring this interplay of market and government into one of salubrious symphony for the supreme sovereign. A perspective of these being two of the arms of the People, one with primary investment of economic capital and the other one with primary investment of political capital could bring in better results and reconciliation. (Could a third arm be spiritual?) Alongside, there is also a need to realize that the political arm needs to have a relook at the instruments of execution available with it. Apart from the quinquennial  elections, (mis)representative dharnas and the arm-chair theorization watching the prime time show, there is a requirement for more instruments to keep this arm more nimble and efficient, just as new instruments are available in the financial world which helps in harnessing the power of human imagination and participation.

Note: Value Addition to this copyleft article is managed on dmnstratvbrag.blogspot.in