FAQs on NRHM Fund Flows

By Sruti Bandyopadhyay

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) aims at strengthening the financial management structure and accounting systems so as to conform to best practices and meet accounting and auditing standards, at all levels. However, on several fronts, achievements have fallen short.

1. At what level can one identify the variations in reported figures?

Answer: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report observed that at times, variations were noticed between the funds releases by GOI and those received by State Health Society (SHS).
a) For FY 2007-08, the figures released to SHS, Andhra Pradesh (reported by GOI) was Rs. 597.83 crore. However the SHC reported to have received only Rs. 556.96 crore.
b) Even there is a gap between the funds released by SHS to District Health Society (DHC) and funds received by DHS. For FY 2008-09, Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh had reportedly received only Rs. 951.75lakhs, however as per the SHC’s record, they have released Rs.1131.13 lakhs.

2. How regular is the fund flow from SHC to DHC?

Answer: Considerable fund remains with ICICI bank (banking partner in 13 states), both at State and District levels, till such time they were actually utilised. In Kerala, the monthly balance in the ICICI bank account of the SHS ranged between Rs. 17.52 crore to Rs. 86.12 crore during 2007-08. Average monthly balance worked out to Rs. 49.52 crore.

3. Does this unspent amount earn interest?

Answer: As per the NRHM framework, funds were to be kept in interest bearing bank accounts. However, in two States, unspent funds were not kept in interest bearing accounts.
a) In Assam, DHS Lakhimpur kept Rs.1.20 crore in current account
b) Similarly, in Bihar, SHS deposited Rs. 106.76 crore in March 2007 in non-interest bearing account
c) DHS, Bhojpur kept the NRHM funds in a current account and sustained an interest loss of Rs 37.42 lakh as of June 2008.

4. Has the money always get spent on prescribed line items?

Answer: As per rules, funds were required to be spent for the purpose for which they were intended. But that is not always the case.
For instance, for FY 2008-09, in Karnakta, Rs. 0.36 crores of NRHM fund was spent on purchase of
i) four wheelers under Kysanur Forest Disease Control Programme, ii) control of Handigodu disease, iii) and even on Mysore Dasara Exhibition.

5. What is the experience so far with the state wise audited reports?

Answer: Cases of discrepancy between opening balance of SHSs and DHSs, difference between cash balance depicted in accounts and bank pass book, inconsistency between opening balance of the current year and closing balance of the previous year etc. were observed.
In Bihar, four different opening balances as on 1 April 2005 were noticed in four different sets of documents of SHS detailed below:
Opening balance Amount (Rs. in crore) as on 01-04-2005
As per SOE--------- ---------------------47.66
As per annual account of 2005-06 ----45.12
As per financial statement -------------52.67
As per Bank account -------------------43.78

6. So, after spending this huge sum of money every year, does all PHC/SC/CHS have atleast electricity facility?

Answer: No. For example, as per latest figures available, by the end of FY 2008-09,
A) In Bihar 72 SC and 30 PHC do not have electricity connection
B) In Arunachal Pradesh 37 SC and 5 PHC do not have electricity connection

7. Now that we know the problem, what is the solution?

Answer: There should be clear guideline for the nodal personnel to integrate data under various NRHM components at the DHC and SHS level.
a) Unique identification number for institutions (UIID), in line with UID, might make the fund flow tracking process easier to operate and monitor. It would provide the authorities a tool to make timely interventions.
b) We should also have a country wide unique accounting and reporting framework. The format should be user friendly and should not vary from state to state. As part of this new format the district level accountant should have the capability to consolidate realtime data presented in Rogi Kalyan Samiti’s (RSK) meetings.

Sruti Bandyopadhyay is a Research Associate with the Accountability Initiative

Scaling Up Social Accountability: Accountability Scorecard

Sruti Bandyopadhyay

Strengthening accountability relationships between policy makers, service providers and citizens is at the core of the public accountability effort. After many years of practice, piloting and trial and error, efforts are now increasingly focused on how to scale-up and mainstream these interventions. To address this, I'm proposing a new tool called Accountability Scorecard. An “Accountability Scorecard” would identify and provide information about the factors that determine the long-term success of a Centrally Sponsored/Central Sector Scheme. The score card can be used as a checklist while drafting a new scheme or can be used as a performance measurement tool for already existing schemes.

