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15 January 2013 www.indiatogether.org Fortnightly Pages 40

should bribe-givers be let off?

Problem of evolving societies? P2 in search of quality care P5 how they fool us, the outraged P16 in praise of transfers P21

white Paper, or whitewash? P26 FDi in reverse P32 why ants didn’t win the nobel P36

2 |www.indiatogether.org| 15 Jan 2013

CHILD ABUSE AT HOME

norway episode: Problem of evolving societies?

Last month there were heightened emotions on

the issue of an Indian couple being prosecuted in Norway for allegedly maltreating their child. Indian culture vs. Norwegian culture is the prime focus of debate whereas the moot point should be a more critical question: ‘Who owns the child?’ the family or the society.

To answer this question, we need to go back in history and see what changed in the Nordic societies that altered their culture. Is it possible that a threat to human extinction in some of these countries transferred the ownership of a child from the family to the state?

Sweden, the Nordic neighbour of Norway is a well documented case of such an instance. In the early 20th century, Sweden faced the prospects of declining population. In an illustration of simple straight forward thinking, they banned the sale of contraceptives. But this did

not stem the fall in population. By 1930s the fertility rate fell from four children per women at the turn of the century to less than two, which is needed for maintaining the current level of population. As the fears of declining population looked to crystallise, a counterintuitive proposal was made by Gunnar Myrdal and Alva Myrdal in their book The Crisis of Population Question.

In this book, they advocated a number of measures for family planning including promoting the sale of contraceptives and providing free pre-natal care, childcare and education services.

Their objective was to promote child-bearing as a conscious choice rather than accident. This is best captured in the popular slogan of that time, ‘Love without children is better than children without love.’ The Swedish government accepted these suggestions and put them into practice in the 1930s.

With the society investing more and more in a child, the

responsibility for child rearing too was influenced by the emerging discourse, where physical punishments coercive in nature are discarded in favour of persuasive non-coercive dialogues. Seen dispassionately, this seems a move in the right direction.

But yet, why is there such a furor in India? Does

it reflect a society that is yet to reach the maturity levels seen in Nordic countries? To answer this question we need to see a few related problems and the attitude of our society towards it.

The issue of parental authority to resort to corporeal punishment on children is a matter still hotly debated in large sections of our society writes shankar Jaganathan.

A large section of our population is also accepting that violence against women should be prevented, though only a small minority acts on

their belief to prevent it.

15 Jan 2013 |www.indiatogether.org| 3

CHILD ABUSE AT HOME

Pic: Wikimedia Commons


Wife-beating is one such issue. I once asked a mixed group of people gathered for a social get-together, if wife-beating was a family problem or a social problem. To make this question concrete, I asked them if in their neighbourhood when they came across a family where they saw or “heard” wife-beating what action they would take. Would they intervene by ringing the door bell to cause distraction with an intention to stop it, as a popular public interest advertisement suggests or would they ignore it saying it is a personal family problem.

More than 90% answered that this is a personal family problem and we should leave the family alone to resolve the issue and not interfere.

Less than 10% present, which is just a handful of individuals said they would personally intervene, with some going to the extent of calling the police to get the perpetrator arrested. This was the reaction with regard to a reasonably well settled issue of violence against women, where in most progressive societies criminal action is taken against the perpetuator of violence.

Moving to a less controversial issue, I asked them if they would intervene if their maid-servant did not send her child to school. Almost unanimously the answer was yes. They would intervene and ‘advice’ their maid-servant to correct her ways. With some even suggesting that they would incentivise their maid-servant by paying the child’s school fees for the initial period.

I was tempted to ask, if this too was not a personal family problem in which they were interfering. But my concern for maintaining amicable social relationship prevented me from asking.

Returning to the case of the Indian couple facing a jail term in Norway, can we restate the issue? Is it a case of Norwegians looking at a corporeal punishment-free life for children like we view compulsory education? And likewise do they view penalties for domestic violence as an enforceable universal right while we Indians continue to view the same as a family problem?

I believe Indian society lags the Nordic societies by a few decades in the sphere of social consciousness. A dipstick of our social consciousness indicates that we have today whole heartedly accepted universal education for all children. And while a large section of our population is also accepting that violence against women should be prevented, though only a small minority acts on their belief to prevent it.

On the issue of parental authority to resort to corporeal punishment, this is a matter still hotly debated in large sections of our society.

If we accept my hypothesis, then an integral part of the visa process for Indian families going abroad is to educate Indian families on the differences in culture and the need to leave back at home some of our traditional beliefs like ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’.

Shankar Jaganathan is passionate about economic history, sustainability practices and corporate governance. He is the author of the book, The Wisdom of Ants, A Short

History of Economics, published by Westland in November 2012. He lives in Bangalore.

CHILD ABUSE AT HOME

in search of quality care



in search of quality careHEALTH SYSTEM

The public's perception that government facilities and services are poor has led them to abandon these in favour

of private providers. But those are not necessarily better, writes r Balasubramaniam.

A few days ago, a watchman at my apartment

community in Mysore consulted me on his son's illness. He wanted me to refer him to a good physician. I immediately told him to to go to a doctor I know in the government-run K R Hospital. He did not appear convinced, and politely asked me if I knew any doctor in the private sector. My assurances that the government hospital was as good or better than many private hospitals did not seem to impress him.

This is not an isolated instance, I'm sure. Most of us today have lost faith in public systems - whether schools or hospitals. We are convinced that we cannot expect 'quality' in the government system and that 'private' always means better. But is this always true? By way of answering that, let me narrate a few incidents that left me convinced that we not only need an efficient public delivery system, but in the Indian context, they serve a valuable societal function as well.


Dinesh (name changed) was a young 20-year-old living with his parents, brother and sister in Mysore. Coming from a poor family, he had no choice but to discontinue his studies after completing his pre-university course, and found work as a waiter in a hotel to support his family.

One day, while traveling with two of his friends on a two-wheeler, he unfortunately met with a accident. He had not been wearing a helmet, and suffered a severe head injury; his skull was damaged and badly fractured.

He was admitted to a private hospital in Mysore, and was kept

there for more than two months. After getting his family to spend more than Rs. 8 lakhs, the hospital authorities informed them that the treatment was still incomplete and that they would need another 1.5 lakhs to continue attending to him. The poor family felt cheated, angry, let down and helpless. Not

HEALTH SYSTEM



only did they not have the money, but they had also not received the complete and appropriate treatment.

The family turned to everyone for help and the CM's Relief fund granted them Rs.30,000. The hospital, however, was adamant that no treatment could be

initiated with partial payment, and insisted on receiving the full amount before restarting their services. A local NGO provided palliative care to Dinesh who was by now bed-ridden and at home. As his condition worsened, the family took him to a teaching hospital locally, where they were advised that he would not live more than a few weeks.

Dinesh died in October this year, a victim of poverty, callous attitude of medical personnel and the indifference of a heartless private health care system that is not regulated, nor held accountable for delivering quality care.

Raghu (name changed) a 32-year-old poor farmer had an altogether different experience. He had fallen from his bullock cart in his village in Mysore district and suffered a spinal injury. He was bed-ridden for three years and was also receiving palliative care from the same NGO that helped Dinesh. A year ago, the staff of the NGO noticed that he was developing very deep bedsores, and they took him to K R Hospital. The nursing and medical staff at the KR Hospital provided full support and took care of this patient with compassion and with no expectation of any 'out of pocket' fees.

Having worked in the Lokayukta investigating complaints of corruption and mal-administration in the Government health care system, I did not believe that this could be possible. I decided to dig deeper, and understand what was happening. I realized, pleasantly, that the patient had been in the hospital for the past seven months, and had four surgeries in that time. The doctors felt that he would fully recover after one more

surgery. Most of his sores had healed after the plastic surgery that was done on him. The NGO had trained his wife in making small handicraft articles and the hospital authorities did not mind her preparing them beside the bed of her husband itself.

Raghu is now more confident that he can return home fully recovered from his sores, and the rehabilitation therapy that he is now getting will make his life more livable. All this would not have been possible without the constant support, treatment and compassion that he and his family have been receiving from all the staff at this government-run hospital.

There are other examples. Many years ago, I had referred an eight-year-old tribal child with a treatable heart condition to a famous private hospital in Bangalore. They were claiming to offer free heart surgerirs to poor and deserving children. Hopeful of getting high quality care at no cost, I sent this child to this hospital. Sadly, they sent the child back to the tribal hamlet without any surgery, and I never really learned why. All I know is that this child died untreated a couple of months later.

