By Pradeep S Mehta
Narendra Modi may claim
that the intent behind his policies is good, but he must go
beyond this to good implementation
Perhaps one of the most intriguing statements by Narendra
Modi in his victory speech after the historic wins in the
Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand elections was, “We can make
mistakes, but our intentions are never wrong.” In effect, he
was urging the public to judge him on his intent rather than
actions. Given the election results, there is little doubt
that he has largely been able to convince the electorate.
The challenge now is to see how good intentions can be
operationalized.
Traditionally, government actions (or lack thereof) have
mostly been extensively researched, debated and judged by
outcomes. Is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) a failure or success? Was bank
nationalization necessary? Have our education and health
policies achieved the desired outcomes? Did the Agriculture
Produce and Marketing Committees meet their objectives? No
doubt, all these policies were well-intentioned, but
intention alone never mattered as much as this government
wants it to. In fact, it would be foolish for any government
to act without the best interests of the public in mind, and
this government is no exception.
The Modi government has adopted several well-intentioned
moves during its tenure. The most recent of these include
surgical strikes across the Line of Control, demonetization,
and pushing digitization, among others. Armed with
unparalleled communication skills, and with little time or
data to enable independent impact evaluation of government
policies, not to mention a listless opposition, Modi has
been successful in getting votes based on intent. The
strategy has been simple yet effective: Take an economically
risky decision; build a narrative of it being
well-intentioned, necessary, in the national interest and
reflective of a strong and decisive authority; exhort the
people to contribute to such a nation-building exercise;
strike an emotional chord in the process and get votes.
It has been suggested that emboldened by election wins, Modi
will aggressively push his reforms agenda. Difficult
decisions could be taken on important issues like benami
property, land acquisition, labour reforms, stressed assets,
job creation, farmer incomes, subsidy rationalization,
expanding use of Aadhaar, digital payments and ease of doing
business, among others. Fortunately, the goods and services
tax is on course for implementation from July 2017. This
narrative suits Modi as he is not afraid to take difficult
decisions. He may once again get the intent absolutely
perfect, yet the delivery may not be as good.
This seems to be a high possibility given Modi’s panache for
intent and political message. Already, his critics are
denouncing the way the demonetization, digitization, Jan
Dhan Yojana and Aadhaar linkages have been pushed in the
country. This is something that Modi would want to avoid at
all costs in light of his national status. The question then
is: Does Modi have the courage to go beyond headlines to
address implementation and sustainability-related concerns?
Is he ready to walk an extra mile to address the concerns of
those oft neglected? Will he hear his critics and be open to
course-correction, if need be?
Decision making on each of the issues mentioned above, and
several others, would require dealing with a complex set of
often conflicting interests. These include environmental and
sustainability concerns, rehabilitation and resettlement
issues, welfare of labour, rural inhabitants, and taking
into account the interests of small and medium enterprises.
Many of the existing problems have arisen owing to archaic
and complex policies, an ill-equipped bureaucracy, lack of a
coherent strategy, and process flaws in policy-making.
Dealing with these issues will require structural changes in
governance and administration, an area which might not make
headlines like other popular reforms initiated by Modi. To
truly make progress, the government will need to encourage
impartial impact assessment of initiatives like mandating
Aadhaar for social security schemes, Digital India, Make in
India and Startup India. It will also need to take a
long-term approach and introspect over its stand on issues
like citizen surveillance, privacy, data protection, and
consumer choice and protection.
Efficient decision making and effective implementation will
require Modi to go beyond governing by intent. A
comprehensive plan of action, outlining the objective of
government policy, stakeholders involved, estimated impact,
defining implementation, monitoring, compliance
responsibilities and fixing accountability of actors, will
need to be adopted. Such plans must be formulated after
efficient public consultation and taking into account the
concerns of diverse groups.
Process reforms like regulatory impact assessment, which
require estimating and comparison of costs and benefits of
policy and regulatory alternatives, will need to be
integrated into the policymaking process. Data and its
sources must be available for scrutiny in the public domain
and be open to independent review.
Most experts argue that Modi has already won the 2019
general election as he is set to be in government for a
decade, perhaps more. He has the opportunity to set the
direction for India for the next 50 years, and truly become
one of the country’s greats. He must not waste this
opportunity. While good intentions will be important, they
are not sufficient. It is time Modi realizes this and gets
his act together in implementation.
Pradeep S. Mehta is secretary general of CUTS International,
Jaipur.
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