My initial thoughts are that it should include five elements namely-

1. Strategic Planning,
2. Expenditure Management, Financial Controls and Reporting-Implementation
3. Accountability to Oversight Bodies
4. Monitoring of Service Delivery
5. Handling of Misconduct, Corruption and Maladministration.

Sample questions might include:

* Has adequate/accurate data been collected about the sector and presented in the plan document?
* Does the plan nominate a responsible official for all the activities?
* Does the scheme have a clear guideline for state govt. and autonomous agencies to release a minimum grant amount every month?
* Is there list of districts for which the budget data not available?
* Is the reason for the non availability of the data is also specified?
* Is there a specific set of officers who can be held responsible if the minimum monthly grant does not reach the primary delivery unit (e.g.-schools/panchayat) ?
* Are there mechanisms for dispute resolution without going through the courts?
* Have the state governments’ views been solicited?
* Is the performance management scheme for the bureaucrats linked to the service delivery outputs of the Department?
* What kind of incentive structure is there to compliance with timely delivery of the output?
* Did the Department report adequately on cases of misconduct and corruption in its Annual Report to the Legislature?

And so on...

To start with there would be 50 questions in a score card. Each of which have a "yes/no" answer and each of which should be backed by a more detailed definition to make clear whether the answer is yes or no. A consolidated score can be generated on the basis of this.

Unlike a Community Score Card, here feedback won’t be sought from the local level community. For an example, if a civil society/Research organization wants to develop a scorecard for National Rural Health Mission, then it would invite a panel and the panel should consist of: State Facilitators for National Rural Health Mission, Accountant in the State Department , who is working on NRHM, Representative of a local NGO working on NRHM in the state, NRHM official from Delhi, Representative of an International NGO/organization who has worked on same scheme in different country, Academician. The panel would give their individual scores on each of these 50 questions and thus a scheme can be categorized either as a Non-compliance scheme, or as an Extremely Poor Compliance or a Full Compliance scheme.

For anyone interested in thinking seriously about how to scale-up social accountability efforts, I believe this can be a good beginning of a necessary conversation.

Sruti Bandyopadhyay is a Researcher at Accountability Initiative

Grama Swaraj in Karnataka: How is it going?

Jeffrey Hammer

Checking in on the ongoing Gram Swaraj project in northern Karnataka recently raised a few interesting questions, re-enforced some prejudices of mine and pointed out some trouble spots of which we should all be aware.

The Grama Swaraj Project (GSP) is simple: it gives each Grama Panchayat 5-7 lakhs rupees to do with as it sees fit. The main requirement for spending the money is to make sure a Grama Sabha takes place ahead of the Grama Panchayat meeting that decides what to do with the money. 5-7 lakhs doesn’t sound like much in comparison to, say, NREGA funds (whose use was intended to be decided the same way but, in Karnataka, usually isn’t) but these are often the only untied, fully discretionary funds a GP has. Lots of money flows through a bank account with the GP’s name on it but almost all of that is earmarked for specific uses (they have to pay the teacher, they have to fund the digging of borewells). GSP money can be used for anything except a very short list of forbidden items like religious buildings, guns, drugs and other obvious restrictions.

How’s it going? Well, formal evaluations are currently in progress but I can tell you what I saw and heard while visiting.

First off, there were no complaints about misuse of these funds. Mention NREGA and you’ll get an earful of complaints but mention Grama Swaraj and you’ll hear “oh, that’s working much better”. Now, it is fully possible that GSP involves such small sums that it’s not even worth the trouble for the usual suspects to go after them. A perfectly good question to ask is what would happen if local autonomy were granted for spending substantial chunks of money. The sharks could certainly rise to that bait. But, so far, that hasn’t been an issue.

Second, people seem genuinely pleased to be able to fund items that would be too small for the relevant line ministry to even think about but which make a big difference in the lives of villages. In northern Karnataka, water and sanitation are perennial issues (even before this year’s disappointing monsoon) and these were common areas for the use of these funds.

