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the PPPloot!

insight:whistleblowers beware, the government is here to helP!

October 1-15, 2010 |Vol. 01 Issue 17 | `30

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22 PubliC need, Private greedHave public-private partnerships (PPPs) deliveredthe promised cost savings, eciency and improvedservice? An illustrative case study of Delhi-Gurgaonexpressway to understand the bewildering array ofissues and problems arising out of the PPP policy

34 whteboer beare. governent here to hep!Ronald Reagan was right. The nine most terryfy-ing words in the English language are indeed, Imfrom the government and Im here to help!

40 dconnect on the e-gov uperhhay Governance Now discovers dissensions within the

government on the vision and implementation ofthe National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)

16 Corrupton an a of nhn returnPlethora of laws have only fuelled corruption andineciency in bureaucracy and elsewhere

14 interve thsrprakah Jaa

Most private coalblocks are idle. We

will review andwithdraw suchblocks

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contents

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4/52GovernanceNow | October 1-15, 20104

a hyThe recent debate on Kashmir haslargely centred on issues that arenot central to the root cause of thelatest spate of unrest

W

e have engaged in 150 rounds of dialogue withNew Delhi in the past six decades and we haventmoved an inch on Kashmir. How will anothersuch exercise be any dierent? Separatist Syed

Ali Shah Geelani came up with the most mem-orable soundbite when the all-party delegation visited the trou-bled valley in September. Geelani not only underscored the futili-ty of talks between New Delhi and the separatists of his ilk but also,quite unwittingly, the fact that the problem and therefore the solu-tion lies elsewhere. The separatists, sponsored by Pakistan, havea vested interest in perpetuating unrest across the valley. Theirdeclared agenda is secession from India. They do not believe inthe constitution of India. There is no meeting ground betweenthem and New Delhi. Or, fortunately, between them and the peace-loving Kashmiris who comprise an overwhelming majority, as the lastassembly elections proved all over again. Yet, the blundering centralgovernment continues to confuse rhetoric with strategy. It has failed

once again to dierentiate between the legitimate anguish amongKashmiris and the demands of the Pakistan-sponsored separatists.

So long as the central government continues to mistake engagemenwith the separatists for a genuine attempt at reaching out to thaggrieved Kashmiris it can achieve little progress. The revelation ththere was division within the all-party delegation over engaging thseparatists makes the strategic lapse even more pronounced.

This is most galling especially because this was a time for thcentre to seize the opportunity to further isolate the separatists. should have said in no uncertain terms that it would have no talkwith anybody who did not believe in the constitution of India. Iany case, even the prime minister did not have the mandate to oeanything to anybody beyond the scope of the constitution of India. Sas Geelani himself said, it is futile to go in for another round of talkThat, however, does not spell a solution by itself.

The rst constructive step in that direction will have to be aengagement with the people in the valley. These are the peop

who have turned up to prtest against, and hurl stones athe armed forces over the pathree months. Though there no doubt that the separatis

have stoked the ames, theis no denying either that manof these protesters are regulcitizens who have been forced pick up stones against the exceses of the army and the police. Thsituation worsened when chiminister Omar Abdullah madno attempt to reach out to, anconsole, the victims and thefamilies even when it becamclear that innocent people haindeed been killed in police ation. Therefore, in this latephase of unrest, the main culpr

E D I T O R I A L S

l a

ppc K c c y pc c.

Chief justice of India S H Kapadia has set

a new norm for approaching the green

bench of the supreme court that he

heads. In short, we want all statutory

clearances from statutory authorities

in place henceforth. After this only will it (environ-

mental dispute) come to the supreme court. Hence-

forth this is the norm, the bench noted.

At rst glance, it may seem to be quite logical as

the court also explained that this norm is aimed at

preventing a situation in which parties obtain an

environment clearance from the apex court in the

initial stages, later fail to satisfy statutory norms and

then start a second round of litigation.

But it isnt really so logical because of the

way the ministry of environment and forests

(MoEF) functions and grants its clearances.

The courts directive has come in connection

with Mayawatis Noida park memorial. The MoEF

has been changing its position before the apex court

saying at times that the project needs no environ-

ment impact assessment (EIA) study and at other

times, that it does. While the litigation is on, con-

struction of the memorial is complete, save for the

nal touches. All the trees that needed to be felled,

have been felled. The statues have been installed

and the damage to the environment (it is next to

the Okhla bird sanctuary) already done. For all

practical purposes, the memorial is a fait accomp

Let us take another example, say the Niyamg

project of Vedanta which was in news recently an

in which Justice Kapadias bench played a role b

granting in-principle forest clearance on August

2008 for mining the Niyamgiri.

The ministrys records show this project, whic

involved a smelting plant in Jharsuguda, a rene

in Lanjigarh and mining of the Niyamgiri, got a s

ries of clearances at dierent points of time, startin

from September 2004 to December 2008. The on

one pending was that of the nal forest clearanc

which the MoEF denied last month.

Let us say, Vedanta moves the apex court now

as indeed it might. The ground reality today

this: The smelting plant started its operation in 200

The renery started operation in 2007. Expansio

of the renery is 60 percent complete. A conve

or belt to the mining site is partially built. So is th

case with a mining access road. All these viola

environment, forest and tribal laws. What can th

sC c Approaching it only after all statutory clearances have been given willresult in fait accompli

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


apex court do now? Can it undo the smelting plant, the

renery or the expansion of the renery?

As MoEF confesses now, it gave environment

clearance to the renery in 2004 which was not

only based on a faulty EIA study but on an EIA

which was dierent from the one on the basis of

which the public hearing was conducted! And that

this involved forest land for which no clearance

was sought or given. The plant became operational

in 2007. Can the supreme court undo the damage?

There were similar charges with the smelting

plant also, which was given clearance in 2007 and

became operational in 2008.

In the case of French company Lafarges mining

of the Khasi hills in Meghalaya for limestone,

the mining started in 2006 after MoEF gave all

clearances. Violations were detected only

after that. The supreme court ordered a

stay in February this year. What can it do

beyond compounding the oence by way

of compensatory aorestation and other

nancial burden for local development? Soon

than later, it will have to lift its stay.

The real problem lies with the MoEFs faulty po

icy of granting environment and forest clearance

which are not only given separately but also in va

ous stages involving a time span of several years.

the meanwhile, the projects are allowed to procee

and by the time nal clearance comes, the projec

are already a fait accompli.

When the laws are followed mostly in the

breach, Justice Kapadias new norm is an open i

vitation to indulge in more of the same. What w

happen when challenging a project in the initi

stage is denied? Wont it encourage violations?

The solution might lie in replacing pieceme

clearances with time-bound, one-shot clearan

es. But there is neither political nor corpora

motivation for such a change in policy. As lon

as the government keeps giving clearances

ts and starts it does seem like unsound logic

insist that justice is available only once.

has been an unresponsive chief min-ister who has failed to govern andrefused to represent his own people. Whenhe realised things were getting com-pletely out of control, he rushed to New

Delhi for help instead of turning to hispeople to understand and address theirgrievances.

Abdullahs demand for diluting thepowers of the army also sprang fromhis desperate urge to clutch at strawsin the wind. He believed he neededsome concessions from New Delhi toshow to his people back home. Littledid he appreciate that the anger of theaverage Kashmiri was not directed asmuch against the army as against himand the police under his command. If thepowers of the armed forces were to be di-luted, the people would scarcely feel more

secure from the excesses of the policeeven as the war on terrorism would sure-ly get compromised. Diluting the powersof the army will not suddenly make aresponsible or responsive leader out ofAbdullah either.

Unfortunately, the recent debate onKashmir has largely centred on issuesthat are not central to the root causeof the latest round of unrest. Neitherdilution of powers of the army nor arenewed engagement with the separat-ists can possibly generate condenceamong the people in their democratical-ly elected government.

All this uss over the Ayodhya ver-dict would suggest that there is areal threat to peace and communalamity in the country or that there

is a real possibility o an out-o-court set-tlement to the six-decade-long dispute. Bythe time you read this, the verdict wouldprobably be out and we would have knownhow badly that impacted us or helped ininding a solution. But or now, it seemsthe government and the court are over-reacting to a uture event that may turnout to be nothing more than another mile-stone in the history o the dispute.

True, we are not privy to any intelli-

gence input to assert one way or the oth-er about the possible allout o the ver-dict but there is not even a aint hint thatsomething like this exists to warrant someextraordinary preventive measures thatthe government has taken, like banningbulk SMS and MMS services in the entirecountry and lag marches by the securi-ty orces in Ayodhya and elsewhere. Thecentral government sent 52 companies oparamilitary orces to UP and stationedhundreds more at strategic locations invarious states a week ahead o September24, the day on which the Allahabad highcourt was to pronounce its verdict.

