Policy is as good as its implementation.
In order to ensure proper implementation, the policy maker has to, therefore, ensure that either the policy is crystal clear to the implementers, leaving no room for ambiguity; or if it is not so, to highlight those elements of the policy that will help the implementers achieve the necessary outcomes. The policy maker also has to assume responsibility for skilling the implementers adequately. This requires that the policy maker has a) Adequate knowledge of the sector in which he is working b) Appreciation of the diverse situations in which the programme is to be implemented. Most importantly, the environment for policy work-out, especially when a critical programme like Swachh Bharat is to be nurtured and its foundations laid down, has to be conducive.
Looking back, environment in the initial year of Swachh Bharat was good for carrying out the critical tasks. Having worked in the sanitation sector for over a decade, I was considered a kind of ‘expert’, amongst the non-expert bureaucracy – and hence my opinion was given much weightage. Having sought posting in the ‘non-glamorous’ Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation myself out of interest, I was beaming with passion: looking at the posting not as a mere job, but as a God-given opportunity to be able to do something worthwhile in the sanitation sector. It did not therefore, take me time to settle in the job, and I started off with key initiatives immediately.
A thing that facilitated this greatly was the fact that being the start of the programme, and having nearly five years at hand the Government was keen – but not over-keen – to show results. This took off excessive pressure from the bureaucracy and provided time to do basic corrections in the programme that were required to tilt it in the right direction.
Sanitation programmes had been running in the country for close to three decades and had a baggage – that had to be shed. The implementing machinery had to unlearn way of doing things and pick up new skills. This required painstaking work at the policy and field level, possible only when attention is not too diverted in the ‘urgent’ tasks. As the saying goes – ‘Work in silence, celebrate in success‘ – the first year was the year to work in silence.
This change was to be effected from the top. Collectors, the most effective institution at the district level – had to be readied to deliver this work successfully. The only way to achieve sanitation in a country as big as ours was to look at it in a disaggregated manner – each Collector had to lead his district towards ODF. This necessitated that they were appropriately skilled in this task, before they were expected to deliver results. Sanitation, unlike some other government programmes, was not to be achieved by the diktats of state force – it was a job of effecting the biggest social change through winning over people and influencing their behavior!
Bureaucracy has not been trained to carry out such jobs traditionally! And hence a great job lay at hands of the Centre – to guide them, before they understood the basics and then set on a path of their own innovations to achieve the results. In this background and with this approach, the risk of ‘preloading’ – expecting too much results before adequately skilling the person required to do the job – was taken away. Thus, unlike a typical government review of ‘how-much’ work has been done, the initial year was spent on exposing the States and Collectors on ‘how’ the job is to be done, and by motivating and equipping them to take on this task. Had this not been done, the programme would have fallen on its head. This environment, where preloading could be avoided turned out to be critical cushion against the risk of possible failure of the programme. Finally, the adage, small is beautiful. Ministry in those days was small, with a handful of officers. It was not the days of consultocracy !
While more people and expertise may be required to manage a national programme of this scale – absence of the same turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It enabled us to concentrate on basic elements, without getting bogged down in too many details. The key things could be set right. If multiple things were taken up at the same time, it might have lost impact, since the key messages might have drowned in a host of instructions. Also, in a smaller team, it was easier and faster to push through the key reform agenda. With no pressure of ‘results’, task at hand could be concentrated at much more effectively.
-originally written in 2016.
