Time for governance reforms

Beyond the Lockdown

There can be no question that when a pandemic of the enormity of COVID-19 disrupts the world, nay world order, governments worldwide are bound to be overwhelmed. There can also be no question that under these situations any government could do with some extra help from its citizens.

Thus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated appeal to citizens for their support and sacrifices under the circumstances is understandable. After all, half our population lives on less than a couple of dollars a day, with a tax-paying population that’s wafer thin. And without the entire nation stretching itself, the government could indeed find it difficult to ride out the situation on its own.

And people, for the most part, have uncomplainingly risen to the occasion in more ways than one. Millions have lost their livelihoods and jobs because of the lockdown while others have calmly accepted lower earnings and salaries. Tradesmen like barbers, plumbers, electricians, daily-wage construction workers and marginal farmers – always the worst hit in any disaster, whether an act of nature, man or God – have stoically borne the brunt of the pandemic. Many have made significant donations, fed the hungry and the homeless. The corporate sector and citizens alike have been urged to continue paying wages to staff, landlords exhorted to waive rents, private hospitals to lend their facilities to COVID detection, hostels of schools and colleges to quarantine facilities and much more, for in a time of crisis the entire nation must share the burden. While it may not cost a college much to give up its hostel for quarantine during the summer break, it is difficult to see how long a hotel or an airline, and many others, can continue to pay for labour and overheads when their revenues are near zero.

Nevertheless, citizens have uncomplainingly stood by the government in these trying times, because this is no time to complain. Instead, they are using the lockdown time to shine up their housekeeping.

But the government on its part has announced no cogent, meaningful and substantial economic package for the nation reeling under the effect of its summary lockdown. Perhaps it’s because its coffers are empty, which in turn is because of our large-scale corruption.

It’s time to realise that what we are looking at is possibly the beginning of a new world order. It can hardly be business as usual after COVID-19. That is why we need to rethink all our initiatives at a fundamental level—not just in terms of what to do, but more in terms of how to do them, going forward. We have to seize on the lockdown pause as the opportunity to change the course of things, to work on a new governance order with significantly reduced corruption and greater transparency and accountability. The government needs to rejig its housekeeping on many dimensions.

Unfortunately, in this government, every decision seems to flow only from the PMO, perhaps to project a single powerful leader. It is as if no single minister or ministry counts for much beyond the PM. Why else would the Home Minister be entirely absent in the public discourse or domain? Or why would a need for a ‘PM-Cares Fund’ be felt beyond the PM’s National Relief Fund?

This needs to change. Every ministry should be asked to count for itself during this nationwide pause. For instance, the HRD Ministry should be required to reflect and work on a white paper on what can be done to focus on learning outcomes, especially in government schools. The same needs to be done by the Ministry of Health for the government hospitals in terms of health outcomes. The Home Ministry should be asked to develop blueprints for police reforms. The Ministry of Law & Justice and the Supreme Court should be required to brainstorm on how to streamline judicial reforms to deliver a semblance of justice to the common man.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry needs to work on how to ensure that the MSME sector – especially the micro sector – will not be completely wiped out under the load of the COVID-19 lockdown. They need to strategise how the manufacturing and construction sectors will lure workers back from their rural homes to which they are in the process of trekking, left largely bereft by the government, when the lockdown ends. They need to brainstorm how to help the corporate sector manage their capacities which would have shrunk significantly post-lockdown.

The Ministry of Petroleum should be reflecting on why the price of diesel and petrol at our pumps have remained at around Rs 65-75 per litre, from the time when international crude prices reigned at $106 a barrel until today when it is at $20 or thereabouts! Shouldn’t a fair government, which has linked fuel retail prices to international prices, be passing on at least some of the benefit of the fall in prices to its citizens?

The Finance Ministry needs to work out how to put money into the hands of the people so that the demand-side of the economy doesn’t dry up. They should think about issuing 30-year and 50-year bonds in the economy to fund long-gestation infrastructure projects and invest in such projects. This could also be the time to deploy a thin, specialised workforce adequately protected, and provided with supporting eco-system, using entirely mechanised methods to repair all our pathetic roads and create an infrastructure for a cleaner India.

This is also the time to reflect on cleaning up electoral funding, which is the lodestone of all corruption in the country. Considering that the current dispensation came to power precisely because the last one was highly corrupt, lack of action in this regard is lamentable. Now is the time to act.

It is time to reset the national conscience to higher standards and get our ministries judiciary and police to be more fair, clean and accountable.

(The writer is Director, Schulich School of Business, India Programme)