Bihar’s remarkable recovery
Check out this interesting article in the Economist about the progress made in Bihar. Another case for greater local self-governance is captured in the following lines from the article.
According to Sushil Modi, Bihar’s deputy chief minister, the biggest problem for all the poorer states is “the crisis of implementation”. “Even if we have the money,” he asks, “how to spend that money?” Mr Kumar cannot solve this from Patna. He must instead breathe life into the panchayats, the elected village councils supposedly accountable for local schemes. But in Bihar, the councils have been through only one electoral cycle. Thepanchayats remain beholden to the old elites.
In Search of Civic Virtue
The author describes how despite India’s economic progress, there appears to be an all round failure of governance.
When I speak of governance failure, I am not thinking of corruption in its usual sense — of the politician who is caught with a bribe. I feel anguish that one in four teachers in a government primary school is absent and one in four is not teaching. Two out of five doctors do not show up at a state primary health centre; a cycle rickshaw driver routinely pays a sixth of his daily earnings as bribe to the police. A farmer in an Indian village cannot hope to get a clear title to his land without bribing the patwari. One out of five members of the Indian Parliament elected in 2004 had criminal charges against him; one in twelve had been accused of murder or rape.
Click here to read entire article in TOI.