Third, the technical quality of the work appears to be much higher under GSP than NREGA. Roads that look several years old and are an inch or two thick (checked scientifically by kicking at the edges of the road and seeing what pops up – literally) built within the past few months under NREGA auspices were noticeably worse than those built with the GP’s own money. NREGA funds are supposed to be their own money, too, but no one seemed to feel responsible for how that money was spent. In contrast, money that was perfectly transparent in the amount spent and the purpose to which it was put in GSP yielded solidly built and usable infrastructure.

So, is everything going just fine? Does this devolution of purchasing autonomy solve everything? Well, no – some problems are clearly worth worrying about.

The first is the interference of higher levels of government and bureaucratic processes that, actually, were not allowed under the design of the project. So, for example, one village wanted more public toilets. They figured, given that water was in very short supply, that covered pits were the most appropriate. There are plenty of designs for safe covered pit toilets. However, the Junior Engineer, with support from district health authorities, said they had to have a water-intensive septic tank system. This made the village change their minds (they knew they couldn’t spare the water for this) but they were not allowed to change projects though there is nothing in the program that should have prevented them changing their minds. So there is a lakh’s worth of well constructed but useless sanitation infrastructure sitting in the village. Local decisions were fully accountable. District and state decisions were not. Local discretion could have saved lives from water borne illness. State rules stopped it from happening.

So that I don’t sound too much like an advocate for local autonomy: the second problem is one of “too much” local discretion. Those good GSP roads with proper drainage ditches along the side we saw in a village in Gulbarga district stopped right in front of a little settlement of Scheduled Caste residents. Even with only the light early monsoon rains, the hamlet required stepping carefully to avoid puddles caused by those good-looking roads. The standing water is a health hazard for the SC residents of the village. Local autonomy doesn’t solve the problem of caste. That’s going to require checks and balances between governments than mere devolution of investment decisions won’t be able to handle.

But at least there will be roads in the village for a few years to come.

I’ll get back to you to report whether these observations are supported by systematic research or not. For the time being, it’s food for thought.

Jeffrey Hammer is Visiting Professor in Economic Development at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Going Nowhere on Human Development

Anit Mukherjee

The latest Human Development Report released yesterday (5th October 2009) is depressing for every Indian. The Report ranks countries – 180 in total – in terms of three basic indicators of human development: per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power of the local currency), literacy rate and life expectancy at birth. They are meant to capture at an aggregate level the well-being of people in a particular country in terms of income, education and health. India ranks 134, below Bhutan and Laos, and just above Solomon Islands and Congo. This should be reason enough for the nation as a whole, and especially the politicians, bureaucrats and policy makers, to hang their heads in shame.

The usual practice of the apologists is to say that the rankings themselves are unfair – that the HDR does not take into account factors such as democracy, freedom of press, rule of law and other aspects of governance that India prides itself with. But the fact of the matter is that there has been no change in our HDI rank since last year, and a decline in the rank from the beginning of this decade. So, while in absolute terms the HDI index has increased by a few percentage points, our relative performance compared to other countries has become worse. At the same time, China’s HDI rank has gone up seven places in just one year – from 99 in 2006 to 92 in the latest one.

The data also shows that India’s GDP per capita rank is in fact higher than the combined HDI rank – 128 as compared to 134. This is even more worrying because the usual excuse of linking low human development and poverty does not strictly hold. The comparative figure for Sri Lanka is 14 and China 10, indicating that these countries did better at education and health than their comparative per capita GDP ranking suggests.

It is time to ask the hard questions: why is India going nowhere in human development in spite of large allocations to education, health and livelihood security? Why are flagship programs like SSA, NRHM and NREGA not delivering improvements in our comparative performance vis-à-vis other (supposedly much poorer) countries of the world? Why is there no revulsion at the complete impunity and lack of accountability of the political and administrative machinery using tax payers’ money for noble purposes such as education and health? What does it mean for our long-term standing in the world community? In short, who is (are) accountable for this dismal state of affairs and what is being done to fix this?

P.S. India’s HDI rank is common both in G20 and BRICs group of nations – LAST!!

Dr. Anit Mukherjee is a Fellow at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi

Gram Nyayalayas: a cause for optimism?

