YASHWANTRAO CHAVAN ACADEMY OF DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
Comments on the findings of the First Independent Review of BRGF by
the World Bank and the associated general issues
1)
Viability of BRGF funding for bridging the infrastructure gap: The Bank has
observed that BRGF may not be able to make a dent on the infrastructure gap. BRGF
constitutes only 0.4% of the GoI budget and yet its share in the discretionary funds
received by PRIs is in the range of 50-90%. This clearly reflects an extreme poverty
of discretionary funding to the local governments. Apart from Central funding, it may
be necessary for the States to seriously think of providing discretionary funds to PRIs
/ ULBs. Currently, the State funding to the local governments is entirely tied (with
some exceptions in some States). One option is to strengthen the budgetary share of
District Plan Schemes (on the lines of Maharashtra) and make it mostly untied for
PRIs, ULBs and DPCs. But even in Maharashtra, currently the size of District Plan
Schemes is only Rs. 2500 Crores compared to the State Plan worth Rs. 37000 Crores.
Further, even this tiny proportion of district plan funds is mostly tied to a
predetermined menu of district schemes.
Suggestions:
i)
It is time to seriously think towards a consolidated fund of a district, a
reasonable part of which could be discretionary / untied.
ii)
Apart from Central funding like BRGF & NREGA, it is necessary for the
States to pass on more discretionary funds to districts – may be through
increasing the share of District Plan Schemes in the State budget.
iii)
There must be a system of consolidating district’s own revenues, which
currently get fragmented across PRIs, ULBs, revenue administration, etc.
iv)
The district credit plan and the sources of private / bilateral / international
funding could be merged with the district fund.
v)
MLA / MP funds could also be consolidated into the district fund.
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vi)
The common pool of discretionary / untied funds of a district could therefore
include the funding from BRGF, NREGA, Central Finance Commission, State
Finance Commission, District Plan Schemes, MP / MLA funds, District Credit
Plan, district’s share of own revenues, private / bilateral funding, etc.
vii)
Additionally, the district level budgets for capacity building, InformationEducation-Communication
(IEC),
community
mobilization,
awareness
creation, etc., available under the various programmes of the Centre / States
could be pooled into the district fund and a common strategy of IEC / capacity
building could be drawn up. This will save a huge amount of repetition of
efforts and wastage of funds on account of disconcerted efforts of different
departments besides also striking a better convergence of programmes.
viii)
It is necessary to fully appreciate the fact that ‘gap-filling’ is a generic
approach / strategy and not a specific budget category. In this sense, the
approach of BRGF can, and should, be extended to all other discretionary /
untied funding available in the district. This will make BRGF a ‘viable
approach’ to bridging of infrastructure gap.
2)
Participatory and integrated planning: The viability of BRGF as bridging grant is
further marred by a lack of genuine participatory planning, which prevents its
integration with other sector outlays. True bottom-up planning is a great rarity even
within the individual sectors / programmes. It is extremely unusual to come across
CDAP or NREGA plans (or any sector plans for that matter) that have followed a
genuinely participatory process. Integrated planning can happen only at the lowest
spatial levels such as villages / urban wards through a common participatory process
encompassing various programmes such as NREGA, CDAP, SSA, NRHM, etc.,
which can then converge on key gaps to be filled through BRGF. Though the
Integrated District Planning Manual has clearly mentioned the need for a common
process of planning the message has not traveled through the government machinery
as yet. Different sectors / departments follow their own ad-hoc schedules of planning.
Even if genuine participatory processes get initiated, by chance or exception, it soon
becomes botheration to communities because different programme machineries
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approach the communities turn by turn to organize PRAs. In absence of the
fundamental elements of decentralization and integrated planning, a gap-filling fund
like BRGF can potentially pose a disaster. Ill equipped, the local governments as well
as line departments can see great convenience and escape in dumping more and more
needs into BRGF. Sectors can start shrugging off their respective responsibilities and
try to hide behind BRGF. Thus, BRGF can eventually emerge as ‘super sector’ and
‘super scheme’ overwhelming all existing sector outlays.
