Give thrust to PPP in budget

SRIKALA BHASHYAM / TNN / Mar 16, 2006, 23:37 IST

Text Size

Small
Medium
Large

Govt continues to pump in crores for improving health care facilities, but the results haven't been impressive.

BANGALORE: For a state which boasts of a good GDP (gross domestic product) growth and revenue buoyancy, you'd expect Karnataka to be a top performer on all three counts �� education, health and infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. While infrastructure has kept the state government in the limelight for all the wrong reasons, the quality of primary education continues to be poor despite the state government spending nearly Rs 5,000 per child.
The government continues to pump in crores for improving health care facilities at primary health care centres, but the results haven't been impressive.Obviously, budget allocations don't bring growth.
Experts say the time has come for a fresh focus on spending with greater efficiency. "It's time for the government to adopt outcome budgeting.

Very often, funds are allocated but we don't know the outcome of the spending," says Ramesh Ramanathan, founder chairman, Janagrahaa, an NGO.
According to him, Karnataka, thanks to its fiscal prudence, has been one of the few states to allocate liberally across sectors but poor implementation has not paid dividends.
Ananth Koppar, president, Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce, agrees with him and says the budget allocations are good but the issue is governance and implementation. That's the view you hear across the industry.

According to an official in the corporate sector, education is a classic example of poor implementation. Allocation for education, he says, was a healthy Rs 4,800 crore (in the 2005-06 budget), but the government has not focused on providing good infrastructure for primary education.
Schools are still managed out of two rooms and very often, bureaucracy delays the fund flow to schools though there is no shortage of funds.
As for involving the private sector in development projects, the consensus is the government alone can do things, particularly in education and health, while infrastructure like roads can take the publicprivate partnership (PPP) model.
In fact, Ramanathan believes PPP is not the panacea for the state's current infrastructure woes either. "There is a need for greater transparency.
The PPP should be preceded by a policy on privatisation as it can be done in a hundred different ways," he argues. Brigade Group MD M R Jaishankar agrees.
He says PPP has to be government policy based, and not as it is now,where it is based on a particular government official's whims.
Some states like Tamil Nadu are seen to have a system in place to implement projects on a PPP basis, and experts say Karnataka should replicate that.
Koppar believes PPP should also take the form of citizen bodies being formed to monitor project implementation. "BATF was a good initiative on these lines.
But it requires total support from the government and the finance minister could make a beginning with this budget." Over to the FM.
(With inputs from Sujit John)

End of Article