Unlocking Human Capital: Summary | Indian Polity for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Introduction

The shift in government’s approach from allocation-based development programmes to those based on entitlements has increased the emphasis on balanced development of all regions and substantially enhanced funding by the Union. These have necessitated strengthening of institutional, administrative and financial management systems.

Summary of Recommendations on Human capital 

1. Guaranteeing Reach
   • Awareness generation programmes should be taken up by all State Governments. The publicity and guidance material should be available in local languages. The effectiveness of these programmes should be measured through independent sample surveys.
   • Intensive use of All India Radio and Doordarshan should be made in local languages as is done in the case of SarvaSiksha Abhiyan and National Rural Health Mission.
   • Independent monitors, wherever necessary, should be deployed in areas where participation of vulnerable sections is not adequate, to ensure that the weaker sections are participating and getting their entitlements.
   • Special norms should be worked out for various parameters of the Scheme for difficult areas.
   • ‘Household should be defined to mean a nuclear family i.e. husband, wife and minor children, and may include any person wholly or substantially dependent on the head of the family.
   • Job-cards should be issued separately to each adult physically challenged person.
2. Ensuring Convergence
   • Baseline performance indicators should be worked out for important services such as health and education and efforts should be made to improve them continuously.
   • Rural development programmes, which could be best managed at the local level, should be transferred to the Panchayat Raj institutions.
   • There should be only one Plan for an area so that an integrated view of development of the area could be taken. All sectoral/scheme wise plans should be culled out from this plan.
3. Financial Management System
   • Funds from the Government of India should be transferred directly to the districts.
   • Target (maximum) levels of funds should be fixed for Panchayats (village, block and district levels). The Government of India should release funds to districts every month, so that the target levels are restored.
   • The district in turn should release funds to blocks to bring their funds up to the prescribed target levels. Finally the blocks should replenish the funds at the Gram Panchayats.
   • The system of releasing funds based on utilization certificates should be replaced with a system of concurrent monitoring and audit through an independent agency.
   • A uniform financial information flow system should be prescribed for the entire country.
4. Role of Banks and Post Offices in Fund Flow
   • The post office network should be used along with the bank network for flow of funds and the procedural bottlenecks addressed.
   • Banks and post offices would have to play a more proactive role in handling these accounts. Procedures, especially in post offices need to be simplified.
   • Opening of zero balance accounts in post offices by both individuals and institutions may be permitted by the competent authority.
   • To avoid leakages, payment through banks and post offices is a better option. Banks and the post offices need to be reoriented to handle this task.
5. Strengthening Local Governments – Building Institutions
   • Panchayats should be empowered by transferring all development schemes which are better managed locally, to them. This transfer should also include the commensurate transfer of administrative and financial power and the implementation machinery.
   • District Rural Development Agencies (DRDA) should be subsumed in the District Panchayat.
6. Strengthening Local Governments – Capacity Building
   • There should be a provision to relax qualifications in the case of local candidates to be backed by capability building programmes for them.
   • Services of Non-Governmental Organisations with proven track records could also be used to supplement staff deficits.
   • The norms for engaging staff, both technical and administrative, should be linked to the average population per Panchayat (village/block and district). In hilly terrain the area per Panchayat should also be a criterion.
   • In case of smaller Gram Panchayats where each Panchayat cannot financially support a full complement of staff, the State Government may group them into compact administrative units for staffing purposes.
   • The following incentives may be provided to officials working in difficult areas:
     • Liberal life insurance cover.
     • Hardship allowance.
     • Retention of government accommodation for family if required outside the place of posting
   • However, all these incentives should be linked to performance which should be reviewed each year.
   • In case of acute shortage of engineers in the field, a panel of non government engineers may be engaged at the block level. Educated youth could be identified and trained to prepare estimates for work. These draft estimates would then be scrutinized and approved by the panel of engineers at the block level.
   • The limit of administrative expenses should be raised from the existing 2 per cent to 6 percent of the total expenditure under the Scheme
7. Selection and maintenance of works:
   • Selection of shelves of works at the Gram Panchayat and Block/ Intermediate Panchayat level should be in harmony with the district development plan. Stand-alone works should be discouraged.
   • The Block/Intermediate Panchayat should ensure that the works of one Gram Panchayat do not adversely affect the adjoining Gram Panchayat
   • Inter-Gram Panchayat works should be taken up after the approval of the concerned Gram Panchayats involved. Similarly works of inter block nature should be taken up after the approval of the concerned Intermediate/Block Panchayats
8. Block Resource Centre: To augment the technical resources of Panchayats at the village and intermediate levels, a Block Resource Centre may be set up which would include a panel of experts and professionals available at the block level.