Last year, the field staff of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), identified six tribal children who needed surgery to correct their heart anomalies. Having been bitten once, I decided that I needed to explore other equally good and cheaper options. I spoke to Dr Manjunath, the Director of the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology. He asked me to send these children to his center at Bangalore. Within 10 days all these children were back after receiving the highest possible care and not a

HEALTH SYSTEM


single rupee had been spent.One only needs to visit this hospital at Bangalore

to be convinced that it is no different from any of the other private hospitals offering similar services. Only difference is that it is very affordable and even free for poor and derserving patients. This hospital in my view is truly a 'heart hospital with a heart in the right place'. It is such hospitals that lend credibility to Government hospitals across the state, and one must recognize the silent work that they do for the millions of poor who approach them for care.

I am not claiming that all government hospitals are good, or that they meet the required standards of care. Nor am I saying that all private hospitals are bad or heartless. I am sure that there are good government and private hospitals across the state as much as there are poorly run hospitals in both these sectors. What I am trying to point out is that we cannot carry a stereotypical impression that all government hospitals do not deliver quality care as much as private hospitals are providing it.

This is important because often it is the public's perception - and not the facts - about quality of care in government hospitals that leads them to choose private care. Surveys show that in Karnataka, more than 80 per cent of the health infrastructure is in the public sector, but only 34 per cent of the patients use them. This gross under-utilisation of public facilities needs attention.

At the same time, there is also the mirror problem - how can private hospitals, with a mere 20 per cent of the total health infrastructure in the state, cater to 66 per cent of the state's population?

Government-run institutions hire and appoint only qualified personnel, unlike the private sector where personnel need not be appropriately qualified. There are several nursing homes that run with nursing and labarotory personnel not having the requied qualifications. Merely wearing a white saree or an apron does not bestow the required qualification!

Very few private hospitals have a rational and well defined pricing policy. Many of them do not provide and disclose information about the services that they are expected to render to patients. Most patients are not aware of their rights and very few of them

demand to know all this. Despite the enactment of the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments Act in 2009, there is no regulation of cost or enforcement of quality in many of these private hospitals.

People need to understand that quality is not always directly proportional to the money we spend. As Dr Noshir Antia, the famous doctor remarked, "Things expensive, need not necessarily mean the best." Patients have their rights, and they need to be more discerning and empowered with the information that can help them make the right and appropriate choices.

The government, which is also supposed to play the role of the regulator, sees its function as merely

registering these establishments and collecting the required fees. This means many private hospitals get away with poor and unethical practices, and charge exorbitant sums of money for services that need not cost so much. This severely restricts access to the middle class and the poor who have no recourse but to seek out government faciltiies.

The opposite is also true. Many government facilities that do not meet the standards prescribed for them are nonetheless allowed to go scot free, because the government applies different standards of enforcement to

its own institutions, compared to private ones. An honest regulator, however, must hold both the public and private sector to the same standards.

We need a government that not only ensures that standards in the private sector are followed, but also enforces them on its own hospitals. This will help build faith among the public in the government health care system. Only when the government walks this talk can it demand accountability and performance from the poorly regulated private health sector too. And only then will the interests of the patient be protected.

Dr r BalaSuBramaniam is the founder of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement. He is the Frank Rhodes Professor at

Cornell University, USA. He blogs at rbalu.wordpress.com

HEALTH SYSTEM

The government, which is supposed

to play the role of the regulator,

sees its function as merely registering

the private establishments

and collecting the required fees.


GAME THEORY

On the anti-corruption website w w w . i p a i d a b r i b e . c o m ,

the stories by citizens are not about rigged sales for wireless spectrum or mining licenses, MPs who vote for cash, or bungled Commonwealth Games, but of marriage registrars and excise officers. "The inspector who visited our factory immediately asked for Rs.5000, else work will get slow down," complained one person from Mumbai. A gentleman from Erode who explained to the inspector that a bribe demand of Rs.750 was unjustified since the passport fee itself was Rs.1000 was threatened that he will never receive his passport.

One perceptive (and perhaps heartbroken) suitor wrote about marriage registration, "I was asked a minimum of Rs.500 in order to get an interview with the magistrate. But at the end I didn't get married, so should I ask for a refund??"

It is difficult to match

the corrosive impact that daily demands for petty bribes have on the economy. Not only do these demands grate on our sense of justice, but they also have a potentially large economic impact in terms of lost enterprise and productivity. Such harassment bribes, where officials hold up paperwork in order to extort bribes from citizens, are ignored in the media in favour of bigger scams involving multiple crores of rupees.

The anti-bribery laws are of no help. The law views citizens who

pay bribes as willing participants, and therefore equally liable and subject to prosecution. So citizens are reluctant to come forth, except on low-cost platforms such as ipaidabribe.com.

In 2011, the then Chief Economic Advisor to the Indian government, Kaushik Basu, suggested "a small but fairly radical idea" to combat harassment bribery. Observing that treating both the bribe taker and the bribe giver as liable for corruption creates a large disincentive for citizens to report the transaction,

Basu proposed that the law should be amended so that only the bribe recipient is liable and prosecuted whereas the giver is offered impunity.

This way, Basu reasoned, upset and enraged citizens who are held up by corrupt officials have an incentive to report the bribe transaction after it has taken place. Officials, who realize that the citizens are more likely to

Should bribe-giverS Be leT oFF?Researchers conduct experiments to study Kaushik Basu’s idea that only bribe-takers should be punished, and get insight that may help anti-corruption efforts. Tarun Jain reports.


report, will calculate that they are more likely to get caught and reduce their demand for bribes as a result. Taking the argument to its conclusion, Basu predicted that implementing the asymmetric liability policy will eliminate the demand for harassment bribes in the long term.

Of course, Basu was careful to point out that his proposal did not apply to collusive bribes, where a citizen (or businessman) conspires with officials for preferential treatment, say in awarding contracts. In collusive bribes, both the official and the citizen are better off after the transaction, instead the cost of corruption is borne by someone else in society. For example, if a bad driver gets a license by bribing an official at the transport office, then the rest of us must bear more dings, bumps and frayed nerves when this person takes to the roads.

Asymmetric liability rules are not entirely novel. In the US, whistleblowers in corporate fraud cases enjoy impunity from prosecution. And officials used the same principle during the

Prohibition era (1920-33), when production, distribution and sale of alcohol was illegal, but the consumption of alcohol was not. After all, someone was required to testify for the prosecution and who better than the customers of the local speakeasy!

Nonetheless, a proposal to legalise bribery from a top economic advisor, even written as a personal comment, brought forth a burst of commentary in the media. The Economist thought it was an idea worth pursuing, as did Le Monde newspaper in Paris.

But in India, Basu faced a number of critics. At The Hindu, Rural Affairs editor P. Sainath called the idea "obscene", arguing that in a scarcity economy, victims will face larger demands to compensate for the greater risks now face.

Perhaps the most biting criticism came from Jean Dreze, the social activist at the heart of the Right to Information Act. Dreze had two main objections. First, if law enforcement was inefficient and corrupt, then reporting a bribe demand will not necessarily result in prosecution and would instead bring "litigation costs, possible harassment and little chance of getting justice." Second, many citizens see the law as a moral guide, and legalizing bribe-giving might reduce the stigma associated with corruption.

Given the arguments back and forth, there is scant empirical evidence to substantiate any position. Since the proposal has not been turned into law, much less implemented in a way that might be satisfactorily tested, researchers cannot conduct surveys of corruption levels with

Treating both the bribe taker and

the bribe giver as liable for corruption

creates a large disincentive for

citizens to report the transaction, says

Basu.

Pic: Screen grab from ipaidabribe.com

GAME THEORY


and without the law in place.To add data-driven evidence

to the debate, Klaus Abbink and Lata Gangadharan from Monash University, Utteeyo Dasgupta from Franklin and Marshall College and I conducted an experiment. This experiment mimicked a corrupt transaction, with student participants from three major universities in Hyderabad in the roles of citizens and officials. Lest anyone think that the students are not representative of citizens at large, 55 per cent reported experience in paying bribes, and 63 per cent were familiar with the anti-corruption laws in India. To motivate participants to take their roles seriously, they received cash earnings based on their decisions in the experiment.

In the experiment, an official has the option of either providing a service without a bribe demand (and receiving only his salary), or asking for a bribe and potentially adding to his salary. If he decides to ask for a bribe, then the citizen chooses from three options. First, she may take a principled stand and refuse to pay. Consider taking

an injured relative to a hospital and being faced with a bribe demand for admission. In this case, refusing to pay might lead to considerable delays in treatment and worse health outcomes. So such a stand would be very costly to her even though the moral point is made.

