 "'Self-service of public service is the only sustainable model'")
How would a SWOT report card of Indian public delivery service look like?
From strength point of view I would like to complement India for its vision and to some extent for execution. Some of the major programmes like UID are world-leading kind of programmes. It creates a platform for a modern world-class state. There is a strong alignment among the government for a major public service programme of the future. That’s really hard for democratic country.
When looking at weaknesses and strength, one has to consider the scale, diversity and complexity of the country. There are issues around rich and poor, thousands of mile of border, the vast geographic expanse. Almost all countries when they go through development also undergo social turmoil. That turmoil can be disruptive. Given the spread of India it is extremely difficult to reach out to people in a cost effective manner.
The service delivery model of government in traditional Western sense is not sustainable. In lot of ways it does not achieve its outcome, and also not financially sustainable. Many Western countries, including those in Europe and in the United States are in so much duress due to un-sustainable cost structure of the service delivery model. For them the challenge is to fundamentally change a massive legacy.
In India the legacy of service delivery is not so big that it is impossible to change. So there is massive opportunity to innovate and do things in a different way, and re-invent service delivery by direct cash transfer using UID programme, use mobility, and low cost mobility to transfer cash to someone in a rural area. This is an opportunity for India to re-invent service delivery.
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The threat is it requires very strong leadership and vision in order to allow that innovation to occur.
Do you see political risk as the biggest challenge – with elections in 2014 – to the reforms in the public delivery system?
Consistency of vision in a democratic country is a real fundamental problem. There is a political risk in disturbing status quo. The fillip side is elections also create pressure to demonstrate results. You have to show the power of UID in actual service delivery. UID, where it is today, is a great building block. But there are other pieces that have to come into play. The real value is to allow someone in a village that did not have much access to government service, get benefits easily and cost effectively. Many steps have to be taken to demonstrate the political value. Politics aside, India has to stay on in this journey as it is fundamental to long term prosperity of the country.
What is the next level for UID programme when it moves out of a building block stage?
UID is all about personalisation of service. Let’s take a case of a family of four with a person, his spouse who is not employed and two kids, one of them in school and the other isn’t. The idea will be to give them a single service package that gives them the opportunity to prosper. The next stage (of UID) would be to build packages around different such circumstances.
This opens up the opportunity to have mass access to government services. This would mean having a single way to interact with the entire government in a self-service model. Citizen should be able to interact with the government and access the services through a cheap mobile phone or a computer or a tablet, creating an era of mass access.
Governments have to support all the channels of communication – be it phones, internet, kiosks, in person. More importantly governments have to use the right channels at the right point of time. In commercial sector, companies want to attract and retain customers. Governments need to look at servicing citizen in a similar way. Self-service needs to be the primary low cost channel for the model to be sustainable in the long term.
Given the geographical, social and economic complexity of India, how do you see the public service delivery models evolve going forward?
India has a big challenge with billion plus people with many of them with limited education and ability to reach a service place. A big question is how you will do tangible service delivery to these folks. In Italy, for instance, the post office is the face of the government. They are the primary mechanism for citizen to interface with government. The post offices there are also into mobile phone operations. So they provide citizen with cheap phones that come pre-loaded with services, including government services. India has to figure out different access models. May be India could do with an UID phone with government services loaded into it. In the hands of a needy they can transact and interact with government with small amount of money. The direct cash transfer anyway takes the friction out of the current model in terms of doing away with the middle men.
UID is the foundation block and the big step would be to create the service delivery platforms. The mobile channel allows the service to reach out to the remote end of the society.
You said the Western model of public service delivery is not sustainable. Is there a lesson for emerging nations like India in that?
The Western model is a “sillo-ed” and vertical model. In most of these countries the proliferation of departments that provide common services is kind of incredible. The operating models are extremely complex with tremendous amount of redundancy.
One of the big trends that we are trying to address is to move to horizontal models where you have a shared platform to do basic things. Take the way departments pay people. In every country, every department has different piece of technology to pay people. Countries are struggling to put in place a horizontal model. France for instance, has a single national pay roll and all government departments get their payments from there. But that involves changing lot of things, including people, budgets.
India should avoid coping a vertical silo model but go for a modern horizontal model with what services should be common and what should be separated. Rigour and focus on an efficient government is something India should embrace and build that into the culture of government now. So in 20 to 30 years when they are massive prosperous state, they are not sitting with governments they can’t afford. As a citizen we need to demand greater financial discipline in our governance.