The study highlights 30 specific reform steps, that are more than enough. In the United States, people have said that they can. They can bring about change. It is no different for West Bengal’s citizens. West Bengal’s citizens deserve a better government and with that new government in place, can bring about change.

In 5 years, West Bengal can become a completely different State. One that will not be stuck in India’s middle, but will be right at the top. One that people don’t migrate away from, but one that people want to migrate into. West Bengal can become a State that one will be proud to live in, provided the political environment changes.

Promise 1: Governance

Governance has collapsed in West Bengal. The first step is to convince West Bengal’s citizens that there is a government. There is law and order. There is an administration that is not run by the party. There is an efficient dispute resolution system.

Sub-Promise 1 – The new Police Act will be passed within a year.
Sub-Promise 2 – There will be fast track disposal of the 14,017 under-trials languishing in West Bengal’s prisons.
Sub-Promise 3 – Fast track courts, people’s courts, family/women’s courts, lok-adalats, shift systems in courts, mobile courts, nyaya panchayats and gram nyayalayas will be energized to clear the backlog in courts
within 5 years.
Sub-Promise 4 – An Administrative Reforms Commission will be set up, with a short time-frame for submitting a report.
Sub-Promise 5 – There will be an immediate Action Taken Report (ATR) on recommendations of earlier State Finance Commissions (SFCs). Unless there are strong reasons to the contrary, recommendations of SFCs will be mandatory.
Sub-Promise 6 – District planning will be introduced and all funds, functions and functionaries (not just functions) devolved to panchayats and urban local bodies. The central sector and centrally sponsored
schemes will accordingly be revamped and Gram Sabha audits of NREGA will become mandatory.
Sub-Promise 7 – The national multi-purpose identity card will be introduced on crash basis and also used for delivery of subsidized and non-subsidized public services.

Promise 2: Land

Land is a key input and development requires more efficient and better-productivity use of land, including that in agriculture.

Sub-Promise 8 – Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Agricultural Technology Management Agencies and farmers’ organizations will be integrated through a district/block/village level agricultural development strategy.
Sub-Promise 9 – The APMC Act will be amended to allow direct marketing, contract farming and markets in private and cooperative sectors.
Sub-Promise 10 – Registration and mutation services will be integrated and cadastral maps and revenue records also integrated. Land records will then be computerized, based on the records of the last 50 years. Citizen services based on land records (caste, income, domicile) will also be integrated into this system.
Sub-Promise 11 – PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act) will be made applicable to every village where a majority of the population consists of STs.
Sub-Promise 12 – Home-stead garden plots (10-15 cents) will be given to all rural landless families.
Sub-Promise 13 – With caveats to prevent abuse, agricultural tenancy will be legalized.
Sub-Promise 14 – The policy on land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement will become transparent and there will be no acquisition without a social impact assessment. After survey/settlement and recording of land titles and mutations, there will be an on-line registry of farmers, their land status and a land bank. The land-lease market will also feed into this.
Sub-Promise 15 – The Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana will be expanded to cover energization of pump-sets.
Sub-Promise 16 – Water Users’ Associations will be formed in every village.
Sub-Promise 17 – When sanctioning a new irrigation project, it will be mandatory that micro-irrigation should be implemented in at least 10% of the command area.

Promise 3: Labour

Other than land, labour is a key input and West Bengal’s strength lies in its human resources. However, the tapping of this potential requires improved physical and social infrastructure outcomes.

Sub-Promise 18 – The targets and time-lines of the Bharat Nirman programme will be rigidly adhered to. A white paper will be prepared on why West Bengal is lagging in attaining these targets and on progress towards the MDGs and the SDGs (SAARC Development Goals).
Sub-Promise 19 – Private sector participation will be invited for construction and maintenance of State highways and major district roads. A standard contract will be evolved, even if this involves the State PWD. A
West Bengal State Road Development Fund will be created, using market committee funds and vehicle fees, combined with possible borrowings from NABARD. PMGSY implementation will be improved.
Sub-Promise 20 – The performance of the State’s road transport undertakings will be improved. Commercial fares and motor vehicle-related taxes will be rationalized. Staff and services will be outsourced and the
private sector will be allowed regulated entry in the provision of passenger transport services.
Sub-Promise 21 – New berths will be created in Kolkata and Haldia through the PPP mode. The Port Trusts will be corporatised.
Sub-Promise 22 – WBSEB will be restructured and corporatised, unbundling transmission, generation and distribution. SERC recommendations will become mandatory. The State government will provided the 75% funds required for APDRP (Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme).
Sub-Promise 23 – The JNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) will be used to allow private sector participation in urban water supply and sanitation and dismantle the public sector monopoly,
with an appropriate regulatory structure in place. Property taxes, stamp duties and user charges will be re-examined. Drainage fees, parking fees, hoarding fees, vacant land taxes and development impact fees will be imposed to augment municipal revenue. Municipal bodies that are in a position to do so will be allowed to issue tax-free bonds.

