Abstract

With the Indian government’s vision to transform India into a developed nation by 2047, marking hundred years of independence, it has become of highest importance to learn from the past, tenaciously work in the present and step towards the future with complete efficiency. In its 77 years of becoming a democracy, India has soared high with continuous transformations marked by both notable achievements and persistent challenges. Looking on the positive side, India has made substantial progress in building democratic institutions and promoting political stability, achieving rapid economic growth and reducing poverty, implementing ambitious social programs and welfare schemes while leveraging technology for governance and public service delivery. With promises fulfilled over the years, India still has a long way to go before it can boast to have a state free of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies, poor public services and infrastructure, social and economic inequality, including gender and caste differences, and poorly implemented policies and programs that result in leaks and inefficiencies. The chapter highlights the intricate, complex and multifaceted nature of India's state capacity, underscoring the need for continued reforms and investments to address current challenges and capitalise on emerging opportunities to establish a true Viksit Bharat. Enhancing state capacity is the way forward to unlocking India’s full potential. There is no doubt that this approach will move Bharat towards a more prosperous, equitable, and sustainable future in compliance to the real definition of Viksit.

India has Come a long way, has longer to go

It was 1947. India had finally been free from the clutches of British Empire. Indian Independence was marked by the sure shot predictions of Winston Churchill and alike that it was next to impossible for the supposedly united land to survive without disintegrating post British rule. The existence of India as a nation was mocked and questioned. It has been 76 years since then and the Indian State stands tall with 5^th largest economy in the world boasting an annual GDP growth rate of 6.8 per cent.

It wasn’t easy to come out of the colonial ways and establish the socio-political regime we thrive in today. There have been immense successes in the field of politics as the longest constitution in the world provides a solid framework for maintenance of a democratic political structure. World’s largest elections and the Panchayati Local Governance are both a reason and result of it. This was accompanied by liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation reforms of 1991 that changed the Indian market at home and its position in the world. The reforms mostly affected the formal economy; agriculture, the urban informal sector, and forest-dependent populations did not see significant changes. As a result, growth was uneven and economic freedom was distributed unequally. While the economy has flourished in the last 30 years, if one looks not that closely but a little consciously; this development has come at a cost of rapid environmental degradation. We are paying the price for it whether we choose to acknowledge it or not in the form of extreme climate change, unbearable summers, delayed rain, extreme droughts, deteriorated air and water quality and chronic health conditions to name a few. A small example is that of Delhi where 8 out of 10 children and youth below the age of 20 show poor lung capacity.

When we look at the economy statistics internally, we find how economic inequality has risen since the 2000s.Top 1 per cent in India holds 40 per cent of wealth. This phenomenon is being called the ‘Billionaire Raj’. Economists state this gap to be worse than the British times. The bottom 50 per cent of the population ends up paying six times more indirect taxes as a percentage of their income compared to the top 10 per cent.

India Discrimination Report states that discrimination for women rose from 67.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 75.7 per cent in 2019-20. The earning gaps between male and female are large both in urban and rural areas for casual workers ranging between 50 to 70 per cent. Caste based discrimination in India needs no introduction and affects every aspect of life of the discriminated.

A mere 0.64 per cent of India’s GDP is invested in Research and Development, no doubt India ranks 153^rd in the world for the number of citations per paper. Schemes such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan can lure children to attend and retain in schools but the fact that children of 6^th grade find it difficult to read a second standard book poses a question on the execution and success of such long running schemes. Over 60 million children under five are stunted or underweight. However, government programmes that aim to improve child nutrition are inadequately resourced and plagued by critical implementation weaknesses. Agriculture now accounts for only 15 per cent of the Indian Economy while 55 per cent of the population depends on it.

Nationwide, police forces are understaffed, undertrained, underequipped, and overworked. The low capacity of the police system contributes to low public confidence, and only 10-15 per cent of crimes are even reported. On one hand, unreported crimes allow many criminals to get away scot-free. On the other hand, police often resort to violent treatment of suspected criminals, many of whom may be innocent. Police brutality is what makes a common citizen fear the one responsible to make a fear free society.

