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1. India’s Regulatory Shift: An Examination of Five Agencies of the Post- Liberalisation Era

Author:
Arkaja Singh
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This paper explores the design of Indian regulatory agencies established post-liberalisation from an administrative perspective. Regulatory agencies were set up to replace state inefficiencies, and to discipline profligate state agencies, even as much as they were a response to state-market reorganisations and the challenge of privatization. Regulation provided an opportunity for upper levels of the Indian bureaucratic state to recast their power, with the idea that it would provide a framework for economic rationality, independence and technical specialization to take centre-stage. In actual practice however, the design of each of the regulatory agencies is shaped largely by pre-existing legal frameworks and institutions, and the agencies have remained quite tied in with their counterpart departments and on retired bureaucrats. However, in spite of these limitations, these agencies have some common features imbued by legislative mandate and organisational design which are unique in the context of the Indian state. They have focus and stability, a degree of functional independence, and most importantly, a concentration of power, which enables them to think through and implement complex policy transitions from multi-year and context-specific perspectives. The paper builds on learnings from a series of conversations with regulatory agency chairpersons in order to identify what regulatory governance is, in terms of the powers and mandate of the regulatory agencies and what makes them distinctive from the rest of public administration.
Topic:
Governance, Regulation, Liberalization, and Administration
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

2. India’s Regulatory Shift: An Examination of Five Agencies of the Post- Liberalisation Era

Author:
Arkaja Singh
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This paper explores the design of Indian regulatory agencies established post-liberalisation from an administrative perspective. Regulatory agencies were set up to replace state inefficiencies, and to discipline profligate state agencies, even as much as they were a response to state-market reorganisations and the challenge of privatization. Regulation provided an opportunity for upper levels of the Indian bureaucratic state to recast their power, with the idea that it would provide a framework for economic rationality, independence and technical specialization to take centre-stage. In actual practice however, the design of each of the regulatory agencies is shaped largely by pre-existing legal frameworks and institutions, and the agencies have remained quite tied in with their counterpart departments and on retired bureaucrats. However, in spite of these limitations, these agencies have some common features imbued by legislative mandate and organisational design which are unique in the context of the Indian state. They have focus and stability, a degree of functional independence, and most importantly, a concentration of power, which enables them to think through and implement complex policy transitions from multi-year and context-specific perspectives. The paper builds on learnings from a series of conversations with regulatory agency chairpersons in order to identify what regulatory governance is, in terms of the powers and mandate of the regulatory agencies and what makes them distinctive from the rest of public administration.
Topic:
Markets, Governance, Regulation, Bureaucracy, and Liberalization
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

3. Water and Federalism: Working with States for Water Security

Author:
Srinivas Chokkakula, Avani Kapur, and Arkaja Singh
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
India’s poor water security indicators are partly a result of the poor translation of federal spirit in governing its water resources. The limited scholarship on the subject recognizes the vacuum in federal water governance and the weak articulation of Centre’s role to work with states in pursuing India’s long-term development and security goals. Besides, coherent federal responses are critical to address the new governance challenges and emerging risks such as those linked to climate change, floods, dam safety, etc. Yet the national discourse on water federalism is dominated by interstate river water disputes. The study breaks new grounds by going beyond the narrow frame to engage comprehensively with the idea of water federalism in India. It explores the range of policy, institutional, legal and financial instruments for improved water governance. Conceptualised as the Centre’s leverage, the study investigates into these instruments to explore opportunities for the Centre to work with states for improved outcomes. Using mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study looks at the transforming Indian federal state from two contrasting viewpoints: the shifting stakes of the Centre and states in water resources development; and the converging forces of development goals and security concerns. The analysis is supported by case studies of Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka states revealing the diverse territorial imaginations and priorities of water resources development and, their implications for national water security. It also examines the experiences of central schemes through intergovernmental fiscal transfers and federal water governance practices internationally to incentivize states’ progressive pathways in water resources management. Identifying federal consensus-building about the Centre’s role and autonomous institutional architecture for data as the two foundational pillars, the study makes concrete recommendations to improve federal governance for long-term development and water security.
Topic:
Security, Development, Water, and Federalism
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

4. Hunger, COVID-19 and The Indian Administrative State

Author:
Arkaja Singh
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
COVID-19 produced an acute and widespread crisis of hunger across India, which was felt most acutely by migrant workers and those who were outside the reach of India’s highly organised but rigid Public Distribution System (PDS). The hunger was incidental to the actual disease itself, but severe enough to be considered a crisis of governance on its own as it brought the Indian state face-t0-face with one of its oldest and most enduring challenges: how to ensure that essential supplies of food reach those in need of it? Could the Indian government simply have ‘universalised’ the PDS, and made it accessible to all? It was pointed out that the Indian state had adequate buffer stocks of food grain to make this feasible. However, for reasons that were never articulated, this option was never seriously considered by the government of India. Instead, governments tried to extend the reach of the PDS delivery mechanism, and to devise ways to deliver relief outside of the PDS framework. These strategies were however quite challenging for the risk-averse, (nominally) rule-bound Indian state that is disinclined to allow for discretion in spending of government funds, making purchases and allocation of largesse. Typically, the Indian state is all the more reluctant to delegate power to exercise discretion to lower levels of government. For this reason, the Indian state governments (who were at the frontline of this response) seemed to need to devise a framework of rules for the identification of beneficiaries, even in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. As a related problem, the states also did not necessarily have the organisational wherewithal to take up rapid, decentralised and locally grounded interventions. The organisational wherewithal, so to speak, could come in various forms. Some examples of this, which we saw at play, were decentralised government, the capacity to make non-state collaborations and institutionalised systems for the ‘continuous updating’ of beneficiary lists. More fundamentally, however, what is needed is the capacity for high levels of government to be able to formulate responsive policy and to be able to trust in the ability of their subordinate ranks to carry out new interventions, often in case-specific and individualised ways. Arkaja Singh’s working paper explores these issues in the context of state response to the COVID hunger crisis in the states of Delhi, Kerala, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana,
Topic:
Governance, Food Security, Hunger, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
South Asia and India