Uplift of the deprived

A primer on India’s development agenda, and more

Alka Kamble and Amarjeet Sinha, I am sure, do not know each other. Yet they have a lot in common. The former is a womansarpanch in the the stillbackward Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, providing leadership for transformation through public service for the last 25 years with quiet efficiency.

Amarjeet Sinha is India’s leading public policy exponent, a rare IAS officer with decades of continuous engagement with propoor public welfare schemes. His latest book, The Last Mile: Turning Public Policy Upside Down, a virtual tourdeforce on the design, architecture and execution of an edifice for an “India for All” has much to do with people like Kamble, who are at the end of the queue, as it were.

Sinha makes out a compelling case not merely for “including” women and men like Kamble at the core of policy but for making them “own” the programmes from concept to execution. Then only will policy work at the ground level, he states based on innumerable examples from personal experience. There is of course, the danger of wellmeant policies meandering into the routine.

Sample this: The WHO has recognised and rewarded the contributions of the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) in reaching out to every household during the Covid epidemic and ensuring mass vaccination. Yet, the compensation for ASHAs remain low and the programme risks being boxed into “governmentalisation” instead of the original objective of “communitisation”, Sinha writes in the chapter titled ‘Making quality health for all a reality’.

BOOK

DEEP DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE

Neatly divided into 24 chapters of nearly 10 pages each, the book reflects the author’s domain knowledge, depth of experience, attention to detail and a demonstrated commitment to the uplift of the deprived. It can be read both as a primer to understanding India’s development agenda as also a thesis for a solution to the lingering issues of “multidimensional” poverty and development.

The key to approaching and understanding the author’s narrative would be to imbibe the multidimensionality of poverty which is actually a recent

Title:

The Last Mile: Turning

Public Policy Upside Down

Publisher: Price:

₹1,089

Pages:

110

Routledge

recognition in public policy.

Sinha lays great store by genuine decentralisation and lays out convincing reasons for it being a central tool for achieving the objectives of inclusive growth. Also repeated is the theme of “looking carefully at the evidence”. Data is a recurring motif in all the chapters but unlike in an academic publication, it has been dealt with in a way by which it does not impede understanding for even lay readers.

The author also looks at contemporary issues like the freebies debate. He breaks down the question into a set of questions which is the test that the financing of development should pass. Sinha quoted the famous case of former Tamil Nadu chief minister, K Kamaraj, asking his chief secretary whether he had gone to sleep without food when told by him that the Midday Meal scheme would make the exchequer bankrupt. As it ran into such bureaucratic objections, the scheme had a limited edition start but was later universalised by filmstarturnedCM MGR. It proved to be a major factor in improving school enrolment in Tamil Nadu with resultant socioeconomic benefits.

Women, work and wellbeing and women’s wellbeing and livelihoods are two important chapters in the book which are centred around the SelfHelp Group movement in the country under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana (DAY). Sinha played a pivotal role in expanding the scope and coverage of this project.

The Last Mile is essential reading for everyone connected with public policy in India.