Rahul Gandhi has thrown up an interesting idea — to examine if implementation of the UPA’s flagship social sector programmes could be implemented on a commission basis. This is because of his conviction that less than 15 per cent of funds allocated under Central schemes actually reach the real beneficiaries now.
Over two decades back his late father Rajiv Gandhi, then India’s Prime Minister, had openly said that around 15 paise of every rupee allocated by the Centre actually reached those for whom the money was intended.
In a recent meeting with the members of the newly-constituted National Advisory Council, headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi talked about his innovative idea and surprised all of them with his up to date information on the various subjects he raised on the meeting. On the condition of anonymity, an NAC member told “After the first meeting of the council, we had a session with Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, where we discussed issues pertaining to implementation of all the cherished pro-poor schemes. All of us agreed that there are many bottlenecks leading to leakages in delivering goods to the people through government agencies.”
Taking the discussion forward, he said, Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi floated an idea which set many members thinking. “The idea was to consider outsourcing implementation of pro-poor schemes to concerned players on a commission basis.” Mr Gandhi favoured giving some concessions to the concerned party who has real interest for the betterment of society bringing the benefit of social sector scheme into the life of common man, he added.
“He put his argument that if public infrastructure projects can be executed by private corporates on the basis of concessions, why can’t social sector schemes of the government be given to them on a commission of 15 per cent of the total allocated funds for each scheme. His intention is to see that the maximum amount reaches the beneficiaries,” the member said.
Another member who was part of the deliberations, however, said that while the idea might be “noble” and “innovative”, it was bound to face resistance from the state apparatus, which now implements the schemes. “Lakhs of officials are involved in the process with their vested interests. It has to be seen if the politics of the day would allow this idea to become a reality,” he said. “However, we can enter into a debate on the issue, dissecting the pros and cons of handing over implementation of schemes to private entities.”
Here the main purpose of the idea is not to bring private entities into the social sector scheme that is hitherto the only domain of government, but to reach the benefits of the schemes to the real beneficiaries for whom the schemes are intended. Since the poor people have been at the receiving end and getting only 15% of the allocated funds, this very idea that Rahul Gandhi put forth before the members of the NAC can go a long way in implementing the UPA’s flagship social sector programmes, which could, in turn, result in changing the whole scenarios. Thus, setting the wheal of development rolling every nook and corner, which could lead the gap of two Indias become narrower.
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