The supreme court stepped in where nintervention was required. The Allahabahigh court was set to deliver its verdiater rejecting an appeal to deer it on thground that one more chance be giveor an out-o-court settlement. Justice RRavindran o the two-member apex coubench that heard a similar plea and stayethe Allahabad high court verdict in an iterim order, was right in his observatiothat let the verdict come; one way or thother..the matter will come up beore u(the supreme court). But a stay had to bgranted as per the convention becausthe other judge in the bench, Justice H

Gokhale, diered and supported the pleor out-o-court settlement. Interestinly, this plea had not come rom the maparties to the dispute. On the contrarthe main parties and the political orcebehind the estering trouble were keeon the verdict. A stay has only deerrethe already delayed verdict.

As or the government, it seems it wanus to believe that indeed riots woubreak out in the city o Ayodhya and elswhere i the verdict is given or that woube the normal way or us to react whethor not we have moved ar away rom thvolatile days o late 80s and early 90s.

Te real problem lies witte MoEFs aulty policy ogranting environment and orestclearances, wic are not onlygiven separately but also in

various stages involving a timespan o several years.

sp The Centres Ayodhya nervousness is way beyond comprehension

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Until even early Sep-tember, there was a

fond hope that thegovernment wouldsomehow manageto put up a pass-able show duringthe CommonwealthGames. Prepara-tions were way be-hind schedule, thevenues were still notready, commuterswere having a hellof a time as the en-tire capital seemedto have been dug up

and every new rev-elation seemed topoint to a systemicloot of public fundsmeant for the spec-tacle. Yet, many ofus believed that theorganisers wouldmanage the eventsomehow. After all,hadnt Delhi chiefminister Sheila Dik-shit assured us re-peatedly that thiswas India and things

did happen at thelast minute after all.Even the prime min-ister had steppedin amid a belatedattempt to rein inSuresh Kalmadi.But the collapse of afootover bridge anddamning remarksfrom other nationsabout the faciltiesthreaten to rob us ofeven that fond hopeagainst hope. This isthe proverbial elev-enth hour and ev-erybodys worst ap-prehensions seem tobe coming true. Thequestion, then, iswhether the organisers can still some-how save the event.

Join the debate,send your views to

[email protected]

The Last Word column by B V Rao,If Manmohan is best leader theworld has got, has it got too lit-tle? (September 1-15), was pro-voking but very plain. Can a man

having constipation frankly declarehis condition? Conversely, the caseof the other extreme, verbal diah-horea, is just as bad. You knoweverything good that happenedin Indian Railways was due to aman who talked and talked andis a populist leader of a populousstate. He was an object of study inHarvard and IIMs. That was neces-sary to divert public attention fromthe fodder scams and kidnap-pings. So I dont know if we shouldsingle out just one ex-governor ofRBI. But, yes, can the respected

sir please win a Lok Sabha seat?From any place in the country?

Sanjaya Kumar Choudhary

Reresing cangeExcellent piece. It was an in-cisive analysis and a refresh-ing change from what the restare writing about ManmohanSingh. More power to your pen.

Anonymous, on email

Te name o te spade

Hats off to you for succinctly bring-ing out all the deficiencies of a manwho is being touted as the bestprime minister. It is very sad thateven intellectuals do not have theguts to call a spade a spade. If hecannot pull up Suresh Kalmadi, ARaja, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Jai-ram Ramesh without a clearancefrom the Congress high command,he is debasing the august office ofprime minister of a great nation.I was very happy, nay, tickled toread the following about the edi-tor, Does not call a spade by anyother name. That literally sums-upthe very soul, if not the credo of theGovernance Now website. Continuethe good job that you are doing.

Anonymous, on email

Sing IS greatI believe Dr Singh is a great leader.He has secured confidence of peo-ple around him. He has got capablepeople to handle things in the bestway, in implementing his vision

which he feelsbest for India.To be a su-per power youhave to act

like one. Heacted like one,during the in-ternal and ex-ternal disasters.And the credit forkeeping recession outof India goes to him.

Anonymous, on email

Overrated politicianYoure not a jealous little prig andyou ARE a proud Indian. And Imnot one of the first and am one

of the other, too. Just that, likeyou, I think that Dr Singh is oneof the most overrated of politi-cians we have today, just becausehe comports himself like a gentle-man and speaks to world lead-ers like he knows the very minu-tiae of his economic business.Thats what counts in the interna-tional major league gabfest - know-ing about money. But if knowledgeof money was all that was neededfor responsible governance, the USwould still be sitting on Zeus loftychair. None of us really knows Man-

mohan Singhs mind: the mans acipher. He retains a certain CasparMilquetoast equanimity; he doesntruffle his partys feathers by doingwhat leaders do - rework policies;and he outsources decision-mak-ing. What are the odds that whenhe retires, he will coyly defer, unlikeother major politicos, from writ-ing a book on his experiences?

Mansolaris

Was tere a lottery?Another hard-hitter write-

up. Looks like they hada lottery of sorts in de-ciding the best leader.

I would trade him for ahard taskmaster (goodadministrator) who wouldweigh and take the deci-

sions as soon as they arerequired to be taken, who

has already made his mil-lions (cannot be corrupted bymoney at least). But I can hardlyfind anybody in that brack-et around me, can you?

Anyway I stopped believing in thesepolls and also in gallantry awards.

The commander, on email

Nice guy wo fnised frstThough I agree with all that yousaid, our PM is still, in my reck-oning, a better human being andfar better politician than our cur-rent crop of politicians, consider-ing the constraints under whichhe has to govern, which he hasnever hidden from the public.

Rama Rao Mallapragada

Goddesss greatest gitDr Singh is indeed the leader of

leaders. Leaders need no lead-ing: Dr Singh just walks in frontof them perhaps. By popular im-age and by everything we know(which is very less), he is cleanand doesnt misuse power (whichis very rare). And he seems betterthan the rest because he doesntplay seat politics. He need not/cannot/will not play politics. Forhim, the god(dess) giveth andthe god(dess) taketh away.

Sri

L E T T E R S

Write to Governance NowWe invite your suggestions, reactions

to the stories and analyses and, ofcourse, your own take on all matters

related to governance. You can emailor send snail mail. All letters must

accompany your postal address.

[email protected] Publishing Division

24A Mindmill Corporate Towers

Film City, Sector 16A, Noida 201301

manohan aon eaer: thouht of our reaerCan we still savthe Games?

debate

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peopeI t took an avowed socialist to detect a dis-crepancy -- a euphemism for what somepeople have described as a fraud -- in the ac-counts of Employees Provident Fund Organi-

sation (EPFO) that will make about 47millionworkers richer by Rs 1700crore this year.

AD Nagpal, 77, spent three years check-ing his gures repeatedly and writing to thelabour ministry and central board of trust-ees of the EPFO to point out that the fund

had debited a large amount in the interestsuspense account way back in 1998, but dinot credit it into individual accounts. Noone believed him.

That amount turned out to be Rs 1732crore. After being repeatedly challenged byNagpal, the EPFO told him on September 8that his calculation was correct. Nagpal wasalso instrumental in pushing EPFO to use thextra money for a larger interest rate payou

P lanning Commission deputychairperson Montek Singh Ah-luwalia wants the panel top brassto be more people centric. So hetook them all to a special screen-ing of the much talked-about movie,Peepli Live, about a farmer contem-plating suicide in order to secure -nancial relief from the governmentfor his family. Not that you need tobe an economist or Bollywood lm-maker to gure out why only theproverbial 15 paise out of a rupeereaches the beneciary, but watch-ing the travails of Natha might havegiven them a perspective.

Since the lm talks aboutthe perception of people on the

development pro-grammes, we thought itwill be quite useful forthe Planning Commis-sions ocers to seethe lm, Ahluwaliasaid about his ratherunique initiative.

The show comes ata time when the planpanel is likely to begin acomprehensive reviewof various schemes,so lets hope themessage of thelm gets reect-ed in futureplanning.

Justice V S Sirpurkar has recused himself from a three-member committee in-vestigating corruption charges against Justice P D Dinakaran. The SupremeCourt judge met Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari and expressed his inability

to continue as chairperson of the committee, which was set up after 75 oppositionmembers in the upper house moved a motion seeking the removal of Justice Dina-

karan from oce.Earlier in September, the Forum for Judicial Accountability, in a memorandum

to the committee, had urged Justice Sirpurkar to quit the probe panel because he

and Justice Dinakaran had worked together in the Madras High Court. Justice Di-

nakaran later became the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court and has since

been transferred to the Sikkim High Court.

J q p p

A practised eye for detecting fraudLiving up to the callof duty

Governance lessons courtesy Bollywood

Criminal lawyer SushilMancharkar is challengingPune Bar Associations deci-sion to deny legal representa-tion to Himayat Mirza Baig,who is accused in the Germa-ny Bakery bombing of Febru-ary 2010.

Mancharkar has reported-ly decried the decision of thebar association as overrid-ing the judicial system andexpressed his readiness to de-fend Baig.

The bar association toldan ATS court that in view ofthe anti-national nature ofBaigs crime, no lawyer fromthe association would defendhim. There is a possibility Baigmay have to get a lawyer fromoutside Pune.

