Public Affairs Index (PAI)

Public Affairs Centre (PAC), Bangalore had come up with a Public Affairs Index (PAI) to rank governance inter-state by using data available in the public domain in key areas of governance

Important Facts

• Public Affairs Centre (PAC) is a not for profit think tank, established in 1994 with a mandate to improve the quality of governance in India. The creation of PAC was perhaps the first civil society-led institutional initiative which mobilizes a demand for good governance in India. The genesis of PAC is attributed to Dr. Samuel Paul in the early nineties.
• There are 10 themes in Public Affairs Index viz. (1) Essential Infrastructure (2) Support to Human Development (3) Social Protection (4) Child and Women (5) Crime, Law and Order (6) Delivery of Justice (7) Environment (8)  Transparency And Accountability (9) Fiscal Management and (10) Economic Freedom.
• The states were compared on 10 areas each and were given scores between 0 and 1, with 0 being the lowest score and 1 being the highest.
• The index has ranked Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat as the top five states in terms of governance after measuring them against 10 parameters comprising 25 subjects and 68 development indicators.
• Mizoram had the best governance among small states, followed by Himachal Pradesh and Delhi.

Questions for Analysis

• What is the objective of PAI? What picture does the PAI portray about the state of governance in India?
• “Pennies don’t fall from heaven; they have to be earned here on earth.” How this statement makes relevance here, particularly in context with Economic Freedom Indicator?

What is the objective of PAI? What picture does the PAI portray about the state of governance in India?

The objective of Public Affairs Index (PAI) is an attempt to bring together the states of the country which are culturally, economically and socially diverse, into a common data-driven framework in order to facilitate an interstate comparison. A well-framed methodology backed by statistical data from government sources, has been included in the study to provide insights into the subject of good governance.

What picture does the PAI portray about the state of governance in India?

PAI brings out a worrying picture. For instance, in the state of Meghalaya, Delivery of Justice is at its best, but on the other end on the economic freedom parameter of PAI it is at last position. Haryana is at the last position in the parameter of Crime, Law and Order.  Such mixed reviews are a question mark on the good governance dream of the states and UTs as well as it calls for the government at the Union and State level to improve the state of affairs of all the states drastically.

“Pennies don’t fall from heaven; they have to be earned here on earth.” How this statement makes relevance here, particularly in context with Economic Freedom?

Margaret Thatcher has rightly stated that “Pennies don’t fall from heaven; they have to be earned here on earth.” This statement holds importance for economic freedom in a country. Economic freedom is the final theme under PAI in order to assess the vigour of the State in pushing the economic growth agenda. To an extent it depends on the local resources, its geographical situation and indeed the overall economic environment of the country as a whole. Nevertheless, there is much that a State can do to encourage investment, simplify laws, and generate a positive atmosphere to encourage potential investors.

These are the three focus subjects identified for this purpose:

• The ease of doing business as demonstrated by the recent World Bank report that ranks the states in this regard.
• The number of Industrial Entrepreneurship Memoranda filed in the State.
• Number of registered MSMEs.

The findings have revealed that the major industrial and manufacturing states stand at the top of the list amongst large states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. Kerala, Assam and Bihar are at the bottom. Amongst the small states, Goa and Himachal Pradesh are at the top while Manipur and Meghalaya are at the bottom.

This brings out the contrasting picture of different states in India. It is important to bring Economic freedom or economic liberty which will increase the ability of members of a society to undertake economic actions.

The term denotes exit of Britain from EU, the economic union of 28 sovereign countries of Europe. EU was established in 1993 via the Maastricht Treaty and it had introduced the concept of European citizenship for the first time. EU functions as a single common market for its members and promotes free movement of people, goods, services as well as capital within it.