Sub-Promise 24 – E-governance will be mandatorily introduced in all cities that have a population of more than 1 lakh. A Metropolitan Development Plan will be prepared for each city, based on plans prepared by
municipalities. The provisions of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act will be implemented.
Sub-Promise 25 – Surplus urban land will be identified and efficiently used to rehabilitate the slum population.
Sub-Promise 26 – The targets and guidelines of the SSA will be rigidly adhered to. Under the mid-day meal scheme, health cards will be issued to all children. A State-level eligibility test will be introduced for teachers
so that decentralized recruitment can take place. The entry of private schools (aided and unaided) will be liberalized. Private sector entry will also be liberalized in higher education.
Sub-Promise 27 – Vocational education will be revamped by handing over industrial training institutes to the private sector on PPP basis. The employment exchanges will also be handed over to private sector
management.
Sub-Promise 28 – Village Health and Sanitation Committees, Accredited Social Health Activists, Primary Health Centres and specialists in Community Health Centres will be ensured in every village/ district, integrating panchayats and civil society into the process. Health services (like immunization) will be spliced with the midday meal scheme. Public-private partnerships will be encouraged and community-based health insurance will be introduced. The State Medical Council will switch to a system where registration is periodical and has to be renewed, unlike the present permanent system. Private sector entry will be encouraged in curative healthcare and a voucher system introduced for BPL households.

Promise 4: Capital

With governance, land and labour reforms in place, there is not much that has to be done for capital and industry. West Bengal’s advantages will ensure that capital moves in, without special fiscal incentives, and that capital flight is reversed. Informal unorganized enterprises will become formal and organized. Subsistence self-employment will become productive wage employment. And the rural worker will move to higher income-earning urban pursuits. Having said this, some reforms are indeed necessary.

Sub-Promise 29 – The transaction costs associated with the registration system will be reduced, to create an incentive system for registration. This will also be part of the mandate of the Administrative Reforms
Commission.
Sub-Promise 30 – Micro-finance will be encouraged, for instance, through energization of self-help groups.

In Conclusion

These 30 reforms are more than enough. In the United States, people have said that they can. They can bring about change. It is no different for West Bengal’s citizens. West Bengal’s citizens deserve a better government and with that new government in place, can bring about change. In 5 years, West Bengal can become a completely different State. One that will not be stuck in India’s middle, but will be right at the top. One that people don’t migrate away from, but one that people want to migrate into. West Bengal can become a State that one will be proud to live in, provided the political environment changes.