Nicholas Robinson

Union Law Minister M V Moily recently announced that 200 gram nyayalayas will be operational by October 2nd 2009. This initiative is taken under the 2008 Gram Nyayalayas Act. The Law Ministry envisions setting up some 5000 gram nyayalayas across India over the next three years, with the hope to fundamentally reshape the lower judiciary in India. The 2008 bill states that eventually every intermediate (i.e. block) panchayat will have a gram nyayalaya. The gram nyayalayas will then form the new lowest layer to the Indian judicial system and the first point of contact for many, if not most Indians. If fully implemented, it is here that the majority of legal disputes in India will be resolved. Who will be these Nyayadhikaris, will there be enough of them to significantly bring down the estimated 30,000,000 cases currently pending in the judicial system, and will they be accountable?

In the 2008 bill it states that these Nyayadhikaris’ qualifications are that of a first class judicial officer, or essentially just a lawyer. He or she will be appointed by the state government in consultation with the High Court in the state. In essence, the imagined recruitment pool is young lawyers, not particularly well trained, aspiring to be magistrates and then later district court judges. Although they may not be seasoned lawyers when they start, many of the problems they encounter won’t be that complicated and if paid well enough the job could start attracting some talented young lawyers. It will be critical to watch over the coming months and years the quality of lawyers being appointed and what sort of prestige the position gains, which will influence the ability to attract future talent. However, given the low quality level of some (but certainly not all) judicial magistrates, session court judges, etc. there is definitely reason to worry that these appointees may not have the skills necessary to do the job and be susceptible to corruption.

Tempering these concerns though, Nyayadhikaris can only impose a sentence of up to two years and the amount they can fine or grant in a civil case is capped as well. The District Court judge is given the responsibility to appoint a judicial officer to inspect Gram Nyayalayas in their district at least every six months. Both these measures are designed to limit the potential harm corrupt or incompetent Nyayadhikaris could do.

A party can appeal the Nyayadhikaris verdict to a sessions court judge for criminal matters which must be decided by that judge within 30 days. For Civil matters it goes to the District Court which must decide it within 6 months. Vitally, the Bill states there is no appeal past this stage (except in cases that involve a claim of a constitutional violation). Effectively, for almost all matters a Gram Nyayalaya can hear there is only one additional appeal you can make afterwards. This appeal is to the judicial officers who in the current system are generally the first to hear a case. Another layer to the judicial system has been added to screen off matters of perceived smaller importance and limit the ability of affected persons to appeal and clog the system at the High Courts and Supreme Court.

This system could work effectively if both the Gram Nyayalayas and the subordinate judges these cases will be appealed to were competent and clean from corruption. Yet, the track record for the subordinate judiciary in India is not perceived to be strong on either of these fronts. The worry is that persons will have fines or criminal sentences improperly imposed against them and find that their avenues for appeal have been shut past these often low level subordinate judicial officers. Even if the sessions court or district court judge is very talented, the time limits imposed for resolving an appeal may mean they can’t give the attention to a case it deserves and so leave many cases of injustice done by Gram Nyayalayas untouched. Two years’ imprisonment may not be the same as the death penalty or life imprisonment, but it’s still a long time to be wrongly put in jail. Similarly, even moderate fines can destroy many families’ savings in India.

Finally, even if all 5,000 Nyayadhikaris are appointed over three years, this still may not be enough to bring India’s judicial backlog under control. To give one a sense of the scale of this endeavor there are currently about 650 working High Court judges and almost 14,000 district judges, assistant district judges, magistrates and other judicial officers in the rest of the subordinate judiciary. Almost all observers agree that there simply aren’t enough judges in India for the cases currently in the system. Further, many observers think Indians don’t litigate enough – i.e. there are many cases of wrongs that should be litigated that aren’t brought to the courts because of the clogged courts. 5,000 Nyayadhikaris is substantial, but probably not enough to take on all the current cases or the cases that aren’t being brought yet should be.

Despite these concerns, we should watch the development of Gram Nyayalayas not only with some degree of skepticism, but also optimism. If the Act is well-implemented and taken in step with broader efforts to strengthen the lower judiciary, Nyayadhikaris could prove vital in bringing the rule of law to millions of Indians.

