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Why Modi’s grand ideas don’t deliver grand results

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the bureaucracy to deliver results at bullet train speed but where’s the manpower?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today inaugurate the Eastern Peripheral Expressway that is likely to decongest Delhi’s roads and possibly reduce winter pollution. To extract maximum political mileage in an election year, he will go on a 9-km long road show in an open jeep.

It’s another matter that the expressway had to be completed by July 2016. In April 2017, we were told it would be completed by August 2017.

It is only thanks to the Supreme Court’s constant rebuke to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) that it is opening now, and not by the ‘New India 2022’ deadline.

Even now, it is being opened hastily to meet the SC directives.

Earlier this month, a reporter found it to be in a state of unreadiness even as the NHAI told the Supreme Court it was done.

The NHAI also said it was not being opened to traffic because the prime minister wasn’t available to inaugurate it. The Supreme Court said that whether the Prime Minister was available or not, it had to be opened by 31 May. And this is only half the project: there’s similarly the Western Peripheral Expressway through Haryana that’s yet to be completed.

Four years on, this is typical of what’s wrong with the Modi government. The speed of its execution of projects isn’t really faster than what we saw with earlier governments, never mind the relentless propaganda. Delays and deadline extensions are routine, as they used to be. The Modi government has failed to re-invent Bharat Sarkar the way it had promised.

The delays, deadline extensions, and publicity blitzkrieg over half-finished projects is so all-encompassing that the Modi government postponed its report card date from 2019 to 2022.

Impossible targets, fudged numbers

One of the Modi government’s early successes has been the Jan Dhan Yojana, under which it is claimed that 31 crore bank accounts have been opened so far. Extending banking services to the unbanked is great, but the targets were so tight that some bank officials opened fake accounts to meet them. Some converted existing accounts into Jan Dhan accounts to meet the targets.

When the trick was caught, many bank officials put Re 1 in the fake accounts so that they are not scrutinised as unused accounts.

With the alarm over the misuse of Jan Dhan accounts during demonetisation (that greatest of all failures), banks closed 4.5 million Jan Dhan accounts.

Bank officials created fake accounts because there wasn’t enough manpower to open so many accounts in a short deadline. That’s the heart of the problem: India just doesn’t have the execution capacity to deliver overnight results the way Prime Minister Modi wants. Despite these discrepancies, many people got bank accounts because there was a banking infrastructure to do it. The picture is a lot bleaker in other areas.

A survey of 7,500 rural households in 2016 found that 29 per cent toilets under the Swachh Bharat scheme were built only on paper. No, this wasn’t for corruption. It was to meet the impossible deadlines set to declare India free of open defecation. Another 36 per cent toilets were simply unusable. The Modi government isn’t too concerned over such details as long as it gets to make grand announcements of success.

Yet even the fudging isn’t enough to meet deadlines, which are often quietly extended. The deadline to declare India free of open defecation is October 2019 – a few months after the general election – and it will in all likelihood be extended.

It was perhaps realism that made the government cut funding to treat solid waste under Swachh Bharat. Unlike toilets, solid waste treatment plants don’t even make for good publicity material.

Under “Digital India”, the government had said it would make high-speed internet lines reach all of India’s 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs). We’re only talking about the line reaching the GP, not active internet availability in homes. The deadline was end of 2016. After several extensions, it is now March 2019. The government claims that over 1 lakh GPs are already “service ready” but a survey found these claims to be rather exaggerated.

State capacity

The Modi government, like most governments in India, has a penchant for announcing scheme after scheme, programme after programme. It makes the government look like it is doing something, it is trying.

Politicians don’t like to focus energies and budgets on things that don’t directly earn votes the next election. The greatest victim of this is execution capacity. This is the main reason why PM Narendra Modi’s grand ideas are not delivering grand results. Execution and delivery were also his big promises in 2014. We no longer hear the phrase “minimum government, maximum governance”.

A recent study by Devesh Kapur and Aditya Dasgupta found that the main officials responsible for executing social sector schemes, the block development officers, are hugely over-worked. Meanwhile, central and state governments keep increasing their burden with ever newer schemes and targets.

