Friends here is a guest post for all of you. We all know this gentleman in picture thanks to Robert vadra,brother in law of Shri Rahul Gandhi.AShok Khemka was recently invited in Mumbai by ace journalists Sucheta Dalal & Debashish basu for a public talk.I have received this word to word speech from a friend,please read it carefully......
At the
outset, let me thank Sucheta Dalal & Debashis Basu for inviting me here.
One of the reasons, I have chosen to be here is because I have heard of Sucheta
Dalal during the Harshad Mehta scam, her investigative journalism that has been
imprinted in my mind;
and to
hear her name inviting me is an honour for me. It is a real privilege to be
here on her invitation and to receive the honour of addressing an august
audience in Mumbai on what citizens can do to promote the cause of governance,
justice and equity.
It is a
bit trepidating, after the erudite speeches of Sucheta and Debashis, and after
hearing the research done by Debashis. Let me tell you, I am sure Moneylife
Foundation would be doing excellent research in all the aspects they would be
covering. I could find very little which I do not know from my personal life,
which Debashis has not spoken to you about.
Since he
has talked a bit of about my childhood, let me explain a few of the episodes,
which he has highlighted here so that things are understood in their right
perspective.
I joined
schooling in 1973. At that time Indian languages were the medium of education.
Indian languages were still in fashion, and in vogue at that time, not as is
the concept now as English is the one and all. But I was admitted into a very
elite English medium school of Kolkata, St. Xavier’s College and School. Both
my parents were not very literate and that is the reason we did not speak
English at home, and I was the first boy in my generation, who aspired to be an
educationist and was admitted into very elite school.
That time
I did not know English and have resources at home. Also since my parents and my
sisters were from the Hindi medium schools, nobody could converse in English.
So, the disability I had of being educated in English, which I could not
comprehend, I would make it up by my effort by parroting the entire thing and
then contextualising the questions and answers by making a ditto copy of the
passages given in the text books for the exams.
I stood 1st in my class of 200 students, where we had very good students in my
class at St. Xavier’s School. And that was for the 1st time in my class, I stood 1st, which was unbelievable in a class of 200 students. I think, I
never received a greater joy and pride to see my father and mother standing
with pride that Ashok came in 1st in his
class. They all thought I was very intelligent, but I knew I was not
intelligent, I was only a hard worker.
Vouchers for education fees
This
brings us to the thought of this Right to Education bill. I personally feel
that this legislation is not very well thought out legislations. The reason is
by just enabling something in and mandating it in elite schools, some students
from poor background, who do not have an elite background, should be integrated
just because the existent law may not work as well. All you really need is to
make your own school inclusive, and ensure that teachers come and deliver
quality education.
When I
was the director for secondary education, I came out with a very startling
fact, which I would like to be placed on record here. These things existed in
Haryana and this may be true for most other states. In the year 2007, the state
government was spending Rs800 per month per child from class one to class 10 on
an average and the state of education was far below than normative levels. And
only the very poor, and people from the downtrodden, who could not afford the
private education, would be taking this education, where the government was
spending more than the average spent in private schools. At that time my son
was studying in one of the most elite private schools of Chandigarh, and we
used to pay Rs1,000-Rs1,100 per month as his tuition fees, and where the
teacher would be paid at 60%-70% of what government school teachers would be
paid as salary. So I failed to understand this, though the government was
spending almost as much money on education as you would pay for you own child
in a private school without taking the account of capital costs, i.e. building,
lands, infrastructure, and the quality left a lot to be desired.
Now
though the Right to Information (RTI) is a big success, the Right to Education
cannot be a success for a very simple reason, it doesn’t envisage, or it
doesn’t tackle the teacher absenteeism, and the giving away of the quality education
by the teacher to the students. That aspect is not covered or cannot be
enforced under a right based legislation.
So, why governance is important?
The
governance is important because suddenly you have created institutions, you
have created a large number of schools, where in a small state like Haryana you
have 80-90 thousand teachers employed, they are all patronages. Most of them
are patronage-based appointments, who are not delivering their output that they
are supposed to deliver. There is no mechanism to enforce that kind of output
from those teachers who are employed at the cost of the taxpayers or at public
cost.
