Reforms in Frontline Bureaucracy Hold the Key to Better Public Services

Recently, the government has launched a number of initiatives aimed at spurring economic growth and improving the delivery of public services in the country. The ambitious ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ programmes are aimed at achieving these goals. In this context, a number of steps have been initiated to reform the bureaucracy to ensure better performance and accountability. However, these reforms are mostly aimed at higher and middle level bureaucrats with the assumption that reforming these layers would automatically translate into better performance from the frontline public servants who are at the cutting edge of service delivery and come in direct contact with the citizens, e.g., in tehsil, block and panchayat offices, public distribution system outlets, primary health centres, etc.

Can public policy goals be achieved without paying adequate attention to improving the working conditions and performance of these frontline public servants? These workers interact directly with the citizens in the course of their work and exercise substantial discretion in the execution of their responsibilities. The way they behave and perform significantly affects the delivery of services and perception of quality of governance in the minds of the people. The actions of these workers effectively become the public policies being implemented by the government. It can be said that public policy is actually made in the daily activities of these workers. They often exercise discretion in carrying out their responsibilities, giving rise to agency issues in their performance. However, their actual performance is heavily dependent on their working conditions. They are often faced with low resources and high expectations from both the public and their superiors. It may also be difficult to measure their performance as goal expectations may be vague or conflicting. They may also not be receiving adequate training or guidance in implementing new policies or rules and their incentives may not be aligned with the changes that are sought to be enforced from the top. This issue is particularly relevant in the age of information and communication technologies (ICTs) where they are expected to become IT-savvy to help in implementing a number of citizen-centric e-governance services.

Therefore, it is clear that if public policy is to become effective, frontline workers must be taken fully on board. We must recognize that focusing on frontline workers offers an alternative, bottom-up approach to improving implementation on the ground. They should be central to any reforms. For example, if the delivery of health services is to improve significantly, the frontline ASHA workers must dramatically improve their performance. How can these public servants be made to perform better and held accountable?

First, we must recognize that frontline workers can be a source of great innovation and administrative entrepreneurship by properly channeling the flexibility and discretion that they enjoy. Providing them with adequate resources and building their capacities to function effectively in the present IT age can encourage and motivate them to innovate in their work and become effective instruments for implementing public policy on the ground. Improving capacities and harnessing their local knowledge in improving the citizen interface will also make the work more meaningful for the workers themselves.

Secondly, empowerment and participation of citizens in governance and demand side pressures from the end users are crucial in improving the performance of these workers. As these workers directly interact with the citizens, participation of citizens and end-users can help in effectively improving the quality of service delivery and accountability.

Thirdly, government must aim at using ICTs effectively in all domains at the cutting edge of service delivery to ensure that services are provided uniformly and according to pre-defined quality standards to all citizens. The Digital India programme aims, inter alia, at precisely this goal and must be made a cross-cutting endeavour across all government ministries and departments. Capacity building of the frontline workers in deploying ICTs holds the key to improving public service delivery. For example, if ASHA workers can be trained to use a hand held tablet to collect data on patients and diseases in villages and transmit them in real time so that timely treatment could be planned and delivered through the primary health centres, it would revolutionize public health care system in the country.

Fourthly, it is often seen that these workers routinize their work and ration the services as a way of coping with inadequate resources, capacity and pressures. Regular audits on the quality of service delivery can be an effective way to reducing the discretion of these workers in the implementation of public policies and delivery of services. It is evident that the actions of frontline workers constitute a key part of how the overall quality of governance is perceived by the people. They also play a vital role in reaching ‘hard to reach’ groups, such as those living in remote villages or tribal communities. It is important that we recognize the need for reforming this layer of bureaucracy so that implementation of public policies and delivery of services can be improved from ‘bottom-up’. We must focus the content of reforms at these workers to bring in effective change in the quality of governance on the ground.

The above article was originally published as “Take Frontline Workers on Board to Make Public Policy Effective” in Deccan Chronicle on March 18, 2016. The views are personal.

Sustaining Digital India: Converting Hype Into Reality

The Digital India programme has created a lot of expectations both within and outside the country. The high profile launch of the programme in July 2015 and the subsequent pronouncements by the prime minister have given rise to high expectations that India will embrace a path of technology led transformation across all sectors of the economy and society.

How can these expectations be realized and sustained and the vision of Digital India achieved? It is important to understand that Digital India cuts across all sectors of governance, economy and society and is, therefore, very vast in its scope and objectives. Its vision is centred on three key areas: digital infrastructure for every citizen, providing governance and services on demand and digital empowerment of citizens. The programme broadly covers nine pillars of key thrust areas, namely, broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity, public internet access programme, e-governance – reforming governance through technology, e-Kranti – electronic delivery of services, information for all, electronic manufacturing, IT for jobs and early harvest programmes. Each of these pillars requires massive and sustained efforts to ensure that the desired objectives are met.

A massive thrust to create digital and connectivity infrastructure reaching up to the village level is required to achieve universal access to digital services and bridge the digital divide. Access to broadband connectivity at village level would ensure that transformation through increasing digitalization in various domains can really benefit the entire population. Universal access to mobile connectivity can make last mile connectivity and mobile broadband affordable for the masses. Implementation of the BharatNet project and the rollout of 3G and 4G connectivity across the country must be speeded up to achieve these objectives.