The judicial system in India is one of the most understaffed and pressured sectors. The Indian court system has an accumulated backlog of nearly 30 million cases, which have been pending for over a year. As a result, securing justice for citizens can be a long and arduous slog, and the process itself feels like a punishment. Lawyers and judges from Supreme and High courts write to CJI from time to time regarding this issue as has been observed over years, but the backlog has only increased.

What can be observed is that while India does well in implementing and delivering huge schemes and missions, it lacks in managing and providing basic services to its citizens. What needs exploration is whether this is a result of lack of expertise in sectors such as Education, Environment and Public healthcare; a lack of spending, a failure in implementation or mere ignorance.

Unemployment is emerging as one of the most serious hazards to Indian economic and social development. This crisis is a result of obsession with government jobs majorly in the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and also the state’s inability to create appropriate and good quality jobs for the education it provides. The share of educated youth among all unemployed people increased from 54.2 per cent in 2000 to 65.7 per cent in 2022 (International Labour Organisation). Keeping this in mind, reflection on the weaknesses in policies and programmes to support skilling, welfare, and job creation becomes mandatory. A discussion about measures that can be adopted to tackle this exponentially widening issue also follows.

Something to be noted are the effects failure in delivery of basic services has on the underprivileged and working class. They are the most severely affected, pay higher fraction of their income to better these services and have no influence and consideration when these services are made or implemented. Research suggests that women and working class and the poor are the most severely affected by climate change.

India ranks 159 out of 180 nations in the World Press Index, 2024. In the Human development Index, it ranks at 134. It ranks 40 in the Global Innovation index as well. These rankings are not something to be proud of and shows mirror to the Indian governance demanding a quick and efficient action for overall human development via increasing State Capacity.

One can consider increased investment in state capacity as a fool proof plan to combat all the above-mentioned issues but something to acknowledge here is that poor transition of spending on health, education, law to outcomes and results can also be a huge problem. This is where powerful governance can do wonders. A governance that is ready to change and adapt in order to reimagine, restart and rebuild an effective state is can achieve a state aiming to work at its full capacity.

When aiming at improving Indian governance, what cannot be missed is the federalism of Centre and State. While subjects of centre and state lists can still be dealt with in Upper and Lower House; Concurrent list subjects such as Forests and Education, Trade unions and planning and development of agriculture are crucial to capacitate the state. These demand higher attention. The opposition of common man against Forest Conservation Amendment bill, 2023 and the EIA draft of 2020 are prime examples of a governance that fails to acknowledge the importance of indigenous communities and their rights and malfunctions to establish a balance between economic development and environmental protection. It is important to realise the fact that a society can’t function to its full potential if it is forced to breathe polluted air and drink polluted water. 42 of the 50 most polluted cities in the world belong to India. Around 70 per cent of surface water is unfit for drinking here as well.

The cost of environmental degradation in India is estimated to be INR 3.7 trillion by the World Bank. The health costs relating to water pollution are alone at INR 470-610 billion. It would be impractical and ignorant to expect that an effective state could be established with such huge costs of resources and lives. How can we establish a successful state if the human resource faces such severe health dangers?

India’s State Capacity

The aim is to build India’s State capacity. But, what exactly does it mean and determine? The goals and their range a state strives for and its ability to achieve those goals through various means and mechanisms is described as state capacity. The scope of modern states is determined by their political process and has steadily expanded over time. Historically, states focused primarily on providing external security and internal order. Over time, their scope has expanded to include development and welfare functions as well. Thus, with changing times the definition of state capacity also changes and needs adaptation accordingly.

When we counter poor development outcomes of the Indian State, we only address the shortcomings and failures. This does not help in determining ways to improve development outcomes. These indicators, though can be used to find boxes of improvements within the clutter of weak outcomes. This book tries to do exactly that by trying to understand why the state fails to deliver despite appropriate budgets and how it can be improved.

When we consider state to be an organisation and not just an institution, 6 key systemic elements come to forefront that shape a state’s capacity. They are crucial in building India’s state capacity and sadly India fails at all six of them. These six elements include data, personnel, quality of public expenditure, tax revenue, federalism and decentralisation and the leveraging of non- state actors.

