What should Go into Making of a Successful Public Policy

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? *Jit Kumar Gupta

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Context

·?????? Policies and planning? form integral part of governance of any nation, state and community.

·?????? Every state, region and city must have an overarching policy dedicated to promoting universal good, prosperity, equity and quality of life of both existing and future population going to live in the given geographical area.

·?????? ?Policies are the outcome ?of the vision and approach adopted/stated/declared by the group governing any geographical entity.

·?????? In the political system, it is invariably the ruling party , which remains, primarily and essentially, involved in? formulation ?and implementation of policies.

·?????? ?In a democratic system of governance, ?policy formulation falls in the domain of party elected/voted to power? through the process of election. In the other systems , it is the entity/people who exercise power and authority, by virtue of the system put in place for governing the state/nation.

·?????? In majority of cases, basic agenda , aim and objective of any policy framed by the governance structure, is to ensure that ruling entity remains perpetually. ?in power Against this objective, all policies? put in place focus on? empowering people in power and ?intend to make ordinary citizens happy and supportive of the policies put in place.

·?????? Majority of nations and communities are suffering from the malaise of? irrational policies formulation at the state and the local level, which are embedded with distortions.

·?????? Many? communities , nations and states also suffer from policy paralysis.

·?????? Policy formulation must define, its intent, contents, scope, specify goals and objectives to be achieved; communities to be addressed; process of implementation, time-frame? for implementation and? expected outcome; for evaluation etc.

?Doe’s? in Rational Public? Policy Making

·?????? Policy formulation remains the foray of experts or the beaurucrats and the professionals, which has a duty caste on them to ensure that policies framed remain people centric and not authority centric for framing rational policies.

·?????? ?Policies should ?invariably focus on empowering people, communities and states; making value addition and ensuring equitable distribution of available resources to all the citizens residing in the area based on equity and social justice.

·?????? Policies should ?primarily and essentially aim at making optimum use of? available resources for promoting public goods.

·?????? Removing poverty? and empowering poor should remain the central theme? of the policies framed.

·?????? Policies framed at the local, regional and? state levels must? remain in line and should invariably avoid dualities and contradictions.

·?????? Any policy, which focusses merely on economic and financial gain will always hurt majority and society.

·?????? All policies framed should leverage the strength of existing parastatal agencies to promote public good and good of disadvantaged ?group or community.?

·?????? Policies should aim at reducing the existing gaps and bridging them with empowering lower strata of society.

·?????? All important aspects of human living and making them qualitative must be brought under policy framework.

·?????? Policy framework should invariably? focus on preserving the vital, valuable? and scarce resources, essentially needed for? environment, ecology, identity, culture and economy of any place ,area, community and state

·?????? Policies formulated must? address?? both short-term and long-term objectives of the society, facing challenges.

·?????? Policies framed must focus on not only curative but also looking at preventive strategies? to overcome perpetual problems.

·?????? Policy formulation should be made integral part of governance structure and all elected representatives and state officials must be trained in the art and science of rational policy formulation.

·?????? NGOs , CBOs? and civil society should be made integral part of policy

formulation, implementation, review and? redefinition

·?????? All good policies should remain people centric and not individual centric and promote public good and not good of ?selected? individual

·?????? Good policies should invariably? lead to good governance.

·?????? ?Good policies should be based on the principles of openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness, coherence and subsidiarity.

·?????? Good policy formulation includes and involve good implementation. Any policy which fails at the altar of implementation must be discarded and avoided.

·?????? For assuring the successful implementation of public policies, a more efficient and effective allocation of public resources and to increase citizen’s direct participation, involvement, engagement and empowerment must be embedded? in the policy.

·?????? A well-formulated policy with clear articulation of goals, targets and strategies for achieving them should include a clear view of the set of implementation mechanisms that are required.

·?????? Impact of policies on? outcomes is easier when the expected outcomes are clearly defined.

·?????? All policies must be supported by allocation of adequate resources for? effective implementation. Funding mechanism should have budgetary provisions for individual policy areas.

·?????? Periodic monitoring of results and fine-tuning of policy approaches and delivery modalities are essential and critical for success of any policy.

·?????? Policies should be based on? detailed data,? facts and figure related to the area of policy, which should be? invariably sourced.

·?????? Policy formulation should be preceded by wide ranging consultation with all stakeholders and communities to be impacted.

·?????? Study and learning of earlier policies made on the same subject must be made integral part of fresh policy making to avoid earlier pitfalls.

Don’ts in Rational Public? Policy Making

·?????? Policies ?which generally look for options which make people happy and healthy are based on wasting/destroying ?State resources, as? doles for bribing people to gain their confidence and goodwill to remain in power and should be invariably avoided.

·?????? Majority of ?policies remain embedded with? more of subjectivity and less of objectivity which leads to disruptions and distortions.

·?????? Too many policies remain bad? and prove/ known to be counterproductive

·?????? Policies must?? be fine tuned? to remain objective in description. Ambiguities in policy formulation and possibility of misinterpretation must ?invariably be avoided.

·?????? Policies leading to creating conflict between various communities and groups must invariably be avoided.

·?????? Policies which are not followed and opposed by majority of population should invariably be modified/avoided.

·?????? All policies based on negativities remain counter-productive and should be avoided.

·?????? All policies borrowed and copied from? different social, economic and physical structures , have more chances of? failure than success.

·?????? Any policy which widens the social, physical and economic gap shall invariably remain counter-productive and needs to be avoided .

·?????? Prevailing contradictions in policies? formulated? by various agencies and institutions should invariable be avoided.

Looking at the above brief, policy formulation remains a distinct and professional field and accordingly must be developed rationally and logically. Success of any state and nation depends upon its ?capacity, capability, ability, efficacy and efficiency in preparing , formulating and successfully implementing? quality? policy framework leading to ?promoting larger public and universal? good.

Author;

???????? Ar Jit Kumar Gupta

???????????? #344/40-a, Chandigarh-160036

????????????????? Former, Director, College of Architecture IET Bhaddal (Pb)

???????????? [email protected]

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