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Ajay Sing

Professor Robin Jerey of the Na-tional University of Singaporehas been researching the im-pact of mobile phones on Indiansociety and politics. Jerey, a

scholar on India, believes that the mobilerevolution in the country is comparableto the automobile revolution in the Unit-ed States. It has empowered the margin-alised sections of the society, especiallythe dalits, he believes, and impacted peo-ple both socially and politically. His view

assumes signicance at a time when thedeveloped world seems quite amused overthe fact that India has considerably moremobile phones than toilets. As per a Unit-ed Nations think tank, nearly half of thecountrys population is connected throughmobile phones while just a third has ac-cess to proper sanitation.

Mobile phones have mushroomed evenas basic amenities such as sanitation havelagged, as have the governments eortsto reach its services to people in remoteareas through the internet. If this points

to the characteristically skewed develop-ment across the country, it also throws

up an opportunity for the government toreach people through this new medium.In the drought-prone region of Jhansi inUttar Pradesh, where governance initia-tives have been as scarce as rainfall, dis-trict magistrate Raj Shekhar latched on tothis new tool and came up with a citizen-friendly means of streamlining adminis-tration and making it more accountable.He set up a round-the-clock complaintcentre, Jhansi Jan Suvidha Kendra, withinthe district collectorates campus and ded-icated two toll-free lines to register citi-zens complaints.

Nearly six months on, this complaintcentre has clocked more than 23,000 com-plaints and disposed of 90 percent of themsuccessfully. Mobile governance may bean idea that has been talked about in NewDelhis seminar circuit for several yearsbut here, in Bundelkhand, its successfulimplementation still inspires surprise andawe. A villager has to spend no less thanRs 20 to reach the ocials concerned,says Raj Shekhar, explaining the benetsof such a toll-free complaint cell, Addto that the time and eort involved in

travelling to the district headquarters ayou nd that lodging a complaint used

mean the loss of a days wage and harament to the villagers coming from far-oareas.

A toll-free dedicated number does notjust save time and eort. It also spells acountability to an extent that is as new the citizens as it is startling and demaning for the ocials. The moment anybocalls the toll-free number 1077, from alandline or a mobile phone, the complais recorded both as an audio le and insoftware programme. The system geneates a unique grievance number whichprovided to the complainant immediat

and the complaint is passed on to the ofcers concerned via SMS on their ocimobile phones.

Public grievances are therefore recorded without the hassle of being routedthrough rude or indierent administrative sta. At the same time, this systemnimises the possibility of fake complainas a couple of complainants found outto their horror when they landed in jailfor misuse of the public facility. The district magistrate has also ensured that eery complaint is addressed in a stipulat

peope poitics poic performance

Innovation In Governance

Two pones, tree

computers andRs 20,000 per mont.Tats a sma price for

good governance!

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


time frame. Just to be doubly sure, theoperators at the Jan Suvidha Kendra areauthorised to call up anybody, right up tothe district magistrate, at any time if theseriousness of the complaint so demands.The district magistrate, on his part, makessure that every complaint pertaining to acentral scheme is immediately passed onto the central agencies concerned on hisocial letterhead.

Raj Shekhar says it costs less than Rs20,000 per month to run the Jan Suvidha

Kendra. The operators are drawn fromdierent departments to man the Ken-dra where three computers have been in-stalled. The only expense that the districtadministration incurs is on the mainte-nance of the oce. Power shortage hasbeen a perennial problem in the entireBundelkhand region, which straddlesbackward areas of Uttar Pradesh and theneighbouring Madhya Pradesh, which iswhy internet connectivity remains as se-rious a handicap as the dismal literacy

levels. Mobile phone density has, how-ever, increased exponentially, primarilybecause of large-scale migration of ruralpopulation to the developed regions insearch of jobs.Just two months ago, a few villagers in-

formed the complaint centre that two

men had been trapped as the Dhasanriver swelled and inundated the villag-es. The district magistrate immediatelysought the help of the army which res-cued both men. Regular complaints, however, pertain to irregular supply of cooking gas cylinders, for example. In all succases, complaints are readily forwardedto the civil supply administration andcompliance reports sought immediately.Jereys assertion about social and po-

litical empowerment appears valid whenyou take into account the fact that the JaSuvidha Kendra is proving to be an eec

tive deterrent against accumulation of social grievances. The feedback system de-vised by Raj Shekhar is such that anybodcan log on to the website and see theprogress on the complaints. That beingthe case, people no longer need to takerecourse to the Right to Information Actin most cases. At the same time, all dis-trict ocials are directed to log on to thewebsite and stay updated on the disposaof public grievances.

Signicantly, Raj Shekhars model isnow being replicated in other districts ofthe state. His is an example of a self-mo-

tivated ocer who has made a dierencthrough his own initiative, that too in astate which has traditionally had a poorrecord for governance. Raj Shekhar is nodoing something which goes beyond hiscall of duty, of course. He is just thinkingout of the box for the welfare of commonpeople. That he seems to be an exceptionamong his peers, who appear increasingly indierent to peoples plight, is a sadcommentary on the conduct of Indian bureaucracy even as it does him even morecredit. n

[email protected]

(Above) Raj Shekhar in his oce in Jhansi. (Below) An ocial at the public complaint centre.

Mobile pones ave

musroomed even as basicamenities suc as sanitationave lagged... In te drougt-prone region o Jansi, weregovernance initiatives avebeen as scarce as te rainall,te district magistrate latcedon to tis new tool and cameup wit a round-te-clock toll-ree complaint centre.

photos: ajay sin

Cdmbrm sys governmentw not encourge nyone to sup-port Mosts. Wt e mens s t

wont dscourge nyoneeter. Crry on Mmt!

it JustoCCured to us

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R

ewind to thesummer of2006.

Command-er (retired)Mukesh Sainihas just takenpremature

retirement from the National Se-

curity Council Secretariat (NSCS)as Information Security Special-ist. The same month, in April, he

joins Microsoft (India) as Chief(Information) Security Advisor. In2004, he had learnt that he wouldnot get further promotions inthe navy, which is why he start-ed looking for job opportunitieselsewhere.

The NSCS, created in 1999,acts as an interface between theNational Security Council, the

Strategic Policy Group, and theNational Security Advisory Boardand coordinates the functioningof intelligence agencies. The NSCSalso monitors the functioning ofthe Defence Intelligence Agencyand TECHINT, the agency for thecollection of technical intelligenceand special counter-terrorismcentre in the Intelligence Bureau.

On June 11, Saini gets a call fromhis perplexed wife. She tells him

that a police party is searchingtheir house in Delhi Cantonmentarea. Saini, who is on a two-weekvisit to the United States, takesthe next ight and rushes backhome. But he doesnt manage toget that far. He is intercepted anddetained right at the airport uponhis arrival and kept in police cus-tody for two days. He is nally arrested on the night of June 30 andcharged with passing on classie

Commander (retired) MukeshSaini was arrested in June 2006for passing secret informationto a United States diplomat. Ittook him 47 months and 160 RTIapplications to expose gapingholes in the polices theory andwalk out of jail on bail

a 4

y j 4 c

Danis Raza


Fight For Justice

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information to Rosanna Minchew,a third political secretary at theUS Embassy in India. Shib Shan-kar Paul, NSCS systems ocer andUjjal Dasgupta, director, comput-

ers at Research & Analysis Wing(RAW), are also arrested in thesame case.

Saini is, however, determinedto prove that he is innocent. Overthe next 47 months that he spendsin Delhis Tihar jail, he les nearly160 applications under the Rightto Information Act. A compilationof the replies he receives fromvarious authorities exposes gap-ing holes in the polices theory.From the sections under which hewas arrested to the way the po-

lice conducted the probe, every-thing shows the authorities actedin haste and without sucientevidence.

On the basis of the informationobtained through the RTI appli-cations, Saini ghts his own casesince July 2008 and nally man-ages to get bail in May 2010 morethan four years after he wasarrested.

Cut to the present and you willnd Saini armed with damningevidence against the authorities.

The case against him rests onthe allegation that he passed fourclassied documents to Minchewwhile working as a coordniatorto the government in the Indo-USCyber Security Forum. Minchewwas the local nodal ocer repre-senting the US in this forum. Oneof the four documents, a draftreport of the Indian nuclear doc-trine was, however, made pub-lic by the government in October1999. Hence, it could not be calleda classied document.

The second document wasSainis own paper on the impactof Kra Canal (a planned canalthat links China Sea to AndamanSea). This paper never got the sta-tus of a classied document. Thatmeans, two of the four documentsthat Saini is said to have illegallypassed to a foreign national werenot classied documents.

That still leaves two documents,which were allegedly stored inthe hard disk found in Sainis

house. These contained the min-utes of the Indo-US Cyber SecurityForum meeting held in January2003 and a proposal prepared bySaini for the formation of infor-

mation sharing network amongstagencies. Saini has been able toestablish through RTI queries thatthe police broke open the seal ofthe hard disk before submitting

it to the Central Forensic ScienceLaboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh,thereby weakening the claim ofthe police.