Partial Transcript

Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 1
This is an Indicus White Paper Acknowledgements: Deepa Nayak, Ankur Gupta, Ramrao Mundhe & Sunil Bhatt About Indicus Indicus Analytics is India’s leading economics research and data analysis firm. Indicus follows the progress of the many facets of the Indian economy at a sub-national and sub-state level on a real time basis. It conducts monitoring and evaluation studies, indexation and ratings, as well as policy analysis. Indicus provides research inputs to governments, leading research organizations, civil society groups, national and international media, international institutions and industry. Indicus also conducts and disseminates studies and analysis on the Indian economy for public discussion and debate via its various newsletters as well as white papers. Disclaimer The information contained in this document represents the current views of the author(s) as of the date of publication. This White Paper is for informational purposes only. The author(s) and Indicus makes no warranties, express, implied or statutory, as to the information in this document. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of the author(s). February 26, 2009. Indicus Analytics, 2nd Floor Nehru House, 4-Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002
Indicus Analytics Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 3
Indicus Analytics Section 1 A Story of Falling Behind “The only service to be done for our lower classes is, to give them education, to develop their lost individuality.” – Swami Vivekananda, in a letter from Chicago, written to the Maharaja of Mysore. “I have undertaken this duty because at the present moment the economic story of British India has to be told, and the deep-seated cause of the poverty of the Indian people has to be explained….. A nation prospers if the sources of its wealth are widened, and if the proceeds of taxation are spent among the people, and for the people.” – Romesh Chunder Dutt, The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule “Look round and see, look at Magadha, Kasi, Kanchi, Delhi, Kashmir – where do you find such misery as here?” – Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in Anandamath “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free;…Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” – Rabindranath Tagore “I know that it will be argued that the continuance of a party in such circumstances, standing behind the State, will convert that State into a totalitarian one…The State will possibly become a totalitarian one if there be only one party as in countries like Russia, Germany and Italy.” – Subhas Chandra Bose, in A Program for Reconstructing “Post-War” India These are names, and possibly quotations, familiar to every Bengali. If one looks around and sees, one doesn’t find misery anywhere in India comparable to that in West Bengal state. The mind is not without fear. The head is not held high. Nor is knowledge free. The lower classes don’t have access to education. A party standing behind the State has converted the State into a totalitarian one. We have undertaken this duty because the economic story of West Bengal under Left Rule has to be told. The sources of wealth are not being widened. The proceeds of taxation are not being spent among the people, for the people. We are documenting the story of West Bengal’s decline so that the agenda can be changed, so that people possess the information required for exercising choice, so that an agenda for change can be articulated. Once upon a time, it used to be said that what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow. It is unlikely that anyone will say this today. Instead, what India thinks today, West Bengal doesn’t think about even tomorrow. It doesn’t even think about it day after tomorrow. The fault doesn’t lie in West Bengal’s citizens, who are as talented and enterprising as elsewhere in the country. Instead, the fault lies with the stars that they elect once every five years. In the early 1960s, West Bengal was one of the more successful States in India, irrespective of the criterion used to measure development. In 2008, West Bengal is just below average, irrespective of the criterion used to measure under-development. Other States perform better and West Bengal falls consistently behind. What has changed between the early 1960s and 2008? State governments have changed and since the late 1960s, and more so since 1977, this is what several decades of Left Front rule has done to West Bengal. In the United States, people have recently voted for a change, because they are sick and tired of old governments and old policies. That is what one also needs in West Bengal. The United States is a country people want to migrate to, witness the queues outside US Embassies everywhere in the world. Indian States are no different. People migrate to States that perform well – States like Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat. In contrast, between the two Censuses of 1991 and 2001, net out- migration for West Bengal was 0.04% a year. However, every one of West Bengal’s citizens Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change ; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 4
