Author: cprindia

The series is titled ‘Plugging in: Electricity consumption in Indian Homes’.

Energy-demand interventions are important for shaping consumption patterns as India’s energy and technology infrastructure transitions. At the same time, implementation of demand-side solutions is not always straightforward because of the variety of influences on consumption decisions. In the final piece of this series, we initiate a discussion about the drivers of residential electricity consumption.

What conditions electricity use in homes? In particular, are there factors outside of the technological and physical aspects of the house structure and appliances that can have an impact on a household’s electricity consumption? We examine this question in low-income households in Rajkot, Gujarat. The sample provides a suitable context in which to undertake this study, because it contains identical home units, each with the same floor area and layout. This architecture allows us to control for the physical effects of the building, the floor area and the surrounding climate across the sample. The work is part of our ongoing study on energy use in low-income urban households under the CapaCITIES project.

Conventional understanding suggests electricity consumption is a function of building, technological and climate characteristics. Alongside, appliance ownership within a household is a key driver of how much electricity is used. Homes which own only lights and fans will have a different consumption pattern to homes that also own a refrigerator and television – as will be reflected in a different electricity bill between the two. Thereby, in order to control for the effect of appliance ownership on electricity use, we develop an appliances-asset index that ranks each household according to the appliances they own. That is, households with the same rank on the index own the same appliance, in the same quantity. In affordable housing units, the index can also serve as a proxy for economic class, as wealthier households tend to have more and more expensive appliances. Having now controlled for the major building, technological and climate drivers of residential electricity use, we compare the metered electricity consumption (from the utility) of homes that have the same rank on the asset index, to test how similar or different their consumption will be (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Variation in electricity bills for households as per their score on the appliances-asset index
Source: Residential electricity use in affordable homes (Khosla et al. in preparation)

Figure 1 provides interesting initial results. It shows a dramatic difference in the electricity bills of homes, even when they own the same appliances (displayed by the same rank on the appliances-asset index between -1.5 and 1.5). Further, when categorised according to the number of people within a home to account for differences that may arise from differing number of household members (either less than or more than three per home in the Figure), the large variation in the bill remains.

What explains this difference in the electricity bill of homes that own the same appliances, have similar number of people, the same floor area, are in buildings with similar physical characteristics, and under the same weather conditions?

The literature on household energy use offers a number of different factors that influence electricity consumption. Many of these are related to physical building characteristics, for instance, building age, materials, number of windows, etc. In addition, climate conditions are important drivers of how much electricity households consume to be thermally comfortable. And within the household, the area of the home, the number of people that inhabit it and the appliances owned are important determinants of how much electricity is consumed. Figure 1 is striking because in spite of controlling for all these aspects, the electricity bills of the homes are significantly different. This points to an important finding that human behaviour, or how people actually operate and use appliances, after they are purchased, is a key factor in driving electricity use. A better understanding of such human dimensions of energy consumption is particularly needed in the Indian context, where research on the role of behaviour and lifestyles in influencing household energy use is limited.

In addition to energy use behaviour, Figure 1’s electricity bill variation could also be a function of the age and efficiency of the appliances, which can be different even for the same appliance type, along with differences in the orientation of the buildings of the different households. Uncovering these details and developing an interdisciplinary understanding of the techno-economics of electricity consumption, with the social and cultural roots of behaviour patterns, is needed to better predict the interactions between people, buildings and technologies. This will enable better management of household electricity use, especially as the urban population grows and income levels rise. More so, such insights are necessary for informed future consumption projections and policy choices, to step away from traditional economic models that assume humans make rational, utility-maximising, everyday decisions and that appliance usage hours are uniform across individuals, an assumption that many studies make. Ultimately, understanding how individuals, households, and more broadly, societies, use or convert electricity has much to bear on the effectiveness of demand-side measures.

At the conclusion of this residential electricity series, we hope its different themes have provided new insight into the challenges and opportunities of electricity use in Indian homes. These have included trends and disparities in access and consumption across states; the impact of the country’s large LED lighting programme, including in affordable homes; the effectiveness of appliance standards and labels; the energy services demanded within affordable housing and more broadly, across the National Capital Region; metering appliance use patterns; and the role of energy use behaviour in influencing consumption. These findings drew from recently published work, and from new research that will be published shortly, all aimed at emphasising demand-side solutions for energy and climate change, within the context of development.

This piece is authored by Radhika Khosla at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. 

We would be grateful for your feedback on this series and request you to answer this 2 minute anonymous survey.

This blog series is also available on the Prayas website here.

We will soon be compiling all the posts of this series into a document for future reference.

Other posts in this series:

• Electricity Consumption in Indian Homes
• Trends in India’s Residential Electricity Consumption
• India’s LED Lighting Story
• Illuminating Affordable Homes
• The Efficiency of Appliances
• Appliances used in Affordable Housing
• Electrifying the National Capital Region
• Exploring the different uses of household appliances

By Navroz K Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani

India has traditionally approached climate change as a diplomatic issue, insisting that the developed world – because of their disproportionate role in causing the problem – should lead the way in reducing emissions, and provide the developing world the finance and technology to do so. While this approach is entirely justifiable and has served India well in the past, there are compelling reasons for the country to rethink its approach to international and domestic climate policy. First, climate change is likely to have profound and devastating impacts in India, impacts that will make the task of development and poverty eradication considerably harder. Second, there are several cost-effective actions that India can take that serve its development as well as climate interests. Rethinking our approach would translate internationally into our joining, even leading, a ‘coalition of the willing’ that advocates for an ambitious and strong rules-based global climate regime. Domestically, it would translate into a proactive exploration of lower-carbon opportunities for growth that foster development, while investing in climate adaptation and resilience. Rethinking our approach at the international and domestic levels, however, calls for strong institutions for climate governance.

