TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE COMPLETION REPORT Resident Mission TA No., Country and Name Amount Approved: $700,000 TA 4066-IND: Policy Research Networking to Strengthen Policy Revised Amount: $700,000 Reforms Executing Agency: Source of Funding: Amount Undisbursed: Amount Utilized: Department of Economic Affairs TASF $172,323.89 $527,676.11 (DEA), Government of India TA Approval Date: TA Signing Date: Fielding of First TA Completion Date 19 Dec 2002 21 June 2003 Consultant: Original: Actual: 1 August 2003 28 Feb 2005 30 Sep 2009

Account Closing Date Original: 28 Feb 2005 Actual: 30 June 2010 Description: The TA was designed as a vehicle to enable experts, policymakers, and opinion makers to network among themselves and strengthen the reforms process in the country, based on sound research in identified priority areas: (i) Macroeconomic Management and Government Finances; (ii) State Government Budget Constraints and Social Services; (iii) Agriculture, Food Security, and Rural Development; (iv) Trade Policy, Industrial Performance, and Private Sector Development; (v) Transport Infrastructure; (vi) Energy Infrastructure. Regional Cooperation was subsequently added as an important key area. For each cluster, the TA activities included: (i) establishment of an advisory committee (AC); (ii) creating a network of hub institutions; (iii) commissioning of policy papers by hub institutions; (iv) holding of two expert technical workshops to review draft papers, and (v) policy retreats for consultations with policymakers and opinion-makers on the reform road maps; (vi) publication and dissemination of papers. Premier institutions from across the country partnered on the TA. AC members comprised eminent experts and prominent subject- specialists were identified as contributors and reviewers. Senior policymakers provided inputs at each stage. 4 volumes were published by a leading publisher and all knowledge products were widely disseminated

Expected Impact, Outcome and Outputs: The TA aimed at strengthening the reforms process in the country by establishing a network of experts and policymakers. Expected outputs included: (i) 50–60 policy research papers covering the priority themes, comprising a consolidated knowledge on key economic policy issues and reform requirements; (ii) reform road maps for each cluster areas based on policy dialogue and consensus building among policymakers through policy retreats; and (iii) coalition building among stakeholders in civil society for reforms through focused public policy discussions at targeted seminars and conferences. MoUs proved to be a very effective instrument in creating ownership for the work under the TA and in building partnership between ADB and hub institutions. The TA design also helped in obtaining full involvement of the government and other stakeholders.

Delivery of Inputs and Conduct of Activities: AC and hub institutions were first identified for each thematic cluster: - Macroeconomics: Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC) and National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New . AC members included Prof Mihir Rakshit, Board of Governors, (RBI), Prof Amitava Bose, IIMC, Dr Pronab Sen, Planning Commission, and Dr Narendra Jadhav, RBI - State Government Budgets: Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad and National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), Delhi. AC members included Dr Shankar Acharya, former Chief Economist, GoI, Dr Usha Thorat, RBI, Dr S.K. Rao, ASCI, and Dr Govinda Rao, NIPFP - Agriculture: National Center for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP), and Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore. AC members included Prof V.S. Vyas, Institute of Development Studies; Prof A. Vaidyanathan, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Dr V.L. Chopra, Planning Commission, Prof Abhijit Sen, Planning Commission, Dr Mruthyunjaya, NCAP, and Dr Gopal Kadekodi, ISEC - Trade: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB). AC members included Dr. Vijay Kelkar, ex- Adviser to Finance Minister, GoI, Prof K.L. Krishna, ICRIER, Prof Partha Sen, Delhi School of Economics, Prof Sugata Marjit, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences. - Transport: Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). AC members included Dr. Hiten Bhaya, Asian Institute of Transport Development (AITD), Dr Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary, GoI, Mr Santosh Nautiyal, National Highway Authority of India, Prof. Ramprasad Sen Gupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Mr Nasser Munjee, former Managing Director, Infrastructure Development Finance Company, and Prof Bakul Dholakia, IIMA. - Energy: The Energy and Resources Insitute (TERI), New Delhi. AC members included Dr R.K. Pachauri, TERI, Mr Subir Raha, Oil and Natural Gas Limited, Prof U. Sankar, Madras School of Economics, and Mr. Ajay Shankar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power. The TA Inception Meeting was held in Sep 2003 with AC members and hub institutions representatives and topics for papers were identified. Hub institutions subsequently identified expert paper-writers for each of the topics, such as Dr Pulapre Balakrishnan, Prof J.V.M. Sarma, Dr Arindam Das-Gupta, Dr. P.K. Joshi, Dr. S. Bisalaiah, Prof R.S. Deshpande, Dr Rajat Acharyya, Prof Sebastian Morris, Prof Geetam Tiwari, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Prof G. Raghuram, IIIMA, and Dr Narayan Rangaraj, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, Mr S. Sundar, TERI, Mr T.R. Kesharwani, AITD, Prof T.L. Sankar, ASCI, Prof Prem Kalra, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and Mr Sanjeev Ahluwalia, Joint Secretary, Dept of Disinvestment, GoI. The first set of technical workshops for each cluster was held Aug-Oct 2004. The second set of technical workshops was held Dec 2004-Mar 2005. After policy seminars, Aug-Nov 2005, papers were finalized based on comments from stakeholders including senior policy-makers, media, and civil society. Dissemination and publication activities were subsequently undertaken and the scope of the TA was also expanded to cover activities in identified areas. The TA was envisaged to commence Mar 2003, ending Feb 2005 but due to delay in signing the letter of agreement by GoI, it commenced 6 months late which required the first TA extension till Aug 2005. A second extension till Aug 2006 was done to complete holding of policy seminars which required synchronization of busy schedules of AC members, policymakers, and other experts. Further delays were on account of delays in finalization of the large number of papers and their publication. Simultaneously, in Oct 2006, it was felt it would be useful to expand the scope of the TA to accommodate publication of other INRM research on identified topics and a third extension was made till Aug 2007. The fourth extension till Aug 2008 and expansion in scope was done to include completion of publication by Oxford university Press (OUP), the prestigious publication house, as well as to support dissemination and publication of work documenting ADB's India operations. The fifth extension was made till 31 Mar 2009 to complete above activities and the final extension was made till Sep 2009 due to further delays in publication and dissemination activities.