Contrary to the image of a bloated bureaucracy, the Indian government has a manpower shortage at every level, from central ministries to the panchayats. The sanctioned staff strength is not enough, but even that is not filled. India’s population keeps growing, the size of its bureaucracy keeps shrinking because even the sanctioned posts are not filled. This is true of both state and central governments.

Going by 2011-12 data, only 3.5 per cent of India’s population works for the government. The figure is 16.4 per cent in the UK, 15.3 per cent in the US and 5.9 per cent in Japan.

There’s a 23 per cent shortfall in the sanctioned strength of IAS officers. The UN recommends 222 police personnel per 1 lakh population. India has around 140. Against the ideal of 50 judges per 10 lakh population, India has only 18. India needs at least 8,559 fire stations in the country. There are only 2,087.

When the Indian state succeeds – such as in conducting elections or the Pulse Polio programme – it does so by mobilising massive manpower – often school teachers who should be focusing on teaching. New India won’t arrive in 2022 either if the government doesn’t solve its manpower crunch.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. Why crores for a statue. Does Patel deserve a statue?
    Dalhousie united India. He deserves the statue. Patel had to deal with toothless tigers. Dalhousie had already extracted the teeth of the Maharajas, like Chitra Thirunal Maharaja of Travancore. And yet, Patel had allowed Pakistan to occupy a part of Kashmir. Dalhousie had disbanded the armies of the Maharajas. They had only police. So it’s easy for India to force the Nizam to surrender.
    The doctrine of lapse was an annexation policy applied by Dalhousie in India before 1858. Dalhousie fought wars and dethroned reactionary Maharajas. Nepal was also brought under India by waging wars with the Gurkhas. Burma was brought under the Indian government. Bhutan was also annexed. But Patel couldn’t bring Nepal, Burma and Bhutan under India.

  2. I agree with the author that India bureaucracy is not geared up for the speed which MODIji wants the changes, but there is no other option but to change otherwise India will never become a developed nation and will continue to remain a developing nation for many decades to come.
    Manpower shortages will always be there as technological changes will replace the manpower . The faster the nation understands and changes better will be for the country

  3. I agree with everything in this article…………………. but have one and only one question to the author

    Appreciate the zeal in questioning Modi and his policies and actions. Even if only half of it had been displayed between 1947 and 2014…………….India would be somewhere else……………….. Where were ‘this author’ if he was born and his tribe?????????????????????

  4. After all what is our Prime Minister doing? The writer has explained of the shortage of personal at various categories from Bank officials to IAS and to the Judges. Does one has to believe that Modi has no idea about it? He knows well but his only aim is to dominate the politics of India and the most people who can be just taken for granted are appreciative of Modi but for non implementation others are blamed. Modi spends most of his time in foreign countries meeting heads of state and for any thing it is Modi who is ready to fly. and then he spends his most time in campaigning for the elections. It is only elections in Gram Panchayet and Corporation elections that he has not gone yet but no one can say he would not go. One job he has been doing consistently abusing accusing the Rahul Gandhi and his ancestors and now it is Sonia Gandhi. For he knows that Congress mukt bharat will make it easier for him do what he wants and what he wants is not what BJP wants but what Nagpur wants. If it is Janpath meaning Sonia for Modi it is Nagpur the extra constitutional authoirty. Swachchh Bharat programme is a disastrous one. Let us see Modi or Amitabh Bachchan get their toilet water line cut and use buckets of water which they would have to bring from distances out of their house. Villagers who do not have water to drink or cook and no place for women to take bath except the village pond or the water fft\etched from a mile or more are being asked to use toilet? Modi invited last year or so the UN representative to visit progress of Swachch Bharat mission particularly toilet and what report the UN representative gave will open anyone’s eye. He said it is simply anti human rights campaign and asked for change in Bapu’s spects glass to see the things properly. Modi likes gimmicks and he likes to see people open their eys wide and chant Modi, Modi and he is happy.

