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2773 items in total found

Working Papers | 1997

Revitalizing the State: 2. Resharing the Bureaucracy

Khandwalla P N

In Virtually any king of modern state, there is a huge role for the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is intended to be a rational system of administration. But it is prone to many bureaupathologies, and increasing size tends to aggravate these bureaupathologies. Since the state in the 20th century has grown rapidly, it has become increasingly prone to malfunctioning on account of various bureaupathologies. Various attempts at bureaucratic reform have generally failed, especially in developing countries. Several pitfalls in administrative reforms have been listed. But there are also several success stories, from developed countries, newly industrialized countries, and developing countries, and the lessons of these successes can help recharge bureaucracies elsewhere. The experience of several East Asian countries that experienced rapid growth in the sixties and onwards, suggests how bureaucracy can be made growth oriented. Malaysia's experience suggests how values like quality, productivity, innovativeness, discipline, integrity, accountability, and professionalism can be institutionalized in a bureaucracy. The experience of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, etc. suggests numerous ways of substantially improving the performance of bureaucracy. Several conditions are discussed for supporting sustained public service reform, derived from a study of administrative practices in a number of Commonwealth countries.

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Working Papers | 1997

Policy Strategy and Instruments for Alleviating Rural Poverty

Desai B M and Namboodiri N V

The paper departs from the present policy emphasis for and more recent literature on rural poverty in advocating six major conclusions based on its validation of a multi-variate model explaining the behaviour of this poverty for 1960-61 to 1990-91 which is extended up to 1993-94. These are: One, contrary to the view that non-agricultural growth would provide off-farm employment opportunities to the rural poor we think that the strategy underlying such growth at an all-India level being capital-intensive with limited demand pull growth these opportunities do not bear fruits for the rural poor. What is, therefore, required is to shift industrialization strategy from “Machines First” to “Textiles First” which has high and dispersed employment and income multipliers and linkages. Two, what follows from the above suggestion is that agricultural growth should receive higher priority than is accorded now. And since such a growth has no trade-off with poverty ratio it would alleviate this poverty more rapidly. Three, the strategy for technology-led agricultural growth is even more potent than either poverty alleviation programs or land redistribution measures in alleviating absolute rural poverty. This follows from the finding that total factor productivity in agriculture is relatively more important than these other policies and programs in reducing this poverty. Rapid and broad-based technical change would therefore require higher priority for government expenditure on agricultural R&D, extension, irrigation and watersheds, electricity, seeds, rural roads etc. it would also require encouraging private investments in seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm implements and machinery through more conducive interest rates on (rural) credit and fiscal and other incentives for industries making these inputs. Four, between the poverty programs and land reforms latter may be prioritized more. But between egalitarian tenancy reforms and land ownership distribution the former may be more emphasized as inequality in land ownership unlike in operational land seems to generate process that alleviate rural poverty ration. Simultaneously, land consolidation programs also need to be urgently undertaken to make effective farm size lartger. Five, economic programmes for poverty alleviation may be prioritized next. These programs also need to have better sectoral integration such as for agriculture, dairying, fisheries etc. with an emphasis on technical change as these have a lion's share in rural work-force. And six, price reforms through macro stabilization measures, and through reducing protection to trade and industry have the least impact on alleviating absolute rural povery. This may be because (a) inflation is more of a structural rather than monetary phenomenon, and (b) industries and business that are protected produce products that are perhaps remotely connected to poor's consumption pattern.

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Working Papers | 1997

Revitalizing the State 4. Reinventing the Democratic State

Khandwalla P N

1407 Although democracy evolved in the West, in this century it has been adopted by scores of developing societies, with several relapses to despotism and recoveries from it. The most common form of democracy is liberal democracy, with several distinguishing characteristics. However, there are several variants of liberal democracy. The more sustainable forms may be those that incorporate elements of associations, deliberative, and direct democracy. In poor countries, democracy may be sustainable if there is also reasonable macro-economic stability, welfare measures for the poor and the insecure, and effective strategy of rapid economic development whose fruits increasingly go to the poor and the under-privileged, and administrative effectiveness. Empirical research suggests that democratization, in conjunction with civil liberties and social empowerment though investment in education, health, etc. of the masses, enhances rather than inhibits economic growth. A number of mechanisms are available to make the democratic state and its organs more innovative and effective. These include innovations for fairer representation of the people in the legislature, for a more stable tenure of elected government, for improving the quality of people's representatives in the legislature, and for improving the competence and quality of political executives. It is argues that democracy has many advantages and some disadvantages also vis-à-vis competing forms of the state, but it can be made sustainable, and the emerging world values are more in consonance with it than with the other forms.