This paper, after a brief context setting section, lays out elements of an approach to international and domestic climate policy that is likely to serve India well in the long run.

Context

Climate change, often characterized as the ‘defining issue of our age’, is predicted to have profound ‘impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans.’¹ These impacts are likely to cause devastation in India, a country with 7500 km of coastline, extensive tracts of low-lying areas, high population density, poor infrastructure and continued reliance on agriculture for livelihoods. With the 1°C warming that has already occurred since pre-industrial times, Himalayan glaciers have begun to retreat, and there has been a marked increase in the frequency and intensity of heat waves,²  droughts, extreme rainfall events³  and floods. If the world warms to between 2.6°C and 3.2°C, as the UN climate secretariat estimates it will based on current country pledges, this will have serious, pervasive and irreversible consequences for India – not just in terms of impacts on peoples and ecosystems, but also on economic growth, livelihoods and wellbeing. Climate change is predicted, for instance, to reduce agricultural incomes by 15-25% by the end of the century in India.⁴ 

International Climate Policy

India’s position in the international climate negotiations is set within larger geo-political developments that also inform and influence its broader foreign and energy policy. With the US retreat from the Paris Agreement, the Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s equivocation on it, and the defeat of the Labour Party in Australia which advocated strong climate measures, the momentum that led to the Paris Agreement has begun to dissipate. There is a leadership and imagination vacuum in global climate politics, which India could seek to fill.

For example, India could reach out to China, which has long been its negotiating partner in retaining differentiated responsibility, to forge a mutually beneficial alliance on the global solar energy transition. India leads the International Solar Alliance and provides a substantial market, while China has technological leadership in solar panels and storage technologies. Both countries are involved in the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. As the Africa region develops its infrastructure, an India-China alliance could help provide a vision of and the technological and financial means for realizing a low-carbon yet cost-effective future. In addition, and consistent with this approach, India could seek to realize its potential as a leader of vulnerable nations.  Doing so would also be viewed favourably in the South Asia region, by vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. Notably, these measures allow India to be a climate leader even as it takes advantage of opportunities for economic and political gain; that is, they do not require the country to sacrifice economic gain and political position for climate policy.

Based on approaches such as these, India could join forces with others to form part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ in global climate politics. Such a coalition is a particular need at this juncture in the negotiations. With the conclusion of the Paris Rulebook negotiations in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018, the politically charged negotiations on obligations, rules and institutions are at an end, and the regime has shifted gears to the day-to-day business of implementation. The Paris Agreement builds on nationally determined contributions (or NDCs) from countries to reduce greenhouse gases, complemented by a normative expectation of progression and ‘highest possible ambition’ that calls for these contributions to be strengthened over time.⁵  These terms – ‘progression’ and ‘highest possible ambition’ – are not defined either in the Paris Agreement or its Rulebook. Further, while the Rulebook fleshes out informational requirements, and operationalizes an enhanced transparency framework, global stocktake, and implementation and compliance mechanism, it still preserves, out of political necessity, considerable flexibility, autonomy and discretion for states; this is particularly evident in their near-absolute control over the content of their NDC.⁶ States could choose to exploit this discretion and create a political and implementation drag in the process, or they could choose to progressively strengthen their NDCs, enhance the quality of the ex ante and ex post information they provide, and trigger a virtuous cycle of ever ambitious actions necessary to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. It is in India’s interest to be part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ – nations that seek to progressively strengthen their NDCs, and enhance their ability to meet the procedural requirements of the Paris Agreement and its Rulebook as well as the substantive objective of the climate change regime.

Specifically, first, India should provide information on its NDC, set against the larger context of its development aspirations and resource constraints.⁷ This information should include the planning processes the country has engaged in to reach its NDC, which in turn should include meaningful stakeholder consultations and attentiveness to the human rights impacts of climate change action or inaction.

Second, India should clearly explain how its NDC is fair and ambitious, and on what objective criteria and benchmarks. This approach would allow India to ask how these criteria and benchmarks could be applied to the NDCs of other countries as well, turning its long-held emphasis on the principle of equity in climate change negotiations into a practical and applied measure. It is by providing robust information in the context of its NDC that India can introduce into the global assessment of progress criteria and benchmarks which assess ‘relative fair shares’.

Third, in relation to ex-post tracking of progress in implementing its NDC,⁸  India should identify objective defensible indicators to assess its progress with its NDC, take proactive efforts to address capacity gaps in implementation and reporting, and gradually improve the quality, precision and detail of the information it provides. India’s implementation should demonstrate a high degree of ‘due diligence’ (best possible efforts) in meeting the objectives of its NDC.

Finally, in relation to the global stocktake process every five years,⁹ India should work with negotiating partners (such as South Africa) and vulnerable nations to ensure that the ‘hooks’ on equity in the Paris Agreement and the Rulebook are duly exploited. India should submit its vision of equitable burden sharing and ‘relative fair shares’ to enable a meaningful assessment, albeit a collective one, at the international level of progress towards the global temperature goal.

