The 15 Paisa Trickle.

(From Business Today (India))

Delivering relief to the suicidal is an important part of the 'human face' promised by the UPA's agenda. Public investment, thus, is going up in primary education, agriculture and other constituents of the rural sector. Mid-day meals, health missions, food-for-work schemes, water projects, self-help groups and so on are back in attention; and so also the Planning Commission, which must oversee much of the expenditure. All very good, all very noble. Do clap, do cheer.

But if you stopped at the first word of the above paragraph to heave the longest sigh you've sighed lately, here's betting that it was not in relief, but exasperation. The big hitch in government-planned upliftment of the poor has always been the almost-dead state of delivery mechanisms. It still is. It has been nearly two decades since the late Rajiv Gandhi groaned his 15-per cent groan: of every rupee spent on the poor, barely 15 paisa reaches. On this, nothing has really changed-except a shift in reverence from planning towards the market.

It is difficult to decipher what is really going through the heads of Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, often described as India's original liberalisation trio. Are market tools too urban for rural application? Is the overall 'trickle-down' inadequate even in a fast-growing economy?

The Budget mention of a 'national market' for farm produce suggests a gentle nudge towards market mechanisms. But by and large, it's the old scheme-upon-scheme story-with the creaky old government apparatus in charge of implementation.

How will any of it ever come good? One approach is to plug the leaks via 'food stamps' and other direct handouts that hope to render the funds too illiquid for diversion along the way. But even this idea, of stuffing the poor's pockets with the means to fulfill their needs, can go wrong if the systems to supply food, education and the rest are dysfunctional ...