Narendra Modi is praised for his administrative innovations in Gujarat; no one remembers Digvijay Singh, who made equally successful experiments in Madhya Pradesh in the 1990s. The Congress removed him from chief ministership and brought in the considerably inferior Ajit Jogi, and consequently lost the state to BJP. Digvijay Singh came to Delhi and served the Congress establishment loyally but to no purpose. It was a political tragedy. This column was published in Business Standard of 3 June 2002.
DIGVIJAY SINGH'S EXPERIMENTS
Seetha went to interview Digvijay
Singh and found, to her surprise, that he was a liberal. Hearing that, the
Indian Liberal Group asked him to give a lecture, and made C R Irani the
chairman. What an irony! Indira Gandhi has a demonic image in the liberal
pantheon; Rajiv Gandhi is known as a liberal without guts. And here was one of
their devotees giving a lecture in the name of Minoo Masani.
Diggy Raja took a dig at the
liberals, saying there was too much stress on liberalization, and too little on
reforms in governance. Liberals are all in favour of the free markets and the
minimal state, but however minimal, the government had unavoidable functions.
These functions were being ill served by our governments; that is where reforms
were necessary. He described some that he had tried out.
First, he tried to realize
Rajiv’s vision. Rajiv created the third tier of government, with the intention
of transferring those functions that most touched the common man to gram panchayats.
Then he found that panchayats were being captured by sarpanches; every sarpanch
tried to build up a little empire. So now he is trying to breathe life into the
community self-help groups. Thus he decreed that any community with more than
40 children could get a school within 90 days. Within 18 months, 26000 schools
came up, with 18 lakh students; 47 per cent of them were from scheduled castes
and tribes. These grant schools could engage their own teachers; as a result,
they got better education at a lower cost. Against the salary of Rs 8000-10000
a month in government schools, they paid Rs 1000; and if a teacher did not turn
up or did not teach properly, they could dismiss him.
Then he created a village
education campaign: 5-15 illiterates could come together and engage their own
teacher, and the government would pay for him. In 2000, 217000 such groups came
up, and 3 million people were made literate. Madhya Pradesh achieved a rise of
20 per cent in literacy I the 1990s. Today, literacy in Madhya Pradesh is
higher than in neighbouring Andhra, and male literary is higher than in Punjab
and Haryana.
Raj Narain, when he was health
minister in the Janata government in the 1970s, had set up a scheme for
barefoot doctors in the country; it was forgotten the day he stepped down. Now
Digvijay Singh has created barefoot doctors in MP. Doctors were upset, but he
told them that they did not want to go and work in villages, so quacks
flourished; he wanted to replace them with trained quacks. So he arranged for village
youths to be given three months’ training in primary health care, and to be
able to stock and sell non-scheduled drugs. By now, 18000 have been trained.
Then he turned over government
hospitals to communities, and gave them the authority to decide and levy
charges, with the proviso that if a patient said he could not pay, he would be
treated free without further questions; payments were entirely voluntary. Now
the same hospitals are providing health care at 25-30 per cent of market rates.
Their X-ray machines never worked; their technicians got a cut on patients sent
to private facilities outside. So he gave them an incentive, and the machines
began to work.
Irrigation facilities were handed
over to elected water users’ associations; watershed committees were given
funds to spend. As a result, productivity has improved. There was a proposal to
build a reservoir near Ratlam for Rs 15 million; local villagers came and said
they could build it for half as much. They finished it in 9 months to standards
set by PWD engineers. Every stage in public construction raises costs by 25-20
per cent on account of bribes; so the cost easily doubles. Now Digvijay Singh
thinks that the PWD should only give out tenders; the detailed project report,
the work and its supervision should all be contracted out.
The central government is
prepared to give foodgrains to the poor at throwaway prices. Andhra is using
such foodgrains on a large scale in public employment programmes. Digvijay
Singh’s approach is different. He thinks money is the culprit. Under the old
feudal system, labourers were paid in kind. They are still handicapped by lack
of money: however cheap the grains, the poorest have not the money to buy them.
So he has arranged grain banks, from which poor people can withdraw grain
during lean months.
Villagers of MP may be unused to
money; Digvijay Singh is not. Sixty per cent of the state’s revenue goes into
salaries; another 18 per cent goes to interest, leaving very little for
development. The situation will get worse; government servants are living too
long, and pensions will exceed salaries in 12 years’ time. So in 1994 he abolished
20000 posts of daily wagers. After re-election he issued a white paper
explaining why it was necessary to reduce the strength of the civil service. All
departments other than education and health were asked to reduce their strength
by a third; these posts will be abolished, and not be filled when the
incumbents retire. Now appointments are being made on terminable contracts. Even
elected politicians are terminable in MP; the people have a right to recall
members of municipal corporations and panchayats. Only two were recalled. In
one case the member lost his seat for corruption. In the other one, the mayor
convinced the electors that she had stopped the corruption of the corporators
and that they had ganged up against her; she retained her seat.
How does Digvijay Singh know all
this? For one week in the year, he sends off his officers into villages; every
single village in the state is visited. There they have to collect information
in a set questionnaire. They also have to ask for and listen to complaints and
report them. Thus once a year, Digvijay Singh gets up-to-date information on
how his experiments are faring. And as a test check, he himself takes off in a helicopter
every day during the week and drops down randomly in villages, and listens to
the people.
Amongst others, Digvijay Singh
wants to guarantee people their cultural freedom. He thinks there is enormous
cultural diversity amongst the minorities, Hindu, Muslim and other, which the
communalists are trying to destroy. Hindutva is cultural terrorism. After the
Gujarat riots, thousands of Gujarati hooligans were trying to invade villages
in Ratlam district and attack Muslims; Digvijay Singh sent police to thwart
them, and stopped the carnage at the border.
And one more thing. I did not see
the horde of obsequious hangers-on around Digvijay Singh that is the sign of an
important politician in this country. He had a guard and a couple of
companions; that was all.
