'The Accidental PM' by Sanjaya Baru- been almost a decade late grabbing this memoir, written by the then Media Advisor of Dr. Manmohan Singh. To my surprise, I find Mr.?Baru's book a very balanced take on Dr Singh's time as PM, touching several instances of public policy making which can be helpful to anyone trying to understand its nuances.?
We often talk about balancing the equity, efficiency and freedom in allocation of public goods/resources and the trade-off between them. If I extend the argument to electricity markets (though electricity doesn't fit the definition of 'public good'), and assume the Government makes efforts to ensure efficiency (say through centralised operation of the system) and ensure freedom (through competition and more exposure to markets), we lose upon equity of delivering electricity to all; if it betters on equity and efficiency, we may not be able to ensure choice (read open access), and so on. Mr. Baru's book is replete with several aspects that relate to public policy making.?
He takes us through his journey with Dr. Singh as his adviser, counsellor and at time his student, offering us a glimpse of his intellectual prowess, thought process, and of course his fallacies. And Mr Baru has not missed a chance to criticise Dr Singh where it is due. Coming to few lessons though-?
- One populist intiative of the UPA (& several other govts.) was farm loan waiver during 2008-09. Dr. Singh's explanation in the book while lecturing Mr. Baru on the history of farm loan waiver is interesting - he says that the rural credit is a public good. A loan waiver for a farmer may seen to be a private good since the primary beneficiary is the debtor. However in keeping farners alive, in sustaining the livelyhood of farmers and in ensuring rural social stabity, a loan waiver would have wider social benfits. Many countries including developed economies justified farm subsidies on such social ground.?
- Again, if we extend this argument to electricity subsidy extended to farmers, will the same rationale seem to work? Probably not. Though the electricity subsidy does the same as farm loan subsidy, in addition, it also severely alters the ground water situation. One public policy intervention being attempted in this regard is by J-PAL in Punjab. They're attempting to find an alternate to tariff subsidy in the way it is given. Under this voluntary program, beneficiary farmers receive a lump-sum subsidy based on the cost of power for crops irrigation as estimated by experts. Farmers can then choose to spend the entire subsidy on power or reduce their energy consumption and keep the difference between the subsidy and their consumption. They are not charged for energy consumption higher than the subsidy, but are instead incentivized to use less energy. This has intended benefits through incentivising the reduction of excess energy consumption and simultaneously contain the ground water depletion. The results of the trial are yet to be published, but does appear to be a potential alternate.
- Another interesting instance Mr. Baru refers is when Dr. Singh wanted to let the scholars analyse the thoughts, processes that had gone into policy making of past governments. For this he desired of having a 3 or 5- year rule under which declassified documents could be made available to the interested scholars to delve into and improve the process of policy making. Sounds a very good initiative; but for obvious reasons and interests, this initiative could never see the light of the day.
- Taking us through ups and downs of the UPA government- cracking the nuclear deal, getting mired in controversies during the 2nd term, to his claim of being one of?the most scholarly PM, the world has ever seen, Mr Baru has written an insightful political account.
- At the end, Mr Baru feels that it is peculiar to the Indian democracy, that the secretaries in PMO refrain from writing about their time in office, even post retirements. If they do, it is mostly praising the political leaders through hagiographic accounts of their time in office. One reason for this as he was told by Mr. Sharda prasad, the information adviser to Indira Gandhi was- "I do not know everything that happened in the PMO. Not only do I not know all sides of the truth, I do not even know how many sides the truth has". Funny it may sound, one can only wish to read more accounts from the closets of our political leaders.?