Anyone who has tried to transfer the title of land after the death of the owner knows the hassle involved, not to speak of the corruption.

So this becomes a chance for the government to reach out to citizens, a chance for it to show that governance can be empathetic. Imagine the scene if the revenue staff came home to the bereaved instead of the latter having to go to the land revenue office, wait in queue and be dealt with by indifferent officers with bureaucratic inertia! The updated mutation records are handed over to the legal heirs even before the month of mourning ends.

Such empathetic responsiveness was ensured in Amravati division of Maharashtra under the guidance of Ganesh Thakur, who was the the divisional commissioner. I learned about this, and many more similarly empathetic innovations in delivery of public services, while interacting with about 100 district collectors at the Lal Bahadur Shastri national academy of administration (LBSNAA) at a meeting coordinated by Dr Prem Singh on June 7.

We hear about scams, corruption and leakages and become cynical about the state of our country and its governance. Many of these problems undoubtedly are serious and indeed eat into the vitals of our society. But there is another, hopeful side – the positive and empathetic side. We have to learn from positive initiatives in the public systems at different levels and find ways to encourage them wherever possible.

I had earlier shared a story of a teacher in Walia, in Gujarat’s Bharuch district, who had redesigned the government school so beautifully that children didn’t want to go home in the evening unless forced. Dr Rajendar, the then collector of Bharuch district, scaled this experience to about 110 government schools and anganvadis. The students of a leading city private school went to see and learn from these government schools about a reverse role model (yet political and administrative leaders don’t put their own children in government schools). If we can harness the Columbus in us and try to scale up ideas initiated by others, we become part of a very large solution.

If everybody has to discover his own solution to a problem, then we are into a very costly system of learning. In Buxar district of Bihar, the collector noticed a serious problem of information about public works not remaining visible at the project site. The boards were removed or damaged.  He created a database of all office bearers of the panchayat and the details of every scheme from the date of beginning and to its completion in terms of work done, money spent.

Everybody got an SMS three times during the project implementation in Hindi about the status of the project. Complete transparency was ensured – another example where suo motu sharing of information ensured not only participation of people but also earned their trust and respect. 

In Dhule district, a part of Khandesh region in Maharashtra, lots of workers emigrate to Gujarat and other regions for work during sugarcane season. Their children are deprived of education and, in fact, often put to work in the fields with their parents. The administration decided to have seasonal hostels for children to stay in the village and meals were provided to them. Separate hostels for boys and girls were made to prevent the disruption of education of children.

Earlier, Sukhdevbhai of Ganatar had tried a very interesting experiment in this regard in Panchmahal district. His NGO pleaded with people to leave behind provisions in some of their houses which could be converted into hostels for their children. Without any investment in capital goods, the education of children of migrating population was ensured. This is a model which can be scaled up in the entire country so that no child remains out of school.

Government is willing to subsidise two-third of the population when people below the poverty line are not more than one third. But this misguided expenditure on food subsidy for people who can afford to buy food eats away from funds that could have been used to eliminate child labour and ensure 100 percent children in schools as per the right to education policy.

The paradox is that we have to celebrate small experiments when it is actually the obligation of the state to ensure that no child remains out of school. There are many more stories that I learnt at LBSNAA about transforming the face of our country through small, scattered, but significant initiatives of public spirited officials. The fact that we don’t have a database of such initiatives yet led us to propose a partnership between IIMA, SRISTI and LBSNAA so that no good example of social innovation goes unrecognised. The minimum we can do is to share such examples.

I also met officers who have had 17 transfers in 15 years in UP. To expect innovations from such officers, who are not even sure that they will continue to serve at one location even a year, is to perhaps expecting too much. But things will change. Transparency will increase and accountability will follow.  There is no other way that the Indian development story will become inclusive enough.