Suggestions:
i)
The Centre as well as States should issue directions to all districts to have a
common time table annually for the community level participatory process of
planning. Once integrated grampanchayat / municipal ward plans are ready,
then the further task of sector wise consolidation, scrutiny and resource
allocation can happen at the convenience of respective sectors / departments
subject to the overall schedule of DPC planning. However, a common and
synchronous process of community level participatory planning remains a
fundamental condition.
ii)
The technical support structures and other related machineries of different
line departments should be pooled together to support the common planning
process at the community level.
3)
Capacity building: Participatory and integrated processes of community-based
planning remain the crux of BRGF in particular and district planning in general. The
conceptual perspectives, methodologies, operational strategies and skill-sets required
for making this a reality have been hitherto unknown in the top-down paradigm of
planning in India. Most State / local governments are clueless on how to go about this
aspect. Unfortunately, even many SIRDs and State training institutes are not well
equipped to do the right kind of capacity building to facilitate tru participative
planning at the lowest spatial levels. The cascade model of training consisting of a
hierarchy of master trainers only facilitates great dilution and distortion of the whole
training process. A lack of innovation in the conventional ‘classroom approach’ to
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training acts as a repellent on PRI / ULB members who cannot stand the long hours of
information bombardment through poor lectures from the under-skilled trainers. The
real needs of capacity building never get addressed because there is a permanent
disconnect between training and actual planning processes on ground. Most SIRDs
themselves need a complete overhaul to be able to take on the challenge of capacity
building in the realm of decentralization.
Suggestions:
i)
Considering the enormous volumes of funds being spent (and largely wasted)
on poorly designed and administered training / capacity building activities not
only under BRGF but under an arena of other sector programmes involving
bottom-up planning – it may be worth setting up ‘Regional Centres of
Excellence in Decentralization’ to act as support systems to SIRDs and other
State / regional / local training institutions involved in the capacity building of
ground level functionaries of districts / PRIs / ULBs.
ii)
All States (including SIRDs) need to be directed to draw up a common
strategy of training / capacity building to support the common process of
community based participatory planning as suggested earlier. There is no
logic in organizing one set of trainings under NREGA, the other under BRGF
and yet another under TSC - all talking about the same PRA activities at the
village level. In this way the training / capacity building budgets available
under different sectors could also be pooled together. Apart from Central
funds for training / capacity building the huge IEC budgets available with the
State departments could also be pooled into a common strategy so as to
optimize the resources availability for training / capacity building.
iii)
The training should be increasingly hands-on and process based. The training
modules on integrated village planning developed in Maharashtra are such
that a five-day process of participatory planning actually gets carried out
during the training itself. This means that there could be a common process,
and therefore a common budget, for both capacity building and actual
planning as far as the lowest spatial levels, i.e., villages and urban wards are
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concerned. Though the sector wise consolidation activities at higher levels
will have to be supported by a different strategy of training involving more
sector-specific inputs.
4)
Delays in fund flows / transfers: Routing purely discretionary funds meant for local
governments through the State machineries constitutes a fundamental paradox. If
BRGF funds are discretionary then why the States have a control over their flow to
the local governments? The same question also applies to the role of HPCs in
sanctioning / approving BRGF plans.
Suggestion: It would be thus necessary to explore the ways of direct fund transfers to
the local governments even if that requires a Constitutional Amendment. Otherwise,
BRGF is destined to end up as ‘yet another’ outlay with precisely the same handicaps
as those faced by the existing non-discretionary / tied outlays.
5)
Programme management: Thinking of an isolated programme management
framework for BRGF is yet another paradox of a fundamental nature. Adding
hierarchies of BRGF functionaries to an already existing mess of sector hierarchies
will only worsen the problem of mismanagement of programmes and will add to the
chaos.
Suggestions:
i)
If BRGF is to bridge gaps in the outcomes of various sector programmes then
it follows logically that there has to be a common programme management
framework under the district planning as a whole. Under this common
framework the outcomes assessment of sector programmes should provide
regular feed-back to BRGF so that the key gap get identified and bridged.
Again such an integrated framework must begin at the lowest spatial units,
i.e., villages and urban wards. There are tested ways of setting up community
based participatory mechanisms of programme management and monitoring
that culminate into periodic social audits.
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ii)
Once the necessary integration and convergence in programme management
is achieved at the community level then it will automatically flow upwards to
create bridges across the sector machineries.
iii)
Under BRGF it is more crucial to think of linking together the sector wise
programme machineries including the technical support structures rather
than singing the same old tune of inadequate staff and unfilled vacancies.
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