Shift focus from input to outcome

Punjab’s economy is on the brink. Its leadership is caught in a bind. The state is on a suicidal path. All observations are being made without question marks and substantiated with selective facts. Undoubtedly, Punjab is in debt, its agricultural growth rate is stagnant, and its per capita income has been declining. It has been unable to diversify agriculture, with farmers’ suicides as a visible indicator of distress farming. Even the social development index is dismal with low quality human development marked with widespread female foeticide, drug abuse and alcoholism. These selective facts do not help to make an assessment of current well-being and sustainability aspects of growth trajectory and leads to wrong policy decisions.

Governance is the rule of the game. The problem within governance is that the rules are archaic. Metaphorically speaking, the game of basketball is being played with ‘kabaddi’ rules. Consequently, rules have been overtly violated and the system has been rendered non-functional. However, we are consistent with our prescriptions even at the expense of being redundant.

Equity over growth

In Punjab, the Green Revolution was marketed as a powerful engine of growth and two decades later the champions of the revolution discovered that it has led to environmental disaster; their prescription was crop diversification. Thereafter, they remained consistent with prescription of diversification of crops. Much has happened – the country has moved away from command economy to market economy, from food as a dole to right to food, local to global – but these policy planners remained virtuously consistent. As of now, Punjab could not diversify to cash crops and become globally competitive by specialising in food grains.

The need was rather to diversify the economy by a large inter-sectoral shift to high productivity flexible agriculture, to move away from anti-grain policies and promote a decentralised modern small-scale industrial complex.

Boost small-scale industry

Punjab has a historical advantage in terms of small-scale industries in places such as Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Mandi Gobindgarh and Batala. It is unfortunate that public policy has not paid much attention to these traditional industries in terms of technology transfer, skill upgrade, marketing and maintenance of environmental standards. If “Lijjat Papad” can have a high turnover, why “Amritsari Papad” (a known brand) has not been able to capture the market? Punjab should concentrate on industries where it has comparative advantage, i.e., agro foods, textile, automobile, leather and hand tools.

Fiscal health hang-up

Similarly, the role of the government is tied down to the fiscal health of the state. To formulate policies by using fiscal deficit as a main guiding principle distorts the vision and leads to a drift from peoples’ welfare needs. Interestingly, as part of the fetish to cut fiscal deficit in 2004-05, the government came out with a scheme to contract untrained teachers from the same village to reduce government expenditure on schoolteachers’ salary. As a consequence, quality of teaching deteriorated further. While the education system was required to impart quality education, the policy planners focused on fiscal health.

Another example of fiscal mismanagement is power subsidy to farmers. It is argued that this is not productive for the fiscal health of the state. Undoubtedly, there is a need to rationalise these subsidies in the background of the environmental challenges from the rice-wheat crop cycles. Needless to mention, the agriculture sector needs support, but is power subsidy the best way to support it. That is a question that needs to be answered transparently. Subsides are given as doles instead of promoting equity, productivity and competitiveness. It is more of a governance issue.

From economic gain to social

There is gap between economic gains and social outcomes. Punjab could not transform its vast enterprising human resource into an asset, with decline in education expenditure from 23 per cent in the early Eighties to 16 per cent (2012-13).

Education quality

On access to primary education, Punjab was ranked 18th, and on teachers at 15th position among states. Its performance on educational outcomes was ranked 19th out of 35 states and Union Territories.

Yet, the cost of education is higher as compared to other states. In government schools in rural areas, it is Rs 2,413 and in urban it is Rs 6,559, while the all-India average is Rs 1,037 in rural and Rs 3,473 in urban areas. Private education is exorbitantly priced too. In private-aided schools, the average total per head expenses in rural areas is Rs 18,135 and in urban Rs 15,717. Whereas, the all-India average in rural areas is Rs 4,001 and in urban Rs 7,504.

Consequently, the quality of education has deteriorated and most of the educated youth, particularly rural, have remained unemployable in Punjab. They do not prefer to revert to farming and, consequently, drift towards drug addiction or attempt immigration abroad, even if illegally.

Nothing without health

In the health sector, Punjab ranked 12th in terms of per capita government expenditure (Rs 259) during 2012, but the per capita expenditure on public health, i.e., water and sanitation, is low. Health outcomes in terms of disease prevalence is high as compared to the national average. This requires a strategy to re-orient public health priorities with a focus on sanitation, cleanliness and better waste and garbage management strategies.

The government caters to only 18 per cent of household expenditure on health. For the poor, the unregulated private sector is financially debilitating, unreliable in cost, and the service is provided for profit rather than care as the guiding factor. There are a range of service providers from quacks to private hospitals, but there are no norms to measure good quality medical services and minimum standards and requirements of hospitals, nursing homes and multi-speciality health care units. There is a need to bring in a “health care regulatory Act” to make registration of private medical establishments compulsory; to make public charges payable for different medical treatments and services; to list with a committee the names of the government doctors and paramedical staff working in private establishments; and to maintain and open for inspection clinical records relating to treatment and procedures for patients.

Inclusive governance

There is a need to evolve innovative modes to make the Scheduled Castes part of the socio-economic and political mainstream. The traditional skills of plumbing, carpentry, masonry, etc., need to be upgraded with modern technical education. A large population engaged in these occupations can be integrated into formal technical diploma and degree courses to upgrade their skills and social status enhancement.

Engaging citizen

With new policy perspective, a number of process and procedural changes have to be incorporated in governance reforms. Performance audit has to be loaded in favour of citizen-centric engaged governance. The postings and transfers have become a kind of industry to share spoils and to wield extra-constitutional powers. There is an urgent need to have a ‘placement policy’ instead of a ‘transfer policy’. Not only this, the government employees have to bribe their own colleagues to get medical reimbursement, pensionary benefits, ex-India leave, etc. There is a need to change procedures and rules to liberate employees from their own shackles.

From a citizen’s perspective, there is a need for major reforms to make the police SHO, patwari, tehsildar, or the district transport officer accountable. Because of their collusion with politicians, they have risen above the law. It is high time that ad-hoc prescriptions like farmer debt redemption, compensation for committing suicides; free drug de-addiction treatment, etc, should be replaced by making farming profitable, and productive engagement of youth to wean them away from drug addiction, etc. Political parties should stop playing politics with issues like farmer suicides, drug addiction, unemployment, poor health and education facilities and build political consensus to eradicate these evils.

The writer is Director, Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), Chandigarh