So I
advised a simple thing, I told the chief minister (a file note was put in the
year of 2007) that let’s do a scheme, let’s give choice to the citizen. So what
was the choice? Start a voucher education programme, so give the voucher of
Rs800, let’s start with the rural areas, girls and scheduled castes. So a very
small segment of the budget. It would be a miniscule portion of the total
education budget. Give the vouchers to the select list of rural scheduled caste
girls who are easily identifiable and are mandated with the vouchers. These
girls can walk to any school and claim education as the matter of Right and the
state would reimburse the cost of these vouchers to the concerned schools.
This was
much before the Right to Education legislation has come. My principal secretary
initially posed a lot of questions: how can this scheme be a success?
What about hostels? I said, “Sir, forget hostels, even if one girl
student chooses to exercise this voucher, you have a situation of moving toward
the par to optimality i.e. it would be a more optimal solution. If nobody
exercised these vouchers, fair enough. You are not worse-off, you have not
spent a single amount, but if one girl chooses to exercise the voucher by going
to the school of her choice; any private school of her choice, your day is
made, because as a consumer, as a citizen, she will feel that she will get
better education with the help of these government vouchers.”
So he was
fully convinced, both the education principal secretary and the finance
principal secretary decided to go to the honourable chief minister with this
brilliant scheme of Mr Ashok Khemka and I knew the end result.
LPG subsidy through DBTL
I had a
very good equation with the then chief minister and let me tell you that,
before 15 October 2012, the only punishment I received was a transfer. I was
never charge sheeted nor any enquiries instituted upon me. It is only after 15
October 2012, that things have taken a turn.
So it is
political sagacity as against bureaucratic sagacity, who only sit in the air
conditioned offices and do not think beyond their offices. Where the shoe
pinches, it is the felt reality.
Whatever
we may criticise about politicians, they know. e.g.- I will speak about why
this DBT (direct benefits transfer) was reversed. There is a very strong
political logic for reversing the DBT for the LPG cylinders, so the CM didn’t
buy the theory.
Then the
two principle secretaries said, “Sir, please hear Mr Ashok Khemka, it is a very
sound scheme.”
Since the
scheme was not getting through, they wanted me to advocate my scheme there. I
kept quiet and then suddenly the truth came out. The exact words said by him,
he used the Haryanvi dialogue saying that “Why are you doing Khadadu?” The accusation was
directed at me by the CM that means “Why are you creating trouble?” And he was
blunt and forthright at that time. He said, “If this scheme is implemented,
then very soon we will have to close down our government schools and what about
the appointments (of teachers and other staff)?
So, I
always say, the governance in this
country is not rocket science, It doesn’t require lot of intellect it only
requires a ‘niyat’ (The right intent). You
maybe wrong but there is always time for a corrective step. The intent has to
be right!
We had a
lecture yesterday, by joint secretary from the PM’s office, He was speaking on
Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme. When we talk about governance, justice and
equity we are always looking (the reality is different from different
perspectives) from the point of view of bringing in efficiencies in delivery
services.
Bringing
in efficiencies may have different paradigms for different stakeholders, it
maybe very efficient for an oil company or government to do a direct benefit
transfer for LPG Cylinders. But at the stroke of the elections to the Lok Sabha
this (LPG refill per year per household) was increased from 9 to 12. This maybe
populist form. I buy the logic that it should have been limited to six or
seven, because the poorer you are, your energy consumption is lower, so the
average consumption of lower as per statistics is six (LPG) cylinders. With
nine cylinders, 90% of the household is covered. (Increasing it to) nine to 12
have certain logic, I don’t have any view upon it but, the decision to do a
direct benefit transfer was reversed.
Now why
it was reversed? It is a very simple game for the oil companies that they have
paid a month’s subsidy in advance into your account and every time, you buy a
new cylinder you will get another subsidy in advance. So there should have been
no problem (maybe for you and me) but there was a problem for the common
citizen. This was understood by the political class and I would say rightly,
the DBT scheme for LPG gas cylinder was reversed. Why? You see, if you study
this, there is a course of economics that it is not only about maximising
utility. But you really, as an individual cannot calculate where the maximum in
utility lies? These are all heuristic decisions. It is an intuition that this
is the best decision that may or may not be correct always.