During the probe, Sajjan Singh,a sub-inspector with the DelhiPolices special cell wrote threeletters to the NSCS. The rst let-ter, dated June 16, 2006, was ad-dressed to the NSCS chairman.Singh asked the NSCS if they couldbook Saini under the Ocial Se-crets Act for possessing the draft

report on Indian nuclear doctrinand the paper on Kra Canal. TheNSCS replied that neither of thetwo documents was classied.

Singh, however, wrote once

again to the NSCS on June 30. Thidate is important. This time, hesought the NSCS opinion on thedocuments obtained from thehard disk found at Sainis home.This time, Vinod Kumar Mall, anIB ocer on deputation at NSCSgave a handwritten undated re-ply that the documents wereclassied.

There is a catch, though. RTIqueries show that there is no en-try in the NSCS records regard-ing receipt of Singhs letter dated

June 30. Moreover, Singh is saidto have received the reply to thisletter personally on the same dayThe NSCS, however, says it has nle notings regarding the decisioto implicate Saini on the basis ofthe special cells request.

The question, therefore, arises:If the NSCS does not have any of-cial record of receiving lettersfrom the special cell and it did noopine that Saini should be impli-cated on the allegation made bythe special cell in these letters,

then what was the basis of hisarrest?

Turn to Rosanna Minchew, towhom Saini allegedly passed onthe four documents. The infor-mation that Saini received fromthe CFSL, Chandigarh, shows thathe hard disk was last accessedon June 15, 2005, while the IndiaEmbassy in Washington told Sainthat Minchew was given the visaon Aug 3, 2005. However, the saiddocuments were last accessed in2004, so they could not have been

passed on to Minchew from thishard disk.

Theres more to implicate theauthorities. The NSCS nevergave Delhi Police its approval toprosecute Saini. It, however, ap-proached the civilian vigilancedepartment of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in October, 2007, toprocure a sanction and got it inApril, 2008almost two years af-ter submitting the chargesheet incourt. The same department of

Commander(retired) MukeshSaini outside thesupreme courtwhere his case ispending now.

Te case againstSaini rests on teallegation tate passed ourclassifed documentsto a US nationalwile working as acoordinator on Indo-US Cyber SecurityForum Two o tesewere not classifedand in case o teoter two, policebroke open teseal o te arddisk carrying tesebeore submitting itto te CFSL, terebyweakening te case.

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MoD later informed Saini that itwas not aware of his duties in theNSCS.

The case is on and the chargesagainst Saini and the other two

co-accused are yet to be framed.Paul and Dasgupta obtained

bail in August. The police hadclaimed that Paul had spokento his wife and accepted that hedid pass classied informationto Minchew. But the call detailsprovided by the service providercould not corroborate this claim.

The court raised doubts overthe manner in which the policeallegedly broke open the sealof the pen drive which was al-legedly carrying the classied

information.In Dasguptas case, the court

considered his age (he was over64 when he got bail) and that theother two co-accused had securedbail. His impeccable record asa computer expert and the factthat he was re- employed by theR&AW on the basis of his exper-tise was also taken into account.

Why would the authoritiesframe somebody like Saini,though, you may well ask. The an-swer to this natural question will

eventually lead you to the taskthat the NSCS is entrusted with,that is to collate quality intelli-gence information from the vari-ous intelligence agencies.

Saini says that every time he in-teracted with the intelligence of-cers, he could sense that theywere not forthcoming on infor-mation sharing. By passing onquality information to someonelike me who had a naval back-ground, they were losing theirturf, he says. They got a chance

to strike when V K Nambiar quitas the NSCS secretary in April,2006, leaving it headless. Beforethat, they could not act becausethe secretary was there to shieldme and my team-mates in the sec-retariat, says Saini.

Those familiar with the func-tioning of intelligence agenciescan easily join the dots. We arefacing a situation where inputsand assessments of intelligenceagencies are crucial to deal with

the complex security challengesthe nation is facing. Agency anddepartmental turf battles and set-tling of personal animosities havebeen evidenced. We can just

hope that this case does not be-come part of this tragic pattern,says Commodore Uday Bhaskar.The moment such a grave chargeis levelled against an individual,says Bhaskar, he or she is aban-doned and isolated both institu-tionally and socially.

Even if we assume for a mo-ment that the charges were alltrue, this is no way to treat of-cials in intelligence agencies.What happened here was un-called for, says a former IB

director on the condition ofanonymity.

An internal security analyst witha Delhi based think tank, whodoes not wish to be identied,

however, says there may be moreto Sainis story than meets theeye. He says, as per his infor-mation, Saini and Minchew of-ten met after oce hours. This

does mean that Saini passedsome information to her, but of-cers of the stature of Saini whowork with the NSCS are very welaware of the protocol. They knowthat there are times when theirmoves are monitored. He shouldhave avoided meeting her, theanalyst said. The analyst added,though, that the interrogatingagency was clearly biased whileprobing the case. Why didntthey interrogate the Americandelegate? he asked, After all, as

per the allegations, she was therecipient of the information. Whydid they let her go without anyquestioning of any kind?

While in jail, Saini, cyber secu-rity expert with a masters in computer applications, business ad-ministration and science, helpedfellow inmates in drafting bail applications and read chargesheets

Around 200 of them got bail,he says. In his free time, he wouldpaint and make portraits withpencil colourshis childhood

hobby. Two of his paintings hangin the drawing room of his MayaEnclave house in West Delhi.

It was not all rosy in jail, ofcourse. He would be strip-searched every time he crossed agate. But he is not cribbing. Jaillife is jail life. They were just do-ing their duty. I did not expectany special treatment, he says,drawing a long breath. It wasequally tough on his family, wifeand children, while he was be-hind bars. They would harass m

wife and children, he says, Theyasked my daughters friends tostop meeting her or else theywould also land in jail. My wifewas stalked.

Now that he is out on bail, he isworried his savings will not lastfor long. Nobody is hiring me,he says, I have savings whichwill last for a couple of monthsmore. After that I am broke. n

[email protected]

We are acing asituation wereinputs andassessments ointelligence agenciesare crucial to dealwit comple securitycallenges te nationis acing. Agencyand departmental

tur battles andsettling o personalanimosities avebeen evidenced.We can just opetis case does notbecome part o tistragic pattern, saysUday Baskar


Fight For Justice

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poiticsPoor performancein Karnataka as-sembly by-elections

has thrown thestate leadership ofthe Congress intoa tizzy. Leader ofopposition Siddara-maiah has quit owning moralresponsibility for the Congresssdefeat to BJP in Kadur and to

Janata Dal (Secular) in Gulbar-ga (South). The Congress candi-dates came a poor third in bothconstituencies. State Congresspresident R V Deshpande andworking president D K Shivaku-

mar, too, have oered to resign.Meanwhile, the ruling BJP is

going through its own crisis.In addition to losing Gulbarga(South), it lost its medical edu-cation minister Ramachandra

Gowda who had to stepdown over irregular

recruitments to two gov-ernment-run medical col-leges. Another BJP minis-

ter, Haratalu Halappa, hasbeen facing rape charge.

The Bar Council of Andhra Pradeshhas decided to take action againstthe pro-Telangana lawyers who vandal-

ized court halls and threw placards ata judge.

In an emergency meeting, the Bar

Council condemned the lawyers for

abusing judges and other lawyers,throwing books at judges and court

sta and damaging books and furniturein court halls.

The advocates have continued their

protests and boycotted court proceed-

ings demanding 42 per cent reservation

in judiciary posts.

The agitating advocates, demanding

to enforce the boycott call in support of

their demands, had vandalised three

court halls at the AP High Court and al-

legedly threw placards at Justice C V

Nagarjuna Reddy.

The crisis in Kashmir has shownonce again the overwhelming in-uence of Nehru-Gandhi family on the

decisions of the Congress. After RahulGandhi showed his sympathy for chiefminister Omar Abdullahs handling ofa tough and sensitive job, the party,including its senior leaders, seemed tohave been thrown into a state of un-certainty. So much so that Sonia Gan-dhi had to reportedly tell the senior

Congress leadership not to allow Ra-huls comments to eclipse the govern-ments strategy.

Having come under re for allow-ing the unrest in Kashmir to intensifyinto a crisis, Omar got some breathingspace after Rahuls comments. Omarsrival Mufti Mohammad Sayeed hasreportedly lodged his protest over Ra-huls support for Omar with the primminister.

Cong in a tizzy; BJP nobetter

Deserters sow teir true colours

Bar council to take action against pro-Telangana lawyers

As Bihar assembly elections draw near,deserters are coming into their own.Bhumihar leader Akhilesh Singh has

resigned from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)

and joined the Congress; Subhash Yadavhas also deserted his brother-in-law Lalu

Prasad and is said to be coveting a berth

in the Congress.More senior RJD lead-

ers, including Umashankar Singh, Ma-

harajganj MP and a Rajput who recently

quit from the parliamentary board, may

follow Akhilesh Singh to Congress.

