An efficient and well-oiled criminal justice system helps a country politically, socially and economically. The economic cost of the failed criminal justice system is reflected in the reluctance of foreign companies to set up manufacturing and commercial ventures in India for want of quick settlement of criminal, labour and civil disputes. Thus, the GDP of China that was almost equal to India in 1987 is about five times more in 2021.[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]
The social implications can be gauged from the report, “Crime in India 2019”, published by the National Crime Records Bureau.
As per the report, 25,023 cases of assault on women, 11,966 rape cases and 4,197 “dowry deaths” have been pending trial for five to 10 years. Investigation and prosecution need improvement and all criminal trials must be completed within a year. Technology-driven service delivery mechanisms can help achieve this.
Along with prevention and detection of crime and maintenance of law and order, police stations in India undertake numerous daily tasks — for example, providing verifications and no objection certificates of different kinds to citizens. They supply crucial documents too. The Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) had identified 45 such tasks in 2017.
In criminal and non-cognisable cases, police stations provide copies of FIRs, complaints and final reports. For commercial establishments, they issue no-objection certificates for opening/renewal of eating houses, restaurants, bars and cinema halls. Further, they issue permission to hold processions/fairs/exhibitions/circus and use amplified sound systems.
Police stations also verify domestic help/employees of central and state governments/public sector undertakings/students going abroad for studies. Since a licence is mandatory for possessing a weapon, a no-objection certificate by the concerned police station is essential for the purchase, sale, transfer of a weapon/ammunition/explosives. In a few cases, the special branches are involved — for example, passport verification and issues related to foreigners.
Ease of business means police stations dispose of these requests in a transparent and time-bound manner. But these NOCs and verifications are not easy to come by. The procedures are non-transparent and timelines are often blurred. They encourage corrupt practices as can be seen from the ongoing saga in Maharashtra, where a former home minister and top police officers, including former Mumbai’s former commissioner, are facing allegations of extortion.
Even as police reforms are pursued by the Supreme Court, a definite attempt can be made to ensure time-bound delivery of the above-mentioned services to citizens.
The India Justice Report (IJR) 2020 supported by Tata Trusts has studied the e-portals of various state police organisations that provide citizen-centric services such as requests for issue/renewal of various NOCs, verification requests for servants, employment, passport, senior citizen registrations and enabling citizens to download required forms.
While Punjab, Himachal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh seem to be doing well, the report mentions that “despite the push for digitisation, no state offered the complete bouquet of services… Users face numerous problems of accessibility to these services. Several portals did not work despite repeated attempts over three months. These include portals of Mizoram, Rajasthan, Lakshadweep, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Tripura… Others, like Himachal Pradesh’s, did not work until the third attempt: Even after signing up, it stated that the request could not be processed.”
Clearly, technology for service delivery to citizens has not been prioritised by the police leadership. The IJR 2020 audit confirms that states need to invest more resources to upgrade their e-portals for providing the 45 identified basic services to the citizens.
This is a task that police leadership can concentrate on without any political interference. The Bureau of Police Research had worked out the timeline for each service and the hierarchy/levels involved. The recommendations have been shared with the state police organisations.
Along with ease of use, the language of e-portals needs attention too. Citizens seeking clearances may not be very educated. IPJ 2020 found that “most sites were available in English or Hindi, but not necessarily in the state language”. It concludes that, “due to these gaps, the citizen portals in their existing form are falling short of their objective of enabling easy access to select policing services”.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) earmarked about Rs 20,000 crore for the modernisation of police (2017-2020), for schemes such as crime and criminal tracing networks and system (CCTNS), police wireless and e-prisons. States can take up this crucial service delivery mechanism.
We have a large number of young technology enthusiastic police officers who can lead cost-effective initiatives. In Pune Police Commissionerate, we had an additional commissioner, an engineer from BITS Pilani, initiating and monitoring “technology for citizens” effectively.
E-governance is an effective way to help the overburdened beat and police station officers as well as harried citizens. User-friendly citizens portals for obtaining passports and driving licences have been game-changers. Police made a good start at the beginning of the millennia but probably lost interest midway.
There are two reasons for it. One, police leaders do not understand the difficulties that citizens face at the police station level and two, citizens fail to hold us accountable for non-use of technology. This has to change.
Life for Indians would be transformed if government departments, including the police, provide maximum information and services through their portals respecting the defined processes and timelines.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.