India’s ability to take a leadership position in this ‘coalition of the willing’ will require a substantial scaling up of the capacity and resources – human, financial, legal, research and institutional – it devotes to engaging in international negotiations, and complementary backchannel processes.¹⁰ The country’s delegations to the climate negotiations are considerably smaller than those of other nations of comparable size and stature. The composition of the delegations tend to favour bureaucrats rather than experts, and there are limited formal channels for national positions to be informed by outputs from the growing research community working in these areas in India. In rethinking our approach to climate policy, international and domestic, India must also rethink its engagement with experts, and the processes for doing so.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement, given its hybrid architecture, lies in the strength of the NDCs that parties submit. The strength of the NDCs will in turn depend on international processes that can catalyse more ambitious domestic actions, as well domestic political will and institutional capacity for formulating and delivering ambitious NDCs. It is to these domestic issues that we now turn.

Domestic Climate Policy

As the reality of climate change looms, and its impacts become more real, India – as is true of other countries – increasingly needs to view climate change as a developmental challenge, and not simply as a diplomatic one. Simply put, climate change will make development outcomes more challenging. For example, global pressures to limit greenhouse gases and the emergence of new technologies will make it more complicated for India to power its industries and provide electricity to its citizens in conventional ways. Agriculture, on which a substantial portion of the population still depends for livelihoods, may be particularly hard hit. Cities and coastlines may be subject to disruptions from climate-related events. Water cycles may be disrupted, and the timing and availability of water through rainfall and in India’s rivers may shift. And heat waves and shifting disease vectors will complicate the problem of ensuring public health. Climate change is not an isolated challenge to be addressed by one part of the government; it is a problem that requires mainstreaming of climate considerations through all sections of the government’s decision-making apparatus.

As this discussion suggests, the institutional requirements of managing climate change are considerable. In the last few years, India has begun planning for climate change – including through a National Action Plan, eight national missions covering adaptation and mitigation, and 32 state action plans and greater investment in scientific infrastructure. Yet, a deeper dive into these efforts reveal that the research and analytical capacity in each of these areas is weak, coordination is limited, implementation is patchy across these efforts, and the strategic thinking for truly transformative approaches is lacking.¹¹

Building the capacity of Indian states to address the complex challenges of climate change is but in its infancy. The country needs to go much further down this path, devising and implementing a robust institutional structure that can generate appropriate knowledge, design policy and infrastructure interventions, coordinate across sectoral line departments and across scales of governance, ensure accountability for implementation, and provide an interface to business and civil society groups. Development remains India’s number one priority. But development untouched by climate change is no longer possible. Addressing climate change adds to India’s problem of developing adequate state capacity. A forthcoming edited volume coordinated by the Centre for Policy Research, India in a Warming World, explores how India can truly internalize climate concerns in both its energy consumption and natural resource sectors so as to address climate mitigation and adaptation.

Mitigation

Climate change mitigation, or the limitation of greenhouse gas emissions, has always been tied to India’s global negotiating stance. If wealthier countries, and not India, are largely responsible for the problem, why should India undertake costly mitigation actions? A decade ago, the National Action Plan on Climate Change proposed exploring actions that lead to both development and climate benefits. This principle of ‘co-benefits’ has guided our actions since, but actions that meet this principle have not been fully pursued and developed. Here, India’s status as a late developer is an advantage: we have not, as yet, locked into energy production and consumption patterns, and so can take advantage of new technology and knowledge to build a lower carbon development path.

India’s cities provide a particularly good example.¹² The country is urbanizing rapidly, but much of urban India remains to be built. The next couple of decades afford an opportunity to set up cities where transport needs (and hence emissions but also congestion) are lower due to sensible planning that locates work and living spaces near each other; the travel needs that remain are met increasingly with high-quality public transport and walking (rather than private automobiles); new buildings are designed to need less cooling and heating through intelligent design. Planning processes for urban spaces need to be focused on the multiple objectives that a city should meet in these times – of livability, low congestion, efficient functioning and a small environmental footprint.

India’s electricity system provides another instructive case.¹³ Long ridden with problems of unreliability, poor service and loss-making, Indian electricity is likely to be shaken up by the recent steep decline in costs of renewable electricity to levels where it is competitive with coal power. However, the transition is likely to be turbulent, and create winners and losers. For example, industries may choose to shift to renewables thereby increasing the financial burden on distribution companies. Coal-mining regions may, over time, have to move to other industries.¹⁴

Notably, these changes are inevitable and are being driven by global technology trends, not by national climate policies alone. Recently, Tata Power became the most recent example of a company that is planning to pivot from coal to solar for economic reasons.¹⁵ But planning for this future under the rubric of a transition to a low-carbon economy could help unlock possible synergies between green power, energy access and energy security. Alternatively, failure to plan for this transition may be costly, particularly for the poor. Moreover, the likelihood of green, yet competitive electricity opens the door to electrifying other sectors, such as transportation and cooking. But the challenges involved in managing these transitions, in terms of hardware required, institutional rules and making sure potential losers are not left behind, are substantial and require immediate analysis and planning.

India’s cities and electricity sector are but two examples. Mitigation also encompasses transportation networks (including for freight), industries, agriculture, forest management and use, and food consumption patterns, to name a few. For India, a consistent approach – built around understanding the synergies and trade-offs across multiple development objectives and climate mitigation – needs to become part of the policy framework across these sectors.

Adaptation

It is increasingly clear that despite our best efforts, countries collectively are unlikely to mitigate sufficiently to avoid at least some – potentially significant – effects of climate change.¹⁶ India, perhaps even more than other nations, has to pay considerable attention to the adaptation and resilience of its economy and society.

