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By Pradeep S Mehta
Need of the hour? Personal
attention and commitment of the chief minister is required
to check cynicism, corruption and chalta hai attitude
due to which many good ideas have suffered
All good things will happen only
when the bureaucracy delivers, works transparently and is
accountable. Many good ideas have suffered due to cynicism,
corruption and chalta hai attitude and that will
require the personal attention and commitment of the supremo,
the CM.
With the President assenting to
the labour law reforms proposed by Rajasthan, Vasundhara
Raje has become one of the leading lights for the country to
take forward not only the state’s economy, but also the
national economy. Among other forward looking measures, land
acquisition law is still to be amended, though many of the
state regulations around this have also been liberalised.
Credit for these reforms must
also go to Rajiv Mehrishi, former chief secretary, but his
successor too is a gung-ho reformer. Unlike Mehrishi who has
had good experience of finance, CS Rajan, the new chief
secretary, has deeper hands-on experience in infrastructure
sectors. This will come handy in pushing infra reforms which
too are an imperative part of the growth agenda. Without
good and reliable power supply, all-weather motorable roads
etc job creation and poverty eradication will not progress
at the desirable speed.
The target of many of these
reforms is not just for business, but also the people
directly and indirectly. The recent stupendous success in
municipal elections exhibited a strong support for the
government and its reform policies. For example labour law
reforms. If the number of workers in a unit cannot be a
limiting factor for business to avoid stricter norms, it
will lead to more formalisation of informal and small units,
a bane for our country. We cannot achieve the scale which is
necessary to be competitive. The increasing productivity
would mean more jobs, rather than less.
Politically, the government made
a mistake when increasing the number of employees from 100
to 300 to allow units to shut down their plants (without
seeking prior approval) was to simultaneously announce and
implement an effective scheme for retraining and
re-employment of retrenched workers. This is the standard
practice in countries where ‘hire and fire’ are easy and
thus opposition is muted. Perhaps, this can still be adopted
even if the thought is coming late.
Speaking about training,
particularly of the youth, one of problems was that
factories did not want to take on apprentices due to the
fear of getting stuck with them as regular employees. Thus
our skill development campaign also suffered. One of the
best ways to skill the youth is hands on training like in
the jewellery, vehicle repair and many other trades rather
than through training institutes which often cannot provide
the real life situation. The Apprenticeship Act at the
central level is also under revision so that the scale of
training in running establishments can be expanded.
Another area which is crying for
reforms is the agriculture sector on which the state has not
been able to devote the desired attention. Bits and pieces
of reforms are going on but it also needs some bold
measures, so that we can provide more employment to our
youth in the rural economy and try and arrest urban
migration. The landholdings are small and to allow scale
operations the Agriculture Produce Marketing Act was amended
to inter alia allow contract farming.
Rajasthan is doing alright but
that too needs to push under our investment promotion
strategy, so as to invite more money into the sector.
Another distortion which the APMC causes is the low
realisation by farmers and higher prices for consumers.
People at both the ends suffer at the hands of exploitative
middlemen. In fact Bihar has scrapped the law entirely while
Rajasthan has modified it. It need not follow the Bihar
Model, but amend it to free the farmers from the clutches of
the trade.
On the other hand Rajasthan has
scrapped the Planning Board which is wrong. Since it did not
function as envisaged, it decided to cut off the head to
cure the headache. Rather it should have found the correct
medicines and tonic to reshape and retool it. Instead it has
set up an advisory council to the CM, but one cannot ignore
the value of planning which can take a holistic view of all
activities and also engage in perspective planning and
scenario building.
The advisory council, which
comprises of visiting members from all over the country and
abroad but none from state, cannot do it as effectively.
Even the Centre has scrapped the Planning Commission but is
in an active process of establishing a lean think tank in
partnership with states which can do the holistic planning
work with the aid of universities, research institutions and
civil society organisations like CUTS. The state planning
board needs to be revived as a lean body with specialists
which can do the work better than what is being attempted
currently. There is no substitute for planning. It cannot be
left to the babus, who are otherwise engaged in
myriad activities running their departments.
One very good step taken by
government is to look into public private partnerships (PPPs)
to do many things, including building infrastructure with an
ambitious agenda of building roads. Roads, particularly
rural roads, are so critical for the hinterland to
participate in the growth process. It is only then that the
aam admi in the village can aim to better their
living standards. But to design and run PPPs in the state
with the help of a demonstrated highly negative and
garrulous person as adviser is fraught with hiccups and
failures.
So much about the ups and downs
of some plans in state. Another project which the state has
launched can also be a game changer for state—and the whole
country—to assist the poor and disadvantaged. That is the
Bhama Shah Yojana of helping women to gain a better status
in their lives. It needs more publicity, because it has been
inadvertently compared with the Aadhar yojana. The
difference is like between chalk and cheese. While Bhama
Shah scheme will provide ID cards only to targeted
beneficiaries, the Aadhar card, open to all, is useful for
many other purposes. In spite of initial criticism, the Modi
government has realised value of Aadhar and is promoting it
vigorously.
While many of the reforms in the
state and the country, appear to be pro-business, many are
pro-poor. Pro-business reforms capture more media attention
because of the nature of the scheme and power of the
beneficiaries. On the other hand pro-poor schemes do not get
the same space or debate, beneficiaries are granularly
dissipated and thus not noticed by people.
Finally, all good things will
happen only when the bureaucracy delivers, transparently and
is accountable. Many good ideas have suffered due to
cynicism, corruption and chalta hai attitude and that
will require the personal attention and commitment of the
supremo, the chief minister.
The writer is Secretary General,
CUTS International. The views expressed are personal
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