Indicus Analytics cannot migrate out of West Bengal. That can’t be a solution. The solution is to change the State of governance within West Bengal. Economic reforms were introduced in India in 1991. Reforms introduced before 1991 weren’t that comprehensive or systematic. Since the 1991 reforms, growth rates have increased throughout India. During the Sixth (1980-84) and Seventh (1985-89) Plans, annual rate of GDP growth was around 5.5%. But during the Eighth Plan (1992-96), this increased to 6.5% and during the Tenth Plan (2002-06), it increased to 7.7%. The Eleventh Plan (2007-12) hopes for 9% growth, since that is what the Indian economy has achieved since 2003. Of course, there is a global slowdown now and this has affected India adversely, as has the increase in interest rates before the Wall Street-triggered financial crisis caught most people unawares. This means it will take the country 2-3 years before India again resumes the 9% growth trajectory. But that is a transient point. The more important point is one about West Bengal’s absolute and relative performance. How has West Bengal performed since 1991? There is an impression that West Bengal hasn’t performed that badly in the 1990s, with a growth rate that is just about the all-India average. That’s roughly correct, since West Bengal’s real Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth was 6.3% during the Eighth Plan (1992-96) and 6.9% during the Ninth Plan (1997-2001) and one shouldn’t forget that the country didn’t grow all that fast during the Ninth Plan. But this is only one part of the story. Since 2003, the country’s growth broke into the 9% league and West Bengal was left out, as the accompanying graph clearly illustrates. For example, during the Tenth Plan, West Bengal was supposed to grow at 8.8%. But only managed to grow at 6.1%. During the Eleventh Plan, West Bengal is projected to grow at 9.7%. This is a figure accepted by the Planning Commission in the Eleventh Plan document and therefore, is a figure endorsed and suggested by the government of West Bengal. However, is there any guarantee that the State won’t again fall short, as it did during the Tenth Plan? None whatsoever. A government is meant to govern. Different people mean different things when they use the word governance. Irrespective of that, the least a government can do is to ensure a facilitating West Bengal Growth in GSDP 10 India 9 8 7 6 (%) 5 4 3 2 1 0 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 Source: CSO environment for growth, without blaming everything on the centre’s step-motherly treatment or partition and refugee influxes in 1947 and 1971. This is not to suggest that these factors Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 5
Indicus Analytics were unimportant. But they were important historically. One can’t continuously point to these and look backwards and blame everything that has not happened in the State on history. The finger must be pointed inwards and at the Left Front government. It has only been able to ensure a facilitating environment that ensures growth at roughly the all-India average. It has not been able to ensure a facilitating environment that catapults growth to a faster trajectory. If it has not succeeded in the past, why should it succeed in the future? Growth is important because that is the only long-lasting solution to problems of poverty and unemployment. Growth increases the size of the cake and ensures prosperity and advancement for everyone. As growth increases, poverty declines. Health and education indicators improve. So do a host of other governance indicators. This doesn’t mean that growth is an end in itself, or that the composition of growth is unimportant. Growth is never a sufficient condition. But it is certainly a necessary one, even more so in a State that has a population of 82 million by the 2001 Census. This kind of population figure means that the population density per sq km is 904 and is one of the highest in the country. Because growth hasn’t been fast enough, West Bengal’s per capita GSDP was Rs 29,457 in 2007-08. This gives West Bengal 18th rank in the country, not a rank one can inordinately be proud of. And one shouldn’t forget that there is a considerable amount of variation across West Bengal’s 18 districts. Kolkata isn’t representative of West Bengal. West Bengal’s Human Development Report (HDR), published in 2004 and endorsed by the Left Front government, acknowledges this too. The HDR identified six northern districts (Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Koch Behar, Maldah, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur), three western districts (Purulia, Bankura, Birbhum) and the Sunderbans area of the two 24 Parganas districts as particularly backward. Understandably, Kolkata is West Bengal’s richest district and Uttar Dinajpur, which is West Bengal’s poorest district, has a per capita SDP that is only 33.6% of that of Kolkata. For all its talk about equity and removal of inequalities, the West Bengal government hasn’t been able to improve the lot of the people in the worst-off and backward districts. Poverty ratios are calculated on the basis of large-sample NSS (National Sample Survey) data and these are available at infrequent intervals, the last one dating to 2004-05. In 2004-05, from the Planning Commission’s estimates, the percentage of population below the poverty line in West Bengal was 24.7%. Which States performed worse than West Bengal? The answer is Bihar, Karnataka (marginally worse), Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. Barring the inclusion of Karnataka and Maharashtra, this isn’t a list a citizen of West Bengal should be proud of. 42.4% of West Bengal’s rural scheduled tribe (ST) population is below the poverty line. The West Bengal HDR used data from NSS 1999-2000 and computed that 78.72% of rural Purulia’s population was below the poverty line. 61.53% of urban Jalpaiguri’s population was below the poverty line. Two points emerge. First, growth hasn’t been significant enough to reduce poverty. Second, the situation is especially bad in backward and deprived districts and this isn’t thrown up in aggregate State-level figures. What empowers people and enables them to improve their lot and progress towards prosperity? In 2001, West Bengal’s literacy rate was 68.6%, slightly above the all-India literacy rate of 64.8%. This West Bengal figure of course masks a literacy rate of 48.6% in Uttar Dinajpur. But that apart, Himachal Pradesh had a literacy rate of 76.5%, Tripura had a literacy rate Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change ; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 6