  5. Excellent well researched article .Would request author to do a follow up one on expenditure on govt servants. As far as my knowledge goes approx 67% of govt EARNINGS used to go to pay for govt servants who number hardly 1.5 cr. Which means 100 cr pay taxes to serve this elite group who after retirement sitting at home get 60k-1 .5 lac per month. On the other hand developed nations have 15% population working for govt .here it is hardly 3%. So how will we as a nation be ever be able to address this dichotomy?

  6. I read this article because Mr Swamy advised in his twitter post.

    What a waste of time, sad this is the level such media cos have stooped to.

  7. Such a biased article by the author that it reeks of Congress POV. Fairly sure that the author is a Congress stooge for there is a different way to look at the data too. Let’sby point:

    1) internet access only till panchayat and not to homes. So what! For 10 years when the internet technology was at it’s peak, a certain government ruling from 2004-14, didn’t bother to connect till panchayat too
    2) 7500 rural points for survey, there are 1 lakh 5000 villages in UP itself. Talk about statistical error. Let’s assume this data is good (surely a survey made by author to conveniently prove a point), 65% of toilets are on paper/unusable. Let’s say 35% was good which if extrapolated for UP alone would give 35k toilets. Apart from hoarding money in toilets, did Mrs. Gandhi and family do anything for rural. Yes, they distributed 120 RS free under mnrega irrespective of whether development happened or not
    3) Western periphery and eastern periphery . Can the author quote the highway km/day under both regimes. If my memory doesn’t betray me, it is at least 2X of UPA. Why doesn’t author speak about delays on metro rail in Delhi – Every metro based project has a delay because of land acquisitions and I wouldn’t lose my sleep over 2 years. Seriously.

    • I think author is not blaming modi, he had given analysis for shortcomings which caused failure, also, from the article, it is clear that, Modi’s attempts were naive and good, he tried to change system for good, but still ,there are shortfalls, which can be corrected over the time to see sustainable results, by any coming goverment.

  8. Effortsn eagerness to being in much needs change in governance was necessary. IAS lobby did its best to scuttle the cart by going slow bcoz it was now not so lucrative as it happened to be b4 modi’s elavation as head .

    Genetically corrupt banking system too let down modi during jan dhan n demonetization.

    PWD , revenue official never could be brought to book as we indians hv accepted corruption as daily routine , indians are ready to pay for genuine work .

  9. Can you please provide the data source for number of government employees you have mentioned for U.K., USA and Japan.

  10. The percentage share stats you quoted for public sector employment is misleading. It’s not against the total population. Rather it’s percentage share of public sector employment against the total workforce. The ratio in India is close to 50% (2011 stats). The problem is not because we do not have enough people. It’s rather that they are not very efficient (and not very skilled either).

  11. I don’t know whether the author of this article is a Congress wala or whether Print is a Congress stooge but whatever has been averred in the article is based on verifiable facts and is correct. Mr Sawhney should have rebutted with facts and figures.
    Disclaimer. Since 1984 I have no time for the Congress. But I approve of facts which are based on truth.

  12. The severest blunder of Modi is to frantical attempt of full privatisation of the whole nation, just 180 degree opposite of the mixed-economy doctrine.But actually India has achieved huge development and has become one of the biggest economic power in the world just due to this unique policy adhered to by Indiraji, whatever may be propagetted by BJP for their political interest. History cannot be made fictitious.The population and geographical speciality of India will never allow to make the madly effort of blind privatisation a success. Rather the Indian people will have to pay a horrible price for this whimsical and pro-corporate policy of this Govt. near future.

  13. Because of Congress party playing such a negative role as opposition and utilizing every single weakness of democratic system to pull down the democratically elected government and not.allow it to function ….but obviously PRINT is Congress Blind won’t be able to see this glaring reality

  14. Clearly it is bhashanbaazi, no follow up action.The art of standing still while appearing to move has been mastered by the Govt to take the people for a ride.But how long can it go on?

  15. PM’s habit to not listen anyone ( mainly an experts) was one of main reason of failure.
    Whimsical and unplanned ideas never give pleasant result, grassroot work needed to achieve goal. Always only by luck you can’t win.

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