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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Rural Development Ministry proposes plan to assess effectiveness of welfare schemes

Rural Development Ministry proposes plan to assess effectiveness of welfare schemes

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published Published on Jul 18, 2012   modified Modified on Jul 18, 2012
-The Economic Times

It was in the mid-eighties that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi said if the Centre released a rupee for the poor, only 15 paisa reached them. Decades later, not much has changed. With leakages, delays, and uneven implementation of welfare schemes like NREGA, blunting benefits to the poor, the rural development ministry is proposing to put in place a system to assess the effectiveness of the schemes even as they are implemented.

A Cabinet note outlining the mechanism for concurrent evaluation is currently being circulated for inter-ministerial consultation.

The proposed system of concurrent evaluation would be a departure from the current assessment methods, which are in the nature of post mortems. At present, Comptroller and Auditor General and social audits are undertaken after the scheme has already been implemented.

The mechanism proposed by the ministry comprises an independent organisation, the Concurrent Evaluation Office (CEO), which will facilitate a systemic rapid and rigorous simultaneous assessment. The CEO will undertake real-time evaluation through a concurrent evaluation network, comprising a panel of reputed independent research and other institutions.

The proposed system will be an "as it happens" evaluation. Or as rural development minister Jairam Ramesh describes it, "something like an OPD compared to the post mortem". Concurrent evaluation will help policy makers to intervene on a real-time basis, as it will identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, suggest innovations and remedies.

The government hopes that this move will bolster its accountability quotient--allowing for greater public accountability of the rural development portfolio, which has an annual budget that comes second only to defence. This year, the ministry's allocation (including spend on drinking water and sanitation) is to the tune of Rs 99,000 crore. The ministry has nine major schemes.

Ramesh has been of the view that while performance and social audits are important, they are in the nature of post-mortems. A real-time evaluation, on the other hand, would help government address issues of implementation, effectiveness and efficiency in a less wasteful manner. Ramesh had suggested setting up such a mechanism to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier this year.

"You have often expressed the need to ensure the effectiveness of this large quantum of public expenditure. Social audit indeed is very much a part of our rural development programmes, particularly MGNREGA. Other programmes also have inbuilt mechanisms to ensure quality. A concurrent evaluation of these schemes and programes would be helpful to policymakers to intervene on real-time basis," Ramesh had written to the prime minister.

The proposal has the support of the prime minister and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and this exercise could improve funding allocation as well.

The proposed concurrent evaluation office will be an autonomous body, and function under the aegis of the rural development ministry. An initial corpus of Rs 25 crore has been suggested. It will complement the evaluation of flagship programmes being undertaken by the Planning Commission's Independent Evaluation Office. The two will work in synergy through a hub and spoke model.

The concurrent evaluation office will have a governing body of up to 11 members, of which a maximum of five will be government members and the chairman will be an eminent expert. The CEO will be headed by a director-general, who will be "an economist of global repute with proven expertise in rural development related programme evaluation in India".

The Economic Times, 17 July, 2012, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-07-17/news/32714436_1_social-audits-welfare-schemes-major-schemes


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