The second option is to pay quietly, whereas the third option is to pay but then report the transaction. In both cases, prosecution is probabilistic in line with Dreze's critique, but the chance of success is 40 per cent if the citizen reports the transaction and 5 per cent if not. We conducted two versions of the experiment - first with symmetric liability where both the official and citizen are prosecuted (the status quo) and second where only the official is prosecuted (Basu's proposed change). You can fill the full research paper at this link.

We found strong evidence that Basu's proposal works. 25 per cent of citizens reported bribe demands in the symmetric case, which increased to 59 per cent in the asymmetric case. Looking at officials, while 38 per cent asked for bribes in the symmetric treatment, this fell to 24 per cent with asymmetric liability as officials feared the impact of greater reporting by citizens. Interestingly, the moral "refusal to pay" did not change significantly as we switched between the two versions (17 versus 19 per cent), suggesting that the law is not a strong guide to moral behavior.

But what about Dreze's objections that officials might harass citizens who report bribe demands? If a citizen reports a telephone linesman for demanding a bribe, and the linesman is not punished, the

citizen might find herself with no phone service for a long time. To test the impact of this objection, we conducted another treatment where officials who escape punishment can retaliate against citizens. In our formulation, retaliation is never an optimal strategy, but hangs as a threat that can be used by a vengeful official.

We find that the impact of asymmetric punishment is mitigated considerably when retaliation enters the formulation. Only 42 per cent of citizens report bribe demands and 37 per cent of officials demand bribes.

These results contain something for everyone. Basu's proposal has bite in curbing harassment corruption, but implementation requires a careful legal package that protects whistleblowers from potential retaliation. Such measures could include anonymity for whistleblowers, crowd-sourced information gathering, and frequent transfers even among the lower bureaucracy to break up the networks that facilitate retaliation.

Kaushik Basu himself wrote that he received a number of letters from ordinary citizens across the country, thanking him "for not treating me as a criminal when a government officer came to harass me." Since then Basu has moved on to a new job as the Chief Economist of the World Bank where he can consider his proposal for a large number of developing countries, in addition to India. Meanwhile, I hope the debate on corruption will be informed by the results of experiments such as ours.

tarun Jain is Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Indian

School of Business.

GAME THEORY


Delhi is designed for rapeURBAN DESIGN

Delhi is designed for rape



Delhi is designed for rapeURBAN DESIGN

For weeks now, there has been justifiable public anger over the rape of a para

medical student in Delhi and her subsequent death from brutal injuries inflicted on her by the attackers. There are countless calls for the perpetrators to be hanged. Two of the accused having even reportedly agreed that they be given the death penalty.

Others feel that greater conviction rates in rape cases will certainly help to bring

down incidents in the national capital. Public and visible punishment are the key elements of this strategy. However, what makes Delhi the rape capital with the total number of cases at 572 far exceeding other cities of comparable size like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai? Is there a structural difference in the city? Does Delhi's heavy motorisation make it congenial to be a city where rape is common?

Delhi is designed for rapeIt will require a change in the DNA and design of the city for a reduction in the number of rapes in Delhi. Addressing the structural problems of Delhi is a critical component of improving the situation, argues Jacob John.


At the outset, I’d like to clarify that I am not arguing that we do not need an overhaul of the criminal justice system. The low conviction rates do require better investigation practices that result in higher convictions, a much greater sensitisation of police to move away from the mindset to compromise rather than register a case as well as the apathy of the general public to cases of rape. There is also the need for better policing and law enforcement at the neighbourhood level and possibly greater visibility of the police force in strength during the evenings and the nights. Significant changes in the patriarchal mindsets of people are also required. However, that is not the focus of this article.

Many of my women friends in Kolkata and Mumbai say that they feel reasonably safe even after 9pm in the city. On the other hand, women

in Delhi feel distinctly unsafe after sunset. The first time that I visited Delhi in 2003, I got a sense why as a city it is designed to be unsafe. There were wide roads with cars zipping by at a rapid clip, large areas where there were practically no pedestrians and even larger areas which were poorly lit. The city had

excellent infrastructure for motor cars, but was equally remarkable for having poor infrastructure for pedestrians and those using public transport. At the risk of sounding provocative, Delhi has set up the infrastructure for rape with the emphasis on private transport and motorisation.

Wide roads are not a problem per se. But, the result of the policy

to have wide roads in Delhi has resulted in the greatest ownership of motor cars when compared to any of the other metros. In fact, the ownership of cars in Delhi is almost double that of the next comparable city (Bengaluru). It is also more heavily motorised

With the exception of the tourist areas,

Delhi in general is a pedestrian-unfriendly city.

URBAN DESIGN



than Mumbai and Kolkata which are comparable population wise.

Some could argue that heavily motorised cities in the US with less public transport are safer than Delhi. In a context where every nearly every person drives a car the number of crimes against women could be lower, as people do not need common public spaces to be safe except around their home and their work place. However, when public transport is a key for mobility of many people, safe public spaces become critical for accessing public transport.

Delhi is in the position where while a large number of people do own cars, and yet a substantial number use public transport. A commuter need to walk to a point to get public transport, use it and then walk from the point where the vehicle has dropped you off.

The fewer people that use public transport, the less incentive there is to keep public spaces safe. Building wider roads and better infrastructure that facilitates private transport is likely to make Delhi even more unsafe (and ironically for those using public transport), as more and more people shift away from public transport to their own vehicles. Given the space constraints in India and the proclaimed policy of the government to move towards a public transport based system, increasing modal share of cars and bikes are not sustainable in the long run.

What is necessary in Delhi is more development: but development for people and not cars. A popular expression in Europe goes something like this “A developed city is not one where poor people own cars, but where rich people take public transport to work”.

With the exception of the tourist areas, Delhi in general is a pedestrian-unfriendly city. While Lutyens Delhi might be a very attractive piece of real estate, the fact that few people walk on the pavements there, along with the poor lighting lends itself to being a dangerous city. The BRT corridor which is one of the most pedestrian friendly stretches in Delhi has faced an innumerable number of obstacles in its implementation through litigation, protests by car users and others. There are flyovers all over the city of Delhi. However, if a pedestrian has to negotiate the junctions where a flyover is built, it is close to

impossible as cars are whizzing past these points and at the same time, they have to walk longer distances to cross the roads there.

Through the design of the city, Delhi has reduced the number of people on the street resulting in

greater possibilities of rape and other forms of crime. When Delhi (or for that matter, any city) starts designing its roads and public spaces for old people, young children and women pedestrians, it will automatically witness a drop in crime.

At another level, changes also need to be made in the way that bus contracts are given out in Delhi. Giving out contracts to an operator who has just five or ten buses, makes it possible for many 'fly-by-night' operators to set up shop. Penalties for any violations on these operators are very difficult to enforce as the operator can transfer all the assets to another company and reappear

almost immediately. Establishing a minimum size of operator (say 500 buses) is also important, and ensuring that this is similar across all the regions in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Delhi will also have to create a system where more people can actually come onto the roads and come on more frequently. Encouraging street vending, having street festivals, closing off streets for neighbourhood festivals every week, encouraging activities in public spaces with women and children as the focus would all be necessary to ensure that Delhi moves to becomes safer.

It is even possible to consider interesting ways of deploying cycle rickshaws in particular areas, and deploying a citywide bicycle sharing system (for a million bicycles or more) and dedicated infrastructure for cyclists.

While law enforcement is necessary, it will require a change in the DNA and design of the city for a reduction in the number of rapes in Delhi. Addressing the structural problems of Delhi is a critical component of moving it down from being the rape capital of India.

JacoB John is Bangalore-based and works with the Centre for Collective Development, an organisation that networks agricultural

cooperatives and producer companies to market their produce.

When Delhi (or for that matter, any city) starts

designing its roads and public spaces

for old people, young children and women pedestrians, it will automatically

witness a drop in crime.

URBAN DESIGN


PROTEST AGAINST RAPES

Outrage is a good thing, when it is against injustice. It shows

that society does have a line it does not want crossed. It also puts pressure on the system to respond. Here's the problem with it though, it tends to ignore what is already unclear. No new clarity emerges from either the outrage or the response. Media coverage of outrage does not help with clarity either, unless the media is looking deeper.

So it will be with the entire rape debate in India. In fact even before public fury over the Delhi gang-rape has quietened, as it inevitably will, media has already started breaking more rape stories from around the country. More accountability will be demanded, as will the death penalty.

Yet, if there is one government authority that is laughing all the way to the bank, it's India's police. Here is why.