The public internet access programme is aimed at universalizing access to common service centres. While increasing the number of such centres to cover every panchayat is important, it must be kept in mind that the bouquet of services being offered through these centres needs to be enlarged and made affordable. For example, education and skill development courses can be delivered through these centres in partnership with the private sector to benefit the rural youth and make these centres financially sustainable.

The two pillars on e-governance, namely, reforming government through technology and electronic delivery of services, require cross-sectoral and whole-of-government initiatives to really transform governance through technology. Common platforms like Aadhaar for de-duplication and online authentication, Mobile Seva for mobile phone based delivery of services, digital locker for online storage and sharing of government issued documents, and e-Sign for Aadhaar based online digital signature are laudable initiatives in this direction. However, massive efforts are required to ensure that these platforms are adopted by all departments both at the central and state levels to make the electronic delivery of services more efficient and avoid any duplication. The services of various departments must also be integrated at the backend using these common processes and platforms to ensure that the citizens are not required to visit multiple portals and fill multiple forms with similar information to avail various services. Single sign-on mechanism must also be made mandatory for various portals to make the life of netizens easier. These initiatives would also transform the currently available services for businesses and help in improving the ease of doing business in the country.

The pillar on information for all aims at providing all information online and use of social media for interaction with the citizens. This requires much greater transparency and openness on the part of the government departments and use of tools like open data platform and social media to allow much greater participation of citizens in governance. Initiatives like data.gov.in and MyGov.in are steps in the right direction. However, very few states are using these platforms. All states must adopt them to really have an impact on governance at the cutting edge.

Domestic electronic manufacturing is a key pillar of Digital India. The target under this pillar is to achieve net zero imports in electronic hardware by 2020. Recently, a number of incentives have been announced by the government to encourage domestic manufacturing in electronics. Duty structure on electronic components has also been rationalized to incentivize domestic manufacturing. However, the country is yet to see major investments in this area. Developing a localized ecosystem for domestic electronic manufacturing is a must to sustain the momentum.

IT for jobs is a very important pillar of Digital India that aims at skill development of the youth and digital empowerment of citizens. Coordinated efforts are required in this domain along with the various skill development programs being run by other ministries to achieve the objective of universal digital empowerment. Participation of the private sector would be crucial to ensure quality content and sustainable delivery.

Digital India is a visionary programme with a huge potential for technology led transformation of the country. However, sustaining the programme and achieving its vision require concerted efforts by all the stakeholders including the central government, all the states and the private sector.

(The author is a senior IAS officer with the Government of Tamil Nadu. He has led the conceptualization and implementation of the Digital India programme while he was serving as Joint Secretary in the Department of Electronics and IT. The views are personal.)

The above article was originally published on February 14, 2016. It is available here:

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/140216/sustaining-digital-india-converting-hype-into-reality.html

Making Chennai The Next Silicon Valley

Chennai today ranks amongst the top five most productive metro areas of the country with an estimated GDP of around $60 billion at purchasing power parity. It has a broad industrial base in the automobile, information technology (IT) and IT enabled services (ITES), electronic hardware, financial services and healthcare sectors. It is also rated amongst the top ten fastest growing cities in the world and hosts a large number of Fortune 500 companies. In the IT-ITES sector, Chennai occupies a pride of place in the country, perhaps next only to Bangalore.

How has the city developed its IT industry in the last two decades? Can the industry develop further in the city to make it the next Silicon Valley? The roots of the IT industry in the city can be traced to the late 1980s when a few software firms were founded locally to cater to the software operations and maintenance needs of the local manufacturing firms. The growth of the industry remained limited till the mid-1990s when there were only 34 software exporting firms in the city. However, during this period, two multinational companies (MNCs) started operations here sowing the seeds for the city to become a major centre for MNCs in the years to come.

The state policies during this period for attracting large industries played a prominent role in the development of the industry. The central government also established a Software Technology Park in the city under the STPI scheme in 1995. A major policy initiative of the state for the IT sector came in 1997 with the promulgation of the state’s first IT Policy that focused on creation of IT Parks in the city. During this period, the state focused on creating the physical infrastructure and improving the availability of skilled personnel through technical education. Subsequently, there was greater focus on attracting the large multinational and national companies to the city.

The state announced its second IT policy in 2002 which focused on the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), promotion of the state as the destination of choice, e-governance and taking IT to the rural areas. Availability of land and developed infrastructure in the city and the surrounding areas were critical drivers to the growth of the industry. Development of the IT Corridor along the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) provided a major boost to the IT industry in the city. Mahindra World City, a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) near Chennai has also provided a major boost to the development of the IT industry. ELCOT has also played a prominent role in supporting the development of the IT industry in the city and the entire state by developing IT parks and offering land to the IT firms. The state announced the third ICT Policy in 2008 which provided a further boost to the growth of the industry. Today the city is home to a large number of multinational and national firms in this sector such as Accenture, Cognizant, Capgemini, Oracle, HCL, HP, IBM, Infosys, Microsoft, Oracle, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, etc.

The Chennai metro area is also home to a large cluster of electronic hardware manufacturing firms, particularly in the Sriperumbudur electronics SEZ with the presence of major multinational corporations like Dell, Cisco, Samsung, Siemens, Sony-Ericsson, Flextronics, etc. It is estimated that this sector alone has attracted investments worth about US$3.5 billion in the city. With easy availability of high-quality infrastructure and skilled personnel, the city has the potential to develop further into a global hub for the IT-ITES industry and become the next Silicon Valley.

The above article was originally published on August 27, 2017. It is available here:

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/op-ed/270817/making-tamil-nadus-capital-city-the-next-silicon-valley.html