Doing so is as complex as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and perhaps even more so. For example, adaptation in agriculture requires preparing India’s agricultural systems for heat stress and unpredictable rainfall patterns against a backdrop of existing farmer distress, a creaky system of price stabilisation prone to rent-seeking, and highly inadequate insurance and risk management mechanisms available to farmers. In this context, large existing entry points into food security and employment, such as the public distribution system and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, could usefully be rethought and repurposed from the perspective of providing climate resilience. In brief, the scale and scope of potential climate impacts require mainstreaming of climate considerations systematically across development programmes, rather than an approach that rests on marginal band-aids.

In another example, India’s long coastline is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts.¹⁷ Climate change is likely to decrease the productivity of fisheries through changes in ocean temperature and acidity levels, already stressed by non-climate effects such as fertiliser run-off, with impacts on livelihoods of fisher communities. Because these effects are non-linear, beyond a point, coastal systems may be stressed beyond the point of recovery. In addition, extreme weather events and sea level rise are likely to reshape coastal zones and increase risks and costs of inhabitation on coasts. Addressing these challenges includes but goes beyond disaster preparedness. It requires, for example, coordinating the work of different departments, some of which have a protective mandate and others that seek to maximize production: these need to be harmonized around coastal resilience.

Apart from agriculture and coasts, urban areas, forests and water management also pose a complex challenge. In all these areas, the challenges of mainstreaming climate change are simultaneously scientific, economic, social and institutional.

Conclusion

As the spectre of climate change grows ever clearer, it is becoming increasingly obvious that pursuing development without internalizing climate change considerations risks ignoring a big piece of the puzzle. A central element of the new government’s agenda must thus be to internalize and mainstream climate considerations.

Fortunately, in relation to international policy, addressing climate change can also bring economic and political gains. It can enable India to work its alliances to become a leader in an impending global clean energy transition. And it opens possibilities for the country to become a political leader, notably of vulnerable nations.

Domestically, there is considerable work to be done. This involves rethinking India’s energy system in a world that prioritizes clean energy, including tackling the thorny question of remaking India’s problematic electricity distribution sector. To manage impacts on agriculture, coasts, cities, water and forests, the new government will need to invest in dedicated scientific and institutional capacity, tasked with internalizing the climate challenge and the implications climate change holds for development.

Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:

• The Future is Federal: Why Indian Foreign Policy Needs to Leverage its Border States by Nimmi Kurian
• India’s Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World by Shyam Saran
• Need for a Comprehensive National Security Strategy by Shyam Saran
• A Clarion Call for Just Jobs: Addressing the Nation’s Employment Crisis by Sabina Dewan
• Time for Disruptive Foreign and National Security Policies by Bharat Karnad
• Multiply Urban ‘Growth Engines’, Encourage Migration to Reboot Economy by Mukta Naik

¹ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A Meyer (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC, 2014), 6. [hereinafter IPCC]
² In 2015, a heat wave in India killed more than 2000 people. See Stephane Hallegatte, Adrien Vogt-Schilb, Mook Bangalore and Julie Rozenberg, ‘Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters’ (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017), 34.
³ O. Hoegh-Guldberg, D. Jacob, M. Taylor, M. Bindi, S. Brown, I. Camilloni, A. Diedhiou, R. Djalante, K.L. Ebi, F. Engelbrecht, J. Guiot, Y. Hijioka, S. Mehrotra, A. Payne, S.I. Seneviratne, A. Thomas, R. Warren and G. Zhou, ‘Impacts of 1.5°C of Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems’, in Global Warming of 1.5°C, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H.O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J.B.R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M.I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor and T. Waterfield (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC, 2018), 263.
⁴ Ministry of Finance, Government of India, ‘Climate, Climate Change, and Agriculture’, in Economic Survey 2017-18 (New Delhi: Government of India, 2018), 82.
⁵ Article 4(3), Paris Agreement, 2015.
⁶ Lavanya Rajamani and Daniel Bodansky, ‘The Paris Rulebook: Balancing Prescriptiveness with Flexibility’, International & Comparative Law Quarterly 68 (4) (forthcoming, 2019).
⁷ Article 4(8), Paris Agreement, 2015.
⁸ Article 13, Paris Agreement, 2015.
⁹ Article 14, Paris Agreement, 2015.
¹⁰ See, for a full discussion of legal capacity constraints and their substantive effects on India’s negotiating position, Lavanya Rajamani, ‘India’s Approach to International Law in the Climate Change Regime’, Indian Journal of International Law 57 (1) (2017).
¹¹ Vijeta Rattani, ‘Coping with Climate Change: An Analysis of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change’ (New Delhi, India: Centre for Science and Environment, 2018); Navroz K. Dubash and Neha Joseph, ‘Evolution of Institutions for Climate Policy in India’, Economic and Political Weekly 51 (3) (2016): 44-54; Sudhir Chella Rajan and Sujatha Byravan, ‘An Evaluation of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change’ (Chennai, India: Centre for Development Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research and Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, 2012).
¹² Radhika Khosla and Ankit Bhardwaj, ‘Urbanization in the Time of Climate Change: Examining the Response of Indian Cities’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 10 (1) (2018): e560, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.560.
¹³ Ashok Sreenivas and Ashwin Gambhir, ‘Aligning Energy, Development and Mitigation’, in India in a Warming World, ed. Navroz K. Dubash (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming); Navroz K. Dubash, Sunila S. Kale and Ranjit Bharvirkar, eds., Mapping Power: The Political Economy of Electricity in India’s States (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).
¹⁴ Navroz K. Dubash, Ashwini K. Swain and Parth Bhatia, ‘The Disruptive Politics of Renewable Energy’, The India Forum, forthcoming.
¹⁵ Press Trust of India, ‘Tata Power to focus on clean energy, not to build new coal-fired plants: report’, The Hindu, 23 April 2019, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/tata-power-to-focus-on-cl….
¹⁶ IPCC, ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in Global Warming of 1.5°C, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H.O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J.B.R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M.I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor and T. Waterfield (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC, 2018).
¹⁷ Rohan Arthur, ‘Shoring Up: Climate Change and the Indian Coasts and Islands’, in India in a Warming World, ed. Navroz K. Dubash (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