The Delhi HC has reportedly asked the local police to show it the chargesheet before initiating proceedings in the gang-rape. Why would a High Court do that? Chalk it up to experience. For years

As long as we engender a society that allow law enforcers to get away with their own crimes, law breakers will only be emboldened. We must make Police Complaints Authorities around the country meaningful, says Subramaniam vincent.

how they fool us, the outraged



the accused in rape cases have not been sincerely prosecuted, and people have been let go with lesser charges or sentencing than was to fit the crime. The Delhi Police has a particularly

soiled reputation already, and responding to this week's outrage as it were, the High Court stepped up the ante.

If a High Court in the capital territory of the nation does not

trust the police's due process, what does that tell you? Let me come back to this question in a different way.

Each day in India, in buses, trains and crowed public places, women are groped, fondled, teased and made the subject of lewd remarks. Eve teasing is so common, women have simply resigned themselves to it. Women just try to avoid being in situations where they will be groped. They do not hope for much else. They do not bother going to the police. Such is the reputation our police have in handing their cases.

The police need to first accept complaints from women. Instead, as is widespread in India, they dilute complaints, humiliate the victims, and eject them from the stations. Their starting point is a judgement of the victim. And much of the problem lies here. When it comes to women, most policemen are part of the original problem. Sexual harassment of any kind - the most violent kind or a lesser kind - is about the power that one sex wants to show it can wield over the other. Usually it's men over women.

Still, the outrage in the nation is missing what the police and the governments are hoping will not come up.

Police Complaints Authorities

In 2006, the Supreme Court ordered the state governments to create one PCA per district in every state and a PCA at the state level headed by a retired judge. Human Rights groups called it landmark order. The apex court of the nation wanted PCAs to look into complaints citizens had against police misconduct or abuse of power. It could be


everything from custodial torture or death or rape to not accepting FIRs to falsifying evidence.

The SC had wanted policemen to be penalised for not doing their job. It also wanted to reduce government-interference in police transfers. It wanted PCAs to act against errant officers after hearings and investigations.

Imagine this: The Supreme Court of this nation believes, that unless there was an authority to check the police, India's police would not serve its taxpayers. It would continue to operate to 'control' and 'keep order', for its political masters at state and centre, the way the British had setup the system.


Pic: Wikimedia Commons Pic: Wikimedia Commons



Just from the woman's point of view, here is how PCAs with teeth, had they come into force, would have made an impact in bringing down rape and crimes of lesser nature. Women today would be able to file complaints against police officials with the PCA when they do not act in fairness with them at a police station. They would able to walk into police stations with dignity after a crime to get protection, not further abuse.

If errant officers were penalised quickly, police would not themselves not behave with the kind of impunity they do now.

Yet, the majority of India's states have ignored the SC's order.

Only six states setup so-called "PCAs" and mostly toothless ones, and with shady appointments that violated the principle of independence the SC wanted. Delhi set up its public grievance commission as its PCA, precisely what the SC did not order. India Together reported on all this

in August 2012, as a review on whether states had complied with the SC's order. In the few states with PCAs, police officers ignore hearings and go about their business as usual. State governments themselves do not follow their own PCA verdicts to act against abusive officials. Television media have mostly let this story go.

Have you even once heard of action against police official for not investigating a complaint by a woman? Are the police who mangle charge sheets, FIRs,and file false charges every prosecuted? (It is not just about complaints by women, this applies to all disadvantaged communities, but

When it comes to women, most policemen are part of the original problem.


let's stick to the issue of women here.)

In the meantime, thousands of men freely roam around the country to grope and molest women at will in public places. It takes a lot of force and pressure to get a complaint registered, even with witnesses. It is no one's case that PCAs will fix all our problems. There is much else in our society's attitude to women itself that needs attention.

But if police do not act on the most basic violations, it is a free ride for men. It sends a message of what the real social rules in the country are, not the ones on the books. The culprits feel that it is a natural order for them to be able to do what they want and get away with it. And if PCAs with teeth kept a watch on the police, it would send out the opposite message that as a society we will uphold the dignity of our women.

I do not buy the death penalty

argument. From outrage to revenge is a short hop. You can sentence as many losers as you can to the gallows. More will appear, especially from amongst those who have little to lose, with a very low sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

As long as we engender a society that allow law enforcers to get away with their own crimes, law breakers will only be emboldened. This is why corruption is such a problem in this country. Like our other authorities, our police system does not have an integrity of its own to justify doing the right thing, or to remedy a wrong done to restore public faith. The PCAs will not fix all the problems but they would have sent a message to outraged women that someone would listen to them and dispense justice. That is one course-correction our society needs.

The Delhi gang-rape case is also chance for the media to get

its act right. For all the coverage that rape cases get (read: ratings), very little coverage if any has been given to how state governments everywhere from Delhi to Tamilnadu have said 'we don't care' to the Supreme Court.

It is easy to drive up fury. The illumination really needed is on what the governments and police do not want you to know, and therefore not demanded. The demand for death penalties in fact is a lovely distraction for our babus and cops.

SuBramaniam VincEnt co-founder of India Together.




It would be difficult to identify a more maligned aspect of the

public transport experience than the transfer. Particularly with bus services, having to transfer between one bus and the next is perhaps the number one peeve of public transport users. Users attach a very high price of inconvenience to it, more than the initial wait for the bus itself. And bus service providers are very aware of this fact; public transport authorities in cities across India resist transfers, no matter how large the benefits are.

But the bad rap that transfers get is very unfortunate for those who want a high quality bus service for their city - government officials, planners, sustainability advocates but most of all public transport users. Transfer-based bus networks can result in services that provide significantly higher quality and coverage compared to the alternative. It is doubly unfortunate because many complaints that users have regarding transfers can actually

be solved by moving to a more intensively transfer-based system itself.

But before dealing with the issues of transfers directly, it is important to make the case for why transfer-based bus services

should be the preferred option.Broadly speaking, there

are two ways in which city bus services can be organised. The first is to offer 'direct services'. This is where each bus route acts as a direct connection between two

INTEGRATED SERVICES

in praise of transfersTransfer-based bus networks can result in services that provide significantly higher quality and coverage. And many complaints that users have regarding transfers can actually be solved by moving to a more intensively transfer-based system itself, write Madhav Pai and Ashwin Prabhu.

Direct v Integrated services. Image copyright : Gustav Nielsen, Public Transport Network Design


INTEGRATED SERVICES

The complexity of Direct Services grows hugely compared to Integrated Services as the number of destinations increases.


given destinations. This is the form of bus service that will be most familiar to Indian bus users. Most city bus services in India operate along this principle, connecting each major destination - residential areas, shopping districts, business parks - directly to another such destination.

An alternative system of organisation for city bus services is what is increasingly being called the "Integrated services" model. This model goes bymany names - 'trunk and feeder system' has been used in the past, 'd i re c t i o n - o r i e n t e d services' is being used more commonly in recent years. But whatever the name, the essential organizing principal is the same. A given destination, instead of being directly connected to the city centre by a specific route, is connected to an intermediate transfer point from where the user transfers to another service that continues in the direction of his or her travel.

For example, a 'feeder' bus service will connect a destination to the nearest major arterial or main road. At this point the user transfers to a 'trunk' route that travels on the arterial road only. The trunk route may take the user to the final destination, or the user may make a transfer to another trunk or feeder service.

The superiority of the transfer-based integrated services model over direct services boils down to two main aspects: Simplicity and Service Quality.

Simplicity

To illustrate how integrated services result in networks that are simpler, consider the following model. Suppose we have three major destinations in the city centre.

These could be, for example,the central business district, the main city market and a transportation hub. Now, consider the route network that would be required

to serve a series of neighbourhoods that lie along one major arterial road leading away from the city centre. Let us first suppose that there are three residential neighbourhoods, each at a moderate distance away from the arterial itself.

In the direct services model, each of these residential neighbourhoods would require a direct bus service to each of the three destinations in the city centre. That is, each neighbourhood is served by three routes.

The direct services route network therefore comprises of nine routes.

Consider now the case of the integrated system. In this case, each neighbourhood is connected only to the nearest arterial road. That adds up to three routes. The arterial road itself, however, is served by three routes - one to each major destination in the city centre. So by making one transfer, users can still reach any of the three central destinations from their individual neighbourhood. In total then, this system has six routes - three 'feeder' routes connecting neighbourhoods to the arterial and three 'trunk' routes on the arterial.

So in this particular case the integrated services model provides the same level of coverage with three fewer routes than the direct services model. A difference of three routes may not seem like a lot. But this differential rapidly grows as the number of neighbourhoods along the arterial increases. Say the city grows in size, and the arterial road now has six neighbourhoods that lie along it. In the direct services model we now have 18 routes - three routes from

INTEGRATED SERVICES

The complexity of Direct Services grows hugely compared to Integrated Services as the number of destinations increases.