RJD, on the other hand, has gained up-

per caste leader Prabhunath Singh, who

has parted ways with Nitish Kumars

JD(U). Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan, theright hand man of Nitish Kumar, has

been wooing Congress without formal-

ly resigning from the JD(U) in order to

avoid disqualication as an MP. Congres

leader Gridhari Yadav has joined JD-U. H

had previously been with RJD.

C c r o p!

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As an expanding econom

ooks for fue for furtergrowt, India needs toraise its coa production.But Sriprakas Jaiswa,minister of state (in-

dependent carge) for coa, facescaenges from te Maoists as weas from environmenta obbies.In an interview wit Sweta Ran-

jan, Jaiswa discusses is pans tomeet tese caenges and aso tefuture of te coa sector. Excerpts:

What eort is your ministry making

to overcome the current shortage ocoal? What steps are being taken toincrease production?We are a growing country, thereis rapid growth in industri-alization but even afterremarkable growth incoal production we arenot in a position tomatch demand andthe decit remains.This year we haveseen a 75 percentgrowth in coal pro-

duction. We arecontent with theperformance butthe demand hasalso increased.Our foremost tar-get is to increaseproduction butwe are also mak-ing eorts topurchase coal

properties in other countries so that

demand can be met and met at an af-fordable price. If we purchase coalproperties, do our own mining and

bring in coal, it will denitelycost us less.

Do you think gettingenvironmentalclearances leadsto delays in what

your ministryseeks to accomplish?

India doesnt pro-duce good quality

coal. Only 10 per-cent coal we

produceis

of good quality, the rest is of average.

But if when we try to accelerate min-ing we face innumerable hindranc-es. The biggest problem is that thelaw and order situation is very bad inthose states where coal is available.Whether it is Chhattisgarh, JharkhandWest Bengal or Orissa, you are wellaware of the problem of Maoists andproblems pertaining to law and orderBecause of this we are not able to do amuch mining as we should be doing.Sometimes our ocers and labourersare abducted. Sometimes they downthe shutters for three days, some-

times for ve days. And when thereis a bandh no one can dare to come towork. These problems are very huge.Then there are problems related toland acquisition. Also, there is the hurdle of forest and environmental clearances. We try our best to increase production but certain things are not in

our hands.

There are reports that the Maoistshave also started mining coal.A few of them are doing miningbut many Maoists run extortion

rackets.

Why have we not been able totackle the menace?The government is doing itsbest to combat the Maoists,but this problem is biggerthan it appears. The whole

eastern India is facing thisproblem.

How does your ministry take ca

Most private coa bocksare ide. We wi review and

witdraw suc bocks


MinisterSpeak

INTERVIEWn S RiPRakaS h jaiS W al

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o the interests o the tribals?One thing I know is that their genu-ine resentment should be understood.

Without it, there wont be any solutionto the Maoist problem. There are justtwo ways to tackle this menace. Firstthing required is development andthe second thing is to deal with them(Maoists) rmly. They dont want de-velopment to happenif it happensthey will not have their way. They willnot be able to execute their evil de-signs. We should identify them anddeal with them sternly.

How much loss does Coal India suerannually because o the Maoists?

We have not done any assessmentof this sort. But we understand thatif there is no Maoist activity we candouble our production. Employeesfear abduction. If this fear is removed,capacity utilisation would go up by25 percent. If a solution of the Maoistproblem is found, the coal sector willsee tremendous growth.

In Jharkhand coal mafas are very activetoo.Solving that problem is the job of thestate government. We are aware that

illegal mining is going on. Whicheverstate I visit I request the state govern-ments (to take steps to counter it). Ihad met (West Bengal chief minister)Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and I hadtold him that illegal mining results inhuge losses for the countrys econo-my. He had assured me a special forcewould be set up to stop illegal miningbut till now there is no sign of his as-surance transforming into reality. I re-cently met the governor of Jharkhandon this issue. We cant stop illegal min-ing, state governments should become

more active.

What is the status o your talks with theenvironment ministry on go and no-go areas?We have mutually decided that theMoEF classication of no-go areas isnot nal. Both the ministries will to-gether decide on the classication.That will be the nal decision.

Do you think things are avorable ater

fnance minister Pranab Mukherjeesintervention?Things have improved. If we want tosave the environment there are betterways to do so. We are ready for aor-estation on a larger tract of land thanwhat we use for mining. We shouldadopt a more pragmatic way to han-dle this matter. Mining should not bestopped even as we should be consid-erate towards environment.

You had also met prime ministerManmohan Singh on this issue. What

was his response?He has done whatever he assured me.He has resolved the issue. We dontwant to weaken the economic growthand we also dont want to hamperwildlife. There should be a balance.

This issue led to a controversy. Therewere dierences between two ministerswho belong to the same party. Did youconsult Congress chie Sonia Gandhi inthis regard?I felt the prime minister would be ableto resolve the issue. He has resolved it

to an extent. Had the matter been notconsidered, I would have gone even toSonia-ji.

Are you happy with the outcome?When it is decided that there wouldbe rectications in the classicationof forest areas, I am sure things wouldmove in favour of my ministry. In thenal decision on classication, ourministrys views will also be taken into

consideration. We will be equally in-volved in the identication of go andno-go areas.

You plan to set up an independentregulator or the coal sector. Whatwould be its role?The regulators role would be to keepa watch on mining, give its decisions(in case of disputes) and when re-quired consider suggestions from ourministry.

When can we expect disinvestment oCoal India? How much money do youplan to raise?It should happen in October. Ten per-

cent shares will be disinvested.

Do you plan to restructure Coal India?At present our whole focus is on dis-investment. All this (restructuring)depends on how much money we areable to generate.

You have talked about private playersin coal mining. What challenges do yousee ahead?Before my regime 200 blocks were giv-en to the private sector. Work start-ed only in 20-25 blocks. Many of the

blocks are lying idle. We have giv-en them show-cause notices. Thereare some genuine cases of those whohave not been able to get environ-mental clearances. Some of them havenot been able to acquire land. Thesecases will be given some consider-ation but the licences of the rest willbe withdrawn. Licences of four blockshave been called o and in the nextphase we are targeting 40 of them. Weplan to issue licences for these blocksthrough a bidding process.

With private players in miningand an independent regulator, isthe government considering thedevelopment o a ree market in coal?I think this will assist us. We will beable to control black marketing andmaa raj. There will be less corrup-tion. And the regulator will look intoshortcomings, if there are any. n

[email protected]

There are better waysto save the environment.We are ready foraorestation on a largertract of land than whatwe use for mining. Weshould adopt pragmaticways to handle thismatter.

Ravi Choudha

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Justice S U Kan

There is a percep-tion that the In-dian bureaucracyis inecient andcorrupt.

Prithiviraj Chauhan, union

minister of state for person-nel and PMO, made the abovestatement while inaugurat-ing a conference on August21, 2009. There cannot be anydoubt about the correctness ofthe statement.

Has the expanding cancer ofcorruption and ineciencycrossed the curable stage oris it that all is not lost yet andtumours can be reduced, sub-dued and made non-malig-nant? Let us be optimistic.

Any direct eort to checkcorruption and ineciency,apart from being a Herculeantask, will only have the eectof a tranquiliser. In order tocheck these diseases substan-tially, their causes will have tobe diagnosed and tackled. Tosome extent corruption andineciency are distinct vic-es, however in some regardthey are interdependent andinterwoven.

CorruptionMembers of the executivecome from the general public.Both of them share the samesocial and moral values. Wethe people of India at pres-ent denitely lack the valueof abiding by the law. The lawis considered to be an irritant(obviously when it comes inour way and not otherwise).The supreme unwritten codeis to evade the written law.Any private person who tries

to follow all the rules, insteadof being praised, is ridiculedby society. Social sanction ordisapproval is the greatestlaw enforcing agency. To il-lustrate, in India adultery isimmoral but adulteration isnot. Accordingly, instances ofadultery are far and few butadulteration is rampant. How-ever, in some countries theposition is just the reverse.How can the members of theexecutive, recruited from

such people, be honest? Mem-bers of the executive are un-der greater stress. If they arehonest, they are, apart frombeing ridiculed, considered tobe useless and worthless bytheir family members, friendsand the people with whomthey deal.

A member of the publicwho bribes an ocer/o-cial or uses other inuence toget undue favour is equally

responsible for corruption.The other reason for corrup-

tion is the large area of opera-tion for the executive in theform of too many laws (acts ofparliament and state legisla-ture, rules, regulations, gov-ernment orders, bye-laws andschemes) and too much dis-cretion provided to it underthem. Complexity and vague-ness of laws are also factorsresponsible for enlargementof the discretion.