Now there
is a thing, where you have to pay Rs1,200 in cash to the deliveryman for a LPG
cylinder as against for the subsidised cylinder that costs say Rs500. So for a
poor household, whose monthly household income would be Rs3,000 to Rs5,000, to
cough up Rs1,200 in cash from the pocket maybe difficult. And to get the money
in the bank account, where there is no internet banking, or no easy access to
the ATM, to get the access to that subsidy would involve some amount of
transaction cost, which we have not accounted for in this game of DBT for the
LPG cylinders. So, there is a transaction cost of retrieving the subsidy or
checking whether the subsidy has come to your account, or not. Besides the
subsidy is going into the householder i.e. the head of the householder’s
account, while the money is to be paid by the women folk of the household.
These are issues, which have to be considered while designing any scheme from
the citizen’s perspective.
So there
was a strange logic. What I am trying to tell is that, efficiency may be
something from the one side of the table. Efficiency may have a different
paradigm from the notions of the efficiency, equity and justice from the
citizens or the other side and other perspective. So,
a very natural question which I addressed to the speaker, who was the architect
of this DBT scheme that sir why did you choose LPG? Why you want to punish a
household with this transaction costs? Simply because, you are not able to
govern and administer the subsidy in a fair, efficient and a proper manner.
Maybe there is 20% siphoning of your subsidy but because you are not able to
administer, you are not able to govern a scheme, you are going to punish an
eligible householder. It is not injustice it is like telling that, I am not able to
stop the stealing of the electricity or stop people from travelling ticketless
in trains and busses, so therefore, I am going to raise the ticket prices for
paying public. It is not injustice? It is not failure of governance? So this to
tell in Hindi; “Mere
nikkameypan ki saza koi aur bhugte.”
Why DBT
scheme was chosen for LPG? See, after using DBT for scholarship, there was no
outcry. This was because earlier it was a long process like writing of cheques
in the office, posting it, the receiver receiving it and then depositing the
same in the bank and so on. There are so many transactions involved in the
scholarship schemes that were curtailed through DBT and that is why it is a
success.
But I
asked him, why you didn’t do DBT in agriculture ministry? I have been crying
hoarse that, do a DBT for administration of various subsidy schemes in
agriculture ministry. There is a host of corruption in the administration of
those schemes, I am a personal complainant to the Standing Committee on
Agriculture at the Parliament, highlighting that how corruption takes place in
the administration of subsidies and DBT is one thing, where it would have
achieved greater value in its objective by ensuring that the scheme is
implemented in a better and more efficient manner. Why do I say so? There is
tremendous corruption in the administration of subsidies in the agricultural
ministry.
For
example, there is a scheme of subsidising drip irrigation in agriculture. The
scheme is if you install drip irrigation system in your fields, you will get a
subsidy of lets say Rs10,000 per acre or 50% of your investment. So what would
the department do? The department would say “go and buy this equipment in which
there is a 50% subsidy.” By some mechanism, let’s say its true market value of
the equipment is Rs100. This would be then scaled up to Rs150. So 50% subsidy
means it will be available to the farmer at Rs75. So the farmer will still buy
it because he knows that its actual market value is Rs100 and he is getting it
at Rs75. So for him, the effective subsidy is 25%, and he will buy it. But Rs75
from government’s account has gone where it should have been Rs25. The rest
Rs50 is shared by the dealers and by the officials. This happens in seeds,
pesticides, agriculture mechanism equipment and other items.
So why
don’t you do DBT for agriculture subsidies? You tell the farmer, that you go
and buy the seeds, pesticides, equipment of your choice from the open market
from a recognised dealers. All dealers in the agriculture sector are licensed
by the state agriculture department. So you cannot sell agricultural equipment
without a license from the state agriculture department. So buy it from any of
the licensed dealers and upon buying, we will subsidise a percentage of that,
subject to a maximum of something, directly into your account. So, you have
promoted choice at the level of consumers and you have also promoted
competition from various producers, dealers. You can limit it by telling that,
the produce or product which you are going to buy is going to be certified or
it is going to have certain certifications. You can limit it to that extent. So
why was it not done in agriculture?
So here
is the question of choosing the appropriate scheme, how to implement? Seeing
the citizen’s perspective and seeing the interest of taxpayers, all become very
important in implementation. So, it is not something, which I discovered.
Anywhere I go, it is very easy to see it and the only question is that your
intent has to be right in implementing such things.
Now, what is governance and how is justice and
equity interlinked with governance?