One of the weaknesses of the

direct services model is that as

cities expand rapidly and, therefore, the number of destinations

requiring bus services increase,

the number of routes increases even faster.


each of six neighbourhoods. In the integrated model, by contrast, we only need nine routes - six feeders but still only three trunk routes. That's a difference of nine routes.

If the city expands even further to the point where 50 distinct destinations lie along the arterial, the integrated services model has 53 routes while the direct services model has a whopping 150. The number of routes in the integrated model can also further be reduced if different neighbourhoods 'across' an arterial road can be served by a single feeder route.

But why is simplicity in a bus service network a desirable thing? The main reason is that simple systems are easier to use and, more significantly, allow for an expanded choice of travel patterns.

Bangalore is a good example of the dizzyingly high number of routes that can result from the direct services model. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Commission (BMTC) operates 2300+ routes in the city. From personal experience, even the most ardent public transport advocate will struggle to make sense of such a complex network. In contrast London, a city with similar population size, bus ridership numbers and bus fleet size, has a little over 700 routes - by no means simple, but certainly simpler.

Due to the large array of route numbers that result from direct services and the lack of any intuitive or logical way to organise them mentally, users will often 'stick' to a route that they know works for them - even if using other unfamiliar routes will result in more efficient travel. For example, a user may be used to traveling by route 350-A. Route 368-F would also take the user to

the exact same destination. But if there is no easy way to figure this out just by seeing the route number or destination name - and memorising the patterns of many different routes is not feasible - the user will continue to wait for the 350-A bus even as several 368-F buses come and go.

Finally, transfer-based systems also open the possibility of many new travel patterns that are more difficult to execute in the direct services model. For example, consider a user who wants to travel from one neighbourhood to another that lies on the other side of an arterial road. In the direct services model, such a trip is difficult to plan - the user has to get to the arterial, and then wait for the very specific bus route that will take them to their destination. If the destination isn't one where routes terminate, they will also have to know the exact routing of the bus they are waiting for. More likely, the user will take a bus till the arterial then hop in a rickshaw, taxi or other mode.

In the transfer based system, however, such trip patterns become easier to execute. The user takes a feeder to the arterial, then travels on the trunk service in the direction of their final destination and then transfers again to another feeder to the final destination.

Excessive complexity also raises many barriers to entry for new public transport users. When a system has so many different routes, creating good user information systems such as maps at bus stops or online journey planners is a Herculean task. On a busy arterial road, it would take an enormous amount of display space at the bus stop simply to list all the bus routes serving each stop, and if this were

done digitally, it will take several minutes to scroll through the whole lot on a small screen.

In the absence of such information, then, a new user would have to rely on the knowledge of fellow bus users, which in itself may or may not be reliable, or undertake a significant number of trial-and-error trips before identifying the solution that best works for them.

Service Quality

When we talk about Service Quality, we're talking mainly of two things: Frequency and Reliability. These are by far the two most important factors that determine whether users are happy with bus services. Integrated systems do better on both counts.

One of the weaknesses of the direct services model is that as cities expand rapidly and, therefore, the number of destinations requiring bus services increase, the number of routes increases even faster. And since these new destinations are farther and farther away, their route lengths also steadily increase. But cities struggling with limited resources - as in India - cannot increase their fleet sizes fast enough to keep up. Over time, a slowly increasing number of buses are spread more and more thinly over a rapidly increasing number of routes.

Bangalore again, is a good example of this phenomenon. Although it has a very healthy fleet size of 6100+ buses, these are used to service 2300+ routes. So what you ultimately end up with is a system that has a large number of routes where only one bus is serving a route length of 35-40km or more. This means that you can only achieve a bus

INTEGRATED SERVICES


service frequency of 1 bus every 2 or 3 hours. At this low frequency, public transport is not a preferable alternative to private vehicles.

In the integrated system, by contrast, route lengths for feeders are usually 4-6 km or so. This means that, even with one bus, you can provide service at a frequency of 15-20 minutes. And on arterial roads, high frequency trunk services can arrive in as little as 1 or 2 minutes. Integrated services can thus provide higher frequencies on feeder routes, and the difference is very significant for destinations that are far away from the city centre.

On the arterial roads, however, direct services actually provide higher frequencies as you get close to the city centre, as more and more routes (therefore buses) join the trunk road. But this is not a positive. In many cases there is actually an oversupply of buses in the city centre. And having more buses than necessary entering the city core may actually make congestion worse.

In other words, direct services result in a grossly unbalanced service pattern that offers significantly higher frequencies in the city centre compared to the periphery, a pattern that is often at odds with the real travel demands of users. Integrated services, on the other hand, provide the same frequency throughout the length of any given 'link', be it a trunk or feeder. Moreover, if the frequency on a given link is found to be higher or lower than required, it can easily be remedied by removing or adding a bus. Thus optimizing integrated bus services to meet actual demand is also much easier.

The modular nature of integrated services also has a major positive effect on reliability,

that other most cherished desire of public transport users. This effect is particularly noticeable on the arterial road. In direct services, the arrival of the 'next bus' at any given bus stopis highly unpredictable. This is because of the large number of routes and the large spread in their route lengths. The same stop may serve some buses that have a route 10km long, some that are 15, some 20, some 35, and any length in between. This means that the next bus may arrive in 2 minutes, 6 minutes or 25 minutes.

In the integrated services model, however, there will not only be a significantly reduced number of routes but most of these will also be of similar lengths. Thus the variation in the time till next bus arrival will be far lower and much more predictable, leading to a more reliable service.

Overcoming the resistance to transfers

Thus Integrated, transfer-based services are simpler to use, can provide more appropriate frequencies and can be more reliable than Direct services - ultimately resulting in a bus service that is more convenient to use. With that, now let's get back to the issue of transfers themselves. Are transfers really so painful and inconvenient as to negate all the advantages that can be captured in a transfer-based system?

There are several reasons to suggest that the general perception about the inconvenience of transfers is overblown. First, let us look at why people dislike making transfers. The main complaint about transfers is that waiting time for the following bus is very high. This, ironically, is a by-product of the

direct services model itself (due to its tendency to result in low frequencies on individual routes). When frequencies on connecting services are high and waiting times low, much of the reluctance to transfer disappears.

A second major reason is that the physical experience of making a transfer is often uncomfortable. Having to wait at ill-designed bus stops, often while being exposed to the elements and not having a place to sit, justifiably results in negative associations with the act of transferring. The key lesson here is that any animosity towards transferring is due to the inconvenience of the process itself rather than due to any inherent dislike of the concept. Providing comfortable, all-weather bus stops with a few basic amenities puts another large dent in the reluctance to transfer.

A useful analogy to draw here is with metro systems. The use of transfers on metro systems is much more prevalent and the people who make them complain much less - or at least their complaints are much fainter. This is largely because metro stations are enclosed and comfortable and users know their next train is going to come pretty soon.

A second reason to doubt predictions of mass user resistance to a transfer-based system is that most people using city bus services make transfers anyway. It's just that these transfers are from other modes. In other words, many people reach the bus stop by rickshaw, or are dropped off by two-wheelers or other private vehicles and then transfer to the bus. A recent survey conducted by EMBARQ India at several bus stops along a major arterial road in Bangalore found that the majority of people accessed the bus stop

INTEGRATED SERVICES


INTEGRATED SERVICES

through motorized modes other the bus, even when they came from areas that have a bus service. The poor frequency of the first bus meant they had to find other means to reach the bus stop.

So what's the catch? There are a few. But these are by no means deal breakers. The first is that to make a transfer-based system work, you need to develop a large network of well-designed bus stops. This in turn, will require a certain sum of money. But this amount would certainly be very modest compared to other investments like flyovers or underpasses. Second, making transfer based systems truly convenient also requires seamless ticketing. This is a technology fix, and smart card-based solutions, though undoubtedly tricky, have been tried and tested the world over. Cleverly designed 'analog' systems can also work.

Fares will also need to be reformed to encourage transfers, but as long as the new system remains at least cost neutral to the user this should not be an insurmountable problem. User education is another challenge. Changing long-established patterns of how things work is bound to generate some resistance, especially in something that plays as large a role in people's lives as public transport. But experiences from several cities around the world - Bogota, Sao Paulo, Seoul, to name just a few - show that such whole scale changes are not only possible but that the pain is temporary and quickly replaced with praise if the new systems works better.

In summary, while transitioning to integrated transfer-based bus services is not without costs, these are relatively minor and are far outweighed by the benefits.

