Patricia Mukhim
It was in 2012 at Polo Grounds when the Aquaculture Mission was first launched that we first heard of the word “denatured fish” and from none other than the State Chief Minister, Mukul Sangma, who also asserted that Meghalaya would soon become self sufficient in fish production because several fish farmers have come up to avail the scheme under the Aquaculture Mission. Now five years down the line, the only time we get to buy fish from these fish farmers is when there is an annual one-day carnival at the State Central Library. The rest of the year we are condemned to rely on Andhra Pradesh fish, which we are told is laden with preservatives. The Meghalaya Fish Sellers Association can deny that the fish are preserved in chemicals but it is for the food inspectors employed by the Government (sometimes you wonder what they do, other than pushing files in their offices) to tell us we are not consuming poison or how much of it is permissible in the human system. So here’s a well-intended (one hopes so) programme that has interestingly unintended consequences- fishing as a gambling game with high stakes. This has to be Meghalaya’s forte and it should in all fairness enter the Guinness Book of World Records.
Every Government announces programmes with much fanfare and each one has a noble objective of solving some crisis, except that this never happens. The problems remain or are exacerbated. Now let us take the poverty alleviation programme launched by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) under the nomenclature of North-East Region Community Resource Management project first implemented in two most backward districts each of Meghalaya, Assam and Manipur. In Meghalaya the project worked in West Khasi Hills and West Garo Hills. West Khasi Hills was then the most backward district of Meghalaya but you wonder why West Garo Hills was chosen when even today, South Garo Hills is the most poverty stricken and least developed region of Garo Hills. But the project holders have their explanations. Now how is extreme poverty measured? According to Jeffrey Sachs, the clinical economist would make a set of poverty maps using available data or newly commissioned household surveys, GIS data, national income vis-à-vis state incomes data and other information such as what proportion of households live in extreme poverty; how many lack access to basic needs in schooling, health care, water and sanitation, electricity, roads, nutrition etc. Also important to know is the spatial distribution of poverty. Is poverty mainly rural or urban? If it is concentrated in one or two districts what are the reasons for that? How is poverty related to the demographic conditions of the household (male or female headed household, number of children, health of household members) and to it’s asset ownership and economic activities (landless poor, small-holding farmer, commerce, industry etc).
While mapping poverty the clinical economist should identity key risk factors that may exacerbate poverty in the coming years. What are the demographic factors (births, deaths internal and external migration) that may affect the numbers and distribution of the extreme poor? What environmental shocks and trends (deforestation, land degradation, erosion of water aquifers or their privatization as is happening in Meghalaya, biodiversity loss) might impinge on poverty? What climate shocks and extreme weather events are likely to affect public health, disease and agricultural productivity? Are there changes in infectious disease incidence and prevalence that might affect the state economy?
Let us say that the IFAD specialists listed all the above data and also set up guidelines on how the project is to be implemented. But who finally executes the project is the fundamental question. If you get people from the Government which is bureaucracy ridden and is clueless about social mobilization (because civil servants do not know how to strike conversations with people) then the project is bound to fail. If you take development specialists from the market the problem is that they soon become mere ‘employees’ and quickly introduce their own bureaucracies into the system. This is what has happened with the IFAD-NERCORMP project now taken over by the North Eastern Council (NEC). It is coincidental too that all CEOs of the project except the first one are from the Manipur cadre. Appointing a bureaucrat as project head is designed for failure and I will list out the reasons why.
Bureaucrats are trained to believe they belong to an elite service. They cannot work with people, especially the poor and the unwashed. Those who join the service hoping to actually serve people are soon disenchanted and leave the service. Aruna Roy, Banker Roy and Harsh Mander are good examples of bureaucrats who have transformed societies after they left the service. There might be others I don’t know of. The problem with the bureaucracy is that it is a self serving elite club that lacks creativity and innovation. After a time, bureaucrats as Harry E Teasley says find it more profitable for themselves to maintain the problem at all costs because ‘the problem’ is the basis of their power, perks, privileges and security! If a problem is solved why would anyone need bureaucrats? Bureaucrats are a part of the political economy, so the tougher the problems the more resources are devoted to it and bureaucrats pretend to fix the problems but actually make them worse. This is because maintaining the problem creates a dependency syndrome and allows the bureaucrat to spend lavishly and, seemingly endlessly on new government programs and employees. Interestingly with each new programme many more bureaucrats are hired. If this is not self serving then what else is! And there is absolutely no accountability for failure despite the fact that many programmes have failed to deliver the intended outcomes.
Hence bureaucrats love crisis or perceived crisis because it increases their power and control. And if there are not enough crises then they manufacture them. In doing so the control of information is important even while bureaucrats feign openness. Then whenever caught on the wrong foot the first reaction is to deny, delay, obfuscate, spin and lie; all in that order.
Also that a civil servant is referred to as a ‘career bureaucrat’ is in itself problematic. History has proven that “career bureaucrats” do much more harm than good because in the end it only means knowing how to pull strings in Delhi or in the state with favoured politicians and getting their own things done. This is the dark underbelly of the bureaucratic beast.
The NERCORMP-IFAD project has worked in Meghalaya, Assam and Manipur for a considerable period now. Is it not time for an independent research on (a) whether poverty has decreased since the time the project started? (b) Has landlessness gone down? (c) Have common property resources such as forests, water bodies been reclaimed? (d) Is access to health now better? (e) Are children able to access education better? (f) Have people been able to buy back land they have lost in a distress sale? (g) Are the roads better and farmers better linked to the markets? (h) Are the self help groups created ten years ago still doing well or have they disintegrated? (i) Have some from the group become empowered enough to access bank loans? (j) Are the nutritional statuses of pregnant and lactating mothers better today? (k) Are there cases of Vitamin deficiencies among children? (l) Is deforestation addressed? (m) Are rivers clean and pristine and do they support riverine life? (n) What biodiversity gains have been made or have we lost more of our indigenous herbs and vegetables? These are only a few questions. There can be more. And we need an independent monitoring and evaluation agency to do this because it is never a good idea to be accompanied by project staff to a project village. Collusion is inevitable! The monitoring agency can be given the co-ordinates and they can do their own investigation. Alas! Most projects have their favourite evaluators and what happens at the end is a quid pro quo!
The NEC owes it to the people of the region and to itself to get independent evaluators to go into the IFAD project which has now become a humumgous bureaucracy steeped in corruption. We need to know if the project has achieved its deliverables. If it has failed it should be discontinued. It cannot carry on only to maintain the huge bureaucracy it has built over the years!
The bane of Indian democracy is such that while politicians with a range of pathological deformities can be thrown out every five years the bureaucracy is not evaluated. We are yet to find out if the promotion of any bureaucrat is held up for inefficiency. The Annual Confidential Report is a big hoax. If I may venture to state then Indian democracy’s biggest impediment is it so-called steel frame – a frame that protects bureaucrats from all wrongdoings and breeds inefficiency!