Governance
consists of three organs as we know; Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. For
example, in a cricket match, if you want to see Tendulkar flourishing, showing
his best elements, what are the essential ingredients? The essential ingredient
is that the ground, which is prepared has to be a fair ground and a well
prepared ground, the stadium has to be a good stadium so that you can have
right ambience, there are spectators watching, the ground is well prepared for
a very fair and good match. The rules are well laid down and will be executed
properly. Who is going to ensure the execution and enforcement of the rules?
The umpire. In case the umpire cheats and in case the players are not satisfied
with the decision of umpire, you have the equivalent to the judiciary that is
third umpire. So you have the provision to appeal the decision of the umpire to
the third umpire.
Now
understand, if any of these three items i.e.; ground preparation or the
stadium, the umpire or the third umpire and the rules of the games are not
fair, they are tilted towards one side, what would happen? The spectators will
not get an exhilaration of seeing a superb shot or dive, bowl, fielding, the
cricket lover will not get their value and enjoyment, and there would be no
Tendulkar flourishing, there would be no Tendulkar coming out of the society.
If Tendulkar has to bat always, he is going to try and snick the ball outside
the off stump for a fine cut outside the third slip for a four. And if the ball
is not nicked and caught behind by wicket keeper and he’s ruled out, would he
even attempt that shot out of that fear? Or if he plays with the fear that if
the ball touches pad and he is going to be declared leg before wicket (LBW) by
an unfair umpire, would his talent flourish? The role of Government vis-à-vis
its citizens is exactly this.
The
legislator must prepare a fair ground and fair rule of law, It is not be biased
for the home team or the other side, the umpire or the executor is very fair
while giving its decisions and there is trust and faith in the decisions of the
third umpire or the judiciary. It is not always that we should see one
dimensional side of governance. It is not always that you are corrupt or you
are not corrupt but why corruption is interlinked to injustice and inequity?
Value of book reading
I suggest
you to read a book by which I am very influenced. I have read few books in my
life and two of the books, which impressed me greatly was, “My experiment with the truths”, the
autobiography of Gandhiji and another is “Why
nations fail?” written
by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, professor of government and economics at
MIT and Harvard University, respectively.
In this
book, the authors, while tracing the history says that it is not geography of
the nation, climate or other natural resources endowments, which makes a nation
great or which is the result of the failure of the nation but its the people,
human endowment and its institutions and particularly, its political
institutions. The author describes how a virtuous cycle is created if political
institutions are well developed, leading to well developed inclusive economic
institutions, leading to all around prosperity. If political institutions are
not well developed, it leads to underdeveloped extractive economic
institutions, (extractive economic institutions means Dusro ka haq cheen ker ke, those in
power appropriate to themselves) It leads to suboptimal performance in the
economy, in the society leading to poverty, impoverishment and
dictatorship.
Robert Vadra land deal
So, in
our case, this particular example, which was highlighted and this particular
land transaction that I had cancelled, now what is the philosophy and why this
kind of transaction which perpetrate our economy? This actually characterise
the economy more as extractive institutions than inclusive.
What was
the transaction about? There was no money in the account of Skylight
Hospitality. A land was purchased for Rs7.5 crore on a particular date,
registered on particular date, and after three months there was an agreement to
sell, and that agreement to sell was of Rs58 crore. Within one year Rs50 crore
was received, out of the Rs58 crore, in three instalments and after three years
a registry was made of Rs58 crore and the balance of Rs8 crore was taken after
three years and out of that the purchase price of Rs7.5 crore was paid. Now
what was the entrepreneurship activity, which resulted in Rs7.5 crore being
converted into Rs58 crore, two state permission only; one is the change in land
dues and another is licensed to develop a commercial colony.