Ultimately every city is different and the 'best' network design for a given city will be highly contextual. Smaller cities may very well find that the direct services model is perfect for their needs. But as cities grow bigger and bigger, the benefits that accrue to transfer based systems grow more and more significant. And, of course, every well-designed and comprehensive bus service network will always be a hybrid of trunk-and-feeder routes and high-demand direct services.

But if cities want a truly high quality bus-based public transport network that provides convenient services and wide coverage then they, especially the bigger ones, will have to make integrated services the foundation of their system. And to do that we will all need to embrace the transfer.

maDhaV Pai is Director at EMBARQ India.

white Paper, or whitewash?

Pic: The Left bank canal of Gosikhurd project, Vidarbha, whose 23-km lining was asked to be removed and redone due to shoddy work as a result of corruption.


MH POLITICS

During the last few months Maharashtra's politics has

been in a state of turmoil, with dramatic turns of events including the resignation of the Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his subsequent rejoining the Government. At the centre of the whole controversy has been a White Paper on Irrigation in the state.

In March 2012, the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) brought out its annual Economic Survey 2012. Hidden in the mass of figures and numbers was a statistic that was to soon raise the storm. The Gross Irrigated Area (GIR) in the state in 2001 had been 3.852 million Ha, which increased to 4.050 m Ha in 2011. At the same time, the Gross Cropped Area (GCA) in the state went from 21.619 m Ha to 22.612 m Ha. Thus, in 2001, the ratio of GIR to GCA was 17.8%, which in 2011 became 17.9%. This issue, serious as it was, was somewhat wrongly projected that in ten years, 2001 to 2011, the area under irrigation had increased by only 0.1%.

The issue rapidly became a sensational one in the media. But while such slow development is indeed serious, there was a much deeper reason for the uproar that followed. Irrigation - with its huge dams, canals and other massive

Maharashtra’s politics is in uproar, as the dubious record of the irrigation department provides fodder for a proxy NCP-Congress war. The issues, however, demand real attention, writes shripad Dharmadhikary.


projects, and large contracts, has always been seen as a milch cow, and the sector is plagued with corruption.

Since early 2012, several movements and social activists had started investigating and highlighting the corruption and malpractices in a series of dams

around Mumbai. Some members of the opposition were also raising the issue of corruption, particularly in Vidarbha. Meanwhile, a senior and serving Engineer in the Maharashtra Water Resource Department (WRD), Vijay Pandhare, acting as a whistle blower, had written to

the Government highlighting serious corruption and other issues in the department, and this correspondence was on, though it was not in the public domain.

Thus, corruption in the irrigation sector was already a major issue in the media and public debates. Against this

MH POLITICS

This picture is taken from Vijay Pandhare’s facebook profile


background, the figures in the Economic Survey provided a strong indictment of the irrigation sector and raised questions that the corruption and malpractices were so serious that they had affected the performance of the sector.

The issue also seemed to have

become a means for the NCP and the Congress - the two parties in the ruling coalition in the state - to carry out a proxy war in continuation of their efforts to each become the dominant party in the state. The i r r i g a t i o n portfolio has been held by NCP ministers during the last ten years.

On 4 May, the Chief Min-ister announced that in view of the figures in the Economic Sur-vey, the Government would bring out a white paper on irrigation within 15 days. That period, how-ever, went by without any White Paper.

In September, Pandhare wrote an open letter to his fellow Water Resource Department engineers, which was a stinging expose of the corruption and malpractises in the system, and of instances in which this had even possibly compromised the safety of dams. This further strengthened the exposure of corruption which had been dominating the discussions in the media and political circles in the state. Within days of this letter, Ajit Pawar, Dy Chief Minister and former irrigation minister of the state resigned from the Government.

White Paper or Clean Chit?

On the night of 29 November 2012, the White Paper was finally tabled before the State Cabinet and made public immediately af-ter that. Neither the cabinet, nor

the Chief Minister offered any comment on it. However, a few days after the White Paper was

p r e s e n t e d , Ajit Pawar re-joined the Government, but this time without any portfolios. This i m m e d i a t e l y led to the sus-picion that the main purpose of the White Paper was to give a clean chit to the De-partment on

various charges of corruption and non-performance.

A detailed reading of the White Paper also strengthens this suspicion.

A Non Paper

The first thing that is noteworthy is that there is not a word in the White Paper about the main issue that has been dominating the discussions in the last 8-10 months - corruption. The White Paper treats it as if this issue has never been under discussion.

Moreover, it is also completely silent on some of the other serious issues like equity in irrigation and water distribution, the efficacy of large dams projects, the reasons why drought continues to plague the state even after such massive investments in huge irrigation projects and why the State Water Plan and the River Basin Plans - which are legally mandatory under the MWRRA Act 2005 - have not yet been prepared.

Second, the paper is mostly a collection of figures and statistics regarding the development of irrigation in the state. The WRD

MH POLITICS

There is not a word in the White Paper

about the main issue that has been

dominating the discussions in the last 8-10 months -

corruption.


already brings out three important documents every year, namely the Irrigation Status Report, the Benchmarking Report and the Water Audit report. Between the three, they have almost all the figures that the White Paper has presented. There is little that is new in the White Paper.

Thirdly, the White Paper is not a paper by the Government, but is a paper of the Water Resource Department. It is essentially nothing but a defense sheet that is trying to answer the allegations that have been made in the past few months (except of course, the elephant in the room, corruption.)

In particular, in the White Paper the department has responded to the figures given by the Economic Survey by presenting its own alternate figures. The figures presented in the White Paper show that the ratio of the GIR to GCA has increased in the state in the last ten years by a good 5.17 per cent. The White Paper also states that significant water was diverted for non-irrigation purposes from irrigation in the last ten years (about 1900 million cubic meters per year) otherwise this growth would have been 6.43 per cent.

The main (and only) explanation given by the department as to why its figures are different from those in the Economic Survey is that the latter mentions that its figures for last few years are provisional. This is correct, but that does not automatically make the water resource department figures more authentic. Moreover, provisional figures are also based on some ground data, and hence this argument does not explain the large difference between the two figures.

Nor did the Government make

any attempt to reconcile the two different sets of figures and tell the citizens which is correct. Instead, it chose to remain completely silent on this. Indeed, this has defeated the very purpose of the White Paper, which is to provide the citizens with authentic figures and information about the sector. The Agriculture Minister is reported to have stood by the figures provided by his department (the figures used in the Economic Survey) even after the White Paper was published.

In fact, the two departments differ not only in the figures of the increase in irrigated area over ten years, but also in the annual irrigation figures for most of the last ten years. The irony is that the agriculture department figures show the total irrigated area for year 2011 as 4.050 m ha, which is much higher than the figure of the water resource department for the same year, which is only 2.955 m ha. Again, there is no position taken by the Government, there are two (vastly) different figures given by the two departments.

Delays and cost escalations

The second issue that the White Paper has responded to is the reasons for the delay and the cost escalations in the projects. This has been an important issue because cost escalations are often the means of cost-padding and syphoning off money from the projects.

The White Paper has presented several reasons for these cost escalations and delays. Among them are the delays due to land acquisition and relief-and-rehabilitation (R&R), the delays in getting statutory clearances like Environmental and Forest Clearances, delays caused by lack of allotment of adequate funds, mainly due to thin spreading of funds, and repeated changes in the scope of projects after work has commenced due to demands of local communities and affected people.

Except for the thin spreading of the funds, most other arguments are really specious. In many cases, delay and cost escalation are really nothing but the result of bad planning. The more fundamental reasons which manifest themselves in such 'reasons' have been totally ignored.

The delay in land acquisition - attributed to people's opposition - is mainly because the affected people have been treated in a grossly unfair manner and continue to be treated thus. The delay in clearances can often be attributed to shoddy quality of EIAs, lack of preparation, and lack of readiness to acknowledge environmental problems etc. In any case, the Department is well aware of the time that is normally taken for land acquisition, for clearances etc so this can be

MH POLITICS

What is required instead is to form a

team of independent persons, who can

carry out a free and fair probe, and who

have expertise in both the technical matters involved

and the wherewithal to investigate scams

and corruption.


MH POLITICS

budgeted into the planning.Similarly, the demands for

changes in the scope of the project after work commences is a clear reflection of the completely non-participatory nature of the project preparation. If the communities are involved right from the conception and design stage of the project, such post-project demands are likely to be much less. Indeed, the white paper should have identified such fundamental steps that need to be taken to avoid delays - like fair deal to the oustees, participatory

planning of projects, equitable distribution of benefits etc. But it has avoided exploring the fundamental issues.

