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Elections have concluded and the new government is all set to fulfill its promises to the electorate. Invariably these election promises come into the limelight only at the time of re-election. Public memory is well known to be short.
There is rhetoric from the opposition to highlight the failed commitments of the incumbent and counter with their own promises as a motivation to get elected. This process gets repeated aNd nauseated during every election season. Our responsibility as the electorate does not end with casting our vote. It begins there. It is also our responsibility to track the progress consistently.
Here is an idea to track the central and all state governments, on their commitments as well as their performance on a dynamic basis.
We create a Billboard for each government and populate it with the key result areas as determined by a large segment of the electorate. Stick to 5 key result areas which will impact the largest cross section of the electorate. Here is an example:
- Potable water on tap at home
- Uninterrupted electricity in each village, town, city
- 100% enrolment of children in schools across villages and towns
- One School up to the level of 10th grade and one high school for every thousand households
- (well-equipped and fully staffed schools)
- One primary health centre (well-equipped and fully staffed) for every 500 households
This list could be modified based on the feedback from the local populace. We should have a billboard for the constituency of each MLA and MP. I am not sure how the Panchayat system works; if they should be made part of this then we should do that.
This Billboard should be made visible to the elected representatives, bureaucrats and public. We should decide on the frequency for updating and organize meetings with our representatives to make them aware of their responsibilities as well as our commitment to pursue their actions.
Un-hyphenated media houses e.g. The Print should lend their resources to make this system work by
- Evaluating the individual Billboards to make sure the content is realistic and doable
- Educating the populace in understanding the contours of decision-making processes across multiple stakeholders
- Provide easy reach through their digital infrastructure
It will be good to start small with a few MP and the overlapping MLA constituencies, across the political spectrum (to avoid criticism of being selective) learn from operational glitches, improve the process and then steadily expand the geography.
Schools in the 60s and 70s did not feel obligated to parents in ensuring the best attention to scholastic performance. Today PTAs and demanding parents have changed the picture and we find many schools of excellence where the institution is committed to performance and the parents hold the management to it.
While we do not directly pay the salaries of our MLAs and MPs, we have elected them based on their capabilities to deliver good governance. It is their duty to deliver value to us and it is our responsibility to make sure they do so.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint