Community Based Monitoring System for Access to Basic Minimum Services,

D Narayana Slim Haddad Smitha Aravind Katia Mohindra

Paper to be presented at the PEP-CBMS conference in Dakar, June 16-20, 2004. Community Based Monitoring System for Access to Basic Minimum Services, Kerala

1. Introduction The paper presents a brief outline of the approach and results arrived so far of the CBMS in Kerala, . The organization of the paper is as follows. It begins by presenting the attempt at democratic decentralization in India over the last ten years- the constitutional amendment, the structure of governance, and the mandate of the local governments. The problems faced by the local governments in fulfilling the mandate of data based planning and monitoring is explained followed by the presentation of the salient aspects of the project, Community Based Monitoring System for Access to Basic Minimum Services, Kerala. The attempt at building a database at the local level and the three track approach of the CBMS in Kerala is, then discussed in some detail.

2. The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the , which became law in April 1993, provided the foundation for a comparable democratic decentralization in the rural and urban areas respectively across the states of India. The Amendments made it mandatory for each state to constitute Local Self-Government Institutions (called Panchayats in rural areas) at the village, intermediate and district levels (except for states with less than two million population). The three-tier structure of governance in India following the formation of Panchayats and Municipalities is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Implications of Panchayati Raj/ Municipalities as the Third Tier of Governance in India's Federal Structure

UNION | ' |------STATE ------| | |------|------| | | PANCHAYATI RAJ MUNICIPALITY | | | | | | 3. Zilla Panchayat Municipal Corporation | | | | | | 2. Block Panchayat Municipal Council | | | | | | 1. Nagar Panchayat | | | | | | GRAM SABHA WARD MEETINGS | | | | | '|------Autonomous Councils for Tribal Areas------|

Source: Figure 2, Mathew, G and Mathew, A (2003)

The Amendments mark a transformation in the system of governance in India being a shift from a two-tier to a three-tier system of governance. The 73rd Amendment defined Gram Sabha or village assembly as a body of community of persons registered in the electoral rolls within a village or group of villages marking a clear shift from representative democracy to participatory democracy. The Gram Sabha has been mandated to approve all plans and programs for social and economic development, audit the Panchayat accounts, and to select beneficiaries for all types of programs.

3. The Amendments made a number of things mandatory. Persons chosen by direct election shall fill all the seats in a Panchayat. Seats shall be reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Not less than one-third of the total number of seats to be filled in by direct election in every Panchayat shall be reserved for women. The offices of chairperson in the Panchayat shall be reserved for SC, ST and women. The duration of every Panchayat shall be five years. The legislature of a State shall endow Panchayats with such powers, as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government, with respect to The preparation of plans for economic development and social justice; and The implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice.

Naturally, the question arises as to who have to prepare plans and who have to monitor implementation of the plans. In Kerala, this question was answered by forming what are called Working Groups (earlier they were called Task Forces). The Working Groups play an important role in decentralized planning. They develop the ideas discussed in the Gram Sabha into projects/ schemes, monitor their implementation, and see to their proper completion.

4. India has one of the most elaborate statistical systems in the world. Production, trade and population data are collected regularly and are made available in usable form. The country also has a system of regular surveys on a number of aspects of social and economic development, for example, employment, health, consumption etc. But most of these are available at the national, or state level of aggregation. Arriving at district level estimates of some of these indicators is problematic. Hardly any of these estimates are available at levels below the district (districts are large in Kerala- 30 million population distributed in 14 districts).

Decentralized governance and planning for local development calls for an exhaustive database at the local level. Unfortunately, the Gram Panchayats in Kerala even now have only a building register, which was their staple, as building tax was the main source of Panchayat revenue in the erstwhile system (before 73rd amendment) and the line departments continue to collect information on a number of aspects of socio-economic life of the population. There is considerable duplication and compartmentalization in the activities of the departments and the information, though often collected with the active cooperation of the Panchayat, is not collated and made available to the Panchayats.

