In his latest report submitted to Parliament on December 10, 2010, the CAG of India gives some interesting insight into the functioning of the Council for Advancement of People?s Action and Rural Technology (Capart), a society registered and operating as an autonomous body under the ministry of rural development. A laudable objective of the council is to act as a nodal point and a catalyst for sustainable rural development through promoting appropriate technologies in rural areas and supporting voluntary organisations (VO) in implementing projects. The main thrust is to facilitate community participation and people?s involvement in the development process in the changed planning ideology for achieving inclusive growth.
This report comes 12 years after Capart gave a self-explanatory account to the policymakers to help assess its effectiveness. The earlier report of 1998 commented on the sanctioning of projects without verifying the eligibility, credibility and professional competence of VOs and genuineness of the documents submitted by them. Even after more than a decade, Capart continues to operate with those critical deficiencies pointed out earlier, disregarding its own assurance for taking corrective action.
It is good to have a set of foolproof eligibility criteria for selecting VOs, and elaborate project approval and evaluation processes, with no less than seven stages like desk approval, pre-funding appraisal, release of the first instalment, project sanction, progress reports and the release of subsequent instalments, post evaluation and release of balance amount. More than that, what is important is how well these criteria were used while working. In its effort, the audit finds that the council had taken up 4,384 programmes during 5 years from 2003 to 2009 but could not reach most of the backward areas of the country identified by the Planning Commission. Of the 100 backward districts identified, no projects were sanctioned in 28 backward districts and only 14% of the total projects sanctioned in the remaining 72 districts. Projects are unevenly distributed; 51% of funds flow only to six states and northeastern states barely get 5% of the funds.
Deficiencies are there at all stages of project process and evaluation, leading to sanction of funds to ineligible VOs, like family based VOs, ineligible first timers, allocation of more projects to certain groups even without submission of required documents for the release of funds. As stipulations for preventing manipulation and incorrect submission of records, and false reporting of completion were not implemented, and adequate baseline data are not consolidated, the creation of rural infrastructure could be shown under different flagship programmes like NREGA and there could be possibility of fraud and corruption. As of January 2010, the council filed FIRs in only 62 out of 659 blacklisted cases. Of those blacklisted, VOs and FAS are listed on the Website of the ministry are without the names and addresses of the key functionaries.
Though Capart assured the PAC that projects would not be sanctioned without pre-funding appraisal, funds were sanctioned to 112 projects without such appraisal; 182 projects were improperly approved without submission of requisite documents, without rural development as the mandate, which was to be added later. Funds were released without verifying the beneficiaries; the first instalment was released without mandatory documents and subsequent instalments were released without progress reports. One of the stories in the report involves a VO with a husband as president, a wife as secretary and five of the seven members belonging to the same family got funds without having any mention of rural development in its mandate.
Capart empanelled facilitator-cum-evaluators (FCEs) to assess the physical verification progress of projects. Despite assurances to the PAC that performance of the FCEs would be periodically monitored and action taken against those who were found deficient in performance, false reporting continued. During the period of report, 2003-09, out of 4,384 projects sanctioned, only 1,324 could be closed after completion.
Capart admitted that there was a delay in mid-term and post-completion evaluation, release of funds to VOs, laxity of VOs in submission of accounts and closure reports. The number of projects sanctioned and funds released were not corresponding to the percentage of the rural population. Capart argued that VOs were unevenly distributed across the country and with limited resources it might not be in a position to correct the skewed distribution of VOs.
As Plan documents state, emphasis should really shift to the grassroots level participation in development planning, implementation and monitoring of programmes to achieve inclusive growth. Though a national policy on VOs was notified in July 2007, efforts are required to develop, promote and strengthen such institutions. VOs can effectively contribute by participating in the development process by working together with the government on the basis of mutual trust, respect and shared responsibility by adopting transparent and accountable systems of governance. They can act like watchdogs in checking the arbitrary exercise of executive power.
An effective policy for improving governance is the need of the day.
Adoption of appropriate information communication technology solutions like PlanPlus, PRIA Soft for creation of baseline data and accounting, coordination with PRI institutions, social activists, people?s organisations and government authorities at central, state and local levels need to be strengthened to achieve inclusive growth with economic resilience.
The author is director general (commercial) in the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India