9. Entrepreneurship Institutes for the Rural Poor: Entrepreneurship training institutes should be set up in every block to train and impart skills to the rural poor so that they get the opportunity to be self-employed.
10. Monitoring Systems:
    • Independent monitoring and auditing agencies should be engaged to carry out concurrent monitoring and audit.
    • The reports should be submitted only after validation by these agencies. These agencies should also guide the Panchayat staff in maintenance of records and preparation of reports.
11. Transparency and Right to Information Act
    • The impact of these programmes should be assessed through an independent evaluation, and officials should be required to qualify in a test after their training.
    • NGOs with credibility and spatial reach should be identified and entrusted with the task of creating awareness and capability building
    • All documents should be prepared in local language. These need to be written and recorded in the official language of the state. In case of difficulty, at least, a summary of such documents should be prepared in local language.
12. Use of IT – Blocks as Nodal, Fully-Electronic Points
    • Blocks must be the nodal levels of government at which all information is electronic. This should be achieved within a year.
    • Any information collected in non-electronic form at this or a lower level of government must be digitised at block level.
13. Use of IT – Architecture for Development
    • Data from the blocks should be aggregated in central repositories in each of the states. A single data centre may be adequate for each state, and transmission to this centre from each of the blocks should be enabled
    • The Union Government should maintain its own data centre, aggregating data from each of the state repositories
14. Use of IT-IT System for financial management
    • Direct transfer of money from the origin of funds to the implementer’s account should be possible. Intermediate levels of government should have access to this information, but for informational purposes only.
    • Requests for replenishment should also be enabled without triggers, so that it can be managed. A login-based system to facilitate this is needed, to ensure its security Digital signatures could also be created for officers identified as vested with such authority.
15. Use of IT – Smart Cards
    • A few pilot projects in different regions may be taken up in a cluster of villages using SMART Cards.
    • Such SMART cards should store information about the person’s identity (including biometrics) and should have the capacity to authorize payments.
    • In the long run, a viable business model needs to be developed so that the private sector can participate.

Crisis Management Summary of Recommendations on Crisis management

1. Constitutional provision –A new entry, “Management of Disasters and Emergencies, natural or manmade may be included in List III (Concurrent List) of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.
2. Disaster Management Act, 2005 (Central Act) needs to be amended to bring in the following features:
   • Disaster/Crisis Management should continue to be the primary responsibility of the State Governments and the Union Government should play a supportive role.
   • The Act should provide categorization of disasters (say, local, district, state or national level) based on the intensity and determining the authority responsible. Eg: Eaarthquakes at state or national level, drought district level.
   • The functions of the National Disaster Management Authority should be: to recommend policies, to lay down guidelines for preparation of different disaster management plans and standard operating procedures
   • The law should cast a duty on every public functionary, to promptly inform the concerned authority about any crisis, if he/she feels that such authority does not have such information.
   • The law should create a uniform structure at the apex level to handle all crises. Headed by
     • Prime Minister at the national level
     • Chief Minister at the state level.
     • At the administrative level, the structure is appropriately headed by the Cabinet Secretary and the Chief Secretary
   • The law should make provisions for stringent punishment for misutilization of funds
   • The role of the local governments should be brought to the forefront for Crisis/disaster management.
3. Role of Local Self-Governments: State should provide for a well-defined role to the municipal bodies and panchayat raj institutions.
4. Crisis Management Set Up for Metropolitan Cities: Mayor, assisted by the Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation and the Police Commissioner should be directly responsible for Crisis Management.
5. Creation of Legal and Institutional Framework for Managing Floods in Inter-State Rivers: Law should be enacted to set up mechanisms for collection of data, managing flow in rivers and release of water from reservoirs, so as to prevent disasters, with interstate ramifications.
6. Empowering the Relief Commissioners/Disaster
   Management Departments to Effectively Discharge Disaster Related Responsibilities: The role and responsibility of each department needs to be specifically identified and defined on the lines the Ministry of Agriculture has specified the responsibilities of various Union Government agencies during severe droughts.
7. Strengthening of National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM): NIDM may continue as an autonomous body and function as an apex professional institution in disaster management. Engage in research studies, documenting best practices from all over the world.
8. Professionalization of Disaster Management: Disaster Management as a body of knowledge should be introduced as a subject in management and Public Administration.
9. Enunciating a Policy Towards Crisis Management Which Emphasizes Risk Reduction: There is a need to have a National Policy on Disaster Management. Principles of policy should be-
   • Disaster Management to be professionalized.