A discussion on how data and statistics are the pillars to making good governance decisions is crucial to start the talk on building a developed Bharat. If the data is outdated, corroded or corrupted the entire process of establishing and initiating impactful schemes and generating successful policies gets compromised. Absence of data increases dependency on anecdotes, personal experience, intuition, and seniority.

Absence of upskilling opportunities and presence of poor training and incentives have resulted in a government force that is unmotivated and weak. The book attempts to discuss in detail the reasons of this crisis and the probable solutions.

When 83 per cent of the wastage of public expenditure is attributed to poor governance, it is an indicator of extremely weak governance. While it is common to complain about inadequate funds for key development expenditures, we can achieve a lot more if we improve the quality and efficiency of existing spending. While the trust of Indian government has increased in the private sector, a huge gap still exists which needs to be filled. This can help better the outcomes from complex projects. Thus, a plan that focuses on these elements individually and cohesively can help establish governance measures that can improve state capacity and bring about change in the outcomes expected.

What causes the failure of Indian Service Delivery?

Identification of sub systems that determine overall state effectiveness is crucial to starting to improve India’s Public Systems. Once identified, one can delve into solutions only when the shortcomings are clearly laid down and understood.

The Politics of Stage Show

Indian Independence led by the Indian National Congress pioneered a politics that believed in establishing a society based on virtues such as equality, equity, educational freedom and economic development. As the nation has prospered in various realms and brought about changes, the politics has also changed. With promises increasing and deliverables decreasing; the Indian politics needs a revival that practices and delivers what it preaches. Greater electoral competition has also increased political incentives to cater to narrower 'vote banks', rather than invest in broad-based development. Politicians have also found it easier to appeal to voters based on short-term palliative interventions such as loan waivers and subsidies, rather than longer-term development. The debate on “Rewdi” culture in 2024 elections was a highlight but what is to be noted is that no political party is devoid of it.

Systemic Overload and Trust deficits

When the government promises to deliver more than it can, undue pressure builds up on the bureaucracy. By trying to do too much, the Indian state has further weakened its ability to deliver even its core functions. Thus, we can increase state effectiveness by reducing the scope of what the Indian state tries to do, so that it can better perform its core functions. When the state promises more than it can deliver, it is often forced to break some promises, which contributes to a trust deficit between citizens and the government.

The Elite Exit and an Unequal Society

The Indian Elite and middle class very comfortably remove themselves from the responsibility of identifying shortcomings in the state capacity while running away from the responsibility of contributing to building one. The fact that most citizens of this section do not need public services, can afford lifestyles with clean potable water and afford a living in societies with good waste management systems makes it easier for them to not be affected and remain unbothered.

It is the working class and underprivileged, poor sections that struggle to live a decent life with basic amenities. It is also easier for the rich to deal with climate change induced disasters and weather patterns. This is the reason urbanisation and deforestation are not much opposed by this section. It is clear that lifestyle of the well-off section of society contributes more to pollution and environmental degradation while the poor bears the brunt.

Prioritising Investment in State Capacity

It is not always that an increase in investment shall reap better results, but there are various examples that prove how improving governance is actually more beneficial and cost effective in achieving desired results. A study finds that filling judge vacancies in Indian district courts both sped up case resolution and boosted economic activity by unlocking assets for productive use, which would otherwise be unused while under legal dispute. Further, the study estimates that the aggregate economic benefit of filling these vacancies would be over thirty times the cost, and that the increase in tax revenue from the increase in economic activity would more than cover the cost of additional judges.

It is no news that investing in building state’s capacity is one of the first and foremost ways to accelerate India’s development. Improving public service delivery has a double benefit. It will directly benefit the users of public services, who tend to be poor and vulnerable, and also indirectly benefit the better-off users of private services since private providers will have to increase their price-adjusted quality to compete with an improved free public option.

And if nothing, the COVID-19 crisis in 2019-20 and 2021 made it clear how crucial it is to increase state capacity in sectors such as health and man-made and natural disasters. With the current pace of climate change and increasing temperatures, India also needs to invest in mitigation and adaptive measures for unforeseen circumstances that could take the shape of reduced food security, health crises or disasters.

