Corporate to cooperate with Governments to meet Development Targets?

Recently the Vibrant Gujarat 2015, concluded in Gandhinagar and host of CEO and top management of corporate world descended to support the agenda of Mr. Modi, as PM of India. The event hosted by Gujarat Government saw a mix of Modi and current CM Mrs. Patel. A careful integration of Global, national and regional development hopes were laid with most of the government departments pursued the corporate world to invest in their activities. The responsibilities of the government is now extended to the CEOs to help them in making infrastructure ready for massive investment in later stages. Of course promises made in most of the sectors as usual by national investors worth lakhs of crores, figures ranging from 2 lakh to 20 lakh crores. Wide investment in the state economies shows the advancement made by the state in pursuing the corporate s. Though the direct benefits are yet to be seen in the perspective of people since hardly quarter of the investments promised in earlier events has been materialized.

The investors were keen to be partner with the departments and state officials were quick enough to take promises of the investments. No body knows the serious viability and realization capacity of these deals. But the image of the state shows improvement in eyes of investors. The foreign delegates were happy but tizzy about actual realization. With slow world economy the monies required for the investment is hard to come by in the near future. The promised land of 'Smart' cities in Dholera and GIFT city could not see much more energy from investors. The land deals half completed in some cases are hard to realize due to slow growth in the international and national economies.

The bullish national approach to the economy is due to commitment of the ruling party are centre and state. The harsh development reality with the newly formed NITI Ayog (in lieu of planning commission) must face to keep the corporate and finance department happy. The task of winning the hearts of million citizens comes from showcase of implementing the schemes. The half baked approach of the ideas in Land Acquisition, Safai and development planning little serious change in government thinking. The facilitation of the investors is great and so was the promises, when we are going to see the real investors from distant land is hard to get. The stake of traditional partners like Japan, US, Australia over the Denmark, Finland, UK, South Africa is high due to long term commitments, but very cautious in approaching the Indian market. The system is ready to welcome them but lacks the down right commitment towards its own people.

India being the world market cannot expect export to the world till we find market for ourselves. We may not find export improving unless the corporate giants enter India on their own term to exploit the resources. After all they must promise profits for their investors. Keen to raise the human resources India still aspires to become largest 'Coolie' supplying nation to serve the multi national corporate. Despite trying to raise the bar for improving innovation and competitiveness India as a nation made to believe all we can do is to supply human labour in addition to get exploited of our resources. The pain to deal with the corporate is to facilitate them with land, capital and labour and allow them to take profits. When Indian systems would get benefited to invest further in social sector depends still on the tax paid by the resident citizens.

The PPP model adopted to give the infrastructure projects to corporate also enlists the possibilities of linking a system of paying tax money to corporate funds. The pity Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) unless sees light of day there is little chance of return on the social investment government would make in future. The viability of the policy framework depends on the markets, when the planned economies is rejected by the new governments. The new directions adopted provides little scope of the focus to investments in backward areas unless supports the investment by the corporate. The state governments must be ready to provide for the land, power and labour to the corporate guests in order to seek handful employment to its citizens.

The quick clearances of the projects, and easily twisted approach to resource management would evolve the exploitation more planned to extract the resources at minimum price and maximum benefits to the investors. The citizens must pay for the cost incurred to the governments which than can be shared with the corporate entity with the sound hope to have return on the investments. Not all remains hopeless in the dawn of new market and investment led government philosophy, with 'Make in India' campaign and realization of the social dreams. The easy arrangement with the World Banks (WB) for the loans which cities would need would further tangle and pledge the future Indian institutional capital to the corporate.

The images of the earlier, 'Bombay Plan' when eager investors lined up to partner with governments, though government decided to go public by setting large public sector undertaking. This time the governments is making large enterprise which is owned by the public to partner with corporate to justify the development targets. Corporate must participate with the governments to meet the development targets. Like most of the funds in social sector must now be routed through the expert corporate entity, the operations and management of the enterprise must also facilitate the improvement in the delivery and quality targets.