InefciencyIndustrialist Ratan Tata is re-ported to have said that al-most all our shortcomingsmay mainly be attributed tothree things; not working ac-cording to the plan/sched-ule, unattainable targets andwrong priorities. For the pur-pose of the present discussionthe most important aspect isunattainable targets. The ex-ecutive is required to perform

so many duties and share somuch load that completionof even most necessary workwithin reasonable time is im-possible. This excessive loadgenerates a suicidal tendency.If even most essential workcannot be done then a gloomsets in, impelling to abjectsurrender. The person con-cerned starts thinking that theamount of work which he canreasonably do is not going to

salvage even the bare mini-mum situation, hence thereis no need to do even thatmuch work. If people believethat the work may be done,

they may perform even be-yond their reasonable capac-ity. However, if constantly increasing workload cannot becoped with one does not feelinclined to work even up tohalf of his normal capacity.

Corruption and inefciencyIf executive ocers/ocialscannot handle the entireworkload they are bound tobe selective. The most conve-nient criterion for selection

is money, that is, bribe. Andhere in lies the tragedy for thgeneral public. They have topay money even for gettingperfectly legal work done,particularly within reason-able time. This leads the pub-lic and the executive to a higher form of corruption, thatis, getting illegal work donethrough bribe or inuence.

What has been said aboveabout the executive is alsotrue, of course to a lesser ex-

tent, for the judiciary also.The phenomenon of develop-ment of the suicidal tendency(supra) is more apparent inthe judiciary faced with insurmountable arrears of cases.

Possible substantial cureThe above diagnosis is self-suggestive of a possible cure:less, moderate, simple andprecise laws to be followed bythe public and to be admin-istered by the executive and

judiciary resulting in lesserworkload and lesser area ofoperation for it.

To abide by law and to vio-late the law, both the instinctare inherent in man. If thelaws are reasonable (bothrigour-wise as well as volumewise), a majority of peoplemay follow them. Too manyand too rigorous laws createhostility and repulsion. Toevery action there is an equal

If less taxes yield more revenues and less controls lead toeconomic boom, wont fewer laws ensure better complianceand implementation? A clarion call from the courtroom.


Governance of Justice

AXETHE LAWS!

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and opposite reaction. Therewas a time in England wheneven minor crimes werepunishable by death penal-ty which was to be executedthrough public hanging. His-tory has recorded the instanc-es where pockets of the publicwere picked while they were

watching the hanging of apickpocket.

Excessive, rigorous andharsh laws do not commandany regard or fear. They gen-erate the opposite feeling.Once this stage is reached, onedoes not stop even at a rea-sonable juncture. If one feelsthat he cannot follow a ma-

jority of the laws relevant forhim or some particular law tothe full extent then a tendency

develops of not following anylaw or the particular law toany extent. The present po-sition is that almost at everystep one either abides by orviolates some rule or regula-tion. The regulation is tendingto become strangulation.

It is said that some more

law and every vagabond be-comes a criminal. A reductionin the rates of taxes and dutiesyields higher realisation. Lib-eralisation of trade and indus-try by abolishing licence, per-mit and quota raj two decadesago has greatly beneted pro-duction, industry and com-merce and it has also gener-ated a lot of employment andincrease in earnings salariesand wages.

Human nature requiresregulation but resists control.Controls kill responsibility.Let us have faith in ourselves.Let the framers of laws givechance to the public to showand develop a sense of follow-ing the law by pruning thesame. Let the people discover

and develop the condence inthemselves.

The condence of the peopleis the material which buildsthe nation,

This is the force which shapesthe destiny of the nation.

-IqbalTo put it in other words,

let the people hum BarackObamas election campaignslogan: Yes, we can.

The lead will have to be

given at the stage of sowingthe seeds, that is, framing thelaws. The laws which are tooharsh and/or give too muchdiscretion to those who are to

implement them, simultane-ously sow the seeds of theirviolation. Useful seeds requirtending for growth, howev-er, seeds grow untended bythemselves and at a fasterrate. Even if framers of lawdo not agree with the aboveview and consider rigorouscontrol to be essential, theymust realise that at presentthe position of implementa-tion of laws is in a shambles.Whatever may be the reason

the workload is unmanage-able, and beyond the capac-ity of the executive and the

judiciary. If income is lessand expenses are more, lessimportant expenses are to becurtailed. Similarly, if time oreciency is disproportion-ate to the workload, prioritiewill have to be determinedand less important things wilhave to be ignored or curso-rily dealt with, until the situation improves or workload is

decreased, if it at all happensLesser laws properly imple-

mented are far better thanmore laws but less implementation. Accordingly, trimmingthe laws is either a virtue or necessary evil, but it has to bdone and done urgently. n

The author is a sitting judge of

the Allahabad

High Court.

ashish asthan

Te CommonwetGmes re bc on trc

wtn one dy of teprme mnsters nter-venton. Mnmon orSuperMnMon?

it JustoCCurred to us

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Ajay Sing

Only a day afterthe shilanyas(foundationlaying for thetemple) in Ay-

odhya on November 9, 1989,the then director general ofUttar Pradesh police RP Joshiseemed quite ill at ease withhimself. On the crispy win-

ter morning, I found him sit-ting in his lush green lawnand asked him a direct ques-tion. Has the shilanyas beenperformed on the disputedsite? Is this the disputed site?I asked. Yes, it is disputed,

Joshi replied. Then, why didyou allow it, I asked the nextlogical question as a report-er of a national daily. It wasa political decision. We hadno option, Joshi said, beforeclarifying that he would not

like to be quoted on this en-tire episode.Joshis version was clearly

at variance with that of primeminister Rajiv Gandhis oft-repeated public utterances.The central government hadmaintained all along that thesite chosen for the shilanyaswas not disputed. Going bythe revenue and land records,it was evident that all the PMsmen were lying through their

teeth. That Rajiv Gandhi washell-bent on making politicalcapital out of the controver-sy became evident when he

launched, soon thereafter, hiselection campaign from Ay-odhya and promised to usherin Ram Rajya a slogan thathad earlier found full-throat-ed endorsement from the saf-fron brigade in the course ofthe Ram Janmabhoomi cam-paign. That Rajiv Gandhi lostthe election and substantialsupport among both Hindusand Muslims is a dierent sto-ry altogether.

In fact, the shilanyas was

preceded by a series of subter-fuges reective of intense ava-rice of unscrupulous politics.A beleaguered Rajiv Gandhiwas desperate to carve outa solid political constituen-cy for himself after the ShahBano case exposed chinks inhis armour. Despite his over-whelming majority in the LokSabha, Rajiv Gandhis deci-sion to overturn the supremecourts decision in the ShahBano case (allowing alimony

to the divorced Muslim wom-en) was seen as kowtowing tothe hardliner mullahs. Thesewere surreptitious movesto win the condence of theHindus.

As a sequel, a new stratagemwas devised to give llip tothe Vishwa Hindu Parishad-led movement for unlockingthe doors of the central domeof the Babri mosque wherethe idols were placed. This

strategy came to be knownamong the UP bureaucratsas the Jenson & Nicholsonformula of politics because

Arun Nehru, a corporate hon-cho from the paint compa-ny, Jenson & Nicholson, hademerged a great strategist andclose condant of Rajiv Gan-dhi. And there was a generalimpression that Nehru hadbeen conducting politics byapplying management prin-ciples. On February 1, 1986, ina well-choreographed move,the district judge orderedopening of the locks and thestate administration readily

facilitated implementation ofthe order within 40 minutes.Needless to say, the forces un-leashed by the Jenson & Nich-olson forumla had ultimatelydevoured its strong politicalproponents in the process.

This brief history bearssignicance in the presentcontext. There is an uncan-ny touch of the bizarre withwhich the central governmentand the UP government havebeen trying to hype up the

Ayodhya verdict which wasoriginally scheduled to be de-livered on September 24 butcame to be deferred at the in-stance of the supreme court.For the rst time in the his-tory of the Ayodhya contro-versy, the All India MuslimPersonal Law Board (AIMPLB)and the RSS-VHP combineappeared to be on the samepage in respect of the judg-ment. Both the parties have

readied themselves for theverdict. Signicantly, all thosknown for striking stridentnotes on the issue appearedmuch-mellowed and talkedabout respecting the judg-

ment and acting within theconnes of the law. RSS chiefMohan Bhagwat and seniorBJP leader LK Advani advisedcaution and not belligerence.Similarly, the Muslim leader-ship has been maintaining extreme caution in talking abouthe issue. There is a body ofopinion among Muslims thatany attempt to see the verdictas a victory of one commu-nity against the other mustbe resisted. By all indications

the prevailing political atmo-sphere was best suited for anverdict on Ayodhya.

But politics demanded oth-erwise. A retired bureaucratRC Tripathi having no link toAyodhya whatsoever suddenly appeared on the scene. Heled a petition with the highcourt bench seeking time toresolve the dispute throughdiscussion. His petition wasrejected by a majority opinion

When governments seek to slay demons that nobody else caneven visualise, it is instructive to look back at the history ofsuch interventions


History and Hysteria

Congress and itsJenson & Nicosonformua for Aoda

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


while the dissenting judgedelivered his order separate-ly and criticised the brother

judges in an unprecedentedact of judicial indiscretion.Tripathis appeal was nally

admitted in the supreme courtwhere the two-member judgebench, though divided on themerit of the petition, stayedthe high courts order till Sep-tember 28. It is no secret thatTripathi is close to a Congressgeneral secretary who wieldsenormous clout in the party.