Building a more Effective State

The key actors in building India into an effective state are the politicians and bureaucrats. Even though both these roles come with their share of partial incompetencies in the public eye, understanding their systemic constraints can help determine how they can successfully drive the building of effective state. It has been tried to pave a way to understanding these restraints, challenges and mentions key steps to be taken to strengthen both these cores of Indian governance.

Devoted discussion on data and measurement, public personnel management, quality of public expenditure, quantity and quality of revenue, federalism and decentralization, and leveraging non-state and market actors to better serve public interests is included in the book at full lengths.

The inter connected theme of all chapters help sew ones understanding in a way that the reader can looks at the Indian State as a whole system and try to understand that system while figuring out ways to better its different sectors both independently and together. This can help cater to multiple queries at once and result in effective solution building. The aim of this book is not only to count the sectoral problems but provide a roadmap of solutions to those problems.

A cross-cutting theme of technology is seen in all chapters with the realisation that modern problems cannot be tackled in its absence at all. Science and technology are the pillars to solution building in all themes and sectors from Economics to Society and Polity to Environment.

If the current governance means are followed, the outcomes yielded will be nothing but poor when India turns 100 years old in 2047. Ambitious targets of net zero emissions by 2070 and 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030 can only be achieved by rapid implementation and serious execution. If not, these targets will only be pushed forward years over years snatching away India’s chance to become a renewable energy superpower.

Six key areas: education and skills; health and nutrition; police and public safety; courts and justice; social protection and welfare; and jobs, productivity and economic growth try to complete the discussion forming a full circle of needed information. Three other key areas agriculture, urbanisation, and environment form a constant theme in the book and become part of discussions and solutions from time to time.

An idea that needs pondering is the gap that exists between natural and social sciences. As economic development increases, environmental and agricultural degradation increases too. What can be a solution to bridge this gap?

Building new institutions to help strengthen public systems, and to institutionalise more effective ways of functioning into the daily routines of the government is an important aspect of building a developed nation. The book presents ideas for how different social actors can each contribute towards our shared goal of building a more effective Indian state.

The power and influence that an Indian state hold is why this book focuses primarily on ideas that can be adopted and implemented in governance of federal states. With such diversity and geography, the responsibility lies both with the centre and state to come up with effective policies. This diversity also leads to state specific development outcomes and varied state capacity. Overall, the majority of policy discourse and writing in India has been targeted at the national level, even though Indian states are larger than most countries. This book aims to correct this imbalance by giving Indian states the attention they deserve especially in core service delivery sectors, that are constitutionally in their domain.

Conclusion

A key goal of this book is to promote equity and justice across all sections of society. It also revolves around the theme of responsibilities of the privileged in removing inequality and poverty by supporting public systems that focus on delivering basic public services. Major part of the book deals with data, evidence, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency of public spending. This is because improving government effectiveness in providing basic services for all Indians is the most practical way to improve equity at scale and better deliver on the promise of democracy for marginalised groups.

One central debate on the intellectual and political discourse talks on the lines of Economic development versus development of Human life and lifestyles. The detailed discussion on state capacity should be enough to help a reader weigh sectors such as economy and infrastructure with health and environment; and hopefully not against.

Another major discussion is about reducing the sole focus on top line budget allocation and diverting it on bottom line public spending. The book hopes to contribute towards the long-term goal of building a more effective Indian State by providing a practical roadmap for actions that can accelerate our collective progress as a nation.

Reforming Indian state can be a challenging task but this task is not only to develop the country but also a moral imperative. All we have to do is to collectively believe in the reform of an effective Indian state and try. The cautious optimism with conceptual clarity should do its part, while we do ours.

India’s vision of a Viksit Bharat can only be achieved by a collaborative effort of the top tier governance, followed by efficient execution and consistent efforts on both organisational and individual levels. India's aspirational goal is to become a developed nation by the year 2047, the centennial of its independence, covering a wide range of development aspects, including social progress, environmental sustainability, economic prosperity, and efficient governance. This vision highlights the pivotal moment that India is currently facing. A strong belief in India’s future, unwavering dedication, and a profound understanding of the enormous potential talent and capabilities of its people-especially the youth-are all necessary to realise the vision.