Rural socioeconomic growth and welfare have been on the Indian government’s agenda since Independence. Numerous policies and programmes have been initiated. Success is visible in many health and educational institutions as well as agriculture productivity, rural development and many citizen welfare measures.

But we are also familiar with abysmal learning achievement levels in government schools, sub-standard healthcare and disappointing outcomes of development initiatives. Though much has been achieved, crippling failures have blocked a true rural renaissance.

These failures are embedded in the style of grassroots governance that exists today – the ‘field administration’ responsible for implementation. That includes frontline organisations and personnel such as schools, police stations and patwaris, as well as district and block-level organisations that manage them. While this all provides a range of services, critical fault lines in the structure, in human resources and ways of working limit the impact.

The structure of field administration constrains its capacity to respond to contextual needs and take coordinated action. With the exception of very few states, local governments or panchayats are disempowered, lacking funds and decision-making powers to identify and address contextual needs. Instead, 30 to 40 departments have separate field offices that implement their own rigid programmes and provide services, and function fairly autonomously.

As the number of departmental organisations is large, each has very limited manpower. Yet, multiple skills, such as technical knowledge, planning and management, community mobilization and education, financial knowledge and at times legal expertise to implement programmes and provide service. But a large number of organizations cannot provide all these skills and the quality of service delivery suffers.

Further, many grassroots organisations have very inadequate staff. For example, in Anganwadi centres, one Anganwadi worker and a helper address malnourishment and health of children under the age of six and mothers, provide preschool education, and conduct activities related to adolescent girls, domestic violence etc. Not surprisingly, studies show that preschool education is often neglected in Anganwadi centres. This problem is exacerbated by a large number of vacancies in several states.

Source: The First Post