This paper explores the design of Indian regulatory agencies established post-liberalisation from... more This paper explores the design of Indian regulatory agencies established post-liberalisation from an administrative perspective. Regulatory agencies were set up to replace state inefficiencies, and to discipline profligate state agencies, even as much as they were a response to state-market reorganisations and the challenge of privatization. Regulation provided an opportunity for upper levels of the Indian bureaucratic state to recast their power, with the idea that it would provide a framework for economic rationality, independence and technical specialization to take centre-stage. In actual practice however, the design of each of the regulatory agencies is shaped largely by pre-existing legal frameworks and institutions, and the agencies have remained quite tied in with their counterpart departments and on retired bureaucrats. However, in spite of these limitations, these agencies have some common features imbued by legislative mandate and organisational design which are unique in the context of the Indian state. They have focus and stability, a degree of functional independence, and most importantly, a concentration of power, which enables them to think through and implement complex policy transitions from multi-year and context-specific perspectives. The paper builds on learnings from a series of conversations with regulatory agency chairpersons in order to identify what regulatory governance is, in terms of the powers and mandate of the regulatory agencies and what makes them distinctive from the rest of public administration.
Families in Flint, Michigan, protesting lead in their water, indigenous groups in the Amazon asse... more Families in Flint, Michigan, protesting lead in their water, indigenous groups in the Amazon asserting control over their rivers, slum dwellers in India worried about disconnection or demanding cities bring potable water to their neighborhoods, an entire city in South Africa worried about the day when they will run out of water altogether—all these and many more have claimed the human right to water as the vehicle to express their demands. Where does this right come from, and how is its meaning constructed? In this article, we show that, in sociolegal terms, the global right to water, as are many others, is constructed out of the myriad struggles and claims of people who feel the lack of something that is essential to a dignified existence, and who cannot obtain an adequate response from their immediate political and legal environment. They do so in loose conversation with, but relatively unconstrained by, the meanings that are being constructed by the international and domestic leg...
Recognition of the right to water in Indian courts has had little impact on the ground. This pape... more Recognition of the right to water in Indian courts has had little impact on the ground. This paper explores the seeming disjuncture between what happens in the court and the everyday reality of living with a less-than-perfect claim on city water services in India’s urban slums. The paper seeks to understand and contextualise a court ruling which looks like it declares a right to water for people in urban slums, but in effect gives them little beyond what they already had. The paper also looks at the ‘everyday reality’ of municipal administration and the provision of drinking water in slums through in-house connections and community taps. In both case studies, the author looks to understand how the practice relates to frameworks of law and policy that shape the rationality and scope of action of the actors concerned, both judges and municipal officials. She found that the issue of land was the main stumbling block in both places, but it was conceptualized a little differently in each...
State Capacity Initiative Working Paper Series, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on face-to-face interactions and the movement o... more The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on face-to-face interactions and the movement of persons (the ‘lockdowns’) produced a widespread crisis of hunger, felt most acutely by migrant workers and those who were outside the reach of India’s highly organised but rigid Public Distribution System (PDS). This study focuses on what Indian state governments did to respond to the needs of these people, who were at the ‘margins of government welfare’. This task is particularly a challenge for the risk-averse, (nominally) rule-bound Indian state that is disinclined to allow for discretion in spending of government funds, making purchases and allocation of largesse. It is all the more reluctant to delegate power to exercise discretion and make qualitative judgement to lower levels of government. For this reason, states seemed to need to devise a framework of rules for the identification of beneficiaries, even in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. As a related problem, states also did not necessarily have the organisational wherewithal to take up rapid, decentralised and locally grounded interventions. The organisational wherewithal, so to speak, could come in various forms. Some examples of this, which we saw at play, were decentralised government, the capacity to make non-state collaborations and institutionalised systems for the ‘continuous updating’ of beneficiary lists. More fundamentally, however, what is needed is the capacity for high levels of government to be able to formulate responsive policy and to be able to trust in the ability of their subordinate ranks to carry out new interventions, often in case-specific and individualised ways. This study relies principally on government orders and press releases, which are supplemented to a limited extent by articles in the news media. Long interviews with knowledgeable experts helped contextualise and make sense of this material.
