Theory of change and the measure of our state governments

These days, we have rankings and ratings for all sorts of things. Market analysts give us tips on which stocks to buy, hold or sell. One can annually look up which universities are good at different disciplines and which ones are not. After every game in many sports, league tables are updated and followed breathlessly by millions of fans. Even individual players are compared to their counterparts in other teams.

Yet when it comes to governance, which has so much more bearing on our lives than such things, there is very little assessment of which states are governing well and which ones are not. We rarely ask, where would each of our state’s ministers rank if they were compared to those holding similar portfolios in other states?

Some people would argue that there are many variables and factors that elected representatives have to contend with, which makes their performances difficult to judge, let alone compare. Perhaps. At the same time, however, there are those who are clearly doing a good job in their respective fields and portfolios and they do come to light from time to time – Krishna Byre Gowda, the current revenue minister, has been fixing a lot of broken bits in his department. As irrigation and water resources minister, Basavaraj Bommai knew his domain well. There is always some way to figure out these things.

Every minister comes to their position by winning an election. But that is only the first step, and only an indication of their popularity with the voters in their constituency. Performance in an executive office is an altogether different thing that calls for skill more than popularity.

Even if individuals cannot be easily rated, over time, governments do acquire a reputation for specific things. Those who speak of literacy almost always speak of Kerala. Conversations about power sector reforms refer to Odisha and Gujarat. Delhi’s mohalla clinics and poly-clinics are well known. These are examples of ideas clearly identifiable with some governments and leaders, and not so much with others.

Usually, however, while acknowledging that one is good, we do not ask why the others are not, or even why they don’t simply copy what the good ones are doing. This has been the case for decades, and the resulting gap between the richer and poorer states is now four-fold. India is vast, and unless leaders in every part of the country are pulling their weight in the search for development, the few who stand out will not fundamentally alter the overall reality of the nation.

One reason why we have not so far developed a culture of measuring the performance of governments is that nearly every state government is operating without a theory of change. It’s important for a government to ask itself – what causes development? Once a state puts its faith in its answers to that question, it becomes easier to set the budgets and metrics accordingly. For example, if a government believes mass public education is key, that leads to a special focus on the education budget and the performance of students in school-leaving exams.

In his new book The Delhi Model, Jasmine Shah, who works closely with the leadership of the state government in Delhi, points to three things that the government is betting on as significant drivers of change – investment in human capital, fiscal responsibility, and a war on corruption. The Tamil Nadu government talks about its Dravidian model; in the past, there was talk of a Gujarat model. It would be good for every government to clearly articulate what its model is, and how it proposes to measure progress using that model.

Measurement matters, and this is regardless of whether it’s qualitative or quantitative. Roughly 20 years back, the Public Affairs Centre conducted periodic surveys of the people’s perception of the BBMP, BESCOM, BWSSB, etc. Those who remember the surveys will tell you that ministers and bureaucrats in charge cared how their work was assessed by the people. For a couple of years, the traffic police tracked accident data by the jurisdiction of each police station rather than just compiling city-wide numbers; as a result, Inspectors in each station were keen that their area should not be shown up as particularly poor.

In recent years, we have seen rankings of states put out by the NITI Aayog or the Central government. There is a conflict of interest in this. Many state governments are run by the same parties that are in the Union government, and it is not very credible for them to be assessing themselves. Instead, it would be better for the comparative performance of states to be funded by the Centre or even privately, and the actual assessments could then be carried out by an independent organisation.

Across the political spectrum, people are keen to see improvements in the quality of governance. Measuring how different states are performing, and more importantly, raising questions based on comparing them, should be something that all sides can agree on.