Tuesday, 9 February 2010
AI Budget Series: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
In the second of a 4 - part series on social sector spending in India, the Accountability Initiative in collaboration with Live Mint, looks at expenditure under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). For a ready reckoner (image) click here. For a detailed analysis see the article - Education Economics:Need to relearn lessons on SSA fund flows.
AI Budget Series: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)
In the first of a 4 - part series on social sector spending in India, the Accountability Initiative in collaboration with Live Mint, looks at expenditure under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). For a ready reckoner (image) click here. For a detailed analysis see the article - Rural Economics: How taxpayers' money is (or isn't) being spent.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Food Subsidy and the Budget: Where did your money go?
Is the food subsidy helping the poor in India? How much money has been allocated, how much is being spent? and are these allocations efficient? Accountability Initiative's data on food subsidy shows where your money is going.
Hindol Sengupta, Bloomberg UTV news discusses food subsidy and the budget with with Dr Swaminathan and others on "Everybody's Business: Where Did Your Money Go?".
Hindol Sengupta, Bloomberg UTV news discusses food subsidy and the budget with with Dr Swaminathan and others on "Everybody's Business: Where Did Your Money Go?".
The Right to Information - Open to Interpretation
Mandakini Devasher Surie
Whether it is the debate over access to judges’ assets or individual income tax returns, the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) gets people talking. As a developing area of legislation with few legal precedents, the RTI is open to interpretation. I discovered this first hand a few weeks ago at the Central Information Commission (CIC). Colleagues and I were representing an RTI applicant in a string of second appeal hearings. The applicant had filed an information request with the Delhi Police to get access to statistical information on the number of applications and appeals received by them, as well as copies of RTI applications and appeals from October 2005 – April 2008. The data was being collected as part of the all-India study on the RTI Act being carried out by the Right to Information Assessment and Analysis Group (RaaG). While most of the departments had responded with some statistical information, they were unwilling to part with copies of RTI applications and appeals. The PIOs stated that copies could not be given because i) the information requested would have to be compiled and would divert the resources of the department [Sec 7(9)], and ii) RTI applications and appeals contained sensitive information the disclosure of which would likely to endanger the life and physical safety of a person [Sec 8(1)(g)], impede the process of investigation [8(1)(h)] and invade the privacy of the individual [8(1) (j)].
Early on the hearings, it became evident that none of the PIOs had actually thought about the exemptions they had used. This was particularly evident in the use of privacy and danger to life and physical safety exemptions to deny access to copies of RTI applications and appeals. Bear in mind that RTI applications and appeals only contain the name and addresses of applicants and therefore cannot be considered to contain “personal” information. Moreover copies of these can be downloaded easily from the Delhi Government and the CIC websites. One PIO hilariously argued that providing access to copies of RTIs constituted an infringement of copyright [Sec 8(1) (e)]! A decision on our appeal is still pending, but to my mind the hearings brought to light a lot of interesting questions. For instance, what constitutes a “voluminous” request for information – is it the number of questions or the number of pages? Who decides? Similarly, how do we define a “disproportionate diversion” of resources? Can it be measured? And are RTI applications and appeals personal? What exactly is “personal information?
These are questions that PIOs, Appellate Authorities and Information Commissioners grapple with every day with little guidance. There are broader issues as well – of ensuring that citizens make responsible use of the law, that departments have the human capacity to process and handle information requests and lastly that the pressure for information disclosure is not entirely at the cost of the discretion of officials or vice versa. The balance is a fine one.
Thus, even as CIC issues landmark decisions it also needs to bold decisions on the everyday but often more “tricky” points of the law. Failure to develop clear and concrete guidelines on how to interpret the law or fence sitting on the application of exemptions or on the interpretation of other clauses of the law, will not help. In the absence of clear guidance, the law is likely to become an unholy mess of awry interpretations. The CIC would do well to follow the example of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which offers detailed guidance on interpreting different clauses of the UK Freedom of Information Act.
Mandakini Devasher Surie is a Research Associate with the Accountability Initiative.
Whether it is the debate over access to judges’ assets or individual income tax returns, the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) gets people talking. As a developing area of legislation with few legal precedents, the RTI is open to interpretation. I discovered this first hand a few weeks ago at the Central Information Commission (CIC). Colleagues and I were representing an RTI applicant in a string of second appeal hearings. The applicant had filed an information request with the Delhi Police to get access to statistical information on the number of applications and appeals received by them, as well as copies of RTI applications and appeals from October 2005 – April 2008. The data was being collected as part of the all-India study on the RTI Act being carried out by the Right to Information Assessment and Analysis Group (RaaG). While most of the departments had responded with some statistical information, they were unwilling to part with copies of RTI applications and appeals. The PIOs stated that copies could not be given because i) the information requested would have to be compiled and would divert the resources of the department [Sec 7(9)], and ii) RTI applications and appeals contained sensitive information the disclosure of which would likely to endanger the life and physical safety of a person [Sec 8(1)(g)], impede the process of investigation [8(1)(h)] and invade the privacy of the individual [8(1) (j)].
Early on the hearings, it became evident that none of the PIOs had actually thought about the exemptions they had used. This was particularly evident in the use of privacy and danger to life and physical safety exemptions to deny access to copies of RTI applications and appeals. Bear in mind that RTI applications and appeals only contain the name and addresses of applicants and therefore cannot be considered to contain “personal” information. Moreover copies of these can be downloaded easily from the Delhi Government and the CIC websites. One PIO hilariously argued that providing access to copies of RTIs constituted an infringement of copyright [Sec 8(1) (e)]! A decision on our appeal is still pending, but to my mind the hearings brought to light a lot of interesting questions. For instance, what constitutes a “voluminous” request for information – is it the number of questions or the number of pages? Who decides? Similarly, how do we define a “disproportionate diversion” of resources? Can it be measured? And are RTI applications and appeals personal? What exactly is “personal information?