In one of the worst terror strikes in the state of Jammu and Kashmir since the Uri attack, around 44 CRPF personnel were killed and several others injured after a terrorist rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a bus in the state’s Pulwama region. The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) based in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack raises pertinent concerns about the deteriorating security situation in the Valley, India’s relationship with Pakistan, and the country’s national security framework. In this curated media commentary below, CPR faculty analyse and comment on the Pulwama terror attack.

• Ambassador Shyam Saran writes in Indian Express that ‘the deteriorating security situation in the Kashmir Valley cannot be delinked from the abdication of political responsibility by successive governments in Delhi.’ He underscores the need for political parties to ‘not engage in a high-decibel blame game’ and ‘come together to deal with what is a festering wound, which could spread its toxin in the entire body politic.’ In ‘The Tribune’, Amb. Saran highlights the need for ‘a national security strategy which could guide the State (India) in dealing with crisis situations as well as longer-term challenges.’ Even more important, he writes, ‘is crafting a longer-term strategy which locates the pursuit of national security in the overall national endeavour encompassing domestic, external and military security, economic and ecological security and strategic communications.’
• In ‘Firstpost’, Bharat Karnad lays out ways in which India should deal with terror outfits like JeM. In ‘Bloomberg Quint’, Karnad stresses that India must solve the problem of Pakistan-sourced terrorism by itself. He highlights that ‘the overlapping of US and Chinese interests means Pakistan is immune to any external pressure that Delhi is able to mobilise and, in any case, can continue prosecuting its covert war in Kashmir using terrorist proxies.’
• In the ‘Hindustan Times’, Brahma Chellaney writes about China’s culpability in the Pulwama attacks. He highlights how ‘in keeping with its master plan, Beijing brazenly shields Pakistan’s export of terrorism, including blocking UN action against Pakistan-based terrorists like Masood Azhar.’ He calls for a ‘clear-headed and self-assured foreign policy, particularly for addressing the insidious China challenge.’ In another interview with ‘ET Now’, he discusses various diplomatic and economic ways to pressurise and isolate Pakistan, including downgrading the diplomatic relationship with the country.
• G Parthasarathy, in an interview with ‘NDTV’, talks about how ‘Pakistan is the prime Chinese instrument for low-cost containment of India’. He stresses on the need for clear, long-term policies to deal with Pakistan, including working with Afghanistan and Iran. Parthasarathy also appeared in an interview on ‘DDNews’, where he called for building economic pressure on Pakistan through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

This paper analyses residential segregation over time in Indian cities. We examine the change in caste-based segregation longitudinally, while exploring how caste dynamics manifest differently across city size and region. The paper uses successive rounds of decennial census data, from 2001 and 2011. Contrary to expectations, we find residential segregation by caste/tribe persisting or worsening in 60 per cent of cities in our all-India sample, with differences by region and city size. For example, in the states of Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, a majority of cities experienced decreasing levels of residential segregation by caste/tribe, while in Maharashtra and Gujarat, 34 and 29 per cent of cities, respectively, experienced an increase. A greater proportion of small cities (population 20,000–49,999) than large cities (100,000–999,999) experienced an increase in residential segregation between 2001 and 2011. Across all city-size categories, the dominant trend has been no improvement in residential segregation by caste/tribe over time.

Access the article here.

Senior Visiting Fellow, Rajshree Chandra and Fellow, Namita Wahi, were awarded the prestigious New India Fellowship this year. The Fellowship acknowledges scholars and writers working on different aspects of the history of independent India. In this interview, Chandra and Wahi shed light on the projects they will be working on as part of the Fellowship and what the final outcome is going to be.

What is your fellowship project on?

Rajshree: The project is to work on my grandfather, Jagat Narai Lal’s political biography. Jagat Narain Lal was a writer, a political leader, a freedom fighter, member of the Constituent Assembly, member of the Dhar Commission (the first linguistic reorganisation commission, 1948), Professor of economics at Bihar Vidyapith (inaugurated by Gandhi on 4 Feb, 1921), a practicing lawyer, editor of journal Mahavir (till 1928) and also a person who was very religious and spiritual, his religiosity often spilling into his politics.

I have recently acquired a bunch of his diaries and writings that have been digitised and donated to the Nehru Memorial library. His writings and speeches cover a variety of subjects that range from socio-political themes – like property, citizenship, identity, secularism, minority status, linguistic reorganisation of states, etc., to a deep meditation on Advaita philosophy, Upanishads and the Gita. In his philosophical explorations, in his ideological dilemmas and philosophical predicaments, in the duality of his political loyalties lies the story of our collective inheritance that is marked by the contradictions and the contrarian ambiguities of our inheritance. His is perhaps an oeuvre that needs a more defined place in Indian history. Through his political biography I hope to do that.