Indicus Analytics of 73.2% and Uttarakhand had a literacy rate of 71.6%. A State that was once labeled as the intellectual capital of the country performs worse than these States. Any literacy rate incorporates an element of adult literacy. In that sense, it is much more important to focus on what is happening to education among the young, since much of India is relatively young. The gross enrolment rate (Classes I-VIII) is 94.67% in West Bengal, worse than Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttarakhand. Other States are doing far better in getting children into school. Not only are other States doing far better in getting children into school. They are also doing far better in retaining them there. The drop-out rate (Classes I-X) is 78.03% in West Bengal. In the entire country, only Bihar (83.06%), Meghalaya (79.15%), Nagaland (97.29%) and Sikkim (82.30%) perform worse. In primary schools, West Bengal has 54 pupils per teacher. Himachal Pradesh has 24. West Bengal has 63 elementary schools per lakh population. Assam has 137. In addition to education, health is also often a public good, warranting provisioning by the State. There are some question marks about the quality of maternal mortality data. Subject to that, West Bengal’s maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) is 194. Maharashtra has managed to reduce it to 149. The infant mortality ratio (per 1000 live births) is 38 in West Bengal. Tripura has managed to reduce it to 31. In all fairness, in the inter-State comparisons, West Bengal performs better on health than on education, depending on the indicator used. But that is no argument for complacency, or for arguing that the government has done enough. For instance, children (under 3 years) who are under-weight for age amount to 43.5% in West Bengal. Children (aged 0-5 months) who are exclusively breast-fed amount to 58.6% in West Bengal. 63.8% of women in the age-group 15-49 years suffer from anemia. There were 2.6 million cases of diarrhea in West Bengal in 2006, the highest in the country, followed by Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 7
Indicus Analytics Andhra Pradesh with 1.2 million. There were 110,835 cases of typhoid in 2006, the second highest in the country after Andhra Pradesh. There were 175 deaths (not cases) from malaria in 2005, the second highest in the country after Orissa (255). There were 820 deaths (not cases) from TB in 2006, the third highest in the country after Andhra Pradesh and Delhi. Health indicators are a broader spectrum than education indicators. Therefore, there are some health indicators where West Bengal performs better than all-India averages. However, there are also health indicators where West Bengal performs worse than all-India averages. Nor should one forget the inter-district variations mentioned earlier. The infant mortality rate is as high as 74 in both Purulia and Dakshin Dinajpur. Eight districts (Maldah, Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Bardhaman, Haora, Hugli) are seriously affected by arsenic poisoning. The human development index (HDI) puts together three elements that affect human development and deprivation – per capita income, education and health. Because of the reasons just mentioned, West Bengal’s HDI is 0.610. This doesn’t look that bad when compared to most of India’s states. However, the district with the lowest HDI in West Bengal only has a value of 0.440. This is nothing short of pathetic. One reason for that is a complete inability to target subsidies. It is no one’s case that the poor should not be subsidized. However, the poor have to be identified and targeted. All poor should get subsidies and no non-poor should be subsidized. Such identification of the poor is attempted through BPL (below the poverty line) and AAY (Antyodaya Anna Yojana) cards. Yet, NSS data from the 61st round (2004-05) show that 47.3% of West Bengal’s poor have no card at all. In contrast, 43.3% of non-poor have BPL or AAY cards. This doesn’t say much about a government that is supposed to work in the name of the poor. In addition to social infrastructure, some elements of physical infrastructure can also be public goods. The 11th Finance Commission worked out an index of physical infrastructure for India’s states. In this, West Bengal had a score of 111.25. A state like Punjab had a score of 187.51. Physical infrastructure doesn’t always mean the extremely visible elements of ports, of either the air or sea variety. Even for sea-ports, one doesn’t mean Haldia, which has tended to perform relatively better. For Kolkata port, the Tenth Plan target was one of handling 21.40 million metric tons of cargo per year. In 2002-03, Kolkata port handled 7.20 million metric tons and in 2006-07, the port handled 12.60 million metric tons. Perhaps one should mention that the 13 major sea-ports collectively exceeded the Tenth Plan target in 2006-07. Leaving ports aside, let us turn to road transport. This affects everyone, especially the poor. Let us take Calcutta STC as an instance. In 2006-07, the all-India average of fleet utilization was 82.50%, but Calcutta STC had 59.0%. The all-India average vehicle productivity (earning per bus per km) was Rs 229, but Calcutta STC had Rs 128. The all-India average staff productivity (earning per worker per day) was Rs 39.39, but Calcutta STC had Rs 22.26. Less than 50% of households have electricity connections. 56.2% of habitations have still not been connected under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). A government is also supposed to ensure law and order. In December 2007, 283,237 cases were pending in Calcutta High Court, 7.5% of the country’s backlog in High Courts. 2.2 million cases were stuck in Calcutta’s lower courts. Several States have experimented with backlog reduction (Lok Adalats, Fast Track Courts, Family Courts, People’s Courts, Mobile Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change ; Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari 8