Last but not the least, the White Paper has also come out with some suggestions for prioritization in taking up pending projects. It suggests that projects where less than 25 per cent of the cost has been incurred should be put on hold. Small projects should be prioritized and all of them should be completed first. Medium projects should have the second priority. Projects in backlog areas should be prioritized. Projects in tribal and naxal areas should be given priority.

These and other suggestions are sensible, but they hardly needed a White Paper to come out. The reasons behind the suggestions are being made by many people for many years - for example, to take up small projects first as they can be completed faster, deliver benefits sooner, have lesser impacts and locations for these are relatively better distributed in the state. Indeed, coming up with such prioritization should have been the basic job of the Water Resource Department in the first place.

Whitewash

These, and many other parts of the White Paper show that it has not served the basic purpose that such an exercise should be doing - namely, bringing out authentic, officially ratified figures and status of the sector, and reasons behind the serious problems plaguing it, including the issue of corruption. Indeed, the way the White Paper reads, it comes out as nothing more than an attempt to white wash the many issues involved.

The Government said (on

The Government said that a Special

investigation Team (SIT)

would probe the irrigation scam. In

a way, this is a clear acknowledgement

that the White Paper has not done its job.

This picture is taken from Ajit Anantrao Pawar’s facebook profile


MH POLITICS

17 December) that a Special investigation Team (SIT) would probe the irrigation scam. In a way, this is a clear acknowledgement that the White Paper has not done its job. However, there is little guarantee that the SIT will do it either. With the SIT to be headed by Madhav Chitale, a retired irrigation engineer himself and former Secretary of the Water Resource ministry of Government of India, the question is whether the SIT has the capacity to investigate corruption charges. Also, with Chitale having already headed the Water and Irrigation Commission in the state earlier and having brought out a detailed report, it's a moot question whether he is going to bring out anything new as far as irrigation is concerned.

What is required instead is to form a team of independent persons, who can carry out a free and fair probe, and who have expertise in both the technical matters involved and the wherewithal to investigate scams and corruption. Only that would bring about a fundamental re-look at the issues of irrigation, equity, water distribution, planning, resettlement etc., and provide a roadmap for a different way of doing things in the future.

ShriPaD DharmaDhikary coordinates the Manthan Adhyanan Kendra, a centre set

up to research, analyse and monitor water and energy issues.

FDi in reverse


OUTWARD INVESTMENTS

There is a loud debate on whether allowing or limiting FDI in

different sectors in India is in the nation's interest. What is surprising is that there is so little engagement with Indian direct investment abroad - FDI in reverse, so to speak.

At the end of FY 2011-12, the RBI estimated the accumulated stock of Indian direct investment abroad at $111.7 billion, over 50 per cent of the accumulated FDI stock in India of $219.6 billion. The stock of Indian direct investment abroad has grown over 11 times since the end of FY 2004-05! But even these staggering numbers do not reveal the full extent of outflows from India.

The stock of investment is built up through annual capital flows. The net outflow and inflow investment numbers of the RBI include a component termed 'reinvested earnings'. These refer to the portion of the profits from pre-existing investment in a country that has been reinvested as opposed to being paid out as dividend to the investor. Reinvested earnings do not affect the overall balance of payments (BOP) of a country, as they represent a movement of funds from the current account to the capital account rather than a cross-border flow.

A comparison of the yearly flow of Indian direct investments abroad with FDI into India for the past decade, after excluding reinvested earnings from both flows, throws up some interesting facts.

Outflows moved more or less in tandem with FDI inflows from 2002-03 till 2009-10 and this raises the suspicion that they may be connected, at least partially! Further, from a balance-of-payments perspective, the net outflow in the last six years was nearly 65 per cent of the net inflow and in 2010-11, more direct investment actually went out of India than came into

It is far from clear if capital exports out of India are good for India. What is apparent, from their enthusiasm, is that Indian companies believe it is good for them. Kannan Kasturi reports.


India!The question that arises is

that given the acute current account deficit and the scarcity of investment in several areas of the domestic economy, are such large outward capital flows in India's interest?

Who is investing abroad?

The bulk of investment abroad is investment by companies in the form of equity and loans into Joint Ventures (JV) and Wholly Owned Subsidiaries (WOS). Such investments amounted to about $70 billion in the five years till March 2012. In the five years till June 2012, just over 380 companies invested over $10 million each, accounting for over 82 per cent of the investments. Of these, grouping the companies by business conglomerates, the top 10 outward investor groups in the country were:

TataBharti AirtelEssarGammonRelianceReligareSuzlonReliance ADAGVedantaUnited Phosphorous These investor groups,

through their 35-odd companies, accounted for more than a third of the investment outflows during this period.

Companies also borrowed abroad to finance their foreign acquisitions against guarantees backed by Indian banks. The financial commitment in the form of guarantees by Indian companies in the last five years was to the tune of $61 billion, and this was over and above the $70 billion in equity and loans.

Just five business groups - Tata, Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Reliance-ADAG, and Suzlon - accounted for over half of the total guarantees, pointing to the highly leveraged nature of their foreign acquisitions.

While these guarantees did not entail an immediate flow of funds or show up in the balance of payments, they do pose heightened risks to Indian banks, especially those from the public sector, as is shown by the case of Suzlon.

Suzlon accumulated huge debts during a global acquisition spree and is now in the news for defaulting on its foreign debt obligations amidst a slowdown in the global sales of its wind turbines. Most of its debt is owed to Indian public sector banks, and the company is reportedly being 'bailed out' by these banks, who will take an Rs.750 crores as losses on its account.

Where is the investment headed?

In order to determine whether outward investment by companies on such a scale is in the nation's interest, we need to know first

where the investment is headed. Large scale acquisitions like the ones by Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Bharti Airtel are publicly known. However, surprisingly, the government is officially unaware of the actual destination of investments in many cases.

RBI regulations require companies investing in joint ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries to disclose the recipient of their investment. A perusal of RBI data reveals that these are mostly intermediaries, shell companies without operations. Few Indian companies directly invest in the entity that is the actual target of their investment.

There is a marked preference for locating these intermediaries in Singapore, Mauritius, and Netherlands - countries that provide an attractive 'tax neutral' regime for holding companies. These have been the top three investment destinations for Indian investors', together accounting for over 55 per cent of the outward investment in the period April 2008 to Feb 2012.

The distancing of the foreign target from the Indian investor is often through multiple layers of shell companies. Multi-tiered intermediate structures located across several countries are justified as necessary to exploit tax treaties between different countries to the most advantage. However these complex structures make it extremely hard to determine the actual destination and end use of investments.

The public interest in outward flows

The near absence of regulation of Indian direct investment flows abroad makes it open to

The net outflow in the last six years

was nearly 65 per cent of the net

inflow and in 2010-11, more direct

investment actually went out of India

than came into India!

OUTWARD INVESTMENTS


abuse of various kinds. Some of the investment may well be channeled into areas prohibited by regulation, such as the acquisition of real estate. A part may be 'round tripped' back to India disguised as foreign investment, to hide the identity of the investor as well as to take advantage of tax concessions (offered to foreign investors from certain countries) and there is some circumstantial evidence for this.

Leaving abuses aside, what about investments genuinely made abroad?

Government policy makers, repeating textbook arguments, speak of the markets that will open up for Indian goods and services increasing exports and employment and the technology and skills infusion that will take place. Their concern, however, does not extend to evaluating

if any of these benefits indeed accrue to the Indian economy, for even basic data on the end use of investments is not collected, leave alone metrics designed to measure benefits from capital export.

Another capital export project that is presented as being in the national interest is the acquisition of overseas energy assets - in coal, gas and oil - by public sector and private companies, purportedly because these are steps towards achieving "energy security" for the country. Besides the public sector ONGC, business groups such as Adani, Essar, Reliance, Lanco and GMR have been acquiring large energy assets abroad.

Here again, the government has not cared to explain the costs and benefits to the country. How is public interest better served by the Adani or Lanco or GMR

groups owning coal assets in Australia or Reliance acquiring shale gas assets in the US? The example of China is held up as an example to drum up support for the strategy of acquiring energy assets. If China, with its massive international reserves, has been actively acquiring energy assets abroad, there is also the example of Japan which has managed its energy requirements without acquiring any such assets.

It is far from clear if capital exports out of India are good for India. What is apparent, from the enthusiasm with which they have taken to it, is that India's business conglomerates believe it is in their interest.

kannan kaSturi is an independent researcher and writer on law, policy and

governance.

