Transforming Policy Implementation

The importance of constructive criticism lies in strengthening democracy and the governments
performance. Independent evaluation of government initiatives helps in identifying the key
challenges and thus improving implementation.

Mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation:

Governments in the past have devised different mechanisms to facilitate monitoring and evaluation.

An independent evaluation office was set up under the earlier regime but wound up after
this government assumed office.

The development monitoring and evaluation office at NITI Aayog is currently responsible for
monitoring and impact evaluation of centrally funded programmes.

Monitoring by NITI Aayog:

The NITI Aayog is engaged in outcome-based monitoring with states in sectors such as healthcare,
education and water supply.

It is now mooting the idea of ranking each state based on health, education and water index, and
identifying champion states. For instance, it has developed a composite water management index,
comprising several key performance indicators, with different weights assigned to indicators. This is
expected to incentivise states to collect data and analyse it to make better policies.

This approach of measuring and monitoring progress through ranking and encouraging competition
among states is akin to the approach adopted in promoting ease of doing business reforms.

Issue:

Interaction with key stakeholders in different states suggests that owing to self-ranking by
states sans independent review, reforms remain mostly on paper with key concerns
remaining unaddressed.

Moreover, such approach might result in a race to the bottom, as legitimate beneficiaries
get excluded by lowering of targets. The vision at the top level of polity and bureaucracy is
unable to percolate to the middle and entry levels, resulting in limited change on the
ground.

Consequently, such approach of self-ranking and comparing needs to be viewed with caution.

Transforming implementation is the need of the hour:

Independent monitoring and evaluation is important but not sufficient to ensure the success of
policy reforms. It aids in identifying implementation-related challenges but falls short of
transforming implementation, which is the need of the hour. The government needs to realize that a
business-as-usual approach will work no more.

A comprehensive strategy to transform implementation required:

 Working with key stakeholders to identify implementation-related challenges and design
solutions is required.

A rigorous independent ex-ante and ex-post assessment of solutions is necessary.

Experts suggest that significant improvement in the ability to implement policies and projects in the
states, cities, and at the centre can considerably add to citizens well-being and could even add
about 2-3% to the countrys gross domestic product (GDP), without any additional resources.

Impediments to implementation:

Capacity constraints

Inadequate resources

Lack of incentives to perform

No disincentives for non-performance

Absence of policy and regulatory clarity among others.

Way ahead:

Identifying impediments is a tough ask. To this end, NITI Aayog could leverage available local
skills for providing independent inputs and feedback.

NITI Aayog will need to design customized solutions depending on the impediment. For
instance, a policy or regulatory bottleneck could require regulatory impact assessment to
identify superior regulatory alternatives; convincing incumbents and potential losers for
reform could require implementation of transformation change methodology; and
customized training could be needed to deal with capacity constraints.

There could be vertical and horizontal coordination challenges which would require NITI
Aayog to act as catalyst to enhance implementation capabilities and improving outcomes,
rather than merely measuring them.

Further, data plays a key role in identifying causes and designing solutions. Agencies
grappling with implementation should not be burdened with additional responsibilities of
data collection and analysis. Independent agencies could be engaged to collect granular data
and design different scenarios.

Conclusion:

It is high time that NITI Aayog realizes that it needs to metamorphose into an organization which can
transform implementation of policy reforms in the country. It should be in a position to garner
available independent expertise and capacity to objectively analyse specific governance or
development challenges in a non-partisan manner, and design and implement solutions at different
levels of governance. Over time, it must create a repository of best practices for dealing with
implementation challenges, based on case studies from around the world. This strategy can aid NITI
Aayog to achieve its objective of transforming India.
Maharashtra first state to have law against social
boycott
Introduction:
All Indians are equal, but some Indians have always believed that they are more equal than
others. It is this belief that has been at the root of the caste-, gender- and religion-based
discrimination and violence in India. Such discrimination is difficult to prevent or put an end to,
since it often enjoys the tacit approval of the State, even though the Constitution grants equal
rights to all citizens. In the light of this, it is heartening that the president, Pranab Mukherjee,
gave his assent to the Maharashtra prohibition of people from social boycott (prevention,
prohibition and redressal) bill, 2016.
In India, parallel forums of justice, called caste panchayats in Maharashtra and khap panchayats
in Haryana, use social ostracism to punish citizens who defy conventional social hierarchies
and exclusionary mores. These extrajudicial councils were formed to consolidate the position and
power of the upper castes. Since the constitutional promises of equality and non-discrimination
did not enjoy sufficient legislative backing before this, perpetrators found it easy to bend the rules
and evade punishment.
The new, progressive law is geared towards dismantling the power that these extrajudicial bodies
wield in underprivileged communities. Maharashtra has taken the step to become the first Indian
state that recognizes social ostracism as an outright crime; all the other states should follow suit
and enact such legislation as well. Moreover, this official rejection of bigotry should be
broadened to include discrimination on the basis of faith and gender.
Definition of Ostracism
Ostracism refers to the act of ignoring and excluding individuals. It is differentiated from social
exclusion in that ostracism generally requires ignoring or lack of attention in addition to social
exclusion. Ostracism is distinguishable from overt acts of rejection and bullying because rather
than combining acts of exclusion with verbal or physical abuse, ostracism involves giving no or
little attention to the individual or groups.
Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and
Redressal) Act, 2016

The Act lists over a dozen types of actions that may amount to social boycott, which has
been made a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment up to three years or a fine of Rs.
1 lakh or both.
The practices it prohibits range from preventing the performance of a social or religious
custom, denial of the right to perform funerals or marriages, cutting off someones social or
commercial ties to preventing access to educational or medical institutions or community
halls and public facilities, or any form of social ostracism on any ground.
The law recognises the human rights dimension to issues of social boycott, as well as the
varied forms in which it occurs in a caste-based society. Its progressive sweep takes into
account discrimination on the basis of morality, social acceptance, political inclination,
sexuality, which it prohibits.
It even makes it an offence to create cultural obstacles by forcing people to wear a particular
type of clothing or use a particular language.

This is not the first law of its type. Bombay enacted a law against excommunication in 1949, but
it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1962 after the Dawoodi Bohra community
successfully argued that it violated the communitys constitutional right to manage its own
religious affairs. One hopes the latest Act will not be vulnerable to legal challenge.
Article 17 of the Constitution and the Protection of Civil Rights Act outlaw untouchability in all
its forms, but these are legal protections intended for the Scheduled Castes. In reality, members of
various castes and communities also require such protection from informal village councils and
gatherings of elders who draw on their own notions of conformity, community discipline,
morality and social mores to issue diktats to the village or the community to cut off ties with
supposedly offending persons and families.
Conclusion:
As always, while the enactment of the law is, in itself, a move in the right direction, the main
challenge lies in implementing it. The law requires specially-appointed officers to identify
instances of social boycott and aid the police in arresting the perpetrators. This is easier said than
done, for it will require the victims of discrimination to come forward with their accusations. This
will be difficult to achieve in a country where the diktats of village elders hold considerably more
sway than the law of the land.
Social workers and non-governmental organizations, in collaboration with government officials,
will have to work hard to allay peoples fears and make them aware of their rights. A bigger
challenge lies in proving social ostracism in court, for there are rarely any paper trails in such
cases of discrimination. But while these roadblocks might slow down the process of uprooting the
evil perpetuated by the caste panchayats, there is a silver lining. Earlier, the State could wilfully
ignore the suffering of the victims of ostracism; with the enactment of the law, it has committed
to actively helping them