Nick Robinson is a Visiting Fellow at Centre for Policy Research, and teaches at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore

Harnessing IT for good governance

Abhijit Patnaik


Over the past decade or so, there have been islands of e-Governance initiatives in the country at the national, state, district and even block level. Some of them have been highly successful and are ready for replication across other states. Experiences from successes as well as the failures of the various initiatives play an important role in shaping the e-governance strategy of the country. As part of the Accountability Initiative’s research agenda - highlighting good governance practices across the country, I had the opportunity to study the e-governance initiative undertaken by the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) in Gujarat.

In our study, we tried to answer a host of questions including why the initiative was undertaken in the first place, how it got started, by whom, what the incentives were etc; and attempted to shed light on understanding how an e-governance initiative works, and how using information technology can improve the efficiency and accountability of services at no great cost. The successful development of such initiatives has valuable lessons for increasing accountability in civic management across the country.

I interviewed key officials in the Municipal Corporation and at a later stage some elected representatives in order to gauge what they think of the new system, as well as interviewed IT officials who actually designed the software.

It is under the aegis of the Urban Renewal mission on City Governance that the entire E-governance initiative has taken off. The RMC has developed an interactive website as well as set up an SMS –based complaint management system. The RMC has also set up five City Civic Centres (CCCs) where people can go to access various Municipal services and a 24x7 call centre where complaints can be called in and are instantly logged into the Management Information System. Engineers on the ground instantly get SMSs informing them of these complaints and once they are resolved, they can SMS this back to this Management Information System. This web-based accessible system enables the tracking of the service delivery at every stage, facilitates the flow of information, and thus strengthens the relations of accountability amongst the various actors.

Interestingly, in my interviews with the staff it came up that the inspiration for the SMS alerts system came from banking alerts that an RMC member used to get on his cell-phone! However, it was evident that the biggest factor which drove officials towards developing the online and telephonic system to address problems was that through this medium people have stopped coming to the RMC offices for simple queries and this gives the officers more time to address ‘real’ issues. Necessity, in this case, was indeed the mother of invention. For example, simple tasks like tax calculations etc used to take a lot of time and effort and now these can easily be done through the website. All the software development for the complaints system at the CCCs was done in-house by the staff of the RMC. The team is continuously in touch with the end users to minimise problems with the website. All of this saves costs.

As per the Nagrik Adhikar Patrak (Citizen Charter), the time limit for the complaint redressal is fixed and if during that time limit the complaint is not solved, complaint details are automatically escalated to next level officer; there too the time limit is fixed, if it is not solved then the complaint details are escalated to the highest authority. This is taken care of by the e-Governance software. In some cases, where delay in resolving the complaint is unavoidable (ex. Major drainage operations etc), the call centre records this and informs the complainant of such delay.

Some of the achievements of the initiative so far have been: 80% public related services (like issuance of computerized Birth and Death certificates since 1973) and back office services (which help in strengthening of administrative process) are computerized; more than 60 different utilities are computerized; the City Civic Centres are online. There has been an increase in efficiency and the collection of dues, making many transactions paperless. As a result the RMC is saving Rs.30 - 40 lakh per year. Auditing has become much easier; and citizens do not have to make complaints by coming to the offices anymore.

What about the effects of this system on accountability within the RMC? Since data on complaints received by day/ward/department and officer-wise responses is now easily collected and available, the track record and efficiency with which officers dispose of their complaints is accessible throughout the system. And this could arguably lead to better appraisal of their performance, and hence affect their accountability. In this sense, it is clear that this is quite a powerful tool - the monitoring of outcomes is in-built in the system and the RMC now has the ability to take non-performing officials to task.

The effective use of IT services in government administration can greatly enhance existing efficiencies, drive down communication costs, and increase transparency in the functioning of various departments. It also gives citizens easy access to tangible benefits, be it through simple applications such as online form filling, bill sourcing and payments, or more complex applications. And as is clear from the efforts undertaken by the Rajkot Municipal Corporation, such efforts can be done on a small-scale by a group of dedicated individuals without major resources.


