Nexus of Good: Making it happen

What has Harvard to do with Nexus of Good? This was the question in mind as I alluded to this concept in a session organised at India Conclave at Harvard University but to my utmost surprise almost everyone who heard about it was extremely fascinated and wanted to know about this movement.

The invite from Harvard came as a surprise. I had no “gyaan” to offer. The last time I was invited to address the India Conclave was in 2018. I was then Secretary, School Education, Government of India. I was a somebody then but I am a nobody now. Yet, the Indian students showed keenness to hear from me about public service delivery in India. What had perhaps triggered this invite was my association with Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a health insurance scheme for the poorest of the poor that had made name for itself and came to be recognised internationally by organisations like the World Bank, UNDP and ILO. The scheme was launched during the UPA government in 2007, travelled a long distance but was dumped when NDA came to power, only to be revived in the form of Aayushman Bharat. Technology used for a critical public service delivery more than a decade ago under the scheme was something that fascinated everyone. But it was more than a decade ago. Why invite me now? I couldn’t get a direct answer from the organisers but I could gauge that they were keen to understand how can ideas be made to work in India.

When I spoke during the session on February 17, 2024, I outlined that there was no dearth of ideas in India. For every problem and issue there were plethora of ideas. The critical part was how to make them happen. For any idea to happen, one has to appreciate the fact that in a democracy like ours, it has to be politically acceptable, socially desirable, technologically feasible, financially viable, administratively do-able, judicially tenable, emotionally relatable and environmentally sustainable. Quite a handful.

It is difficult to visualise any idea to happen on scale if it is not acceptable politically. It can perhaps happen locally but for it to happen on scale, it will not only have to be acceptable but driven politically. Thus, many great ideas have floundered for want of political backing.

An idea may be politically acceptable, perhaps even driven, but its long-term sustainability will depend upon the need of the people. In a democracy, if the people resent an idea (like population control in the mid-1970s), the idea will not happen, or if it is pushed politically, it will have adverse consequences.

Technology is evolving each day. Hence, any idea will have to align with available technology in that particular context. Thus, it may not be appropriate to push web-based education programmes when recipients do not have access to Internet.

Funding is essential for any idea to work even if the idea is politically acceptable, socially desirable and technologically feasible. Money is necessary to move any idea.

In most of the cases if adequate and appropriate human resources are not available, ideas cannot work even if financial resources are available.

Each idea has to stand the test of law until it entails a change in the law itself. The Farm Laws, though apparently beneficial to the farmers, had to be withdrawn because the stake-holders were averse to it. No effort was made to market these ideas. The beneficiaries could not relate to the ideas incorporated in the laws

The world is gradually waking up to the need for sustaining the environment. In the days to come, there would be increasing resistance to ideas that are environmentally unfriendly.

So, if there are so many factors inhibiting action on the ground, how do you make things happen. This is where the idea of Nexus of Good has relevance. Can we identify, understand, appreciate, replicate and scale ideas that have worked? Can we learn from what is already happening on the ground? In the context of public service delivery and even otherwise, a lot is happening in India. And, a lot is not happening. A close look at such ideas (whether policies, schemes or projects) will reveal that almost all the ideas that have by and large happened on the ground, accounted for eight aspects outlined earlier. Most of these ideas also leveraged public-private partnership to make such ideas happen and sustain. The Swachhata Abhiyan worked because not only was it politically driven; it was socially desirable as well. The masses too could emotionally relate to it. What was remarkable about this programme was to engage with non-governmental entities and convey a value proposition to them. Nexus of Good is all about public-private partnership because there is a belief that quality comes from the private domain and scale from public. There is also a belief that contrary to the general perception, there are good people in both public and private domains. If all the rascals and ruffians from either side can come together, form a nexus and make life difficult for us, why should the good people come together, learn from each other and make it happen?

The presentation at Harvard was all about making things happen in the public service domain. The presence of Gaurav Goel, Founder of Samagra, made my task easy. Samagra has presented a wonderful example of making things happen in public service domain in Haryana by enabling service delivery without physical interface between the beneficiary and the government officials. Interestingly, Samagra won the Nexus of Good National Award last year for leveraging public-private partnership for seamless public service delivery through the use of technology. This model now needs to be road-showed and replicated in other states of India.

The Nexus of Good portal houses a number of wonderful stories like Samagra where ideas have happened on the ground. The quest should now be to learn from such stories, scale them and replicate them.

Views expressed are personal