4. Community Based Monitoring System for Access to Basic Minimum Services (CBMS) The CBMS being implemented in Kottathara Panchayat, in in Kerala, seeks to provide the Gram Panchayat and local communities with a participative and evidence-based information system on access to Basic Minimum Services for needs- based policy formulation and monitoring. It will help contribute to the reduction of inequalities in health and access to basic minimum services by providing disaggregated information on levels and distributions of health and access to health care and other services for different sections of the population. The CBMS will involve systematic and regular gathering of baseline information at the community level, with a particular emphasis on vulnerable households.

The expected outcomes of the project are: General - A disaggregated community based monitoring system for access to Basic Minimum Services. - Carefully validated indicators, tools, and methodologies for planning and monitoring differential access to Basic Minimum Services.

Gram Panchayat - Set of relevant information and available longitudinal measures through population- based information systems. - Increased knowledge of characteristics of vulnerable populations with special emphasis on the poor, women and tribes. - Improved evidence-based planning and skills. - Feedback on implemented programs.

Community - Less exclusion from Basic Minimum Services, better access to quality care, and lower inequalities in access to services. - Increased participation and empowerment of deprived groups, and community based organisations.

5.What distinguishes our CBMS? i.Partnership Development The first step in partnership development was to constitute a steering committee for the project. It was constituted with representatives from the state government, district government, local government, local NGO, director of CDS and selected members of the research team. The idea was to get broad based suggestions and also present results for wider dissemination.

As the steering committee would meet only twice a year, it was thought necessary to have a local coordination committee (LCC). The initial consultation involved in constituting the LCC was fairly long drawn and laborious. While the Steering Committee recommended the constitution of the LCC in its meeting of October 2002, the LCC could only be set up by March 2003. But the broad based consultations resulted in the constitution of a balanced committee representing the various active groups and institutions in the Panchayat. It was gender balanced with five women and three men; it represented the two networks of women’s groups proportional to their strength; the elected Panchayat President and the Secretary represented the local government; the Medical Officer represented the PHC.

It took a few meetings for the committee to come to grips with its mandate. By July 2003, the LCC had evolved certain healthy conventions for its effective functioning: it was meeting every month; it was taking up both external and internal issues affecting the project; it was discussing in detail the activities- completed and proposed- of the project and coming up with valuable suggestions.

The LCC has very quickly evolved into a forum where the project team places all issues and the stakeholders convey their considered views. The LCC discusses all the issues in detail and makes suggestions and offers advice. A better model of local participation could not, probably, be found. ii. Approach The functions of Panchayats in the Indian context are intended to go much beyond the conventional civic functions. They could be grouped under three heads as follows: Group I: Conventional Civic Functions Maintenance of roads, buildings etc. Sanitation, maintenance of public wells, and sources of water. Lighting of village streets. Prevention of contagious diseases. General administration and public assistance.

Group II: Provision of Public Services Provision of public services such as health, education, and Support services related to agriculture and industry.

Group III: Planning and Implementation Preparation of plans for economic development Implementation of programs and schemes

Currently the Working Groups in the Panchayats monitor project implementation and CBMS project aims to take them to impact monitoring. Impact of the functioning of the Panchayat needs to be viewed in terms of better and equitable access, as the mandate of the Panchayat is, economic development and social justice. Hence, the area to focus is the services falling under Groups I and II above rather than project monitoring.

The CBMS elsewhere uses indicators such as BMI, incidence of illness, literacy, calorie intake, number of meals per day, ownership of assets and so on, which cannot directly be related to the functioning of the local governments. The indicators listed are outcome measures and are a result of the functioning of local governments, individual behaviour, and the socio- economic context, and hence may not be suitable for capturing the impact of functioning of governments. That is why, we focus on process indicators, such as, access to roads, access to drinking water, sanitation, access to public services etc.

6. With a view to analyze the nature, content and data utilization of the surveys by the various agencies, a survey of surveys was conducted in Kottathara Panchayat during the period February – March 2003, the reference period of which was 1997-2003. We came across eight surveys conducted in the Panchayat. A critical review of the surveys led to the following conclusions:

The Gram Panchayat does not have a complete list of households residing in the Panchayat. The only department, which has a list of households, is the health department, but the list cannot be considered complete. Most of the surveys carried out by line departments and agencies are census of households. But the department uses only a small fraction of the information. There is practically no effort made by any department to reconcile the data with other sources. The lack of a baseline database has not allowed for any inter temporal comparisons as well. This is a major lacuna considering the fact that many censuses are repeated at regular intervals. Tracing households in time, for example in crossing poverty line, would have thrown very important policy lessons.

