Report Cards on Governance
Published by Yazad Jal August 13th, 2003 in GovernanceCato Institute has a rich tradition of research and publications on free markets. While critiquing governance, you need the facts to back you up. A report card works wonders. Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2002 has a detailed evaluation on each and every governor in the US and grades them from A to F (fail). Not surprisingly, Gray Davis of California who is facing a recall, gets an F. This is something we desperately need in India. And we already have an inkling that there are going to be many F’s!
Report Cards on public services in India are not a new phenomenon. Banagalore’s Public Affairs Centre has been at the forefront for years now. And Praja Foundation in Mumbai has not only brought out Report Cards, but also a detailed complaint monitoring system for the Municipal Corporation based on the findings. [Disclaimer: I work for Praja]
Umm nothing to say about your current post.. but man, gr8 blog! :)
Nice concept Yazad. I would be interested to know what the sample size was and what the breakup between SEC and middle-class was. Talking about ‘over half’ and ‘very few’ does not give a very good idea of what the actual results were. As an additional feature I would recommend that Praja make the actual figures available (in a seperate section) for those wishing to reuse the figures in their own studies.
Ashwyn. Thanks!
CK, My objective in this post was to spotlight Cato’s Report on Fiscal Performance of US Governors, and the need to do it for Chief Ministers in India. The PAC / Praja part was incidental. The report cards curently on the Praja site are 2 years old. When the next set of results are out and put on www.praja.org, I shall put up the entire published report as a pdf file.