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Working Papers | 1997

Revitalizing the State: 3. Fragmenting the State for Innovation

Khandwalla P N

Organizational research indicates that large organizations involved in many different activities can counteract the diseconomies of size and complexity, tendency to bureaucratization, and to increasing resistance to innovation by breaking up into relatively autonomous, self-contained units such as relatively autonomous, self-contained divisions, retaining mainly policy control at the centre and a powerful MIS as a monitoring device. States too can enhance their administrative capacity and innovativeness highly by decentralizing and by fragmenting themselves into relatively autonomous, self-contained units headed by professional managers with clear accountability and clear mandate. Such unbundling must, however, be in the pursuit of an integrating, shared vision of national excellence like social justice, economic growth, and improvement in the quality of life. Several case studies from a number of countries of government departments, agencies, and projects that were decentralized along the foregoing lines under a shared vision of state excellence demonstrate the efficacy of this strategy of fragmenting the state in certain effective ways. Several additional mechanisms can institutionalize the culture on innovation in governmental bodies, such as progressively higher goals, with potential conflict among goals. The operationalziation of a strong serving the “customer” commitment, an operationlized commitment to cut costs, to make increasingly technologically sophisticated offerings, to benchmarking, to entrepreneurship, to global scanning for innovations, trends, and opportunities, to periodic diagnosis of the organization's functioning, to participative decision making and brainstorming for novel but workable solutions, to periodic, exonovation, and toa daunting developmental and growth vision are powerful mechanisms to make government bodies highly innovative.

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Working Papers | 1997

Globalization Work and Management

Singh J P

Major changes are occurring in the sphere of work and management. While there is emergence of new time based and information based opportunities, some traditional office and business work opportunities are shrinking. Simultaneously, there is recognition of a new type of “Permanently Temporary” Employment that is a pointer to the need for employment laws that take into account new work realities. On a larger plane, changes are also occurring in trade and business world. A few truly global organizations have emerged. However, organizations that operate in 30-40 or 10-20 countries are many, and are beginning to encounter the problem of operating in international environment. Use of values and social concerns have become the new element in protection of markets in addition to the traditional concern for quality and the recent concern for environment. There is a shifting of polluting industries to new environments resulting in environmental hazards where none existed and a major shift in the job market around the globe. National economies are also shifting from industrial to service and information economies. Another major change is linked with the development of distance learning opportunities and a move towards a universal language. This is influencing not only the way education is imparted but also nature and management of educational institutions thus forcing organizations to rethink their human resource development and learning strategies. At the core of all these changes is a major technological breakthrough – in satellite imaging, communication, computing, high speed travel and transport technologies. This explosion of Technology has resulted in new competition giving older organizations very little response time. Emergence of the new slim and trim organizations have forced unions to change focus from wages and benefits to protection of jobs. Since both work and technology are changing at a fast pace, the sphere of management has also been affected. In some ways control and unity of command are under revision and calls for a reassessment of the management theory and practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges ahead before the business world and developing societies.

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Working Papers | 1997

Trends of Outpatient Visits and Inpatient Admissions in Public Hospitals of Ahmedabad, India over last 24 years

Saha Chandrahi and Dileep Mavalankar

This paper tries to show the trend of registration of patients (indoor & outdoor) in various medical institutes of Ahmedabad which are run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in last 24 years (1971-94). The Civil Hospital which is run by State Government was also studies for the same time period for comparison. The trend analysis of the registered patients is based on the secondary data available from AMC. The study shows that in last 24 years there is substantial decline in outdoor patients in most of the hospitals under AMC inspite of 3.6% annual increase in city population. Only Civil hospital shows a rising trend. Overall number of indoor admissions have increased somewhat in AMC hospitals. But it was mostly in tertiary hospitals, while in smaller hospitals & maternity homes number of indoor admissions have declined. On the other hand there is a marked rise in number of private nursing homes over this period. The paper also tried to explore the likely reason for such trend in patient registration. It also discusses the policy implications for providing quality health service to the citizens.