The amount of manpower and resources wasted is stupendous and it is time a database is built up at the Gram Panchayat level, first of all for use by the Panchayat Board for local planning and service provision and for easy reference by other departments. With this objective in view a household survey was conducted in Kottathara Panchayat during April-June 2003. The survey evolved into a ‘census’ as a review of the Panchayat’s surveys1 revealed that although a number of surveys had been conducted in Kottathara, there was no complete listing of households, and thus, no baseline data was available. Following pre-testing of the household survey questionnaire in April 2003, the census was carried out by 20 trained investigators, all from within the Panchayat, who were trained and supervised by the Centre for Development Studies. The response rate of the census was 99.0% for full completion

7. CBMS- interaction with the WGs The preliminary results of the household survey were presented to a group consisting of Working Group chairpersons, conveners, and selected members on 13 November 2003 at the Panchayat office premises. It was heartening to note that the overall response was encouraging and that there was general recognition that such information could be of great value for community monitoring of access to services and for local planning. The challenge before us now is to come up with a system to sustain such an effort beyond the Project currently being implemented by Centre for Development Studies and University of Montreal. The setting up of a system- let us call it Kottathara Resource Group (KRG)-

1 Review of Surveys carried out in Kottathara Panchayat, Wayanad District, Narayana, Haddad & Aravind (October, 2003). for the regular collection, analysis and presentation of information would go a long way in evaluating progress and plan projects.

The KRG will necessarily have three components: 1. Personnel, expertise, and resources for regular updating of relevant information; 2. The use of information by elected members, working groups, and people at large for planning and monitoring activities; and 3. An organization, which provides overall guidance and support for (1) and (2) above. The three may be called the technical, user, and organizational components of the KRG. What are the challenges in setting up such a system with the three components? What will be the initial support for the CBMS? What should be the long-term vision to sustain it as a non-bureaucratic organization? There are both short-term as well as long-term challenges.

8. Interaction in the Steering Committee The preliminary results and the plan of action with regard to CBMS was presented to the Steering Committee in November 2003. i.The Committee opined that information management is the key issue in decentralised planning. The CBMS seeks to improve the management of data so that it is easily accessible. Simultaneously, the question of the ownership of data has to be addressed as the confidentiality of information is a crucial aspect of data management.

ii. The Committee agreed that there is no doubt that CBMS is going to make a difference to the way things are carried out. It would begin with the Gram Panchayat and extend to the state government. The number of indicators would be large at the lower level and will be fewer at the higher levels of government. iii. For the sustenance of CBMS, personnel and funding would not be a major problem. But technical expertise would be a problem, especially because validation of the data is the crucial problem in this whole exercise. How do we solve this problem?

iv. As regards extension of CBMS beyond Kottathara, the Member Secretary, Planning, Government of Kerala indicated that the state government would be willing to hold one of the Panchayat to Panchayat training programs in Kottathara Panchayat. The research team and Kottathara Grama Panchayat shall be taking steps working towards conducting it in the next few months.

9. The KRG Approach The KRG for operationalising community based monitoring system was constituted in the Local Coordination Committee meeting held on 12.12.03. Since, then efforts were made to organize a meeting of the resource group, but could not operationalize the same. It was not possible to conduct the first meeting of the resource group for Community Based Monitoring System as planned earlier on 17.1.2004. Next the meeting was planned for February, 04 2004, which again could not be held. The next date agreed upon was 26.02.04. But it was not possible to conduct the same because of some unforeseen reasons. The meeting scheduled for 19 March 2004 could not beheld as four of the members did not attend. At last, a meeting was conducted on 07.04.04 at Kottathara Panchayat office. The participants included Panchayat president Mr. Balagopalan, Mr. Rajan, Headmaster, Karinjakunnu L.P School, Mrs. Philomina, Teacher, Venniyode L.P school, Mr. Suresh, Teacher, U.P School and Mr. M.C. Kelu, Panchayat member ward X. Mr. Sudhakaran, Head Clerk of the Panchayat and Mr. Narayanan, Resource team member were absent in that meeting. The meeting needed more explanation on the purpose and importance of community based monitoring system and data based planning. Even though, this was discussed extensively in the meetings with the working group members, the long interval between the resource group meeting and the working group meetings – over six months - has resulted in memory lapse. This took more than the expected time to explain the whole thing. Also, the members wanted to have a look at the data collected by the project through household survey. As a result of the discussion, a meeting will be arranged on April 28, 2004 at Panchayat office in which one of the reports (most probably the poverty profile of the Panchayat) will also be presented. This meeting also did not take place.

