Nexus of Good: Convergence delivers

Every now and then, a civil servant gets to be a part of something which is both impactful and gratifying at a personal level as well. Very recently, the district administration of district Baksa in Assam got to be at the forefront of one such initiative.

The district of Baksa is a Schedule VI district as envisioned in the Constitution of India wherein a majority of the development subjects have been devolved to an autonomous council. Consequently, the governance and administration is different from the other parts of the country. Baksa happens to be an 'Aspirational District' with some really poor social and economic indicators, especially with regard to child nutrition and health. An analysis reveals a dearth of both physical and human infrastructure along with some other structural challenges.

Amongst the key physical rural infrastructure found lacking was the one at Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) in the district. The Anganwadi Centres are the keystone of early malnutrition detection and intervention under the administration of the Social Welfare Department. In addition, they also play an important role in ensuring early education for a child at the play-way stage.

In Baksa, it was found that just about 437 out of the 2,256 AWCs under the jurisdiction of the Social Welfare Department had their own structures and the remaining centres were either operating in rented premises or within the premises of other governmental institutions such as primary schools or Panchayati structures (VCDC buildings in a Schedule VI district). This severely hampered the performance of those AWCs as there were limitations of what could be done with those structures and the manner in which they could be used.

An opportunity to rectify the shortcomings emerged when the planning for the NREGS funds came up for consideration in July 2021. Being a Schedule VI district, the district does not have a corresponding development authority in the form of a CEO Zila Parishad. The district administration, therefore, has a key role to play in the planning and implementation of rural development schemes. The district administration decided to construct about 200 AWCs under NREGS funds as a model of convergence wherein lasting assets could be created also generating a significant number of man-days of rural employment. This would, while simultaneously providing the cornerstones of the Social Welfare Department to about 200 villages, directly impact about 5,000 children below the age of six years. Along with the AWC structures, it was decided to construct 400 nutrition gardens appended with the existing AWCs and the ones being newly built. The challenge however was to refrain from disturbing the material to wage ratio and the percentage of natural resource management projects as mandated under the NREGS guidelines. The final budgetary outlay was about Rs 11.78 crores for the AWCs which meant about one-sixth of the district's NREGS budget.

After the initial planning, site selection and finalisation, a final list of 197 villages was compiled wherein these centres were to be built. The model estimate of costs and the design for the AWCs and nutrition gardens was picked up from the Social Welfare Department of the Government of Assam. The district administration took upon itself to construct all of these within four months. The initiative was supported by both civil society partners and the villages themselves who pitched in with ideas of external designing and painting the structures. The initial foundation stones were laid on the august occasion of the 74th Independence Day and to date, the district has completed 167 of these centres.

The initial set of AWC structures was completed in about four months and now the district intends to scale up the same and undertake the construction of more such AWC structures in the hitherto uncovered villages of the district. Simultaneously, the district came up with a long-term vision document wherein it detailed its priorities and a long-term approach towards achieving them. The starting point for this planning was taken to be the list of indicators as monitored by the NITI Aayog under the Aspirational Districts Program (ADP). The plan takes into account a holistic view of each such priority sector and converges the funds available under the various centrally and state-sponsored schemes, CSR initiatives and funds available to the district under the ADP. In tune with this document, the district now endeavours to create more such AWCS in the future. The short span of four months helped just about 10 per cent of the AWCs in the district and the resolution of the entire problem would take some more time. The result so far has been satisfactory with regard to the provision of basic rural infrastructure.

The obvious impact of the initiative has been that it has built the necessary physical infrastructure for service delivery under Social Welfare Department while generating about 58,000 man-days of employment under NREGS. A larger impact of the scheme has been the demand for such infrastructure emerging out of this initiative from other villages that were hitherto untouched. In a Schedule VI district, the role of the Deputy Commissioner's office was seen as limited to providing certificates and dealing with disasters and maintaining law and order. This has helped in improving the public confidence in this institution and administration in general. Another fact of great import is that the total budget of the district was not impacted by this initiative and the scalability of this is evident in the fact that the Government of Assam is contemplating replicating the same across all the districts of Assam starting next financial year. The beauty of this initiative is that the required funds were available within an existing program. It helped the execution of projects as per the district's requirements without the constraints associated with a project funded by an external agency.

The largest impact of the initiative would be determined in the days to come when the structures which have been just handed over to the user department are put to use and they start delivering the mandate of the social welfare department. This effort is likely to bring about a visible change in the social indicators of the areas.

The initiative in this remote district of the country under the inspired leadership of this young and dynamic Deputy Commissioner, Aayush Garg is a great example of Nexus of Good as it can be replicated in other Districts of not only the State of Assam but for other parts of the country as well.

Views expressed are personal