"An opportunity to review how Planning Commissiondo its job transparently"
By Satish Jha.
It is interesting how the Government of India makes decisions. It seems that somewhere Nandan may not have maintained the right relationships and Chindambaram and Ahluwalia may have decided to bring in the reality check as they understood it.
Clearly, the Planning Commission does not decide on any matter because it is rational to do so. Its more of a forum where folks with "power" and "mandate" slug it out for their pet projects and power rather than rationality prevails.
It would seem that there are no major stakeholders standing up for UIDAI. The support came from some folks known for their "technology vision" to the Congress establishment and they canvassed for it in the name of personal friendship and backslapping that defines our decision making, if not politics.
Such folks do not wield real power. They may get a few things through but to sustain that at an ever increasing scale, such as UIDAI warranted, requires a sustained lobbying within the system.
Any decision requires multiple stake holders to come together and unless they all come to support an idea, its hard to get past. But if powerful support a bad idea, it will usually go through the system.
In several of my personal interactions in decision making in the Government, ultimately its not how questionable an idea may be that decided how far it will go. Its who is backing it.
Aadhar has no real backers. It has more backers outside that includes the middle class, away from the decision making, far away from the realities of either politics or understanding India, with limited knowledge of doing anything nationwide.
There is little in it for anyone else to support, outside a couple of advisers who are vocal and connected but may lack the experience of running the system and are not loved by the bureaucracy either. The work is done by the executive that loves to remain in the times it feels comfortable living in.
The danger for the campaigners against Aadhaar is that the Government can always push another equally sad an idea in another name. If UIDAI is trimmed and that is the way the Government kills projects, something else, equally silly, will get that funding and that will muddy the waters further.
Meanwhile several thousand crores have been wasted because some silly techie thought an ID will save the nation.
So what is at stake is reforming the governance process. If the government has to spend the money, on each item, do the following:
1: Make the budgeting process transparent. As we have learnt from Hazare movement, people do not go into the details unless its made simpler and convenient. Let us make it simpler and convenient. For every item of say Rs 1 crore spend and above, create a basic framework and put it out in the open for anyone to support or object. That will make it easier, with checks about the identity of the contributor, to offer responsible inputs and strengthen the actual budgeting process.
2: Monitor the progress of these projects openly. That will help people to check it out and report on it as well.
3: Educate people in thinking rationally about some of these aspects of governance, how does the government work, how the budgets are made, how they are discussed and what gets accepted or rejected and that will help informed discussion and help create more meaningful support for each item, including in the way its implemented.
4: Rather than appointing a "civil society" or another person to monitor these projects, just open up the discussion on them, record the minutes etc openly, save in the case of sensitive projects that we would not like to reveal to our detractors as a nation.
5: RTI has already made most of the above possible to brought out in the open on a case by case basis. That is too expensive and cumbersome and the bureaucracy has already devised way as to what information to give and how. Such a process will make use of the technologies that have become available, will not add additional costs of informing as needed and take RTI to its logical conclusion- that is all information will be there to check all the time.
Doing so may help us avoid the wastes of the kind UIDAI have been, help the Planning Commission do its job transparently rather than keep it as a slugging out ground for the powerful.
Clearly, the Planning Commission does not decide on any matter because it is rational to do so. Its more of a forum where folks with "power" and "mandate" slug it out for their pet projects and power rather than rationality prevails.
It would seem that there are no major stakeholders standing up for UIDAI. The support came from some folks known for their "technology vision" to the Congress establishment and they canvassed for it in the name of personal friendship and backslapping that defines our decision making, if not politics.
Such folks do not wield real power. They may get a few things through but to sustain that at an ever increasing scale, such as UIDAI warranted, requires a sustained lobbying within the system.
Any decision requires multiple stake holders to come together and unless they all come to support an idea, its hard to get past. But if powerful support a bad idea, it will usually go through the system.
In several of my personal interactions in decision making in the Government, ultimately its not how questionable an idea may be that decided how far it will go. Its who is backing it.
Aadhar has no real backers. It has more backers outside that includes the middle class, away from the decision making, far away from the realities of either politics or understanding India, with limited knowledge of doing anything nationwide.
There is little in it for anyone else to support, outside a couple of advisers who are vocal and connected but may lack the experience of running the system and are not loved by the bureaucracy either. The work is done by the executive that loves to remain in the times it feels comfortable living in.
The danger for the campaigners against Aadhaar is that the Government can always push another equally sad an idea in another name. If UIDAI is trimmed and that is the way the Government kills projects, something else, equally silly, will get that funding and that will muddy the waters further.
Meanwhile several thousand crores have been wasted because some silly techie thought an ID will save the nation.
So what is at stake is reforming the governance process. If the government has to spend the money, on each item, do the following:
1: Make the budgeting process transparent. As we have learnt from Hazare movement, people do not go into the details unless its made simpler and convenient. Let us make it simpler and convenient. For every item of say Rs 1 crore spend and above, create a basic framework and put it out in the open for anyone to support or object. That will make it easier, with checks about the identity of the contributor, to offer responsible inputs and strengthen the actual budgeting process.
2: Monitor the progress of these projects openly. That will help people to check it out and report on it as well.
3: Educate people in thinking rationally about some of these aspects of governance, how does the government work, how the budgets are made, how they are discussed and what gets accepted or rejected and that will help informed discussion and help create more meaningful support for each item, including in the way its implemented.
4: Rather than appointing a "civil society" or another person to monitor these projects, just open up the discussion on them, record the minutes etc openly, save in the case of sensitive projects that we would not like to reveal to our detractors as a nation.
5: RTI has already made most of the above possible to brought out in the open on a case by case basis. That is too expensive and cumbersome and the bureaucracy has already devised way as to what information to give and how. Such a process will make use of the technologies that have become available, will not add additional costs of informing as needed and take RTI to its logical conclusion- that is all information will be there to check all the time.
Doing so may help us avoid the wastes of the kind UIDAI have been, help the Planning Commission do its job transparently rather than keep it as a slugging out ground for the powerful.