Abhijit Patnaik is Senior Researcher at Accountability Initiative.

Teachers: Overpaid or Overburdened?

Avani Kapur

I recently had the opportunity to interview 16 teachers from 7 schools across 2 districts in Uttarakhand as part of a study being conducted by J-PAL, MIT aimed at understanding the institutional dynamics of the Read India programme – an accelerated learning programme launched by the NGO Pratham. We wanted to know what teachers thought of Pratham’s training, materials and monitoring, the difficulties they faced as well as the changes (positive and negative) brought about within the classroom dynamics by using this new teaching method.

While the report itself is still in its draft stages, there were a few points that came out of the teacher interviews, which raise some questions regarding the current system of education and teacher accountability – which is what the blog post is about.

Broadly, there were four things that came up consistently in the teacher interviews. First was the lack of teachers and high pupil-teacher ratios, which according to the teachers, caused difficulties in implementing programmes including Read India. Teachers testified to feeling over-burdened with administrative and other duties such as supervision of the Mid-Day Meal and were thus unable to devote time to new teaching methods like using the Pratham materials. As a teacher said, “In a school that has over 150 students and only 2 teachers, if we were to divide the students up and pay individual attention to the weak students , what would the other students do?”.

This shortage of teachers was reaffirmed by the government block and district officials. In Haridwar for instance, they revealed that of the 117 schools, 42 schools had only one teacher, and 3 schools had no teachers at all!

Second was the constant pressure to finish coursework and curriculum. Pratham spends a lot of time and effort designing materials that will be relevant to the students. Even the teachers testified that the innovativeness of the material increased student enthusiasm, and was a useful learning tool as compared to the rote-learning often used in finishing the curriculum. There did however appear to be a disconnect between the Pratham goals of improving basic learning levels and the government’s emphasis on finishing the school curriculum. The teachers appeared stuck in the middle between these two divergent demands.

Moreover, teachers felt that the training they received were disconnected from many of the real problems afflicting the school– i.e., lack of teachers, disinterested parents, lack of discipline amongst students, and a general disinterest in education.

And finally, all teachers indicated that monitoring was weak and said increased monitoring would be encouraging, when it was of the supportive kind, assisting them in learning new techniques and helping them in their teaching process rather than just requiring them to fill government forms.

While these testimonies from the teachers are by no means unique observations, they do raise some hard questions on our current educational system. Teacher salaries in 2007-08 according to DISE corresponded to 31.48% of the total expenditure done by the SSA. These teachers are costly and we are all contributing to it through the education cess. Estimates indicate that private school teachers earn close to 40% of their government colleagues’ income. Yet, the fact remains that the quality of education remains abysmally low for a vast majority of Indian children, and not much effort is being made to find out the causes.

Through the 1980s and the 1990s, the government focussed all its energies on getting children into schools, and enrolment data became the principle tool for monitoring progress, including of teacher performance. It’s only in the last three to four years that government officials have begun to openly admit that motivation and accountability among teachers is also a big problem. Yet, the tendency has been to regard the lack of learning as being solely due to lack of teacher motivation, and place blame squarely on the teachers, without looking at underlying structure of the educational system which might also be contributing to the problem.

As early as 1999, the PROBE Report (Public Report on Basic Education in India) had found that despite a major increase in the number of teachers appointed, the pupil-teacher ratio in the survey areas has shown little improvement over the years. Today too, according to ASER, 2007 the median pupil-teacher ratios in primary schools remain as high as 39.

Further, in the current structure, monitoring is weak and teacher incentives are skewed. Salaries are not performance-based and there is a constant pressure to finish the curriculum rather than concentrate on helping children to actually learn.

While the current Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill is a great first step, a closer look at the Bill indicates that many of these endemic problems have still not been addressed. According to the Bill, Government schools do not need to meet any norms except the pupil-teacher ratio, and unlike in private schools, there are no consequences for failing to meet this basic norm. Moreover, the Bill legitimises the practice of multi-grade teaching, where more than one grade is being handled by the same teacher, simultaneously. The number of teachers is based on the number of students rather than on grade. So, for instance, a primary school having less than 60 students gets only 2 teachers, regardless of the number of grades in the school.