The nation must be sleeping is they do not react into the corporate take over of the public systems citing lack of public funds and their inability to manage. The market based economy needs to be most regulated and guided than the socialist economies. The wheel may turn back since the motive of profits must not be for the public benefits, and entirely least cost. The community till than must be diligent customers and good employee in order to allow the corporate to function and cooperate with the government to meet the development targets.  

Minimum government, Maximum Governance

The concept of  'good governance' has reached to a political tone lead by a political party since last 5 years, after 2008 when they realized the importance of unnecessary expenditure by government. The smart governance does not mean doing away with conventional method of governance. The structure remain same, whereas the networks between the offices are improved in order to increase the efficiency. This may not limited to any one state in India, the e-governance change lead by the Government of India, with National Informatics Centre helping the state to have 'e' ready infrastructure in place to have minimum goverment, for the people. The setting up of information kiosks, information centres, service centers by the authorities for the citizens in an approach not limited to a state. There are many state who has pioneering the idea of minimum government including, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The learning from each other is done by the central departments, state departments and e ready organisations to provide the necessary service. There is nothing new in the ideas however the implementation in the smaller states have been better with quick outreach to the maximum citizens. The larger states where the internet penetration is low, the idea of minimum government and maximum governance has not yeilded the desired result.

The citizens needs to take the services with the new hope when the government reaches to them via their mobile phones, where e-services in at the door steps of the people. The governments through their efforts can reach to the citizens, and no state in India is left in these approach, only the time and money required to understake the project varies. The national agencies like NRSC, BSNL & DOT, revenue departments, NIC etc has done tremendous job to reach to the citizens, however the lack of interest at the grass roots have hamphered the programs. These might be due to lack of e-readiness of the people and often lack of trained manpower at the village levels. There are many changes required at the grass root level which are already covered under the national programs but poorly implemented at the state to make effective governance.

The lack of understanding of the concept by people who might tag themselves to an activity in a state is not always right, the national policy are in place since 2006, to workout a reform in the governments to improve the governance across the nation. Some states have lead the change in one sector, while others may have done better in another, but there is no doubt the people needs to be connected to the information segment and to be made available with required information. The technology penetration is weak in the governments decision making where the changes in information technologies are not treated well because of the politicians and persons loosing power to control the same. The easy access to information and rights would bring significant change at grassroots often bringing true era of 'Minimum Government, Maximum Governance'. 

When Development is tagged to political parties...

Its good that development as a topic of discussion  takes a central stage in political discourses. But the most important thing which can be noted that the governments in its nomenclature is also termed out to be X parties government. When in democracy we adopted by naming a central and state govt. by parties. The political parties have a limited role to play in decision making exercise, which are supposed to be outcome of extensive research on the policy research, its impact and monitoring. 'Development' which till recently world over is thought about a serious exercise which does not mean going by party line (which often is not an outcome of well researched agenda) but by analysis of the data given through national or state level surveys. During the discourse we are into the position of easily projecting an development ideologies which stands on the political ideology and of course which totally differs from the theoretical bases. The schemes which can be objectively targeted at the development needs of the people emerges to be treating to the political needs of the parties.

The good research output suggestive of a policy which might be emerging from the burning of night oil by the numerous support staff (you may call them researches) often turning to be night mare to convince the political bosses. How on earth development issues can be limited to political parties without institutional backup. Are parties suppose to run a parallel institutional network? Or the institutions also become politicised to give feed accordingly to the political class. The individuals in the recent political arena tries to make the policies based on the their believes which in most of the cases are poorly analysed by themselves. The polarisation of the parties in the national issues is also resulting in the policy polarisaiton on the party lines. To some extent these are good to understand the good and bad outcome expected of the decisions taken by a political leaders. But do we essentially mean to say that the system is not in place to find the problems, discuss with people for verification and solutions. Development to wide spectrum of people means illusion created by the political masters. The populism of the policy depends more on the freebies which in long run may not be fruitful.