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Working Papers | 1997

Changing Perspective on Rural Credit between Mid-80s and Mid-90s - Experiences of two West Bengal Villages

Samar K. Datta and Chakraborti Milindo

Credit is a 'pure service' transaction between two points of time rather than a spot market transaction in 'pure goods'. Because of the time gap involved between sanction and realization of credit, the players in the market confront several kinds of risks, many of which are not independent of the socio-economic environment. Against the backdrop of the institutional changes in the form of establishment and strengthening of the Panchayats in rural West Bengal over the last two decades, the present study is an attempt to capture the attendant changes in rural credit market between mid-1980s and mid-1990s from the experiences of two villages in the district of Birbhum. In doing so, it compared the profile and mode of operation of prevailing moneylenders and lending institutions with those documented in an earlier study carried and in the same two villages and made an endeavour to find out as to whether the changes in the functioning of both formal and rural credit have led to greater accessibility to credit of the rural masses, a larger base for agricultural production through productive use of assets and ensuring better prices for farmers. The experiences of several successful multipurpose primary credit societies in India, the Indian Grameen Services, Hyderabad, the Bangladesh Grameen Bank and the Chinese Township and Village Enterprises are cited to provide some future guidance in improving the rural credit scenario in West Bengal.

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Working Papers | 1997

An Operational Study of CO Patel Vegetable and Fruit Market of Ahmedabad

Girja Sharan and T. Madhavan

We present in this paper, an operational study of CJ Patel Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market (CJP Market) of Ahmedabad city. The market is viewed as a dynamic queuing system. A simulation model is constructed. Simulations are used to generate statistics on congestion as the volume of trade is increased form the present level to what would be expected by the year 2010 A.D. This market was built in the year 1996 in order to reduce congestion in another older market. While the buildings are designed to last a long time, simulations show that its handling capacity will get saturated much sooner, most likely by the year 2010 A.D. Based on this work, it is argued that programe to modernize loading, unloading and other handling systems must be initiated now. Further, design procedures for such markets need to recognize these as dynamic queuing systems and not just an assembly of buildings and road.

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Working Papers | 1997

Process of Developing Venture Capital Activity--: A Study of Three Indian VCFs

Pandey I M and Fliegal F C

This study investigates the venture capital activity development process in India. The discussion covers the issues of the initiation of venture capital fund, investment strategy and evaluation criteria and the value addition by venture capital firms (VCFs). The history of modern venture capital in India is not very old, which was formally introduced in 1986-87. In the initial years, VCFs in India encountered a number of problems in developing their business. From in-depth case studies of three VCFs of India, it is found that all of them went through the initial constraints of not knowing the venture capital business well and learnt through trial and error and failures and mistakes. They faced problems in raising funds and evaluating prospective ventures. All of them initially focused their investment on the high technology business. But gradually they shifted their focus towards potentially high-growth, high profitable businesses and not just high-tech businesses. It is also noticed that VCFs maintained a closer link with the assisted firms in order to ensure the success of the venture capital.

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Working Papers | 1997

Generalized Shapely Value for Games with a Coalition Structure

Lahiri Somdeb

In cooperative games with transferable utility, there is usually no restriction on the possible coalitions that can materialize. A significant departure from this tradition, occurs in Moulin [1995], where the concept of admissible coalitions arise. In this paper we consider cooperative games with admissible coalitions, requiring that both the grand coalition, as well as, the null coalition are always admissible. We call such games, 'games with a coalition structure'. We define the concept of a core for such games and introduce a generalization of the notion of Shapley value. We define this generalized Shapley value to be the unique value satisfying the Dummy Player Property, Anonymity and Linearity. All these properties have been adapted from the standard context to our framework in such a way, that the existence of a unique value satisfying these properties is guaranteed. We subsequently consider specific coalition structures and obtain closed form solutions for the generalized Shapley value in each case.

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