   • Risk management to be brought to the centre stage in all disaster mitigation plans.
   • Hazard and vulnerability analysis
   • Communities and local governments to be made aware and involved in formulating disaster management plans
   • Special needs of women, children, elderly and physically challenged persons to be addressed.
10. Assessment of Risk – Hazard and Vulnerability Analysis
    • Seismic microzonation of vulnerable major cities, hazard prone areas, and urban agglomerations on a scale of 1:1000 in Zones V and IV, with topmost priority being given to cities with a population of more than one million.
    • Geographical Information System tools should be used to integrate spatial data such as topography, hydrology, land use, land cover, settlement pattern and built structure as well as non-spatial data such as demography, socioeconomic conditions and infrastructure in a common platform.
    • Scientific, technological and research organizations such as NRSA, ISRO, NIC, GSI and NIDM should be brought on a common platform by NDMA for developing a sound information base for crisis management.
    • A detailed vulnerability analysis should be carried out in all hazard prone areas. Such an analysis would prioritize the areas in order of vulnerability; it should also highlight the vulnerability of different sections of society and infrastructure.
11. Generating Awareness about Risk: A responsible media, which is well informed about all aspects of disaster, is a very powerful tool for sensitizing people. Details of past accidents and disasters and the lessons learnt, should be documented and kept in the public domain. The Disaster Management Authorities have to take up this task.
12. Preparation of Disaster Management Plans:
    The District Disaster Management Plan needs to have two components:
    • Long Term Mitigation Plan.
    • Emergency Response Plan.
      The plans should be prepared in consultation with all stakeholders
      All crisis/disaster management plans should be tested periodically through mock drills and updated accordingly
13. Making Crisis/Disaster Management Plans a Part of Development Plans: The activities in the disaster management plans should be included in the development plans of authorities like panchayat and municipal bodies.
14. Construction of Disaster Resistant Structures:
    • Structural prevention measures should be a part of long term disaster management plan for an area.
    • Appropriate Zoning Regulations need to be extended to all areas
    • Building byelaws should incorporate the disaster resistant features of buildings.
    • The importance of disaster resistant constructions and simplified safety guidelines should be widely disseminated go as to promote compliance
    • Demonstration camps should also be used to make the people aware of the concerns and the solutions.
    • The existing system of enforcement of building regulations needs to be revised.
    • The units of local bodies dealing with enforcement of building byelaws and zoning regulations also need to be strengthened.
    • The standards prescribed by BIS for disaster resistant buildings should be available in the public domain, free of cost.
    • Among the existing buildings, government buildings used by the public should be evaluated and retrofitted first, giving preference to buildings housing essential services.
      All these measures should become an integral part of long term disaster/ crisis management plans.
15. Effective Implementation of Laws and Regulations
    • Effective enforcement of laws on encroachments, public health and safety, industrial safety, fire hazards, safety at public places should be ensured.
    • Third party audit of all major alleged violations needs to be introduced in the respective regulation
    • There should be periodic inspections of all such places/facilities by a team of stakeholders assisted by experts.
    • Public education on the consequences of violations is important.
16. Early Warning Systems
    • It is the responsibility of the government machinery and the local bodies to disseminate the warning.
    • However, the role of community leaders, NGOs and others should be clearly defined in the emergency response plan and they should be fully trained and prepared for their respective roles.
    • Care has to be taken to put in place systems to disseminate warnings to all sections of the people.
    • The early warning system should be evaluated after each disaster to carry out further improvements.
17. Building Community Resilience:
    • Location specific training programmes for the community should be executed through the panchayats.
    • Crisis management awareness needs to be mainstreamed in education. For the purpose, an appropriate component of disaster awareness should be introduced in school, college, university, professional and vocational education.
    • Disaster awareness should be included in training programmes for elected leaders, civil servants, police personnel, and personnel in critical sectors such as revenue, agriculture, irrigation, health and public works.
18. Financial Tools for Risk-Reduction: Government and the insurance companies should play a more proactive role in motivating citizens in vulnerable areas to take insurance cover. This could be done through suitably designed insurance policies, if required, with part funding from the government.
19. Emergency Plan: Emergency Response Plans should be up-to-date and should lay down the trigger points’ in unambiguous terms. The district emergency response plan should be prepared. Standard operating procedures should be developed for each disaster at the district and community level. Disaster management plans at all levels should have handbooks, checklists, manuals with precise instructions for disaster management personnel, search and rescue teams, and Emergency Operations Centres.
    • Unity of command should be the underlying principle for effective rescue operations. For example, in a district, all agencies of Union and State Government have to work under the leadership of the Collector. Such unity of command principle should pervade at all field levels.