Namita: My fellowship project is an attempt to write a book on ‘The History of the Constitutional Right to Property in India from 1947 to 1978’. The Fundamental Right to Property enjoys the unique distinction of not only being the second most contentious provision in the drafting of the Indian Constitution, but also the most amended provision, and the only fundamental right to be abolished (in 1978). Neither a mere doctrinal excursion through a litany of judicial precedents about property, nor simply an intellectual history of the idea of property in India, my book is an attempt to write a history of legal doctrine about property in India, in the context of both the intellectual history of the right and its social and political background during the period 1947-1978.

In my book project, I seek to correct a deeply rooted, conventional political and scholarly narrative about the trajectory of the fundamental right to property, which goes as follows. The Fundamental Right to Property was enforced by a ‘reactionary’ and ‘pro property’ rights Supreme Court in order to protect the rights of rich property owners, particularly zamindars, and to impede Parliament’s ‘progressive’ land reform agenda. Consequently, these provisions were amended several times by Parliament during the three decades following independence and were abolished by the Forty-Fourth constitutional amendment in 1978. The same amendment inserted a tempered right to property in Article 300A of the Constitution. This narrative echoes similar accounts about the implications of entrenched property clauses in other Constitutions, like the Lochner era US Supreme Court and more recently, the South African Constitutional Court.

My revisionist history will show that as the post-colonial Indian state, ruled by a ‘dominant political party’, namely, the Indian National Congress, embarked on a project of economic and social transformation, the right to property as drafted by India’s Constituent Assembly, and enforced by the Supreme Court, served as the site for mediating tensions between the state and citizens, that arose as a result of these processes of transformation. Constitutional courts are often critiqued for being counter majoritarian institutions. At other times, they are criticised as elitist or ineffective. Rarely are they seen as important consensus builders and mediators in a democracy. In my book project, I will show that due to two peculiar institutional features, the Supreme Court’s role in mediating tensions between state and citizens, as the state transformed socially and economically, was not counter majoritarian, or elitist, but rather democracy enhancing.

Moreover, my history of the fundamental right to property will hopefully include voices of marginalised groups like women, Dalits, and Tribals that have not been included in previous accounts of constitutional right to property.

How is the Fellowship going to support this?

Rajshree: The New India Foundation Fellowship is like a writing fellowship. It is in the form of a grant that would enable me to take time off teaching and devote time to working full-time on the project.

Namita: The Fellowship will provide me the necessary financial support that will allow me to focus entirely on this book project in the coming year. In addition, the esteemed board of trustees for the Fellowship, which includes eminent scholars and historians like Ramachandra Guha and Srinath Raghavan, will hopefully give feedback on the book as it develops and help bring it to a form that will make it into a good publication.

What is the final project outcome?

Rajshree: The outcome will be in the form of a book tracing his political journey, plus a companion volume of his collected works.

Namita: The outcome of the fellowship will be an academic book on the subject as described above, which will also be of interest to a general audience.

What is the quality of public healthcare available across rural and urban India? What are the barriers and the potential solutions? Based on extensive field work in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh (rural), West Bengal (rural), Mumbai and Patna, and drawing on 15 years of research, Dr Jishnu Das, a Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR and lead economist in the Development Research Group at The World Bank shares his insights. These can be accessed through:

• A podcast (above), which explores the issues with the quality of healthcare available to the rural poor, and;
• An audio recording, where Dr Das presents findings from both rural and urban areas, with a view to opening up a broader policy discussion of federal and state responsibilities towards health in India. This audio recording can be accessed here.

Two of the four research papers Dr Das drew on can be accessed at the following links:

• Can the poor in India access quality health care?
• The impact of training informal health care providers in India

PAISA STUDIES – AN INTRODUCTION

‘The flow of funds through various levels of the government is very similar to the flow of blood from the heart to the various parts of the body. If there is blockage somewhere, it affects the entire body, so in that regard PAISA studies do the work of a physician’, said a senior official in the Elementary Education Department of Purnia district in Bihar.

PAISA (Planning, Allocations and Expenditures, Institutions Studies in Accountability) is Accountability Initiative’s (AI) flagship research programme. The research focuses on making government processes: planning, decision-making and fund flow in key social sector schemes transparent. Under the PAISA programme, AI runs the country’s largest citizen-led expenditure tracking survey. These PAISA surveys are aimed at identifying implementation bottlenecks and through this understanding the factors that contribute to weak implementation and broken accountability systems on the ground.

In December, 2015, AI conducted a PAISA survey focusing on three centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Swach Bharat Mission (SBM). The survey, conducted in 10 districts across five states (Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan) in India, was undertaken against the backdrop of significant changes in fund flows to states, with the central government enhancing tax devolution (untied money) to state governments.

Similar to PAISA surveys in the past, the 2015 survey too revealed the extent to which structural problems with the public finance management system, such as lack of transparency in fund releases, can impact the quality of programme implementation on the ground. However, the lack of predictability was exacerbated as a result of the changes in fiscal transfers. For instance, in 2015-16, 31% schools had not received their annual school grants, as compared to 5% in the previous year.

Additionally, the PAISA survey collected information on progress in implementation, including achievement of Right to Education related school outputs, teacher and student attendance, availability of toilets, implementation of sanitation related awareness programmes, and the prevalence of open defecation.