Evaluation of Outputs and Achievement of Outcome: Consultations at 12 technical workshops, 6 policy seminars, and 2 regional seminars resulted in several high-quality knowledge products: (i) 45 policy papers; (ii)16 INRM Policy Briefs; (iii) 4 volumes published by OUP (Macroeconomic Management and Government Finances; Agriculture, Food Security, and Rural Development; Trade Policy, Industrial Performance; and Private Sector Development in India; and Energy Infrastructure); (iv) Report on Quantification of Benefits from Economic Cooperation in South Asia by Macmillan India; (v) Video documentary on Two Decades of ADB in India; and (vi) Volume on Promoting Economic Cooperation in South Asia by Institute of Policy Studies, Colombo, Sage Publications. The publications have sold exceedingly well and some volumes have gone into reprint. Slippages in timeline were mainly due to coordination of schedules between multiple players and, later, publication delays. For two clusters, extensive revisions were required prior to publication. A lot of time was also invested in checking document for liquidation and this could have been avoided by designing lumpsum contracts. However there was strong ownership from the EA and hub institutions throughout the TA. Timelines were extended but there were no budgetary implications for the TA. Due to robust partnerships, cost-effective measures during TA Implementation were adopted, such as collaborative conferences between institutions, use of campus facilities, etc which enabled increased networking activities under the TA and production of outstanding knowledge products.

Overall Assessment and Rating: Not withstanding the time delays, the TA was successful due to several reasons: (i) It was the first of its kind, and NRM and BRM were encouraged to develop TAs along these lines to support policy reforms (ii) ADB visibility amongst academia and policymakers in the country was strengthened since extensive discussions were held between eminent and respected experts, scholars, senior policy-makers, and other stakeholders including media; (iii) A set of quality publications brought out by leading world-class publishers, the first such at INRM, established the path to produce more such quality knowledge products and explore such avenues for publication and dissemination; (iv) The EA played a very proactive part in directing and guiding the policy research work to ensure valuable outcomes, high-quality outputs, and strong sustained networking. (v) ADB was able to respond EA’s demand of expansion of TA scope, resulting in inclusion of increased knowledge activities in the key areas, which further sustained high interest of EA and other stakeholders. Thus, performance of ADB and EA was very satisfactory. Consultant inputs were satisfactory, providing required support during TA implementation.

Major Lessons: The TA demonstrated ADB's responsiveness and innovativeness to GoI's request. The TA design was novel and inclusion of policymakers and academia in the AC ensured the relevance and quality of outputs - an extremely useful element to include for future studies. However, a tighter scope of the TA and streamlined set of players would have avoided much of the slippages in terms of time. The TA would also have benefited from closer involvement of sector persons from within ADB and industry persons and organizations (as part of the AC or more closely interacting with the hub institutions) providing more practical orientation to the policy papers.

Recommendations and Follow-Up Actions: Similar TAs would be extremely useful in ADB's developing member countries. However, the scope of the future research networking TAs could be shortened, with focus on a few new emerging areas such as Municipal Finances; Challenges in Urbanization; Urban Governance; Safeguards for urban Poor; Impact Evaluation; Inclusive Growth; Climate Change, Regional Cooperation in dealing with the Global Financial Crisis, etc. The TA has potential of being a practical reference for designing policy research support and interventions. Studies will benefit greatly from having expert AC guiding the work to ensure quality as well as in enabling the emergence of strong practical recommendations.

Prepared by: Kavita S. Iyengar Designation: Economics Officer, INRM

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