Refusing to learn

The provision of public facilities is,primarily,done by state governments. It is not just the bread-and-butter of governance: policing,roads,land laws. Welfare-scheme and accountability innovations also emerge at the state level. And state implementation is essential to the success of even the schemes conceptualised and pushed through at the Centre,such as,for example,the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the National Rural Health Mission.

Naturally,therefore,some states learn from each other. Madhya Pradesh learnt from Bihar’s new anti-corruption law,just as Bihar learnt from MP’s law guaranteeing timely access to public services. Gujarat learnt from Andhra Pradesh’s experience on financial inclusion,while everyone wants to learn from Chhattisgarh,the only state that somehow seems to have made India’s creaking public distribution system work. As conversation about policy spreads across our politics,this is a development that can only be welcomed. Yet,there exists absolutely no institutional mechanism by which these ideas can be monitored,shared and exchanged. It depends on political and bureaucratic initiative: a chance presentation at a conference in Delhi,a secretary in a state government surfing another state’s website. That is hardly a sustainable or an efficient way to promote the spread of innovation.

So why should this burgeoning of state-led innovation be ignored by our institutions? The answer lies in the attitude of the Centre — and,perhaps,in the peculiar nature of the Congress party’s discomfort with any form of state-level leadership. The Delhi focus of the UPA government has had several problematic effects on governance mechanisms of late. One is the simple fact that it is subverting its own national-level social-sector schemes by insisting that they be “branded” as Central,in the fear that,otherwise,state governments will take credit for them. Of course,this misses the actual remedy: making sure its own state governments are more efficient. In any case,we need a more structured dialogue among states and the Centre so that the exchange of ideas becomes less haphazard and partisan.

For that,the lead must come from the Centre,especially given the proposed expansion of entitlement schemes.