Present, Ma’am

Finance minister, P. Chidambaram, once famously observed while presenting a budget that “outlays do not necessarily mean outcomes”. Every year, large sums of money are set aside to educate our children, but the very fact that after 60 years only around 65 per cent of our adult population is literate is evidence enough of a massive leakage of funds and a gross deficit of attention to school education.

Corruption in education is unconscionable, because it amounts to robbing children of their future. Yet it is this precise sector that appears to be awash with criminal elements out to make a quick buck — either by siphoning off funds meant for the mid-day meal scheme by inflating numbers, or by absenting themselves from teaching, or by maintaining false registers on the numbers attending the school. There is, therefore, great potential in a simple technology that has just been introduced in schools in tribal Maharashtra, and which had reported high drop-out rates. Every child will now be required to thumb themselves in every day to register their presence. This way, nobody gets to sign for them. Once attendance is tracked, every aspect of the school’s functioning comes into view. If there is a problem of a high drop-out rate, remedial steps can be taken. If there is corruption in the dispensing of mid-day meals, that too will surface. If scholarships do not reach the intended beneficiaries, it will soon be made obvious. By counting every child, every child is made to count. We have, in this simple measure, the basis for auditing how the money earmarked for each school is being spent. What is more, by extending such technology in the age of internet, the world could be brought to these institutions located in the hinterland.

Transparency in social welfare delivery is the new common sense of the times. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has provision for social auditing to achieve this very purpose. We need to evolve instruments — financial, social and technological — to put an end to the spiriting away of those 75 paise in every rupee, that Rajiv Gandhi spoke about.