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BOOK REVIEW

why ants didn’t win the nobel prize

In his latest book, The Wisdom of Ants: A Short History of Economics, with numerous revealing historical arguments and anecdotes, Shankar Jaganathan traces how economics emerged from being a relatively obscure field to a structured discipline that may be used to explain the basis for every aspect of human life and society, writes satarupa Bhattacharya.


What are the most pertinent and current 21st-century challenges in economics? What are the options available

to policy-makers today as they struggle to revive the global economy from a persistent slump? Why are teachers paid less than bank peons? Does socialism have a future? How does the Nobel Prize in economics affect the discipline and, in turn, our lives? What is Gandhian economics? Is it even relevant today? Is there an alternative to the Anglo-American economic model of market-based societies?

Academic as most of these may appear, one or all of these questions have nevertheless surfaced in our minds at some point of time or another. Fortunately, there is now a treatise that looks at these issues and seeks to offer insights and answers for the “non-economist” in a manner unclouded by the esotericism of erudition or complexity of hard-core technical analysis.

In his second book, The Wisdom of Ants: A Short History of Economics, corporate accountant-turned teacher-turned author Shankar Jaganathan provides a fascinating canvas detailing the evolution of the discipline that can help the common reader understand not only the prominent schools of economic thought but also, more significantly, how they touch our everyday lives, decisions as well as current socio-economic realities.

With panoramic sweep, nuanced by the recounting of numerous revealing historical arguments and anecdotes, Jaganathan traces how economics emerged from being a relatively obscure and abstract field to a structured discipline that may be used to explain the basis for every aspect of human life and society - even issues such as marriage, child-bearing and human happiness.

As the author himself writes in his introduction to the volume, "Given (the) increased importance accorded to the economic lens in viewing human life, it is worth examining the factors that have led to this situation." That precisely sums up the motivation behind this conceptually vivid and lucidly narrated account of the history and philosophy of economics - a field replete with its inherent contradictions, resolutions and alternative approaches to addressing a particular problem.

Jaganathan begins at the beginning with insights into the earliest seeds of economic thought as evidenced in the writings and teachings of leading thinkers across four prominent world civilizations - Greek, Chinese, Indian and Islamic. While the discourse of Aristotle and Ibn Khaldun focused largely on personal ethics and the individual’s way of life, Kautilya and Lord Shang brought to the fore timeless rules of public administration. Interestingly, we find that even as these lacked the structural form and tangibility of present-day economic theory, they were far more sensitive to considerations of equity, wealth distribution and social safety nets - problems that the world continues to grapple with to this day, despite the sophistication of economics as a field.

The book presents an intriguing and vivid sketch of the transition from this phase, where promoting personal wealth

BOOK REVIEW


conceded priority to religious and ethical mandates, to one where enhancement of private property and economic issues earned social sanction and ultimate dominance over all other considerations. Following this train, it becomes easier to discern how and why arguments for pursuit of self- interest culminated in increased trade and exchange across Europe and later North America, and consequently propelled markets to the centre stage of almost all economic discourse.

Jaganathan also devotes considerable thought and space to the exposition of the role that the Nobel Prize in economics has played in the emergence of the market economy. The fact that the award consistently recognised and honoured theories advocating free markets over a period of four decades lent gravity and force to the arguments in favour of Lasseiz-faire. In a November 2012 interview with Tranquebar Times, the author goes so far as to raise the questions: "In a discipline like Economics that lacks the empirical evidence found in physical sciences like physics, chemistry and medicine, did Nobel Prize act as the substitute? Could liberalization and globalization have become the buzz words of the last two decades in the absence of Nobel Prize?"

The Wisdom of Ants would have filled a critical gap in popular economic literature at any juncture, but is especially relevant today as economies

From the title it would appear that there is a behavioral dimension to managing limited resources. Has human capacity been overestimated, that, as we know of human development today, wisdom eludes us in economic matters? — Joseph George A

Shankar Jaganathan: Dear Joseph, If I have understood your question right, I think you are asking if the current economic thought is based on human wisdom, and you seem to think it may not be. I tend to agree with you when I see the dominant economic thought of the day which is based on market economics. I believe there is an excess focus on self, and reliance on speed reflected in the rate of growth. The dominant view is seeing human life as a 100-metres dash, whereas the contrary view sees it as a marathon, where not only speed but endurance is also the key. If this view is taken growth along with sustainability becomes essential.

An important element of sustainability is the social sustainability, which is anchored on a more equitable distribution of wealth and income. Hence I can see why you may believe the current economic wisdom, as expressed today is an oxymoron.

(Excerpted with permission from a web-chat on IBNLive.com between Shankar Jaganathan and readers)

BOOK REVIEW

Can this (recommendations in this book) be adopted by Govt and and be implemented?— Harish Nayak

Shankar Jaganathan: Dear Harish, In the Wisdom of Ants, I make three policy recommendations: a. Introduction of inheritance tax: India is the only if not one of the few democracies where inheritance tax is not levied. It was withdrawn in 1985. Today India is a land of billionaires and Millionaires and malnutrition kids. India also has the lowest tax to GDP ratio of around 16% compared to the Nordic countries where the tax to GDP ratio is around 50%. So i see no reason why this cannot be implemented.b. Universal social security nets: In India we have two government sponsored systems that are universal, i.e. where the beneficiary is not

The Wisdom of Ants would

have filled a critical gap in popular economic

literature at any juncture,

but is especially relevant today as economies

around the world struggle

to figure a way out of

the doggedly persistent slowdown

that affects them since the great financial

meltdown of 2008.


around the world struggle to figure a way out of the doggedly persistent slowdown that affects them since the great financial meltdown of 2008. It also puts into perspective for the present generation the continuous yet unresolved debate between demand-side and supply-side economists on the merits of a free market-driven economy versus one with active government intervention to resolve challenges related to inequality and social safety guarantees.

Almost as a corollary, it turns the spotlight on finding that very critical balance between growth and equality, between individual and social good and consequently, arriving at a more holistic measure of economic progress. The debate on the limitations of Gross Domestic Product as an indicator of economic well-being and its dominance in macroeconomic decision-making is traced from the earliest origins through various evolutions; many unique, easily-comprehensible analogies and examples bring out the layered dimensions of this persistent riddle.

Tracing the various contours and dimensions of economic inequality, the author highlights attempts across global economies to evolve satisfactory measures of welfare and integrate markets with such well-being. This opens up several interesting insights – such as the experience of Nordic economies that have met with a relatively high degree of success in fostering an environment that promotes private wealth creation while maintaining state machinery to enable effective distribution. Significantly in today’s world, this could form the basis of implementable solutions in countries where the benefits of high growth are dwarfed by immense challenges stemming from skewed wealth distribution.

Does the book provide any new or definite answers for the reader? Not really. But by holding up the historical evolution of these debates shorn of jargon, by elucidating the circumstances that led to their creation and the efforts so far to arrive at some form of consensus, it empowers the reader to distil certain fundamental realities and form his or her own opinion on the key economic questions of the day.

SataruPa Bhattacharya is a Bengaluru-based journalist.

BOOK REVIEW

Does the current economic situation in US or Europe or India have any resemblance to historical events? What lessons can today’s leaders draw from the past to solve it ? — Pavan Rao

Shankar Jaganathan:Rapid growth in the global GDP started only around the 18th century. In the three centuries that followed, we have faced recession, that has led to renewed debates in economics. In the 19th century it was between Jean Baptiste Say and Simone de Sismondi. In 20th century between Keynes and Hayek and in the 21st century following the 2008 economic crisis between the Salt water economists and the sweet water economists. I believe rapid growth in an economy can come only by feeding of the society. The growth will continue as along as there is someone to pay for it.Once a section of the society is impoverished to the extent that their life is threatned the entire economy collapses. This requires subsidies, incentives and stimulus for the society to revive before the economy can flourish. The relationship between an economy and its society is that of a parasite and host. For a parasite to thrive, the host must live. I have dealt with this aspect in the book in detail in chapter 8. Please do go though it and share your thinking.

(Excerpted with permission from IBNLive.com)

decided by any other criteria. They are supply of fuel like petrol and polio drops. Both these are well administered. In the Nordic countries basic social security measures like healthcare and education are also universal. I would like Indian citizens to evaluate the benefits of introducing universal social security nets for all citizens in India. This should be a matter of debate before it is implemented.c. The third suggestion is to look away from GDP growth as a measure of performance. Instead i propose that we measure the effectiveness of government by looking at the income that accrues to the bottom 20% of the population. This way we will focus not only on growth but also eliminate poverty hand in hand. All the three suggestions are i think implementable.

(Excerpted with permission from IBNLive.com)

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child abuse

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current level of population

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critical question