The current thinking among the LCC members is that KRG is not a workable idea.

10. Interaction in the Gram Sabha (Village Assembly) As a follow up to the presentations made in the meeting with working group representatives on Community Based Monitoring System, presentations of data collected through household survey were made in Grama Sabha meetings of ward IV and V. The following were the response from the Grama Sabha. 1. The people identified the database as an important input for the discussion on development of their Panchayat. 2. They agreed that it is the right time to make changes in the existing system of distributing the schemes in an equal manner among the wards without considering the present condition of each ward. 3. Presentation of the results of the survey is a means to convince the people that disclosing facts about some personal assets will not bring them any harm as confidentiality could be maintained 4. The recurrence of the survey was one of the major concerns as they wanted to know their condition after some years 5. They were more sensitive to check the reliability of the dada, as they were trying to compare the results with their local knowledge 6. What next and what can be done with this data were the two major questions from the groups 7. It was the first time that they were provided with an opportunity be acquainted with the data and data interpretation 8. The group expressed their interest to know more about data and how it can be made useful to them One of the committee members who was also a surveyor in the household survey opined that, if there was this kind of presentations on the objectives and methodology of the survey we would have much more reliable data.

11. Scientific Reports In order to capture a broad spectrum of the welfare of the population, a series of seven reports have been prepared. Each report is a stand-alone report, with a particular focus (see below) designed to meet the needs of specific stakeholders. Consequently, replication of some information may be expected across the reports. The reports are:

1) General Profile. This report provides an overview of the Panchayat, including geopolitical and climatic features, as well as demographic, and socio-economic characteristics of the population. 2) Poverty Profile. This report analyses poverty and inequality in the Panchayat, adopting a multidimensional approach to poverty measurement that emphasizes processes, and not merely resources or outcomes. The specificities of the Kerala context are considered. 3) Health Profile: This report examines health from a population perspective that assesses health needs, health inputs, and access to health care. Social inequalities in health are also examined. 4) Access to Basic Services. This report examines access to basic services in the Panchayat, such as water and sanitation, electricity, health care, and social security. Barriers to these services are also considered. 5) Gender Profile : This report explores gender differences in the Panchayat, comparing indicators of welfare according to gender at both the individual level (i.e. men and women, boys and girls), and at the household level (i.e. male versus female headed households). Also profiles of key vulnerable groups, such as widows, are highlighted. 6) Tribal Profile : This report focuses on the welfare of tribal groups in the Panchayat, including their living conditions, basic needs, and access to resources and services. Data is provided to highlight both differences between tribals and non tribals, and differences among tribal groups. 7) Financial protection : Paying for Health Care : This reports assesses the economic burden of health care, including health care costs, household coping strategies, inequalities in accessing care, and preferences for a community based health insurance scheme are included.

These reports draw heavily on preliminary findings of a household survey conducted in Kottathara Panchayat during April-June 2003. In addition to census data, other sources of information, including complementary surveys conducted by the research team, as well as local and national data are integrated.

12. Where do we go from here? The dominant theme of the project is participation. The three track approach- presentation before elected representatives and committees, presentation before village assemblies, and production of scientific reports- is also to evaluate who participates, by how much, and who would potentially use it for what purpose. The researchers do not pre judge, we leave it to the Local Coordination Committee to draw its own inferences and come up with suggestions. Simultaneously, information is made available in scientific reports for wider circulation.