This commentary is by no means meant to absolve teachers of their shortcomings. Teacher absenteeism is indeed very high in rural areas. The PROBE Report, 1999, showed how 1/3rd of Head Teachers were absent during the study, and even of those present, teachers hardly taught. In another study conducted in 3 states, classroom observations showed, shockingly, that each group of children was taught for only around 25 minutes in a day (Ramchandran et al, 2004)! Teacher ability is also another big problem. A forthcoming study in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar reports that teachers lack even the most basic skills – less than 50% could summarize a class 5 text.

However, as I pointed out above, the problems faced by teachers are also real, and do need to be dealt with. Instead of always thinking about teachers as being overpaid and underperforming workers, maybe it is time for us to start looking into the underlying reasons for their lack of motivation, and think about increasing relevant training and support, and improve their incentives to perform through a more rational accountability structure. Our current educational structure needs a serious revisiting.

Avani Kapur is Researcher and Coordinator of PAISA project at Accountability Initiative

Tackling corruption: is the infrastructure in place?

Yamini Aiyar

Speaking at the biennial conference of the CBI and State Anti-Corruption Bureaus, the Indian Prime Minister reflected on the ‘malaise of corruption’ that is ‘sapping our efforts to march ahead as a nation’. He spoke about the urgent need for tackling corruption immediately and effectively, and urged anti-corruption agencies to ‘make the cost of corruption unacceptably high’.

Effective enforcement measures are one small element of a wider strategy to tackle corruption. As the PM argued, the primary purpose they serve is to create an environment of deterrence, in the absence of which corruption becomes a low-risk activity. It is for this reason that we ought to pay some attention to the effectiveness of our current institutional structure for tackling corruption.

At the Centre, corruption cases against senior public officials are handled by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). The CVC is a statutory body with substantial independence. However, its role is merely advisory, and this is its greatest weakness. The CVC has no powers to take action when its recommendations are not complied with. Not surprisingly, there are many instances of non-compliance. According to the CVC’s latest annual report, 225 cases imposing major penalties on officers were not complied with.

Additionally, every government department is entrusted with the specific responsibility of investigating vigilance cases for which Chief Vigilance Officers (CVO) are appointed. Delays in filling CVO positions are common. Moreover, these posts are usually occupied by officials within the department who handle vigilance responsibilities part-time. This seriously undermines the objectivity and autonomy of the vigilance officer in conducting inquiries.

An interesting feature of the anti-corruption system is the presence of Lokayuktas (ombudsmen) in many states. The idea of creating an ombudsman was first proposed by the Administrative Reforms Commission in 1966. Since then, 17 states have set up Lokayuktas headed by retired judges. But most Lokayuktas are ineffective as they have no independent authority to undertake investigations, and have limited resources. Moreover, the Lokayuktas have no authority over other vigilance agencies such as the anti-corruption bureau.

When they do get reported, anti-corruption cases suffer from inordinate delays in investigation and convictions. According to the CVC, investigations can take anything between six months to three years. Conviction rates are dismal. A recent World Bank study reports that in ten years Rajasthan managed to convict a mere 411 public officials for corrupt practices. Part of the problem is the long delays in disposing of corruption cases - a result of failures within our judicial system. In 2005, Orissa had over 1,800 cases pending in trial courts. Unconscionable judicial delays meant that 12% of the defendants were dead before their cases came to court!

What can be done to reform our anti-corruption systems? Strengthening the powers and resources available to vigilance agencies both at the center and states is the first obvious step. The Karnataka Lokayukta and Andhra Pradesh Vigilance Commission are two examples where this has been done with considerable success and resulted in increased convictions.

The judiciary can play a role in initiating these reforms. The greatest strength of the current system in India is the considerable autonomy accorded to the CVC. This was the result of a 1997 Supreme Court judgment that ordered the CVC to be transformed into a statutory body. To ensure autonomy, the court directed that the CVC be appointed by a committee which includes the President and the leader of the opposition. Similar interventions can go a long way in strengthening vigilance agencies across the country.

Yamini Aiyar is the Director of Accountability Initiative, and Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Policy Research

Lok Adalats: Justice or Judicial Efficiency?