    • Handling of crisis should be made a parameter for evaluating the performance of officers.
20. Coordinating Relief: During rescue and relief operations, unity of command should be ensured with the Collector in total command.
    • Ensuring safe drinking water and sanitized living conditions should receive as much a priority as other basic means of livelihood.
    • All procurement and distribution of relief materials should be done in a transparent manner.
    • Monitoring and vigilance committees should be set up involving the stakeholders. These committees could also look into grievances.
    • Trauma care and counselling should be made an integral part of the relief operations.
21. Police, Home Guards and Fire Services: Policemen, Firemen and the Home Guards at the field level who are among the first responders should be adequately trained in handling crises/ disasters. Such training should be specific to the types of crises envisaged in an area. A section of Home Guards should also be given para-medical training
22. Setting-up Integrated Emergency Operations Centre (EOC): which must be networked with all other control rooms.
23. Relief and Rehabilitation:
    • Damage assessment should be carried out by multi-disciplinary teams in a transparent and participatory manner in accordance with guidelines laid down by NDMA.
    • A recovery strategy should be evolved in consultation with the affected people and concerned agencies and organisations. The recovery strategy should include all aspects of rehabilitation – social, economic and psychological.
    • Minimum standards of relief should be developed to address the requirements of food, health, water and sanitation, shelter requirements.
    • Focus should be placed on the special needs of the vulnerable population that is, children, women, the elderly and the physically challenged.
    • Implementation of the rehabilitation efforts should be carried out by the village panchayats/local bodies. The first priority should be to get the beneficiary-oriented works executed through the beneficiaries themselves.
    • Concurrent monitoring and a quick financial audit should be carried out to prevent misuse of funds.
    • Risk reduction aspects should be incorporated into the recovery plans. Land use plans which ensure safety of the inhabitants should be brought into effect during reconstruction. All new civil constructions should mandatorily be made disaster resistant as per prescribed standards.
    • A mechanism for redressal of grievances should be established at the local and district levels.
24. Gender Issues and Vulnerability of Weaker Sections
    • The vulnerability analysis should bring out the specific vulnerabilities of women and these should be addressed in any mitigation effort. Disaster mitigation plans should be prepared, in consultation with women’s groups. Similar steps should be taken for other vulnerable groups.
    • In the recovery phase, efforts should focus on making women economically independent by offering them opportunities of earning incomes; providing training in new skills, forming self-help groups and providing microfinance, marketing facilities etc.
    • Trauma counselling and psychological care should be provided to widows and women and other persons in distress. These activities should form part of the disaster management plan
25. Revisiting Long Term Interventions (Droughts)
    • National Institute of Drought Management may be set up for research on various aspects of drought, acting as a resource centre on droughts and carrying out impact evaluation studies of the drought management efforts
26. Livelihood Management in Extremely Drought Prone Areas
    • Strategy for making people pursue livelihoods compatible with their ecosystems needs to be evolved
27. Codifications of Management Methodologies
    • State Governments need to rewrite the Relief ‘Manuals’ thoroughly in the light of recent developments including inputs from the NDMA and their own experience and update them once in a few years.
28. Rationalization of Drought Declarations: The method and mechanism of declaration of droughts needs to be modified under the guidance of NDMA. Certain guidelines need to be followed like-
    • Where a certain percentage (say, twenty per cent) of area normally cultivated remains unsown till the end of July or December for Kharif and Rabi respectively, the affected Mandal could be declared drought affected by the government
    • Such estimates may be verified with reference to remote sensing data
29. Making Rivers Perennial: to address drought problems
30. Rainfed Areas Authority: A National Rainfed Areas Authority may be constituted immediately. The Authority can deal inter alia, with all the issues of drought management.
31. Epidemics:
    • To more effectively prevent outbreak/spread of epidemics, it is imperative that a comprehensive revised model legislation on public health is framed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with adaptations necessitated by local requirements.
    • Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has to ensure that requisite plans envisaged under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, are drawn up in respect of epidemics also and that the role of the district administration finds explicit in in the Public Health Emergency Bill.
    • The Ministry of Health Family Welfare and the State Governments must ensure that ‘standard operating procedures’ are devised to assign roles and responsibilities of agencies and personnel
32. Disruption of Essential Services
    • All crisis/disaster management plans should include plans for handling possible disruptions in essential services.
    • All agencies/organizations engaged in the supply of essential services should have their own internal crisis management plans to deal with emergencies
    • The regulatory authorities of the respective sectors may lay down the required framework for drawing up standard operating procedures and crisis management plans