The plea that private think tanks should be involved in energy futures is correct. The idea that only private think tanks should do it is wrong, as it takes a lot of in-house mindsets and skills to use a model for public policy. The critique that minister Jairam Ramesh should not set up a modelling unit at Isro, but give the money to private consultants is interesting. There is a long tradition in the Indian Planning Commission to use university and non-government specialists for energy modelling. Ram Prasad Sengupta was doing this work outside the Commission decades ago. In the mid-eighties, I remember the secretary of the Energy Policy Group under KC Pant, civil servant VB Easwaran coming to me in the Planning Commission to argue for import of wood to save our trees. On his behalf, the argument for OGL import of wood was made passionately by a young MIT-trained engineer who was consulting with the Energy Policy Group. He was so convincing that in the days of near-complete import licensing, we allowed import of wood on OGL with zero tariffs. His name was Jairam Ramesh.
A policy model is not just fun and games. It has to answer specific questions that the Cabinet may ask or that may arise in global negotiations. The other guy will have his answers and you have to push your interest. Again, you have to be consistent with the numbers and arguments you have used earlier, unless you are building up a new ball park, which is seldom the case. In theory, all of this can be given to an outsider. In practice, it becomes difficult. These difficulties arise for different reasons. All the data may not be available in the public domain. For example, you cannot, under the law, give out the numbers relating to a company or a person even if it is large. In fact, you can?t do so for two persons or companies, for then one of them can subtract his numbers from what you have released and arrive at his competitor?s numbers, and this is illegal in the Statistics Act.
I always publish reports when I work for the government and I discovered a long time ago that secrecy is a mugs game, and no governments fall when a sarkari economist prints his work. As the chairman of BICP, I wanted to publish the reports that were used to decontrol but had to hire economists, now all stars, to aggregate the tables for three companies. Studies on the Structure of the Industrial Economy that resulted, made the economists famous, but were read only by a few.
More importantly, the context can change quickly in a rapidly changing world and if you have the model in your laptop and knowhow, you can work out the new scenario in a matter of seconds. I remember the Plan models we used to run for hours can now be loaded on my mobile or computer diary, and one can play around with new export or rainfall data in plane journeys. In the 11th Plan they have largely subcontracted the statistical work. KL Datta has written an interesting history of the work, and its current state is supposed to be reported, although the Yojana Bhavan Web site hasn?t reported it until now. But in the published version of the Plan, the numbers between different chapters are inconsistent, leading to many awkward questions. This is so for sectors like energy, employment and the demographic dividend.
On the other hand, it is extremely unlikely that government in its current avatar will have the patience and put aside the resources for doing all the work in-house. A strong integrating group within the establishment with most of the detailed work subcontracted and done with periodic interaction seems to be the best bet. You need a lot of expertise to use experts. Defining the needs of decision making is not easy Normally, when the work is contracted out, you have to first state the terms of reference in a non-trivial fashion. Only the gifted, and in their absence the experienced, can spell out problems in a manner that the study does not reinvent what is already known in a more fashionable manner. Then when work is under way you need to review progress unless you want to be taken for a ride or led into interesting side paths of great interest for curiosity but not policy relevance. Also, since public money is at stake, the work has to be as laid out and paid for. Finally, preliminary results and drafts have to be commented upon. All of this will need expertise. You need a lot of expertise to use experts.
The minister should be encouraged to work in public-private partnership on climate modelling in Isro. That outfit has a long tradition of modelling, going back to Satish Dhawan and should soon give the Swiss and French energy modellers a run for their money. India led this kind of work in my youth. We can do it again. As a past president of the Indian Econometric Society, I?ll be happy.
The author is a former Union minister