This paper explores the design of Indian regulatory agencies established post-liberalisation from... more This paper explores the design of Indian regulatory agencies established post-liberalisation from an administrative perspective. Regulatory agencies were set up to replace state inefficiencies, and to discipline profligate state agencies, even as much as they were a response to state-market reorganisations and the challenge of privatization. Regulation provided an opportunity for upper levels of the Indian bureaucratic state to recast their power, with the idea that it would provide a framework for economic rationality, independence and technical specialization to take centre-stage. In actual practice however, the design of each of the regulatory agencies is shaped largely by pre-existing legal frameworks and institutions, and the agencies have remained quite tied in with their counterpart departments and on retired bureaucrats. However, in spite of these limitations, these agencies have some common features imbued by legislative mandate and organisational design which are unique in the context of the Indian state. They have focus and stability, a degree of functional independence, and most importantly, a concentration of power, which enables them to think through and implement complex policy transitions from multi-year and context-specific perspectives. The paper builds on learnings from a series of conversations with regulatory agency chairpersons in order to identify what regulatory governance is, in terms of the powers and mandate of the regulatory agencies and what makes them distinctive from the rest of public administration.
Families in Flint, Michigan, protesting lead in their water, indigenous groups in the Amazon asse... more Families in Flint, Michigan, protesting lead in their water, indigenous groups in the Amazon asserting control over their rivers, slum dwellers in India worried about disconnection or demanding cities bring potable water to their neighborhoods, an entire city in South Africa worried about the day when they will run out of water altogether—all these and many more have claimed the human right to water as the vehicle to express their demands. Where does this right come from, and how is its meaning constructed? In this article, we show that, in sociolegal terms, the global right to water, as are many others, is constructed out of the myriad struggles and claims of people who feel the lack of something that is essential to a dignified existence, and who cannot obtain an adequate response from their immediate political and legal environment. They do so in loose conversation with, but relatively unconstrained by, the meanings that are being constructed by the international and domestic leg...
Recognition of the right to water in Indian courts has had little impact on the ground. This pape... more Recognition of the right to water in Indian courts has had little impact on the ground. This paper explores the seeming disjuncture between what happens in the court and the everyday reality of living with a less-than-perfect claim on city water services in India’s urban slums. The paper seeks to understand and contextualise a court ruling which looks like it declares a right to water for people in urban slums, but in effect gives them little beyond what they already had. The paper also looks at the ‘everyday reality’ of municipal administration and the provision of drinking water in slums through in-house connections and community taps. In both case studies, the author looks to understand how the practice relates to frameworks of law and policy that shape the rationality and scope of action of the actors concerned, both judges and municipal officials. She found that the issue of land was the main stumbling block in both places, but it was conceptualized a little differently in each...
State Capacity Initiative Working Paper Series, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on face-to-face interactions and the movement o... more The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on face-to-face interactions and the movement of persons (the ‘lockdowns’) produced a widespread crisis of hunger, felt most acutely by migrant workers and those who were outside the reach of India’s highly organised but rigid Public Distribution System (PDS). This study focuses on what Indian state governments did to respond to the needs of these people, who were at the ‘margins of government welfare’. This task is particularly a challenge for the risk-averse, (nominally) rule-bound Indian state that is disinclined to allow for discretion in spending of government funds, making purchases and allocation of largesse. It is all the more reluctant to delegate power to exercise discretion and make qualitative judgement to lower levels of government. For this reason, states seemed to need to devise a framework of rules for the identification of beneficiaries, even in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. As a related problem, states also did not necessarily have the organisational wherewithal to take up rapid, decentralised and locally grounded interventions. The organisational wherewithal, so to speak, could come in various forms. Some examples of this, which we saw at play, were decentralised government, the capacity to make non-state collaborations and institutionalised systems for the ‘continuous updating’ of beneficiary lists. More fundamentally, however, what is needed is the capacity for high levels of government to be able to formulate responsive policy and to be able to trust in the ability of their subordinate ranks to carry out new interventions, often in case-specific and individualised ways. This study relies principally on government orders and press releases, which are supplemented to a limited extent by articles in the news media. Long interviews with knowledgeable experts helped contextualise and make sense of this material.
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Papers by Arkaja Singh