Bala Posani

I recently had the chance to travel to Ahmedabad on a reconnaissance trip to explore the possibility of a certain research project. We wanted to know if Lok Adalat (People’s Court) could be extended in its present scope to serve as a possible recourse for grievance redressal in service delivery cases. In recent years there appears to be a shift towards a rights based framework for service provision, with citizens being able to access state services through an argument of rights and entitlements – the right to food, the right to education, right to employment, and so forth. In this context of rights and entitlements, judiciary would seem a logical forum for citizens to seek redressal for their grievances in accessing these services.

The choice of Gujarat was because it afforded us the possibility of partnering with Research Foundation for Governance in India in Ahmedabad, who have considerable expertise in legal research and advocacy. Gujarat also happens to be a state where Lok Adalats are conducted actively. This is an ongoing exploration, and I managed to get some inputs from Senior Judges in Gujarat on what they felt on the matter. Going forward, we hope to present the case more formally. At this point, from my own witnessing of the processings at the Lok Adalat, and reading around the issues, there are some initial questions that cropped up about merits and constraints of Lok Adalats themselves, which is what this blog post is about. This is also perhaps apt, given the current focus on judicial reforms in India.

Lok Adalats were introduced in India in the early 80s. The main idea behind having them was to improve access to justice at local levels, and ease the burden on the regular courts due to millions of petty cases that clog up their scarce resources, awaiting settlement. Lok Adalats were to provide a speedy, fair and deliberative form of alternative dispute settlement mechanism, drawing on traditional methods of conciliation where the presiding judge – who is an experienced adjudicator with legal acumen and a record of public service – effects an understanding between the claimants, and settles the cases as compromise between the two sides. In most cases claims are for small amounts of money, and relatively minor issues related to traffic accidents, marital disputes, land disputes and so forth. Ordinary courts refer cases to Lok Adalats if they feel the case can be settled through compromise. There is no appeal against the decision reached at Lok Adalat, although if no compromise is reached, the claimants can go back to the courts that referred them there.

I had the opportunity to sit and observe the cases being disposed. While I was sat there, about 15 cases came up – mostly related to Prohibition offences and minor crimes and accidents, and on an average they took about 3-5 minutes each – something that in the normal procedure of regular courts would take much longer, and in worst cases, take years to even come up for hearing. Fines were imposed, compensations were awarded, and compromises reached. They had a target to cover 2000 cases within the day, and seemed well set to reach the target. I was impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the cases were being dealt. However, there were some larger questions that came up in my mind from my research and from observing it all happening.

Foremost, I was struck by the ‘paternalism’ of the proceedings. Given the general air of obsequiousness in many bureaucratic spaces in India where citizens engage the bureaucrats as supplicants more than as rights-bearing citizens, some amount of paternalism from the officials was expected in the proceedings. But given the absence of advocates in most cases, and absence of appeal against the conclusions reached, it would appear that the discretion given to the judges can be overbearing and coercive, especially if the claimant in question is poor and otherwise disempowered. A compromise is no doubt willingly reached by all parties concerned, but due to the subjective nature of the judge’s discretion, and the general notions of justice on which Lok Adalat is based – rather than juristic legality – unequal power equation between the claimants, or between the claimant and the judge, can raise questions about the ‘fairness’ of the compromise arrived at. This is made more serious by the fact that a case can be transferred to the Lok Adalat if a court judge feels that a compromise can be reached, even if the claimants themselves do not feel so.

To be sure, these are not questions unique to Lok Adalats. Some of the regular courts also suffer from these and other problems. And even if in theory there are problems that can be identified, Lok Adalats have in practice disposed of cases with an efficiency that regular courts will have difficulty matching. But judicial efficiency is not the same thing as justice. And there are studies that show that this is not entirely a theoretical concern (For instance see here and here). Also, one can think of other important ways of ‘disciplining’ our regular courts, which can have substantial results in speeding up the delivery of cases as well. At which point one needs to wonder if availability of alternative dispute settlement avenues like the Lok Adalats could actually be diluting the constituency for these important reforms within our judiciary.

Bala Posani is Senior Research Analyst at Accountability Initiative