Prioritising
is not Easy !
Monitoring is even more difficult !
PM’s Economic Advisory Council met 2 days back and listed following
10 priority areas to work on [ Source : Economic Times / 12 Oct ]
·
Economic Growth
·
Employment and Job Creation
·
Informal Sector and
Integration
·
Fiscal Framework
·
Monetary Policy
·
Public
Expenditure
·
Institutions of Economic Governance
·
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
·
Patterns of Consumption and Production
·
Social Sector
“ The entire thrust of the Council will
be on giving SPECIFIC IMPLEMENTABLE recommendations to the PM after consulting all stakeholder
ministries “, Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the council, said after its first
meeting on Wednesday
Business Line ( 12 Oct ) adds :
Addressing the media after the meeting , Bibek Debroy
said :
“ Our entire thrust would be on IMPLEMENTABLE decisions .
Our views on the ten identified areas would be on SPECIFIC THINGS that you can change
tomorrow
……. Five members of the EAC will take the responsibility of
MONITORING the ten actionable areas “
Dear Members of PM-EAC :
Congratulations on your approach – especially on your
emphasis on :
·
Setting SPECIFIC IMPLEMENTABLE
targets for each Ministry
·
MONITORING the actual
performance against the targeted performance
In this regard , I urge
you to read my following blog ( earlier sent as email ) :
Monday, 4 September 2017
RTI = (
Citizen’s ) Right to Information
RTP = (
Government’s ) Right to Privacy
Yesterday , PM Shri Modiji reshuffled
his cabinet by :
· inducting 9 new faces ( considered to
have “ potential for performance “
)
· getting rid of 7 old faces ( considered to have
“ poor performance “ )
· promoting 4 old faces ( appraised as
having “ good performance “ )
· laterally transferred Suresh
Prabhu ( believed to have suffered “ bad
luck “ )
Understandably , we will never get to
see their “ Score Cards “ (
Privacy ? )
But here is my guess as to how these
ministers got their performance evaluated
Possibly , Shri Modiji fixed for
them SPECIFIC MEASURABLE
ACHIEMENT TARGETS , at the beginning of their tenures , as
suggested in my following blog ( sent as email on 06 DEC 2014 ) , and got some outside /
impartial THIRD PARTY to
evaluate their ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENTS :
06 Dec
2014
BUDGETING
BY OBJECTIVES
Dear Shri Jaitley ,
Come Feb 2015 and you will present
your Budget in Lok Sabha
You will allocate thousands of crores
of rupees to different ministries , for spending during 2015-16
You may even increase / decrease
their allocations based on , to what extent ( % ) did they manage to actually
" spend" their current
year's allocations
The one and only emphasis is on
" spending " !
As usual , no MP will ask :
" But , what exactly did
the Minister concerned achieve by spending this money ?
What physical / measureable targets
did the Minister succeed in reaching / exceeding , with that money ?
Where / What are the OUTPUTS ?
Why is it that no targets were set in
advance, before the start of the year ?
How come , Minister was allowed to
shoot first and then draw concentric circles around the hole afterwards ( at
the end of the year ) , to claim BULL'S
EYE ? "
In private sector , shareholders /
bankers do not hesitate to sack the CMD / MD / CEO , if he fails to deliver on
promised profit
Then , why are Ministers allowed
to retain their posts ( - or
even get kicked upstairs ! ), despite
failing to deliver ?
Dear Shri Jaitley :
MPs should know that YOU cannot
answer these questions , simply because , at the time of the Budget Exercise
, no physical OUTPUTS got fixed for each Minister
What did get fixed , were only EXPENDITURE TARGETS !
Simply because MPs passed the Budget
without fixing targets such as following for 31 March 2015 :
=================================
* Finance Minister
# GDP ..... 6 % ............ [ 10 % improvement ]
#
CAD.......( - ) 5 % .....[ 20 % improvement ]
=================================
* Commerce Minister
# Exports........ $ 350 Billion .... [ 10 %
improvement ]
#
FDI..............$ 50 Billion...... [ 20 %
improvement ]
=================================
* Railway Minister
# Lengths of Tracks...... 125,000 Km.....
[ Up by 10 % ]
# No
of Passenger Trains / day..... 10,000... [ Up by 10 % ]
=================================
* Health Minister
# Chronic Hunger and Hunger Related Deaths
8 Million / year .................................... [ Down by 20
% ]
#
Under-nourished people..... 200 million..... [ Down by 10 % ]
=================================
* Social Welfare Minister
# Dowery Deaths / year....... 8,000...... ......[
Down by 10 % ]
# People without Toilets........ 500 Million.... [ Down
by 20 % ]
=================================
* Agriculture
Minister
# Farmers Suicide/ year..... .. 14,000...............
[ Down by 20 % ]
# Food Grain rotting / year..... 5 Million tons..... [
Down by 20 % ]
=================================
So on and so forth for each Minister
Some caution / suggestions :
* Ignore the numbers given above. I could be factually wrong
* Focus on the concept of " Management
by Objectives "
* Overcome the fear of " failure to meet the targets ".
* Overcome the fear of " being ridiculed " !
* Don't chop off the neck that dares to stick out !
* Only failure is , not fixing the targets !
* Actual vs Targeted achievements must be measured , on an on-going
basis
, by totally independent THIRD PARTY agencies
Ministers / Finance Minister and these Agencies , must agree in
advance , how the agencies will go about " measuring " the
Actual
Achievements
The
method of measurement must be transparent and well publicized
in
advance
Agencies shall have no role in fixing of Annual Targets
That is best done by the PRIME MINISTER -
the CEO , MakeInIndia
* There must be at least 10 performance parameters for each Minister
* Parameters themselves could be selected / prioritized , based on an
ONLINE PUBLIC SURVEY / OPINION POLL , from
Govt web site
* If conducting such an ONLINE POLL for the forthcoming budget is
too
late , same could be done on a printed form , by current MPs /
MLAs /
Rajya Sabha Members
* Results of the SURVEY / POLL , must be published
=======================================================
=======================================================
There is no way to find out whether
PM had actually set for his ministers , any
QUANTIFIABLE
TARGETS or not
But the citizens have only themselves
to blame for failing to come out with a, citizen’s
CHARTER OF DEMANDS [ COD ] ,
clearly laying down TARGETS expected to be achieved by
each and every Minister , till 2019 elections
Now , don’t expect political parties
in OPPOSITION to frame such a COD
They are still hoping (against hope ?
) – to come back into power in 2019 , and do not want to say / do , any foolish
things to come back to haunt them !
It is the duty of organizations such
as CII – FICCI – ASSOCHAM – ADR ( Association for Democratic Reforms ) , and
various THINK TANKS , to initiate this process
13 Oct 2017
www.hemenparekh.in
/ blogs