Tripathis appearance on thescene is not the only surpriseelement. Police ocers anddistrict magistrates respon-sible for the law and order

situation are equally mysti-ed by the manner in whichthe fear of possible violenceis being whipped up acrossthe state. A senior police of-cer said the deployment offorce and the panic buttonpressed by the Mayawati ad-ministration had created asituation of palpable uneaseeven in the most peaceful ar-eas. It is ridiculous to hold aag march in Ayodhya which

is longer the scene of action,a senior police ocer said inLucknow. What adds fuel tothe re is a lawyer-like exposi-tion by union home ministerP Chidambaram on the pos-

sible Ayodhya decision andthe available remedies. Like aconsummate advocate, he saidthat there was still a remedyin going in for appeal againstthe decision in the apex court.

Why this sudden hullaba-loo over the Ayodhya deci-sion? The obvious inferenceis that the ghost of communalpolitics would be eectivelyburied in India once the dis-pute is legally resolved. In thepresent scenario, all parties to

the dispute have shown theirabiding faith in the judicia-ry. Any decision on Ayodhyawould certainly test the mettleof those ruling the nation andgrossly undermine their ca-pacity to milk the controversyfurther for votes. The arti-cial atmosphere of fear anduncertainty created in UttarPradesh ts the political pat-tern of the past. The Congressand the BSP are vying with

each other to project them-selves as the biggest saviourof the Muslims. But this strategy would succeed only whenMuslims feel threatened. The

BJP has so far resisted thetemptation to play ball. Yet,there is a lunatic fringe whosunpredictable ways canchange the scenario.

In fact, the history of Ayod-hya dispute is replete withinstances of deceit masquer-ading as an article of faith.Prior to December 23, 1949,when idols were surrepti-tiously installed inside thecentral dome considered to bLord Rams birthplace, there

had been skirmishes betweendisciples of akharas and locaMuslims who formed a size-able population in Ayodhya.In 1853-55, the intensity ofskirmishes prompted the theNawab of Lucknow Wajid AlShah to dispatch an army andbring the situation under control. A connoisseur of musicand art, Wajid Ali Shah wasan indulgent Nawab not giv-en to the rigours of adminis-tration. The English usurped

his throne, ruled Awadh andkept the controversy burn-ing in order to divide Hindusand Muslims to perpetuatetheir regime. It seems eventhe present-day governmentsseem reluctant to lay the issuto rest. n

[email protected]

PM sys ksmrs s-prtons need to be d-dressed. hmm...Brtof Prnb MuereesGOM no 151?!

it JustoCCured to us

Te artifcialatmospere oear created in UPfts te political

pattern o te past.Te Congress andte BSP want toproject temselvesas te biggestsaviour o teMuslims. But tiswould succeedonly wen Muslimseel treatened.Te BJP as soar resisted tetemptation toplay ball. Yet,tere is a lunaticringe woseunpredictableways can cangete scenario.

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


HRD minister Kapil Sibal is anangry not-so-young man thesedays. Perhaps he is irked by the

potshots the head of a Delhi-basedpremier think tank took at him. Inhis column for a national newspa-per, the well-known intellectualcriticised the HRD ministry overthe cavalier manner in which im-portant bills for the education sec-tor were being drafted. There areumpteen cases in whichthese bills were referredto the standing commit-tee. Apart from this, thewriter also referred tothe slipshod manner

in which the semestersystem was sought tobe introduced in DelhiUniversity. Since thethrust of the articlewas against the func-tioning of the ministry,it infuriated the pug-nacious minister to noend. He is believed tohave called up the writ-er, ticked him o andgave a veiled threat of

consequences. Since the think tankreceives nancial support from IC-SSR under the ministry, there is all

likelihood of the ministry manda-rins choking the funds. Moreover,an additional secretary in the min-istry was asked to write a lengthyrebuttal and viciously target thehead of the think tank.

Sibals proclivity to take it out onhis ad- versaries

surprisedmany in-tellectu-

als in thecapital. One

of them said

that Sibals prede-cessors Arjun Singh

and Murli ManoharJoshi used to take such

criticism in their stride.But then Sibal is not arun-of-the-mill ministerlike his predecessors! He is

also a brilliant lawyer whodoes not easily give up evenif he is on the wrong side of

the reality.

I nformation and broad-casting minister AmbikaSoni was absent when the

national lm awards wereannounced. The reason, ac-cording to ministry insiders,was that Soni knows morethan any other senior Con-gress leader about the equa-tions between Sonia Gandhiand Amitabh Bachchan. So why take any risk?The megastar has won the award for the best ac-tor for his lm Paa.

Fertiliser minister M K Ala-giri is sulking again. Hehas not been attending ocefor more than 45 days. Heis not happy with the primeminister after Sutanu Behu-rias appointment as fertilis-er secretary.

According to an Alagiri con-dant, Manmohan Singh hadagreed to appoint M Raman, an IAS ocer of Tam

il Nadu cadre, as fertiliser secretary. Singh andAlagiri exchanged two letters in this regard. Afterreceiving Alagiris second letter in July, the PM de-puted his principal secretary T K A Nair to meetthe minister. The two held a conversation in bro-ken Tamil. The very next day cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar (who is uent in Tamil) also meAlagiri, who then got the impression that Ramansname was sure for the post.

But a few weeks later S Krishnan, the retiringfertiliser secretary, phoned up Alagiri in Maduraiand told him that Behuria was appointed, leavingthe minister fuming.

Quite perturbed over bad public-ity for the party, BJP chief NitinGadkari decided to hold a conferenceof the partys media in-charges fromall over the country. All top leaderswere requested to educate the headsof the partys media cells to putacross BJPs best face. But delegateswere surprised whenGadkari rose to speak.Unable to exercise in-

uence over a largesection of the party, hesought to rearm hisauthority on the occa-sion which was purelyan educative session.

A delegate saidGadkari appearedquite mied oversenior party lead-ers decision to stayaway from ArjunMundas swearing-in

as Jharkhand chief minister. Withoutspecically referring to the episode,Gadkari said that it would be unac-ceptable to oppose any decision ofthe party president. By his logic, theparty president is the sole arbiterabout the nality of a decision.

Once he takes a decision, everyoneelse should fall in line: that is whathe is reported to have told the gath-ering. The delegates found it amus-

ing that a BJP president whose writdoes not run even in Maha-rashtra was trying to impress

upon a gathering of media cellheads about the scope and ex-panse of his authority. In fact,Gadkari faced bad publicity

and ire within the party forhis go-ahead signal to theJharkhand experimentdespite serious reserva-tions of L K Advani, Arun

Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj.

D elhi chief ministerSheila Dikshit has gota notice from the electioncommission. Her disquali-cation is being sought as sheis allegedly a member of theNew Delhi Municipal Coun-cil too, attracting oce-of-prot provisions. Dikshit hassought time to le her replysaying she was busy withCommonwealth Games preparations. She hasbeen granted time till the end of October.


Power Buzz

Soni avoids Bachchan

Alagiri sulks, againGadkari rearms his authority

sba oe not take crtc hty

Sheila and oce of prot

DElhIDIARy

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


poicThe ministry of environmentand forests has opened thedoor for redevelopment of Mum-bais chawls and slums by relax-ing the Coastal Regulation Zone

(CRZ) norms. While the CRZ no-tication of 1991 prevented al-most any new construction inareas within 500 metre of thecoast, the modications allows

this in Greater Mumbai and Kerala. Now new construction willbe possible, as will reconstruc-tion of old and dilapidated andthe unsafe chawls and slums if

state government or its agenciehave at least 51 percent stake inthe plan. In Kerala, CRZ provi-sions will apply only up to 50 mof coast, not 500 m.

The government may have re-jigged price index to bring downinfation gure, but the RBI thinksthe situation is bad enough to war-

rant controlling o money fow.Hence, it raised short-term interestrates repo by 25 bps and reverserepo by 50 basis points. This willlead to hike in interest rate o variousloans banks provide to customers.

Banks pay the repo rate to bor-row rom RBI and receive the reverserepo rate or parking surplus undswith the central bank. The repo rateis up rom 5.75% to 6% while thereverse repo rate is up rom 4.50%to 5% with immediate eect.

The rural development minis-try has proposed a separatecadre of panchayat service forfocused and eective implemen-

tation of the centrally sponsoredschemes such as NREGA, IndiraAawas Yojna, Total SanitationCampaign and Backward RegionGrant Fund etc. Availability ofadequate manpower is criticalfor the ever increasing respon-sibilities of the panchayats thatoversee the implementation ofseveral of the centres agshipschemes. However, panchayatsacross the country are decientin this resource. Keeping in view

the increasing responsibilities othe panchayats, the ministry haproposed that the states create cadre to be called the panchayaservice and provide a core teamof personnel to the panchayatsIn the rst phase, gram pan-chayats up to a population of5,000 would be covered. In ad-dition all districts categorised aMaoist-aected, irrespective ofthe size of the population, willbe covered.

