BY BRAHM SWARUP
RECENTLY, Mr L N Mittal, the steel billionaire, complained that India is not yet ready for big projects. If he had been to our villages, he would have said that India is not ready for any project, big or small.

I had recently been to a few villages in Andhra Pradesh–admittedly one of our better administered states. The condition of the services there can only be described as appalling. In a large village with a population of several thousands there is a school with over 800 registered students. It has no usable toilet; in the absence of security staff, its only water tap has been stolen. There is an overhead tank but no pump to fill it with water. It has a building that has been declared unfit for use for several years. It has barely 10 computers; it should have had 10 times more but, even if they were to be donated, the school would have no place to keep them, nor any back-up power supply to have them running.
According to the headmaster, the children, mostly from poor families, cannot afford notebooks. Nor do they have textbooks. Students from outlying villages cannot come often because it costs Rs 10 a day to travel by auto-rickshaw.
The condition of the local Primary Health Centre was worse. There were three beds but no patients. There were no patients because there was no doctor; obviously, there were next to no medicines. The building itself has been declared unsafe.
This sorry state of affairs even in one of our better administered states is not due to corruption or the lack of ability. It is because our administrative system is all wrong.
It was designed to collect taxes and maintain order. It was not designed to make social services function efficiently. It worked better under the British administration because there was a degree of decentralisation, but after Independence that features was systematically destroyed by power-hungry politicians and the bureaucracy. It is a sad fact that even Chief Secretaries and Director-Generals of Police are transferred or removed at the whim of politicians. Strictly speaking, there is no rule that gives the politicians that power. Such an order takes authority only when issued by the bureaucracy. Unfortunately, our earliest secretaries to the government were in such awe of Prime Minister Nehru that they forsook that power.
No Money to Spend
Our financial regulations too are to blame for the mess. In any business, surpluses or profits are calculated after allowing for all expenses–wages, material costs, interest costs, depreciation, amortisation and taxes. In government establishments, only wages and material costs are allowed. For the rest, year after year, the officials concerned have to submit demands, which are more often than not disallowed for “want of money”.
At the same time, there is money to increase wages and add more jobs. Thus, while in an engineering department, wage costs used to be less than 35 per cent, now they are often in excess of 90 per cent. So, more and more employees are employed, but they have no money to spend.
In this scenario, maintenance is the first casualty. That is why all government buildings are in an abysmal state–that includes some of the ministries even in New Delhi. Thanks to the Planning Commission, new establishments are no doubt added, but usually on the whims and fancies of ministers and not based on the needs of the people below. In our culture, we worship Vishnu and Shiva but not Brahma. In contrast, our government worships only Brahma, is uninterested in Vishnu and Shiva is unheard of.
In the villages I visited, children do not attend school during the fishing season. A market-oriented approach would take care of that and adjust school timings/ holidays according to local needs. Unfortunately, the government will insist on an identical system for all places. As a result, students stay away and learn next to nothing.
Mother Tongue vs English
Some years ago, a Collector in the hill areas of AP argued that, for the tribal population, Telugu is as foreign a language as English: In that case, why teach them in Telugu and why not in English? So, he converted all tribal schools into English medium schools. The results were astonishing: attendance increased and so did the enthusiasm to learn. Unfortunately, the officials in Hyderabad did not appreciate this. They transferred the Collector and reverted to Telugu. Result: the schools reverted to their somnolent state.
A few years ago, the prestigious Journal of the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris decided that it will only accept articles written in English. It argued that 98 per cent of the articles were in English all their readers knew the language and saw no reason why they should waste money in maintaining a separate establishment for the few articles in French.
Likewise, Isaac Newton wrote his Principia in Latin because that was the intellectual language of the day. Fashion does change; nowadays, Latin is no longer the language of scholarship, it is English. Some years later, Chinese may become the intellectual language. Whatever the globally accepted language, our children should have the freedom and the opportunity to learn it if they have a mind to do so.
In contrast, many of our politicians, intellectuals and bureaucrats insist on rules such as the mother tongue being the necessary medium of instruction. At the same time, they will make an exception in the case of their own children. That is the problem–they think that what is good for them is not good for the public at large. They will impose rules which they do not accept for themselves.
Deficit Budgeting
The system that operates in the government is known as deficit budgeting–the Finance Ministry makes up the deficit between expenses and income. That may be worthwhile for Ministries but not for social services. That is why our Human Development Index refuses to improve. Possibly, that is also why there is increasing talk of PPP. Unfortunately, the way the government is envisaging PPPs, they are not likely to improve matters significantly.
PPP institutions are best run as non-profit Section 25 companies. They should have the right to secure loans and manage their finances, charging fees from willing customers the same way a company does. That principle should apply whether the PPP is for a school, a hospital or even the construction/ maintenance of roads. PPP institutions should get financial support from the government.
If the public likes such an arrangement, and is willing to pay more for better facilities, why should the government object? Even if the system operates as a government-funded autonomous institution, it would better operate as a Section 25 Company rather than the way such institutions operate now. In particular, their officials should not be transferable; if they want a change of location, they should resign and try elsewhere. That principle is important because the transfer system vitiates the atmosphere increases the instability of the services. Above all, it eliminates accountability and responsibility to the people they are paid to serve.
Will our politicians and bureaucrats agree?–INAV