There is little doubt about the political parties in asserting their wish to the policy makers, when they themselves become the policy makers by not just discussing it among themselves also creating a no question mode for the people, the problem of acceptance arises. The serious development analysis in these scenarios take a back seat. The state governments now if seen from the political perspectives may stand in front of central governments in accepting the major political decisions or even rediculing the central decisions. Same in the case of the grass root democratic setup a situation of distress arises when the basic policy intentions and guidelines are violated. We are in a situation when more we look into the problems we try to find the quick answers which are of course short lived. Certain conflict in the policy approach or infighting between the political class has seen as loss of good opportunity in sharing the best of all. 

Nurturing Growth through innovation

Innovation has lost its face in upcoming globalization, due its efficacy in converting the idea to identifiable products. The imperfaction in the market machanism does not allow the innovator to turn their ideas into profitable business. Often the big businesses turn to innovators to germinate and take advantage of such ideas. The increase in the design competitiveness shows uneasy practices, lacking support to the budding enterpreneurs who are from the Small and Medium industries and onslought of the big leaders. Often the external markets does not reponse to such innovation unless the product itself is taken with mega investment and convert the small idea into big within very small time.

The capital intensive investment and lack of confidence of the financial institution on the innovators is due to declining risk taking abilities of such institutions and organisations. The established businesses and ideas take priority over the new and innovative ideas. Yet people like late steve Jobs could measmerise give the size of capital owned by him and Microsoft leveraging on the ideas or just buying the young companies killing and taking over the innovation at the initial stages.

Such a march of capital in the countries like India and its developed states like Gujarat should be taken as warning to the small and medium enterprises, struggling to innovate or simply following the large enterprises for thier business channel. Its always risky given the share and command of these large industries over the segments, like auto giants would risk and poorly compensate their illfated decisions to their channel supplier mostly SMEs and innovators vying for eye of mega industries. Such a situation and associated risks are never transfered to mega industries as SMEs would have desired, thus killing any desire to think new and big.

The creation of entry barrier now by state in assisting the mega industries, kills the nurturing process of SMEs instead they become scape goat in the globalised economies. The watch dog regulatory bodies would take little action to manage the affairs.

Public-Private-Public: City Dwellers

The world is going ga ga over the virtues of public-private partnerships in urban projects. But we have kept thinking about the public (aam aadmi) or Private (Big Industry) or Public (government) or private (who?). The notion seems to be clear after seeing the kind of partnerships that has come about in our urban affairs. Some of the examples can be

(a) Road Management - Give to business guys, who can maintain the dividers and junctions. (Oh! he get stake in claiming the circle/Junctions). But why not we go ahead and name the roads by name of industrial houses. Unofficially most of the roads at least in Gujarat is known to public by these names (Reliance, L&T, Ambani, GAIL etc).

Do not talk of Toll roads (on NH/SH) , these are easy venue for the taxing the commuters ever after in the name of development, What not the ideals of PP would have been?

(b) Garden and Public Parks: Yet again a good start for the some cities, but these privates have made party plots, golf courses and corporate maidan in name of servicing the public spaces. (What can we do our corporations did not have money to maitain?).

(c) Solid Waste: Public-Private ; an easy way to get away with regular workers. Pay them and forget that they exist in the city. Urban areas have been mess these days...an overloaded concept of SWM. Guys you would not find nothing apt to see it as rat race in urban India. May be this is the case in developing countries.

(d) Water Bodies Management: Alas! the most attractive PP for the realestate guys has been to take care for the development of water bodies, instead it pays heavily to invest in beautification of these forgotton waterscapes in urban areas. We are not backin up while covering the rivers like Yamuna, Sabarmati, Gomti etc and now even Ganga with Urban structures..damaging and creating rut in the system. What would CPCB and State pollution control people would do?

Sit idle guys the 'public' , i.e. the government and people both are being nearly robbed of quasi-legal private system, endangering cities in the hands of industries who are prone to see profits. Say. Whats harm? We must pay for the inefficiency of public systems and our city governance.