The survey results were disseminated at the policy level through the budget brief reports, AI’s annual flagship research output. At the district level, AI adopted a new approach to dissemination. Rather than circulate reports, an attempt was made to share research findings through a dialogue with district and block level implementing officials. The objective was to leverage the research findings to catalyse a ground-level discussion on how to improve implementation and accountability – where it actually matters.

With this objective, between May, 2016 and December, 2016, a total of 40 PAISA dialogues were conducted across the 10 PAISA survey districts with sector specific implementation officials. The dialogues were conducted by AI field researchers or PAISA Associates (PA). This note captures the process of these dialogues and their impact.

A land less and building less elementary government school at full attendance despite the lack of basic resources, in Purnia, Bihar

PAISA DIALOGUES – A PLATFORM FOR FINDING SOLUTIONSThe key feature that distinguished the PAISA dialogues from the dissemination exercises of the past was that it was a ‘dialogue’ – focused on identifying solutions rather than a presentation of research findings. ‘Whenever we conduct a dialogue to share our research, the tone and intent is not to point fingers. Rather we emphasise  how this is ‘our’ problem rather than ‘yours’, and talk about how we can engage in a meaningful ‘discussion to find solutions for these problems,’ said Tajuddin, Accountability Initiative’s PAISA Associate in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. The feeling was mutual. ‘We got a good understanding of reality through AI’s research findings. Going forward, we would like to be engaged on a deeper level to make this process even more fruitful,’ expressed the SBM Coordinator in Jaipur. Another benefit of this approach was that it developed organically. From the point of establishing relationships with government representatives to conducting research, sharing it, and then working together over a period of time to try and identify solutions – there was a genuine feeling of partnership all through. The answers were not always obvious or simple, but the entire process was oriented towards finding sustainable solutions through building strong trustful relationships.

For instance, during a PAISA Dialogue, AI’s research was presented to a high-level district official in Kangra district. ‘Through the dialogue we shared that despite there being a School Management Committee (SMC) in 100% of the schools sampled, the SMC members were involved in the making of the School Development Plan (SDP) in only 73% of the schools. School Development Plan is supposed to be created solely by the SMCs and is factored into the district’s plans for annual fund allocations. The district officials took a lot of interest in this and asked us to contribute to the master trainers’ training for all SMCs in the district. We were even asked to monitor the trainings delivered at the cluster level. We began work with five SMCs and trained them on their responsibilities as members of this committee, fiscal literacy and the mechanisms around fund flows,’ explained Indresh, a PA in Himachal Pradesh.

The Rajasthan team had a similar experience. ‘For instance, SMCs previously planned the SDP around funds received through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan only, which are fully tied. However, schools can also receive money from Panchayats, the community, the MLA Lad funds etc., and since not all of these are tied funds, it gives the SMC greater freedom to develop a plan and budget for the coming year accordingly. Our training informed them about these various sources of funds, and helped them better assess, prioritise and address their needs. These mechanisms exist to provide citizens a voice in their well-being and that of their children, therefore, creating awareness around them leads to better implementation of these government schemes,’ added Tajuddin from Rajasthan.

Not only do government representatives place trust in AI’s research findings and work together to find solutions, many agreed that the research mirrored their reality. ‘We know a lot of these things from before but there is a level of denial within the system,’ said a District Accounts Officer from Himachal Pradesh.

Finding Solutions with Education Administrators in Solan, Himachal Pradesh

Further, an ICDS official from Satara added, ‘The AI presentation educated us about how funds flow from the top to the bottom. We did not receive any such training from the government. This is especially helpful to know because, a lot of times, despite irregular and uncoordinated payments to Anganwadi workers (AWW), the government expects us to run programmes without providing the funds – the money for that comes out of the pockets of AWWs a lot of times.’In the course of the dialogues, many officials pointed out the important role that these discussions played in validating and highlighting everyday implementation bottlenecks that they faced. This external validation of their struggles, at times, motivated officials to push harder toward identifying solutions. Such as in the example below:

Frontline officials from the education, health and nutrition departments in Himachal Pradesh, along with local PAISA associates, presented findings of the PAISA surveys to the District Magistrate (DM) of the Himachal Pradesh survey district, which resulted in the following actions:

• Since programmes under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme were stalled due to the lack of Anganwadi buildings for maternal and child support services, the DM ordered the completion of the buildings by June, 2016. He also asked for temporary relocation of the centres to elementary school buildings.
• There was a renewed focus on acquiring necessary equipment for height and weight measurement for monitoring and sustaining the healthy growth of women and children availing the ICDS scheme, which was earlier being neglected.

In yet another example, the PAISA survey highlighted the gaps between fund receipts and actual expenditure in schools. In the subsequent PAISA dialogues conducted, it was established that the reason for this lag was because school headmasters (who manage the school bank accounts) were not given any information on the date and time of the actual funds transfer to schools. This information was usually obtained informally during routine bank visits. ‘When AI shared this with us, we started the system of sending text messages to the phones of headmasters, informing them of the transfer. This has helped us create a more open communication system and reduced the lags to an extent,’ explained an SSA official in Jhalwar district, Rajasthan.

Although change is possible, the truth is that the deep centralisation of the Indian bureaucracy leaves relatively little room for maneuve at the frontline. Consequently, the frontline bureaucracy has also drawn on the dialogues as the fora to express their grievances.  ‘It is often difficult for us to find a channel through which we can address our grievances. Through these interactions and sharing its research at higher levels of government, we feel AI can be our voice and a link between us and higher levels of government,’ expressed an ICDS official in Madhya Pradesh.

