Substack

Friday, June 17, 2011

Development priorities!

Sometime back I had blogged about the priorities of government at its cutting edge, as represented by the amount of time spent by District Collectors on various development sectors. I had argued that District Collectors, who head the implementation machinery, spend most of their time on poverty mitigation welfare programs at the cost of economic growth creating development.

Here is a Venn Diagram representation of the priorities of a District Collector in a typical Indian District.



The "everything else" includes electricity, roads, urban development, drinking water, other infrastructure, health, education, and so on. The skewedness in priorities, a reflection of the priorities of governments themselves, is stark.

3 comments:

Indian Power Market said...

Isnt it high time that every District collector had a well functioning Economic development cell, especially after the economic reforms when it was understood that the country would go through a transition phase?

Any news of what the Indian Economic Service (IES) cadre catres to ... besides the echeleons of Planning Commission etc. ?

jyothikraja said...

there should be separate venn diagram for dealing with MLAs & MLCs.

Urbanomics said...

IPM, the IES officials work in the Finance Ministry and are part of the planning and policy formulation process.

jyothikraja, thanks for that. just missed that out so completely!! that is another circle within the venn diagram!