Saturday, June 24 2006 11:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Delivery of social development projects needs a total overhaul in India and their success hinges on decentralised implementation with centralised monitoring, says a World Bank sponsored book.

"Reinventing Public Service Delivery in India", released Friday, says serious obstacles to the delivery of social projects include overstaffing, weak anti-corruption enforcement and the lack of electoral financing reforms.

The release of the book was followed by a panel discussion attended by, among others, Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh and the book's editor Vikram K. Chand, a specialist on public sector management with the World Bank.

"Decentralisation is the key element for the success of any public delivery system in the world," Ramesh said, echoing the views of the other panellists.

"The report has been given to civil servants in various ministries and we should introduce some element of reforms in the public service system," he added, referring to the findings of the book published by SAGE.

The 404-page book enumerates some detailed case studies in the form of success stories and lists the difficulties faced by civil servants while implementing effective developmental programmes at various socio-economic levels.

According to it, the case studies should serve as an instrument of best practices sharing to make the public delivery system successful in the country.

Some of the case studies relate to the telecom reform done in India in 1980-2004 and the opening up of rural marketing in Madhya Pradesh. These cases showed that pushing reforms needed strong action.

The report examined several cases using e-governance to simplify transaction - like the E-Sewa and Friends, the Bhoomi project in Karnataka, rural card project in Andhra Pradesh and computerising inter-state check-posts in Gujarat.



Implementation of these projects showed that high-level political support and a stable tenure are necessary to achieve administrative success. It also emphasised the importance of public-private partnerships in e-governance.

The report also throws light on how popular reforms usually survive political transitions and that bipartisan consensus helps sustainability. Reforms can be sustained if the revenue models are sound enough.

Reforms are often highly context-bound and competition between agencies, cities and states help spread ideas and innovations, the report added.