These are questions that PIOs, Appellate Authorities and Information Commissioners grapple with every day with little guidance. There are broader issues as well – of ensuring that citizens make responsible use of the law, that departments have the human capacity to process and handle information requests and lastly that the pressure for information disclosure is not entirely at the cost of the discretion of officials or vice versa. The balance is a fine one.
Thus, even as CIC issues landmark decisions it also needs to bold decisions on the everyday but often more “tricky” points of the law. Failure to develop clear and concrete guidelines on how to interpret the law or fence sitting on the application of exemptions or on the interpretation of other clauses of the law, will not help. In the absence of clear guidance, the law is likely to become an unholy mess of awry interpretations. The CIC would do well to follow the example of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which offers detailed guidance on interpreting different clauses of the UK Freedom of Information Act.
Mandakini Devasher Surie is a Research Associate with the Accountability Initiative.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Budget 2010 - Great Expectations
Anit Mukherjee
Anit Mukherjee is with the National Institute of Public Finance Policy (NIPFP).
It is the Budget season again. Every year, the nation looks forward to the two-hour speech of the Finance Minister where he lays out the government’s housekeeping statement – revenues collected, expenditures incurred and the plan for the next year. The budget means different things to different people. Some focus on the tax rates on income, goods and services, while others look at how much the government is spending and on what. But the bigger question is: what does the budget signify for the nation?
Every budget has a context and a theme. Budget 2009 was in the backdrop of the financial crisis, the general elections and the post-election policy direction. The theme was crisis-management - how to pull the economy out of the downturn trumped the concerns over the fiscal deficit which was pegged at 6.8 percent of GDP, the highest since 2003-04. The bold decisions were put off until later.
It is in this backdrop that Budget 2010 will be presented. The economy has come out of the downturn pretty much unscathed compared to other countries in the developed world. So the theme this year would be about reigning in the deficit, rationalizing expenditure and focusing on priority sectors. This is exactly what any family would do after a year of profligacy to get its finances in order.
So what can we expect from the Finance Minister this year? First of all, it would be a difficult balancing act – the need to raise more resources through higher taxes vis-à-vis derailing the growth rebound. The second is to ensure sustained and increased financing for core sectors – education, health, rural and urban infrastructure. Third, the budget needs to take into account the recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission which will be tabled in this session of the Parliament.
The most significant talking point may be the allocation for education. The operationalization of the Right to Education (RTE) means that substantially more allocation would be needed in the Centre’s budget. At the same time, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) would pick up steam, and allocation for higher education will continue to increase. On the other hand, this budget is expected to maintain the status quo on NRHM, NREGS and Bharat Nirman.
There is one thing that certainly this budget would not do – talk about how to improve the efficiency and accountability of expenditure. Everyone in government loves to spend, nobody likes to be asked “What exactly did you do with the money”? The great expectations of transparency, accountability and independent monitoring outlined in the President’s address last year seems to have been conveniently forgotten, and the government seems to spend the people’s money as it likes. This needs to change – the sooner, the better.
Every budget has a context and a theme. Budget 2009 was in the backdrop of the financial crisis, the general elections and the post-election policy direction. The theme was crisis-management - how to pull the economy out of the downturn trumped the concerns over the fiscal deficit which was pegged at 6.8 percent of GDP, the highest since 2003-04. The bold decisions were put off until later.
It is in this backdrop that Budget 2010 will be presented. The economy has come out of the downturn pretty much unscathed compared to other countries in the developed world. So the theme this year would be about reigning in the deficit, rationalizing expenditure and focusing on priority sectors. This is exactly what any family would do after a year of profligacy to get its finances in order.
So what can we expect from the Finance Minister this year? First of all, it would be a difficult balancing act – the need to raise more resources through higher taxes vis-à-vis derailing the growth rebound. The second is to ensure sustained and increased financing for core sectors – education, health, rural and urban infrastructure. Third, the budget needs to take into account the recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission which will be tabled in this session of the Parliament.
The most significant talking point may be the allocation for education. The operationalization of the Right to Education (RTE) means that substantially more allocation would be needed in the Centre’s budget. At the same time, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) would pick up steam, and allocation for higher education will continue to increase. On the other hand, this budget is expected to maintain the status quo on NRHM, NREGS and Bharat Nirman.
There is one thing that certainly this budget would not do – talk about how to improve the efficiency and accountability of expenditure. Everyone in government loves to spend, nobody likes to be asked “What exactly did you do with the money”? The great expectations of transparency, accountability and independent monitoring outlined in the President’s address last year seems to have been conveniently forgotten, and the government seems to spend the people’s money as it likes. This needs to change – the sooner, the better.
Anit Mukherjee is with the National Institute of Public Finance Policy (NIPFP).
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Where did your money go? Budget 2010 and Education
Madhav Chavan, Founder, Pratham and Anit Mukherjee, National Institute of Public Finance Policy talk to Bloomberg UTV news about the upcoming budget and the need for the government to spend more on education.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Accountability and the budget: Tracking where your money goes
Yamini Aiyar, Director, Accountability Initiative talks to Mint about the upcoming budget and how taxpayers money is (or isn’t) being spent, how budget allocations are made, and how public sector expenditure can ultimately be put to better use. To read the interview click here.
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