To that end, dialogues have been initiated and are in progress with officials at the highest levels in both districts and states, with a view to informing policy interventions, where necessary. For instance, in Rajasthan, the AI field staff presented findings from their study on the ICDS scheme to the state Director of ICDS, the Deputy Director and the Financial Advisor. They shared information on blockages of fund flows in different districts, which led to the Director and Finance Advisor ordering a deeper investigation into the matter, and finding ways to ensure effective transfers. In the words of the District Magistrate in Himachal Pradesh, ‘AI’s research has been very helpful. With bigger sample sizes, it can definitely be used for policy intervention to find concrete solutions.’

PAISA Dialogue on ICDS in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan

PAISA Dialogue on SSA in Purnia, Bihar

WHY DOES THE BOTTOM-UP APPROACH WORK?In most interactions between the civil society, researchers and the government, there is one crucial level – the frontline bureaucracy – which is ignored. Since these are the people responsible for the actual service delivery, we thought it was very important to reach out to them and find ways to make our research useful for them,’ said Yamini Aiyar, Director of Accountability Initiative, when asked about the strategic reason behind involving lower levels of bureaucracy in an ongoing dialogue, versus the typical approach of disseminating to high-level government officials. This bottom-up approach has also greatly informed AI’s own learning. It is evident from field interactions that those responsible for drafting policies at the state level or above are often far removed from the actual ground realities. Consequently, AI staff have begun to view their role in the social policy and governance accountability ecosystem differently.

‘Instead of forcing our views we are engaging in a debate from the lowest level and intend to go to the very top. This is a very productive process and I am sure will bring about the change that AI is trying to create within our government systems and schemes,’ said Ram Ratan Jat, a PA from Jaipur.

‘When you go to the bottom first then you get additional qualitative information, the ground reality, which is helpful to tie in and present along with your research. This is the sort of information which people at the state level often do not have themselves, and when we present it to them, then we, in a way, become the link between two levels of government machinery,’ explained Dinesh Kumar, a senior PA who interacts closely with state level officials in Bihar. ‘For instance, when we do the PAISA dialogue, we first talk to the teacher, cluster and block officer and only then go to the district magistrate or state project director. By doing so, we take suggestions from all of these people to the higher levels of government. That along with our research has a great impact,’ he added.

‘We really appreciate AI’s team interacting with us on such a regular basis. Through, their research and these interactions we have learnt a lot about the ways in which funds flow through the government and have been able to identify a lot of our problems and ways in which to tackle them, even if that means knowing which questions to ask. Not a lot of organisations spend time with us in such a dedicated manner,’ Supervisor at an Anganwadi Centre in Satara, MaharashtraMid-day meal in progress at an Anganwadi Centre in Satara, Maharashtra.

FROM RESEARCHERS TO AGENTS OF CHANGEBy adopting this bottom up approach towards relationship building within different levels of the government, AI made a strategic decision to make a transition from being a typical research organisation to one that uses its research to be an agent of change. This strategic move also made AI question its own structures and processes. ‘If we are trying to empower the frontline of the government machinery through our research to create meaningful change, then should we not be empowering the associates within our team who are working at the field level, are aware of the cultural sensitivities, and are often more in tune with the ground realities to facilitate this change?,’ explained Yamini Aiyar. To this end, AI has invested intensively in the development and growth of its PAs, empowering them to embody the meaning of being an ‘agent of change’. ‘AI has always felt like a home. From the very beginning, they have paid attention to our skill development – from training us on government structures and fund flows, research methodologies,   the softer skills pertaining to building and maintaining relationships, and now teaching us to create and tell stories from the research we help conduct. We are a part of this process from the beginning to the end. It is a lot of responsibility but it is also very empowering,’ said Poonam, a senior PA in the Rajasthan state team. Poonam started out at AI in 2009 very close to its inception. Beginning with district and block level engagements, Poonam is now also involved with state level engagements and in mentoring younger PAs in the state team.

Swapna, a senior PA in Madhya Pradesh, reflects similar sentiments. ‘When I started working at AI, I felt hesitant even going up to a district official, let alone discussing matters related to accountability and governance,’ she said. However, recently Swapna presented AI’s research findings at a meeting of the highest ranking district officials convened by the District Magistrate. There was no hesitation and she felt completely at ease discussing complex themes relating to accountability and governance with those responsible for ensuring it. They sat there in silence and paid attention to everything she had to say. ‘I feel I am now confident and aware enough to conduct these disseminations at the state level as well,’ she added with a smile.

Tajuddin explained how working with AI honed his communication skills greatly, ‘The biggest learning for me has been to know how to translate data into a story and more importantly how to mould it in different ways for different stakeholders. For instance, power-point presentations and charts with percentages are great at the district level, but if we are presenting to a member of a SMC who is illiterate, we need to get creative in terms of our presentation. So we presented our findings on posters through pictures. The training given at AI and our comfort with the material we are presenting has given us the confidence and comfort of customising our presentation style.’

And finally Ram Ratan Jat summed up what drives all the Associates who are deeply committed to AI, ‘I really relate to AI’s mission, vision and objectives. It is one of those rare organisations which constantly gives you opportunities to grow, if you are willing to. I have spent more than six years of my life here and I have not felt that the learning stopped at any point during this long period of time.’

The Accountability Initiative Team with the PAISA Associates

Data collected by Naman Govil.