Comment

Comment by Ankur on January 28, 2012 at 12:26pm

Nikhil, 

I dont understand why we dont realise that these type of schemes are designed for money laundering. There are 100s of these types of schemes which are perfect on paper. But tell me, how many people actually get benefited from these types of money distributing, rather money laundering schemes. 

The govt advertises about these schemes but never tells us how many people got the money and who all have recieved how much. We Indian race have actually invented rather perfected the art of designing beautiful money laundering schemes, while on the same time showing them to be of high social value. But most of these schemes end into CAG audit which changes hand and goes to 'never ending' Indian legal system.

Comment by Varun Dhamija on January 24, 2012 at 10:38am

Hey Nikhil,

First of all a great post. I am happy to see the positive steps the government is taking particularly on the girl child issue.

I would however ponder a little more on this scheme (not in a pessimistic way but in a thoughtful one). Most people I know say a couple of things about all government schemes:

1. It is too little (86k to help solve the sex ratio issue)

2. It is a poll plank

In defence of the government it needs to think of and implement new schemes and can't stop implementation and problem solving because of people thinking of everything as a poll plank. As far as the amount goes this is a good start and perhaps at the rung targeted it does mean a lot.

To me the real metrics we need to have in mind are:

1. Targeting Accuracy: What % of the people who redeemed were actually the ones intended for at the start of the scheme before political, measurement, practical compulsions came in the way of actual disbursement.

2. Cost of Service - what did the 86k go upto including the sarkaari overheads, advertising etc.

3. Actual Benefit to targeted pop:  the amount 86k - cost of fulfillment (the travel, no. of trips, opportunity cost for the father/mother to leaver their daily job and get this money). Ideally expressed as a %

4. Redemption Ratio - what is the % of the targeted audience who actually redeemed these benefits. This is a real indicator of popularity of scheme, it's end benefit and goes way over the window dressing called amount sanctioned for scheme.

5. End Impact  - to the targeted metric (sex ratio in this case)

If the government has these simple 5 metrics for every scheme (or other well thought of metrics) to me that's real success.. at least they know whether it's working or not. Just like the digital world Measurement is key to the offline world too.. it's just that we as human being are scared of doing it.

I hope the government's move to these kind of metrics soon.

Comment by Nikhil Agarwal on January 24, 2012 at 12:53am

Thanks a lot Gurpreet. I agree with all your points completely. If we remove the tutored bias that we have against the government (no party in particular, the whole system) and notice closely, a lot of good things do happen, the media just chooses not to talk about them as they don't sell well.

Comment by Gurpreet Singh Tikku on January 23, 2012 at 6:49pm

Totally Agree with you Nikhil................Lots happen which we even don't notice.

Just imagine, what would happen if the Govt does not do it's silent work.

All Street lights would be Off forever, (There is someone who switches it on), The roads would be filthy, (not that it is any less now, But could have been a lot more worse). I always see any development happening, I observe that somebody must be working behind the scenes. but it takes Guts to appreciate. I like when you say that "This won't even win any direct Votes for them"