So, two state permissions multiplied the value of the same
peace of land from Rs7.5 crore to Rs58 crore. This is
exactly what is extractive economic institution and extractive political
institution. Now, these kind of transactions are in galore. This was only an
example, since I was not responsible for giving the licenses, I was not in the
department. One would see that this kind of use of state powers to appropriate
public wealth, the licenses are not like land licenses, 2G licenses or the
Right to Mine the coal mines are similar the right to appropriate natural
resources. Is it merely a loss of that wealth? The answer is no, it is much
more, If you see at one angle, the nation probably, as per rough estimate done
by me, it is about 3%-4% of GDP
that gets lost in such kind of corrupt activity. This
3%-4% GDP, which is lost in such kind of corrupt activities, is not only a loss
of rate of economic growth but also loss to the people, to the have not’s
because it is the wealth which should have gone to the have not’s, which have
been misappropriated by those in power and hence, this is termed in the book
rightly as extractive institutions. But the multiplier effect of this loss is
huge. How much is the multiplier effect is something? I think, it requires a
great deal of research to understand and appreciate that what is the actual
multiplier effect of such kind of losses. It could be several times more. So
there, the element of inequity and justice comes in with the governance.
I had just done my duty
I do not
know, as Debashis rightly said, I don’t like to be called a whistle blower.
This is because by implication, a whistle blower is one who has blown his
whistle on something which he has seen but it is not his duty to do so. Whatever I have done was in the course of my duties and I
ask always an alternate question that had I not done so, it would have been a
dereliction of duty.
So while
not being dishonest is certainly not honest, being good and honest is not
sufficient. As Bertrand Russell said, “It is not
good to be good only, one has to be effectively good and effectively honest.”
For
example, a person is being beaten up at the road outside Shivaji Park, some
hoodlums are beating him, and all of us are honest and good. The area officer
in-charge of the police station, is also honest and good. And all of them go
away after seeing the incident, cluck their tongues and say... ‘yeh toh bahot ganda ho raha hai, bahot anyay ho raha hai, dekho
isko pit rahe hai’. But you
turn your eyes and walk away, the officer in-charge also says, I am law
abiding, I am honest and good and if I am going to touch this, I will lose my
job, I get transferred or heavens will fall upon me. He (the goon) maybe some
VIP’s son or he is VIP. Certainly at that time the station officer or police
inspector’s duty is to take action as per law against that hoodlum, book him,
arrest him take action so that immediate relief is given to the man. As a
citizen, it is your duty as well to say, look you are doing wrong. If you are
alone, it maybe that he beats you up, you may be physically harmed that is the
fear you have. Another voice joins you, you gather more strength. If ten more
voices join you, then that hoodlum will walk away. He may threatening to the
victim that, Tujhe dekh lunga
kal. But at that instant he will definitely walk away.
What citizens can do?
So it is
very important for citizens to get their voices together and the example which
we have seen is the 16 December 2012 incident, very well known as the ‘Nirbhaya
Gang Rape Case’, where the government was forced to act and act promptly by
enacting a new legislation. Not only that, I think (I may not be very politically
correct but) the Delhi Police did do one of its finest investigations in
apprehending the culprits and prosecuting the case so that justice is delivered
within a year’s time. Otherwise, there are more heinous cases happening in our
society, where investigation is not done properly, or not properly prosecuted
in courts. So it was the citizens’ voice which ensured that justice was given
to the victim in that instance case.
If you
just see once people come to India from abroad, they rush to immigration counters,
there is no queuing in discipline. But if you land up in Singapore, European
countries, London or any US county, you would see the same Indian would be
queuing up. Why? The reason is that you know you will be told by the person who
is in the queue that please come and follow the queue. You don’t listen, the
second man also will join in and third man will also join in, and suddenly the
whole queue will join and demand that please come and join the queue. But the
same Indian, when he returns to India, will rush and crowd the immigration
counters, as if he is not the first person, then the immigration counters will
be closed and he will be standing at the airport itself.
I thank
all of you for having invited me here, and I sincerely believe that governance
is important for justice and equity and governance doesn’t require rocket
science, it doesn’t require to many deliberations on policies, what will bring
efficiency and what will not bring inefficiency. There is enough to be done in
implementation. It is not rocket
science, we only need to encourage people who are in government or people who
are implementing policies to develop the right intent, to take pride in their
jobs and not to demand a people who do their duty to join politics because as I
tell if you are good at your job. For example, there is a
good ‘mistry’ (master
craftsman). But you don’t ask him to go and join politics. He is good at his
job, so respect him for that.If one is
good at his job, then respect him for that and allow him to continue in that
job because he is good at it and he loves doing that job.
With
that, I rest my speech, I don not know whether I have been very erudite or I
have spoken my heart out and if have offended anybody inadvertently, I
apologise and let me tell you again whatever views I expressed they were my
personal and not that of the government.
Thank
You!
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