After partial decontrol of fuel

prices in June this year, thecentre has started promoting pub-

lic transport with a new vigour. A

high-level committee has been con-

stituted under former RBI deputy

governor Rakesh Mohan to draw

up a national transportation policy.

Recognizing nancial constraints

of state governments, the ministry

of road transport and highways ha

announced a nancial assistance

scheme. Ironically, this schemepromises nancial assistance tostates for buying GPS/GSM-based

tracking system, electronic ticket

vending machine, to draw up tran

port plans and so on, but not actua

buses! What use of hi-tech equip-

ment when there are no buses?

n ? e Ck!

Mumbai cawls and slums get a breater

Time or a pancayatcadre

RBI cokes money supply

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)

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7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


A growing number of Indians are now living their lives through a growing number of public-private partnerships (PPPs). Did they notice the promised cost savings, eciency and improvedservice? Maybe there are none. Heres an illustrative case study to prepare you for thebewildering array of issues and problems arising out of the PPP policy.

B

ina Verma (33), who livesin Gurgaon (Haryana) andtravels to west Delhi vedays a week for her col-lege lectureship job, ac-quired smart tag last May

to avoid having to stop atthe toll plaza on Delhi-Gurgaon express-way, the 28 km access-controlled stretchon National Highway 8. She pays Rs 600to buy the right to drive, without havingto stop, across the 32-lane toll plaza atDelhi-Gurgaon border for a maximum of60 trips over a maximum of 30 days.

Its not always an uninterrupted drivethough; it may take her up to 10 min-utes on some trips to make her waythrough the trac slowing before thetoll plaza to get to the lane reserved forsmart tag users and pass. There is no

lane discipline, she complains.Rakesh Giri (30), a Delhi-based mar-

keting executive who is a frequent, notdaily, user of Delhi-Gurgaon expressway,says he prefers paying Rs 20 per trip tousing the smart tag. His monthly pay-ments for using the expressway are usu-ally in the range of Rs 320-480. He muststop at the toll plaza on the border andcannot avoid the snarl-ups that some-times happen at peak hours and con-sume 10-20 minutes.

On days when he drives up to Manesar

or beyond, Giri pays another Rs 25 at km42 toll plaza, which takes his one-wayexpense on the road to Rs 45. (The ex-

pressway has three toll collection points.)Verma and Giri are thankful for the

convenience and saving of time that theexpressway has aorded them, com-pared to the trac jams they enduredbefore January 2008 when the stretchopened to the public after a delay ofthree and a half years.

They do, however, begrudge the valu-able time they lose at the toll plaza.

As for the price they must pay for us-ing the road, they do not really have achoice; the toll road is the only practicalroute for them.

If you leave out the congested routethat will take me from west Delhi to Gur-gaon via Dwarka, I am left with only thetoll road, says Giri.

Verma says simply: Its something thatI have learnt to pay because I dont havea choice.

Asked if they believe the toll charges tobe reasonable, both shrug their shoul-ders, indicating that they do not have thenecessary information.

Verma and Giri certainly need to bebetter informed about a project whosecosts will ultimately be borne by road us-

ers and taxpayers. They also need to startwondering if it would have been possiblefor the government to get the express-way built without imposing any tolls onthe users or much less nancial burden.

(Since the taxpayers have for manyyears been paying the cess on fuel to helpthe government build national highways,why must they also have to pay tolls forusing roads? Does society gain anything nancially or in terms of eciency, qual-ity and safety by building privately op-erated pay-for-use roads as is claimed?)

The following are some of the high-lights of the Delhi-Gurgaon expresswayproject, based on a report of the Com-

mittee on Public Undertakings (CPU)that was presented to the Lok Sabha inDecember 2009. The committee consid-ered the audit of the project conductedby the Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) and testimonies of the ocials ofthe Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and the National High-ways Authority of India (NHAI).

1The Rs 555 crore expressway proj-ect was awarded in January 2002 toa consortium of two private compa

nies, Jaiprakash Industries and DS Con-

struction, which jointly incorporatedJaypee-DSC Ventures (concessionaire)to execute the project. The project wasto be executed on build-operate-transfer(BOT) basis, which meant the concessionaire would nance, build and maintainthe road; it would also collect tolls to re-coup its investment and make a prof-it. The concession period was 20 years,which meant the concessionaire wouldmaintain the road and collect tolls, revisable every year in line with ination, until 2023.

2In 2000, when phase-I of the Na-tional Highways DevelopmentProgramme (NHDP) to which this

expressway belongs, got the cabinet ap-proval, the government had begun to favour greater private-sector participationin road projects through public-privatepartnerships. Unlike traditional publicprocurement where private participa-tion is limited to construction, PPPs allowprivate participation in nancing, con-struction, operation and maintenance oroad projects. PPPs marked a policy shif

Kapil Bajaj

PPP:

P P P

ashish asthana

peope poitics poic performanc

Governance Outsourced

7/28/2019 Issue 17 (Low Res)


towards greater commercialisation ofroad projects, which meant that motor-ists would need to pay tolls for using aroad.

3There were then no government

guidelines (or NHAIs internalguidelines) as to how best toexecute a highways project

through traditional procurement (oldstyle contracting) or one of the PPPmodes. The NHAI rst approved theproject to be executed through specialpurpose vehicle (SPV) mode and thenchanged that to build-operate-transfer(toll) or BOT-toll mode despite the factthat its nancial consultant (SBI Caps)had initially found the BOT-toll mode tobe unviable. Justifying the change ofmode, the government said (through the

NHAI) that BOT-toll would bring moreprivate investment and allow it to spreadits limited budgetary funds to morehighways projects in less time. (NHAIsuse of the term SPV mode and contrast-ing it with BOT-toll mode can be quiteconfusing because both the modes willordinarily require formation of SPVs forbuilding-operating-transferring a proj-ect and collection of tolls from users. InNHAIs terminology, SPV mode meansthe government will be the primary in-vestor through the SPV even though pri-vate entities will be welcome to invest

too and BOT-toll means a private part-ner will be the primary investor.)

4The NHAI stated the governmentpolicy thus: rst consider BOT-toll failing which BOT-annuityfailing which SPV or EPC. (EPC

is a way of traditional procurement inwhich the contractors role is limited toengineering, procurement of materialsand construction.) The policy, whichcontinues to this day, meant that tradi-tional procurement modes were ruledout even before the NHAI evaluated their

costs and benets as compared to thePPP modes. Similarly, no comparativeevaluation of the costs was done betweenthe PPP modes. Describing this policy asbeset with serious lacunae, the Com-mittee on Public Undertakings (CPU) rec-ommended that the mode of executionshould be based on case-to-case basis in-stead of a common guideline for all proj-ects and the NHAI be invariably madeaccountable in respect of project relateddeciencies irrespective of the mode ofexecution.

5BOT-annuity, by which the gov-ernment would have collected thetolls and the concessionairewould have been entitled to re-

ceive xed payments every six months,was similarly shunned without a com-parative study. The CPU said it found it

inconceivable as to how a high tracdensity stretch like Delhi-Gurgaon wasnot opted for execution on BOT-annui-ty despite the fact that toll collection isof the order of Rs 208 crore in just 20months of the opening of the project.(Such has been the trac density thatthe concessionaire will break even inthree years, despite the fact that it has incurred 73 percent of cost over-run, andis running two years behind schedule,predicted a report in Business Standard

of November 6, 2007.) The governmentreasoning that BOT-annuity would havesaddled it with the trac risk (uctuation in toll collection) was termed un-convincing by the CPU. Had the goverment carried out a comparative study othe toll and annuity mode, the unjustieenrichment of the concessionaire couldhave been avoided, it said.

6I nterestingly, it was a projectwhich was won on the basis ofnegative grant, i.e. the winning

bidder oered to pay NHAI Rs 61 crore

There were no governmentguidelines as to how bestto execute a highways

project executed throughthe SPV mode and thenchanged that to BOT-tollmode despite the fact thatits nancial consultant

had found BOT-toll to beunviable.


Governance Outsourced

The toll plaza on Delhi-Gurgaon border: delays during the rush hour nulliy the time saved. This just one o the many problems users have aced.

DELhI-GURGAON ExPRESSWAY

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for being awarded the contract instead ofasking for government grant. (The gov-ernment provides grant up to 40 percentof total project cost to bridge the viabil-ity gap of a highways PPP.) The NHAI,however, fully nullied that gain by in-

curring Rs 146.62 crore of costs in intro-ducing change in scope works after thenalisation of the detailed project report(DPR). This change has also been blamedfor a 42-month delay in project comple-tion. The CPU noted that the DPR, whichthe NHAI commissioned RITES to pre-pare, was decient on many counts, suchas an insucient number of foot over-bridges and underpasses. The cost of allof these additional works is being borneby the public exchequer.

7T o a t t r a c t bidders, the NHAI

assumed trac density in theworst-case scenario. It also relied

on an old trac study though its nan-cial consul

issue 17 (low res)

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